The Parties of Low-Information Voters

In his August 7th commentary, New York Times columnist and sometimes excellent economist, Paul Krugman blast the Republicans plan to increase offshore drilling, calling them ‘the party of stupid’. I’m generally sympathetic to criticizing politicians for pushing stupid ideas, and Krugman is generally critical of Republicans for doing so. Here is his broadly correct attack on the simple arguments Republicans in Congress, who are

…Pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg… What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats.

Krugman is right to infer that offshore oil drilling is quite unlikely to have much effect on crude prices in the short-term (Oil prices have fallen, but few analysts are saying it's because of the huge supplies expected to come from future American drilling). Republicans are wrong to take credit for falling gas prices, and I don’t think they are getting credit. However, Krugman should admit that at some margin, offshore drilling would exert downward pressure on oil prices. This probably will not much, but possibly a sizable amount. Something will be pumped that would not otherwise and as long as the laws of supply and demand still hold, that will have an effect. I would think that just because this would not happen until a few years down the road, Krugman would not oppose this policy. This seems like a policy that will be mildly helpful, and if nothing else, is not an extremely misguided like, say, our current ethanol policy ...Incidentally, I don’t recall seeing Paul Krugman criticize the profoundly wrong and economically nonsensical positions of Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on ethanol. Although, Krugman agrees with approximately 100% of economists who don’t work for Archer Daniels Midland.

Also, a little further down the piece, Krugman criticizes the cult of personality around George W. Bush. This is an odd criticism for someone who now supports Obama, but I’m pretty sure Krugman’s definition of rigorousness dictates only opposing cults of personality around Republicans. But, perhaps I'm being excessive in my criticism... Anyway, Democracy in America points us to an opportunity for equal treatment. The Obama campaign has a new anti-foreigner ad blaming John McCain for the closure of an Ohio shipping hub, stating:

But there’s something John McCain's not telling you: It was McCain who used his influence in the Senate to help foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio.

And that's not all: McCain's campaign manager was the top lobbyist for the DHL deal...helped push it through. His firm was paid $185,000 to lobby McCain and other Senators.

Now 8,200 Ohioans are facing layoffs, and foreign-owned DHL doesn't care.

Here’s the Economist’s take:

This is dubious on multiple levels. It is true, to be sure, that Mr McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, lobbied to allow the American parcel delivery firm to merge with the German company Deutche Post. But the reason the DHL jobs existed in the first instance was that the merger allowed the company to launch a $1.2 billion expansion in America that, among other things, built up the Wilmington Air Park.

Perhaps more to the point, the company's decision to let competitor UPS handle its airborne traffic was surely dictated not by some stony Saxon indifference to the plight of the American worker, but by perfectly cosmopolitan economic considerations. Even if the Ohio jobs would have existed without the post-merger expansion, is there some compelling reason to think that an American-owned company would have made a different decision, foregoing cost savings as some sort of patriotic duty? If not, this just seems like a nasty bit of xenophobia.

I agree unfortunately, that the Republicans advertise to ‘low-information’ voters. Perhaps you could call them ‘the party of stupid’. What would you then label the party that puts this out, in addition to pushing through ethanol subsidies? …It’s unfortunate.