What went wrong with the polls in British Columbia?

Angus Reid: What went wrong with the polls in British Columbia?

The veteran pollster reviews the lessons of the BC election

by Angus Reid on Monday, July 8, 2013 2:46pm - McLean's

Every decade or so, some election in some part of the world confounds pollsters so utterly they produce completely wrong election predictions. This, in turn, sets off alarms bells about the accuracy and legitimacy of polling. And lately both the number of election polls and missed elections have been increasing, leading some to suggest the polling industry is on the verge of collapse.

The biggest miss in the early years of the polling industry was the American presidential election in 1948, when polls projected victory for Thomas Dewey over then-incumbent Harry Truman. Several newspapers, believing the polling numbers, produced early editions proclaiming a Dewey victory.

Fast forward almost forty years to the California election for governor in 1982. Popular Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley was seen as the putative victor in a slew of polls that proved inaccurate. A decade later in Britain, the polls pointed to an almost certain Labour win, but the Conservatives won by a handy margin.

The last ten years have seen the record of public pollsters take something of a beating. Last year, most pollsters wrongly predicted victory for Danielle Smith’s Wild Rose Party in the Alberta general election. In 2004, several major polling companies seriously over-estimated Conservative party support in the election that returned Paul Martin’s Liberals to power. And then there was BC.

The British Columbia election in 2013 was historic because never have so many public opinion research firms missed the mark so badly with their final election projections.  The average “miss” was in the vicinity of twelve points. The industry that normally asks the questions is now faced with some tough ones it needs to answer, namely: Why did this happen? What does it say about the state of polling in Canada? What steps can be taken to prevent a reoccurrence of this type of episode? What is the future of public opinion research in Canada?

I can’t speak for all pollsters who covered this contest because I haven’t had access to their detailed methods, but I will give an account of what we, at Angus Reid Public Opinion, did to arrive at our findings.

In the months leading up to the campaign period, Clark’s Liberals trailed Adrian Dix and the NDP by as many as twenty points.  Our national tracking poll of provincial premier approval ratings placed Clark at the back of the pack.

Two days after the official start of the campaign, we published our first election survey, showing a 17-point lead for the NDP over the Liberals. Ten days later, with the campaign underway in earnest, our next poll showed Clark and the BC Liberals still well behind the NDP, but the gap had narrowed to fourteen points.

This narrowing was expected. Liberal attack ads aimed at the BC Conservatives, coupled with a disastrous Conservative party meeting in September that revealed open fissures between their leader John Cummins and some of the membership, meant British Columbians who had parked their voting intentions with the Conservatives were now thinking twice. Three days later, a TV debate did nothing to re-start momentum for the sputtering party.

Indeed, our third poll, conducted after the debate, contained more good news for the Liberals. The gap had narrowed to seven points, changing the dynamic for the BC Liberals—as I told the Liberal campaign at the time—from “mission impossible” to “mission attainable.”  The Dix campaign seemed stuck; the leader himself confronted with intense criticism over a shocking reversal on the controversial Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.

Our final election poll was completed on May 8 and sent to our news client a day later. When I first saw the results I was somewhat incredulous: the positive Clark momentum had stalled. She had slipped back to trail Dix and the NDP by a nearly insurmountable nine points.

Accurate polling predictions conducted in the final week of a campaign count on three factors: good representative sampling, solid estimates of party and leader support levels and weighting factors that control for turnout. For sampling we have pioneered the use of online polling in Canada using our 150,000 person panel as the source of respondents. This approach, though not without its detractors, had stood the test of time in almost 30 elections in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

To estimate party support levels we pioneered the use of a technique called “real ballot” which places a facsimile of an actual ballot, complete with the names of actual local candidates, in the final election survey. (This same approach produced the most accurate result for the 2009 BC election).  Finally, on the matter of turnout, we weight our sample based on how respondents self-report their likelihood of going to the polls.

Despite the use of these techniques, ARPO and most other published election polls missed the final election results. The Liberals, rather than losing the popular vote by nine points actually won the popular vote by four. A 13-point miss is the biggest I have produced in almost five decades of polling. I can take some comfort that I was not alone, but getting to the bottom of what happened has been a priority at the polling firm that bears my name.

Why did this happen?

Over the last two months a team of our specialists conducted a thorough investigation about what happened in BC. Contrary to the instant post-analysis of some firms which blamed record-low turnout (this proved false; turnout was just under 60 per cent) or last minute vote switching (our post-campaign follow up saw no evidence to support this), we found almost all of the discrepancy with our poll boiled down to one issue: low turnout among young voters.

