Two Scenes from Election Night

I got to see two sides of Portland yesterday on Election Night.

The first was a Multnomah County Republican gathering at the Grand Central Bowl, an upscale bowling alley and restaurant. We took over the upstairs and actually filled it with over 100 Republicans. Who knew we had those numbers?

What struck me was the mood - reflective and even up-beat. There was the usual ain't-it-awful complaints that I've heard so often before. Perhaps it's denial. Or maybe it's a corner being turned - maybe we're ready to start doing the things we need to do to start winning. Like stand for something worthwhile.

The second was the tail end of the Sam Adams victory party, in a tent behind a hotel near 9th and E. Burnside. It was the usual mix of donors, volunteers, activists, and interest group reps common at victory parties, and they all reveled in the cheer of a winning race.

I had to wear my "Tom Cox - Republican" name tag on my dark double-breasted suit. You know - fly the flag, smile, see how I got treated.

Alas, not much happened. Everybody was talking with their friends in little groups, the light was low, and few cared to look at name tags. Of those who did, a few opened their eyes wide, one looked at me and asked "Really?" (Yes, I said, and got a nod in return) and one big smile from a spouse who leaned in close to say "I thought I was the only one here."

That alone made it worth while.

The mood there, at least for the little while I was there, was upbeat yet a little odd. I got no sense that there was an agenda or a mandate - it was more personality driven. What does Sam Adams now have a mandate to do? I have no clue. Maybe he does.

Maybe the funniest thing about Sam Adams as mayor is that he's a little less wacky leftist than the average Portland voter. He actually once voted to lower business taxes. It may be the most unpopular thing he's done, in their minds.

On negotiating - Conservatives get it right

Experimenters discover that empathy isn't as useful as understanding - at least if you're trying to achieve a win-win outcome.

Subjects were instructed to take one of three approaches:

• Get inside the other person's head - try to understand what the other party is thinking; what is his interest and purpose?
  
• Get inside the other person's emotions - try to understand what the other party might be feeling; what emotion is he likely experiencing?
  
• No guidance (the control group)

To the surprise of few conservatives and the likely bafflement of most squishy elite liberals, the thinking (or "perspective-taking") strategy outperformed the feeling (or "empathy") strategy.

In an experiment between a buyer and seller of a business, the perspective-takers were half-again more likely (76% vs 54%) than the empathizers to reach a deal.

In a further experiment between a job-seeker and a recruiter, the perspective-takers were twice as likely (40% vs 22%) than the empathizers to reach a win-win deal.

Worse, the empathizers actually under-performed even the control group when it came to protecting their own interests.

...[I]n terms of an individual gain, the perspective-taking recruiters did far better—pushing the empathetic recruiters into last place.

What this shows is that even with one negotiator having perspective-taking abilities it can produce a better overall outcome for both sides. "You want to understand what the other side's interests are, but you do not want to sacrifice your own interests," says Dr Adam Galinksy of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois. "A large amount of empathy can actually impair the ability of people to reach a creative deal."

I believe that's a continuing problem for liberal-socialist, empathy based approaches to public policy - especially foreign policy. Those who take an emotion-based approach - even those who aren't blame-America-first types - still risk sacrificing America's interests.

Nothing is Certain

From the Wall Street Journal's Science column:

Not everything in the solar system adds up, of course. The moon's actual orbit is off its calculated course by about six millimeters a year. No one knows why. The standard yardstick for length on an interplanetary scale, the Astronomical Unit, grows by about seven centimeters a year. Scientists have yet to agree on an explanation.

I'm not sure which surprises and pleases me the most -

1. Scientists can measure the moon's actual orbit to a precision of six millimeters
   
2. Scientists can measure that and still not know why
   
3. Scientists are willing to admit freely that they have observed something they can't explain

I really like the honesty of having an observation and saying "we don't have a clue why this is" - it's refreshing. Why can't politicians do that?

Quotas Suck

I've been active in the City Club of Portland (CCOP) for a few years and just got recommended as a possible member of the Board of Governors. This is the text of my reply to a friend, regarding whether the Club should use quotas as part of any "diversity" effort for either Club membership or Board membership:

I'm actually in favor of both outreach and metrics. I'm sour on quotas in part because they've often been accompanies by lowering criteria (far more minority law students fail law school when admitted under "affirmative action" criteria that include lowering admissions standards), as well as other ways of gaming numerical systems.

I think the way to get (say) more black members is to go find groups of black people and invite their members to join, and do it in a way that makes clear how the CCOP addresses the things they already care about.

Jaime Escalante managed to get a record high number of poor and minority students to pass AP Calculus by starting with elementary school teachers to build a pipeline of students who would be ready for harder math by the time they hit high school. It was an eight year process. (The movie "Stand and Deliver" completely ignores this part of the story.)

There was no lowering of the bar, no "affirmative action" of the quota type. This was real engagement addressing real root causes - my kind of change.

I cringe at the idea of CCOP setting a numeric quota, then looking superficially at the "usual suspects" for dark skin (or whatever attribute we're looking for) and stopping as soon as the number is reached - no true outreach, no true attempt to make CCOP relevant to groups who may currently be detached or alienated from us, no long term attempt to bridge any gaps we find.

Quotas suck.

Having said all that, it may be that CCOP is naturally going to be attractive to (say) rich intellectuals with time on their hands and pretensions of good citizenship. And that group may demographically (around here) be disproportionately white liberals. And if that's the case, we should continue the outreach while accepting something other than numerically precise demographic balance.

