Talking Points Memo’s “Table For One” today features author and professor of law Cass Sustein. He has used his Table time to discuss a fascinating study done in Colorado exploring the effects of socialization on political opinions. Groups of basically like-minded people were first polled on political subjects, then allowed to discuss them with the group, then polled again:

Colorado Springs and the Politics of Conformity | TPMCafe

The results were simple. In almost every group, members ended up with more extreme positions after they spoke with one another. . .. . . Aside from increasing extremism, the experiment had an independent effect: it made both liberal groups and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous—and thus squelched diversity.

“Extremism” is perhaps a poorly-chosen word for what he’s talking about, as furious commenting suggests. The point is that people of like minds, when discussing politics at any length, tend to become even more strident in their beliefs and swing harder towards their respective wings. In his second installment, he goes on to explain that not only was this not any kind of specific benchmark of Internet culture, but in fact that sitting Federal judges displayed the same “joiner mentality,” leading to far more extreme positions in situations where like-minded judges sat in the same court.

What this all means for modern politics is interesting to consider. Professor Sunstein insists that the conclusions of his book are not as dire for political expression online as one might think, but certainly we can see that the blogging community has had this case-hardening effect in many quarters. There’s no question that, while I certainly have always been politically-aware, there’s never been anything in my life quite like DragonFlyEye.Net. Moreover, DFE had originally started as just an “About Me” type of webpage, and only for the purposes of practicing some of my then-hobby, web design. w00t! How times have changed!

On a more disappointing note, you can’t escape the fact that the Supreme Court is now populated by the most Conservative judges in a generation. If this idea of like-minded individuals swinging harder is true, I am very, very concerned for the future of this country with such group of men chatting amongst themselves. I wonder if Thomas and Scalia have taken to throwing stuff at Bryer and calling him a wussie. . .

Here in Monroe County, we can hope that the thinning of the Republican herd in the Legislature might have the opposite effect: in addition to the fear of losing more seats, the fact that there are less Conservative minds to speak in the Lej might hopefully mean a smoothing over of the rougher Conservative edge just by virtue of this above-cited effect. Unfortunately, the rules of the Legislature as outlined by the Monroe Charter are, as I understand them, entirely weighted towards the majority party, so this might be a pipe-dream.

But back to the conformity and extremity question:

I think most of us assume that the ability for the average private citizen to blog means greater diversity of thought, not conformity. Are we wrong?

Maggie Brooks is so sure her plan to balance the budget of the County is so beyond reproach, so fair, that there was absolutely no reason the public needed to know about it until it was too late.  She’s started an advertising blitz the likes of which would even make Billy Fuccillo blush, ostensibly because things as fair as F.A.I.R. require a lot of explanation.  And she claims, as the first leg of her stool, that the plan is “fair” and reduces the taxes of Monroe County residents:

MyMonroe. Opening Up Government. | Monroe County, NY

The Plan is fair to taxpayers, cutting the Monroe County property tax rate by eleven cents per thousand dollars of assessed value, as a way to reduce the property tax burden. At the same time, the Plan protects and maintains the County’s revenue sharing with towns, villages and the City of Rochester at existing “Morin-Ryan” levels.

But you probably already knew that those costs wouldn’t just disappear because Maggie said so, right? So, how does this affect your taxes? How does this affect your local school system?   » Continue Reading…

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the airing of the piece, as it turned out to be aired at 5pm instead of 6pm. I guess that makes me the “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Blogger.” They don’t have the video posted, at least not yet, but they do have the print article for your edification:

Many Constituents Disappointed with County Dems - 13WHAM.com

Local bloggers on the political left wonder about Democrats’ decision not to run against the Brooks’ political machine.

Kyle Clark of WHAM13 got in touch with me, looking for reaction to the Democrat’s failure to post a candidate for Monroe County Executive. I went out at lunch time and did a quick ten minute interview with him which I presume will be appearing on the 6 o’clock news tonight. Be sure to watch me look like an idiot!

Actually, I don’t think I did all that bad. He’d asked what I thought of the failure to produce a Democratic challenger. I responded that I don’t think it’s good for local democracy not to have an opponent from the Democratic Party, that I’m disappointed not to see a Democratic voice for change in the race, and that as a practical matter, I think it’s an electoral mistake to leave Maggie’s money out there to challenge the Legislative races the Dems are so confident in taking.

I also mentioned that the Dems should probably at least endorse Andrew Stainton and let him run on the Democratic slate. BTW, RochesterTurning.com has a great interview with Stainton posted today.

Speaking of RT, Kyle asked about the local blogging community. I told him that I certainly cannot do what I do without all the other contributors to the community, and I’m sure others feel the same way. He asked about other blogs, both Progressive and Conservative. I mentioned RT, WPB, Fighting 29th and Mustard Street as good resources. Here’s hoping that didn’t end up on the cutting room floor. Sorry to anyone who didn’t get a mention, but I didn’t expect the question.

Well, we shall see how it all comes out around 6:30pm at the latest. . . .

I’ve been working on my Monroe County Legislature page on RocWiki, plugging along and adding details as I go. For assistance, I’ve been relying on a few members of the Legislature who’ve been good enough to lend their assistance. One of those has been Carla Palumbo. Another is the outgoing Majority Leader, Bill Smith, who has been instrumental in helping me navigate the sometimes quirky legal maze that is the Monroe County Legislative process.

In fact, we’ve discovered that the Monroe County Charter is not available online, and he’s told me he’s looking into getting that posted to the MC.gov website, which would be a huge step towards a more open government for Monroe County. After all, how open can you be if no one knows the rules?

But in working on the page, I noticed what I thought was a discrepancy.  In fact it’s just a bit of nutty - and it appears largely Monroe County-exclusive - rules making. Looking up the bios of Legislators, I had thought that I was safe in assuming that they got elected on four-year cycles. But in discussing this with Mr. Smith, he said that terms were limited in the Legislature to ten years. . .

Wait. I’m no matha-bu-tician, but I’m pretty sure that 10 doesn’t divide by 4 easily. . . » Continue Reading…

In my previous post about the Monroe County Legislature elections, I’d wondered aloud about the status of Minority Leader Carla Palumbo’s status, now that she’s running for City Council.  This while in the midst of assessing the Democratic chances of getting the needed 3 seats to upset the current Republican majority.

I’ve received word that Mrs. Palumbo is indeed running for Northwest City Council position.  In the event that she wins that seat, she will leave her position in the Legislature in January, to be replaced with an interim appointment.  A new special election will then be held for that position in 2008.  There does not appear to be any hard-and-fast rule determining who appoints the interim Legislator, but convention would have the Democratic Committee decide.

Of course, in the absence of a “House Rule”-equivalent for such practices, exceptions to the rules might be made if the Republicans are in imminent danger of losing the Legislature.  I don’t know if that’s ever happened in the past, though.

But assuming there’s no last-minute, post-election wheeling and dealing, it appears that Legislator Palumbo’s seat is safely in Democratic hands for the current election, regardless of the outcome.  That leaves the 3-seat pickup for their goal this year.

So, that’s the story. . .