The principal flaw in our methodology was that we represented voters under 35 (where the NDP held a commanding lead) in relation to their proportionate share of the BC population (roughly 30 per cent) rather than in relation to their actual share of voters (closer to 15 per cent according to research conducted by Elections BC after the 2009 contest). Had we made this one change in our turnout projection model the final Angus Reid poll published on May 9 would have shown the NDP lead diminish to only three points.

Another factor was the endgame of the BC election campaign. We saw the BC Liberal vote surge in traditional strongholds—ridings in the BC Interior where the NDP needed to pick up wins. The Liberals were similarly successful in ridings rich with ethnic voters in and around Metro Vancouver. It is likely that the prospect of an NDP win motivated and produced a high turnout for the Liberals in these areas.

Our polling in the late stages of the campaign showed a palpable fear factor about the prospect of an NDP victory among Liberal leaners that offset any misgivings that these voters might have had about the Liberals’ flawed governance in recent years. Indeed, some would say the biggest losers in the BC election campaign weren’t the pollsters but Adrian Dix and the NDP, who ran a feckless campaign. Clark’s revival was a testament to her high spirits, winning smile, and strong, high-priced private polling that surveyed in specific swing ridings and sampled at a granular level.

Ironically, public polls, including ours, which had pummeled her throughout the campaign, may have been an equally potent asset by energizing her base to get out and vote in order to beat back, as W.A.C. Bennett famously called them in 1972, the “socialist hordes”.

What does it say about the state of polling in Canada?

The polling industry, like most other parts of the information sector, has experienced a triple tsunami over the last decade. First it has been buffeted by major technological changes. The rise of the mobile phone has produced a situation where there are now many more phone numbers than voters in Canada. In some segments—especially young voters—land lines are as archaic as the rotary dial to an earlier generation. This means pollsters have a harder time finding younger voters, who either don’t have a landline at all, or are loathe to answer calls from pollsters on their mobiles, when they are being charged by the minute.

Second, the financial framework of the polling industry has changed. Media and government, once major sponsors of public opinion polls, have dramatically reduced their spending; media because they are broke and governments because freedom of information laws take polls that could contradict policy and put them in the public domain. Finally, Canadians themselves have changed in terms of their willingness to participate in polls. Telephone polling refusal rates now top ninety per cent.

These changes have not all been negative for the industry. The economics of collecting poll data have also changed drastically. Robo-polling technology allows brief snippets of opinion to be collected for pennies per interview and the Internet has opened an entirely new arena for involving voters and understanding their intentions, perceptions and attitudes.

Despite less funding from paying clients than ever, there are now more election polls than ever in Canadian and major provincial campaigns. The industry is largely unregulated, the cost of entry minimal and the rewards associated with being accurate seen as a better bet than the risks of getting it wrong.

At Angus Reid Public Opinion we’ve been carrying out “public” public opinion research for the better part of half a century. We helped pioneer the transition to highly controversial telephone polling in the 1970s and 80s and for the past decade we have invested heavily in online polling technology and methods.

Our experiments with online panel based polling started in 2007 with the Quebec election which saw the ADQ leap into second place (we were the only pollster to catch that trend) and have continued forward through over 30 contests in Canada, in the US (where ARPO was ranked in the top three pollsters for accuracy in a field of over thirty competitors,) and the UK. Our overall accuracy rate for this largely self-funded exercise has been 96 per cent.

What steps can be taken to prevent a reoccurrence of this type of episode?

We will be making several changes to our methods as a result of the most recent experience in British Columbia. Chief among these will be a change to the way in which we weight results to adjust for different turnout levels for younger and older voters. This could mean different sets of prediction numbers based on different levels of turnout. It will mean adjusting the weight of younger voters not to their proportion of the general population, but to that of actual voters. Looking back to the last five elections we have covered in Canada, the employment of this approach would not have substantially altered our estimates elsewhere, but would have produced a far more accurate prediction in BC.

It is new territory for us, something we might have previously regarded as unthinkable, and indeed, unnecessary, with our previous electoral record serving as the guide. As pioneers of online polling methodology however, we are always open to change where required.

Further, key demographic changes in BC regional populations require sampling and analyzing on a more granular level. Such an exercise on its own, without age weighting, would not have resulted in a vastly different outcome in our BC election call. Done together, it is probable that I would not be writing this summary today.

What is the future of public opinion research in Canada?

During the days and weeks following the BC election a question has bounced around my mind, and the boardrooms of Vision Critical, our parent company which I chair: “Why bother?” The economics of “public” opinion research just plain suck. There are more players than ever who use technology that can be bought for the price of a laptop. There are fewer dollars to fund this work. And Canadians appear to be less willing than ever to share their views with strangers.