I'm very clear on the fact that I'm being proposed for the Board because I'm a wacky libertarian, and there's a quota for wacky libertarians. If there were great riches associated with Board membership, I'd be suitably chastened. Quotas still suck.

Ethics End-Around

I've been trying to get my fellow Republicans to marginalize our loud, small minority of anti-gay activists - and here comes Rep. Galizio with the perfect tool for furthering that worthy goal.

Now that Galizio is dating a union lobbyist, he's announced that whatever they do together is "private" - so the union can pay for meals, gifts, trips to golf in Hawaii, whatever, and Galizio doesn't even have to keep records of it, let alone report it.

It's the "we're on a date" loophole to the new ethics rules (SB 10).

Now, fast-forward a year. Republican lawmakers go out to lunch with lobbyists, and don't want to report it. Bingo! "We're on a date. It's our personal lives."

Once we see male and female Republicans going out on "dates" with both male and female lobbyists, it'll be even more mainstream to be tolerant and inclusive of all sexual orientations and lifestyles.

My hat is off to Larry Galizio. He's playing a very deep game, at some personal political risk, to move our society towards greater tolerance and inclusion. Bravo.

Toll Road Offers New Jersey a Fiscal Test Drive - New York Times

Toll Road Offers New Jersey a Fiscal Test Drive - New York Times

Some pros and cons around leasing toll roads to private operators.

'A Glorious Mess' - WSJ.com

'A Glorious Mess' - WSJ.com

In an otherwise reasonably good editorial, the WSJ's editors wrote a hideous sentence:

Mr. Dingell was perhaps overstating his case when he said it had "the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth," but not by much.

Quick review: the position of emphasis in a sentence is at the end. This sentence ends with, and emphasizes, "but not by much."

Without looking back, what was the thing being modified by "but not by much" - was it the "shutting down or slowing down" of the economy? Oh, well, then nothing to be worried about - the economy might take a little hit, maybe it'll be slowed, "but not by much." Sigh of relief.

Uh, oh. That's counter-intuitive. The WSJ wouldn't make that point. Look back... oh, it's Dingel, who is either not overstating his case at all, or perhaps overstating it, "but not by much."

With bad editing and bad sentence construction, the WSJ manages to take a crucial point, and suck all the energy out of it.

Word to the wise: put your modifiers near their modify-ees, keep your points clear, and remember that the end of the sentence is the position of emphasis.

Gotta brag - I bagged a drunk driver

I feel good enough about this to brag - on my drive home tonight, I noticed a driver ahead of me driving erratically. I was worried enough to call the police - the driver could be drunk, or suffering a seizure, or need insulin... or just be distracted. And the police are well trained to handle any of those - I'm not.

So, I called in, and our highly professional Hillsboro police responded quickly and pulled him over, and took my statement. Afterwards one officer said the driver definitely seemed intoxicated.

Score one for the good guys.

The GTD Cult

I finally tried out the material in David Allen's 2001 cult classic book, "Getting Things Done" (widely known as "GTD").

I'd had plenty of infected cult members try to turn me before - I always resisted.

What finally did me in - what allowed me to listen with an open ear - was a 2007 scholarly paper by Francis Heylighen and Clément Vidal, "Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity".

Turns out that Allen's ideas and methods mesh very well with the science of cognition and research in knowledge-worker productivity. Indeed, Allen's GTD seems to naturally guide the user into a state of "Flow" - the optimal balance of challenge vs. skill where we feel highly productive and "in the zone".

As Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh & Nakamura describe it, "Flow is a subjective state that people report when they are completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue, and everything else but the activity itself. It is what we feel when we read a wellcrafted novel or play a good game of squash, or take part in a stimulating conversation. The defining feature of flow is intense experiential involvement in moment-to-moment activity. Attention is fully invested in the task at hand, and the person functions at his or her fullest capacity [emphasis added]."

The preconditions for getting into a state of Flow are

1. A sense of control
2. Clear goals
3. Match between skill and challenge
4. Feedback on progress

Turns out, GTD helps you gain a feeling of control, helps you see your goals more clearly, encourages you to pick your challenge of the moment based on your circumstances (including skill), and helps provide you feedback.

There's more to it, of course - I encourage you to read the paper. I still haven't read Allen's book, however, I did order a copy yesterday. Actually, five copies.

On Forced Union Dues and Political Speech

I attended this year's annual Dorchester convention and on Sunday I spoke on this resolution:

RESOLVED: Oregon law should prohibit persons or entities from using money for political purposes if collected with government resources.

This was generally taken to mean that union members could not be forced to pay dues for political activity with which they disagreed.

Looking now at my notes, I believe I said:

We must be cautious when adopting any measure under the guise of freedom, when the undeniable effect of that measure is to provide us [Republicans] with a political advantage.

If we were proposing here that union members be muzzled - be prevented from participating in politics - then that would be a reduction of freedom.

If we were proposing here that union members be prohibited from spending their own money on politics - then that would be a reduction of freedom.

If we were proposing here that union members be prevented from associating freely with each other for political purposes - then that would be a reduction of freedom.

This resolution does none of these things.

We must remember the plight of the union member today who is forced against her will to subsidize public political speech with which she disagrees. Her right of dissent - the sacred right of every minority, to be free from the tyranny of the majority - her right to be free is currently crushed by the self interest of the union bosses. Every worker has both the right of free speech and the right to refrain from paying for speech with which she disagrees.

This measure may benefit Republicans incidentally. It benefits union members profoundly. This measure advances the cause of freedom. I urge you to vote "yes" on this measure.

The measure passed by a 20-to-1 ratio.