RE: Independance Day Is For Conservatives

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RE: Independance Day Is For Conservatives - 6/30/2011 5:05:59 PM

kat321

Posts: 66
Joined: 2/4/2011
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Right now this is a report by two Harvard profs, but it is neither published nor peer reviewed. Further, check out this brief on their methodology:

"In their paper, the researchers use a simple but novel strategy to address these problems: they use historical data on rainfall on Fourth of July. When it rains children and their parents are less likely to participate and the events are often cancelled. Moreover, since rain is a random event, some children growing up experience nice weather and are more likely to celebrate, while others are hit by bad weather making it less likely that they join the festivities. This allows the researchers to isolate the effect of attending the celebrations from other important factors such as family background and education. " (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/4th-july-paper-david-yanagizawa-drott)

From what I can tell, the study estimates the attendance of a given population of 3-18 year-olds at 4th of July parades from 1920 through 1990 via the amount of rainfall on the 4th. That data is mathematically correlated with state-wide political preferences throughout election cycles in the same time-frame. This is how the study matches parade attendance with political preference; it's not about individuals their parade attendance and how they voted, it's about assumed cohorts. The study also attempts to mathematically account for co-variants such as race (White and non-White), education (high school education + some college or college education ONLY), gender, and marital status. Notice that co-variants are measured on a binary scale- either one or the other. Many categories are left out including the political ideology of the child's family. Also, I am not sure about comparing the parade attendance of a 16 year-old with a 5 year-old. One is likely to be more affected than another, and again, the study doesn't account for this.

On the chance that this study holds water, there is a small percentage difference in favor of conservatives dependent on whether kids attended parades when they were young. Also, if the methodology holds up, I expect conservatives will stop whining about the liberal bias of colleges and universities because, as we all now know from this study, a liberal professor cannot possibly change the political affiliation of an impressionable college student since a student's political ideology is fixed for life based on the attendance or non-attendance at Independence Day parades (sarcasm intended).

For those interested, the entire report can be found here: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/dyanagi/Research/FourthOfJuly.pdf

(in reply to Kirata)