On the other hand, “private” opinion research conducted for large corporations, special interest groups and political parties is booming. In the last US election over $100 million was spent on private polling for the various parties. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reduced the public opinion research carried out by the federal government while expanding the reach and scope of polling carried out by his party.

A strong democracy needs accurate and independent public opinion research to help balance the discipline of power and add context to public debates. Pollsters may be derided in Canada or the US but in Iran, Russia and Venezuela they have been jailed. Election polling is important because it serves to legitimize and make credible polls between elections on questions about important issues.

At Angus Reid Public Opinion, we’re carrying on. And we’re taking steps to ensure we get it right.

Angus Reid is the Executive Chairman of Vision Critical and Angus Reid Public Opinion. He’s been in the research and polling business for more than 40 years, and founded Angus Reid Group in 1979. The market research firm grew into Canada’s largest, and was sold to Ipsos SA in 2000. Four years later, he founded Angus Reid Strategies. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Carleton University.

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Tags: Adrian Dix, Angus Reid, BC Election, British Columbia, Christy Clark, Maclean's Politics, Opinion Polling, Polling

English, Irish, Scots: They’re All One, Genes Suggest

By NICHOLAS WADE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: March 5, 2007

Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands. Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts, and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country’s western and northern fringes.
But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles , Saxons, Vikings and Normans.
The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist’s point of view, seems likely to please no one.
The genetic evidence is still under development, however, and because only very rough dates can be derived from it, it is hard to weave evidence from DNA, archaeology, history and linguistics into a coherent picture of British and Irish origins.
That has not stopped the attempt. Stephen Oppenheimer, a medical geneticist at the University of Oxford, says the historians’ account is wrong in almost every detail. In Dr. Oppenheimer’s reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a language related to Basque.
The British Isles were unpopulated then, wiped clean of people by glaciers that had smothered northern Europe for about 4,000 years and forced the former inhabitants into southern refuges in Spain and Italy. When the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated, people moved back north.
The new arrivals in the British Isles would have found an empty territory, which they could have reached just by walking along the Atlantic coastline, since there were still land bridges then across what are now English Channel and the Irish Sea.
This new population, who lived by hunting and gathering, survived a sharp cold spell called the Younger Dryas that lasted from 12,300 to 11,000 years ago. Much later, some 6,000 years ago, agriculture finally reached the British Isles from its birthplace in the Near East.
Agriculture may have been introduced by people speaking Celtic, in Dr. Oppenheimer’s view. Although the Celtic immigrants may have been few in number, they spread their farming techniques and their language throughout Ireland and the western coast of Britain. Later immigrants arrived from northern Europe had more influence on the eastern and southern coasts. They too spread their language, a branch of German, but these invaders’ numbers were also small compared with the local population.
In all, about three-quarters of the ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, when rising sea levels finally divided Britain and Ireland from the Continent and from one another, Dr. Oppenheimer calculates in a new book, “The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story” (Carroll & Graf, 2006).
As for subsequent invaders, Ireland received the fewest; the invaders’ DNA makes up about 12 percent of the Irish gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer estimates, but it accounts for 20 percent of the gene pool in Wales, 30 percent in Scotland, and about one-third in eastern and southern England.
Still, no single group of invaders is responsible for more than 5 percent of the current gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer says on the basis of genetic data.
He cites figures from the archaeologist Heinrich Haerke that the Anglo-Saxon invasions that began in the fourth century A.D. added about 250,000 people to a British population of one to two million, an estimate Dr. Oppenheimer notes is larger than his but considerably less than the substantial replacement of the English population assumed by others. The Norman invasion of 1066 A.D. brought not many more than 10,000 people, according to Dr. Haerke.
Other geneticists say Dr. Oppenheimer’s reconstruction is plausible, though some disagree with details. Several said that genetic methods did not give precise enough dates to be confident of certain aspects, like when the first settlers arrived.
“Once you have an established population, it is quite difficult to change it very radically,” said Daniel G. Bradley, a geneticist at Trinity College, Dublin. But he said he was “quite agnostic” as to whether the original population became established in Britain and Ireland immediately after the glaciers retreated 16,000 years ago, as Dr. Oppenheimer argues, or more recently, in the Neolithic Age, which began 10,000 years ago.
