Informative Cainpaigning

In this interview with Piers Morgan from October, Herman Cain outlines his stance on the issue of abortion.  According to his answers in the video, he does not believe that abortion is okay under any circumstances, but he also believes that it is not up to the government: that the decision lies with the individual or family involved, and it should not be legislated.
This is an example of informative campaigning, in which candidates clarify their positions on the issues, as opposed to persuasive campaigning, in which candidates attempt to convince voters that their positions are the best and try to get voters to identify with them.  This is interesting because basically all campaigning is usually persuasive, so as not to risk alienating voters.  If informative campaigning were to dominate, someone near the median would win, but according to Mueller, persuasive campaigning generally dominates, and the two run together to become a single factor affecting the vote percentage gained by a candidate.  In the case of the Republican Primary campaign, there has been slightly more informative campaigning than in a usual campaign in order for the candidates to differentiate themselves from each other, and when candidates have revealed positions that may alienate voters their opponents have latched on and brought them to the forefront in order to draw a larger percentage of the vote.

What motivates HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan?

In this article from Thehill.com Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) and other House Democrats angry with the HUD’s response to the housing crisis escalated their fight Thursday by stripping the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan of his travel budget in response to a trip Donovan took to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The House approved Cardoza’s amendment by voice vote, and it was later set on the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill. In this circumstance the "Budget Maximizing Bureaucrat"as Mueller would put it, used his budget for his own self use and as a consequence congressional action was taken against him. This also questions what really drives a senior Bureaucrat. In this circumstance, we see that Congressional oversight had control of HUD's budgetary process, which Weingast and Marshall state is one of three factors that allow congress to exercise control. So, even though in the case of most bureaucracies personal utility is not affected by job utility, in this case the repercussions not only affect Secretary Donovan but also affect the budget of the whole agency in achieving its goals of better housing for U.S. citizens. In a separate article from Federal News Radio, Secretary Donovan has also led HUD in Hiring Reform, in order to meet President Obama's goal of 80 days to bring in a new federal employee. The article states that , "The Department of Housing and Urban Development went from being the poster child for the dysfunctional federal hiring process to being a model of what others are striving for." I can attest to that after working there for the past four summers, trust me it has gotten a lot better (lol). The main point here is that there is most likely some ulterior motive that just wanting to adhere to the President's goal of 80 days to bring in a new employee. If the reputation of the agency or the output of the Bureau increases for the better, that will positively reflect on the Senior Bureaucrat, Shaun Donovan. So, there are a lot of motives for this reform that might not be clear to the average person. So it would seem, based on the information contained in these two articles, that the utility function of a Senior Bureaucrat discussed in Mueller is pretty applicable to Shaun Donovan because almost all of the criteria that make up that utility function can be seen in the actions of Shaun Donovan.

Incumbency and Democratic Spending

Dennis Mueller’s discussion of campaign contributions and Grier’s empirical study of the effectiveness of spending by incumbents and challengers is bolstered in a recent New York Times article by Michael Luo and Griff Palmer. The article discusses directly a divide between spending on Democratic campaigns and on Republican ones on current campaigns, but provides real world evidence for Grier’s 1989 findings.

Firstly, one of the Congressional races discussed is that of New York’s 20^th District. There, the sitting Congressman is Scott Murphy; the Republican Chris Gibson is challenging the seat. The money spent collectively by Gibson and his supporters on his campaign totals $1.1 million, whereas the figure for Murphy is $1.7 million. This is a great illustration of Grier’s model, which predicts that the each marginal dollar spent by an incumbent will bring fewer votes than each marginal dollar spent by a challenger – campaign contributions have diminishing returns beyond a certain inflection point. That inflection point roughly corresponds to the difference between incumbents and challengers and is a reason that Murphy’s campaign is costing more.

Further, the article puts forth total spending figures for democrats and republicans on the current midterm campaigns. Democratic candidates in races that the article looks at have spent a total of $119 million compared to a Republican total of $79 million. This is a reflection of the greater number of incumbent Democrats. Luo and Palmer mention this correlation but do not concern themselves with its economic implications.

California Governor's Race: Meg Whitman endorses Jerry Brown

The California Governor's race between former eBay President & CEO Meg Whitman and former California Governor Jerry Brown has become one of the most followed political races of this campaign season. Meg Whitman has spent over $140 million dollars of her OWN money on her campaign, outspending Jerry Brown by a ratio of 10:1. All of that money spent might have been wasted with the new campaign video released by Jerry Brown's camp. In this Youtube video, Meg Whitman remembers 30 years ago when "anything was possible" in California, but thirty years ago, Jerry Brown was governor. This is a great example of political advertising that can really damage another candidate's campaign. By using Meg Whitman's own words against her, Jerry Brown has shown that money cannot buy this election. This is also a great example of what would be considered by Mueller as persuasive campaigning because it is convincing voters that Jerry Brown's position is better, and increases the probability that all voters will support Jerry Brown. It also convinces an individual to vote for Jerry Brown regardless of his/her position on issues, which is a characteristic of persuasive campaigning.This commercial does have some aspects of informative campaigning but the overall feel of the commercial would be of a persuasive nature. Overall with election day less than a week away, Meg Whitman has a lot to overcome if she wants to win this election.