Bryan Sykes, another Oxford geneticist, said he agreed with Dr. Oppenheimer that the ancestors of “by far the majority of people” were present in the British Isles before the Roman conquest of A.D. 43. “The Saxons, Vikings and Normans had a minor effect, and much less than some of the medieval historical texts would indicate,” he said.
His conclusions, based on his own genetic survey and information in his genealogical testing service, Oxford Ancestors, are reported in his new book, “Saxons, Vikings and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland.”
A different view of the Anglo-Saxon invasions has been developed by Mark Thomas of University College, London. Dr. Thomas and colleagues say the invaders wiped out substantial numbers of the indigenous population, replacing 50 percent to 100 percent of those in central England.
Their argument is that the Y chromosomes of English men seem identical to those of people in Norway and the Friesland area of the Netherlands, two regions from which the invaders may have originated.
Dr. Oppenheimer disputes this, saying the similarity between the English and northern European Y chromosomes arises because both regions were repopulated by people from the Iberian refuges after the glaciers retreated.
Dr. Sykes said he agreed with Dr. Oppenheimer on this point, but another geneticist, Christopher Tyler-Smith of the Sanger Centre near Cambridge, said the jury was still out. “There is not yet a consensus view among geneticists, so the genetic story may well change,” he said. As to the identity of the first postglacial settlers, Dr. Tyler-Smith said he “would favor a Neolithic origin for the Y chromosomes, although the evidence is still quite sketchy.”
Dr. Oppenheimer’s population history of the British Isles relies not only on genetic data but also on the dating of language changes by methods developed by geneticists. These are not generally accepted by historical linguists, who long ago developed but largely rejected a dating method known as glottochronology.
Geneticists have recently plunged into the field, arguing that linguists have been too pessimistic and that advanced statistical methods developed for dating genes can also be applied to languages.
Dr. Oppenheimer has relied on work by Peter Forster, a geneticist at Anglia Ruskin University, to argue that Celtic is a much more ancient language than supposed, and that Celtic speakers could have brought knowledge of agriculture to Ireland, where it first appeared. He also adopts Dr. Forster’s argument, based on a statistical analysis of vocabulary, that English is an ancient, fourth branch of the Germanic language tree, and was spoken in England before the Roman invasion.
English is usually assumed to have developed in England, from the language of the Angles and Saxons, about 1,500 years ago. But Dr. Forster argues that the Angles and the Saxons were both really Viking peoples who began raiding Britain ahead of the accepted historical schedule. They did not bring their language to England because English, in his view, was already spoken there, probably introduced before the arrival of the Romans by tribes such as the Belgae, whom Julius Caesar describes as being present on both sides of the Channel.
The Belgae may have introduced some socially transforming technique, such as iron-working, which would lead to their language supplanting that of the indigenous inhabitants, but Dr. Forster said he had not yet identified any specific innovation from the archaeological record.
Germanic is usually assumed to have split into three branches: West Germanic, which includes German and Dutch; East Germanic, the language of the Goths and Vandals; and North Germanic, consisting of the Scandinavian languages. Dr. Forster’s analysis shows English is not an off-shoot of West Germanic, as usually assumed, but is a branch independent of the other three, which also implies a greater antiquity. Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000 years ago, Dr. Forster estimates.
Historians have usually assumed that Celtic was spoken throughout Britain when the Romans arrived. But Dr. Oppenheimer argues that the absence of Celtic place names in England — words for places are particularly durable — makes this unlikely.
If the people of the British Isles hold most of their genetic heritage in common, with their differences consisting only of a regional flavoring of Celtic in the west and of northern European in the east, might that perception draw them together? Geneticists see little prospect that their findings will reduce cultural and political differences.
The Celtic cultural myth “is very entrenched and has a lot to do with the Scottish, Welsh and Irish identity; their main identifying feature is that they are not English,” said Dr. Sykes, an Englishman who has traced his Y chromosome and surname to an ancestor who lived in the village of Flockton in Yorkshire in 1286.
Dr. Oppenheimer said genes “have no bearing on cultural history.” There is no significant genetic difference between the people of Northern Ireland, yet they have been fighting with each other for 400 years, he said.
As for his thesis that the British and Irish are genetically much alike, “It would be wonderful if it improved relations, but I somehow think it won’t.”

Angus Reid Poll - BC Election 2013

Do polls change from start of campaigning?  I don't think so. Check back May 14, 2013

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(04/26/13) -

New Democrats Stable, Liberals Improve in British Columbia

NDP leader Adrian Dix maintains solid leads on the approval and Best Premier questions.

With less than three weeks to go before the provincial election in British Columbia, the governing BC Liberals have improved their standing but public support for the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) remains high, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll conducted in partnership with CTV and the Globe and Mail has found.

The online survey of a representative provincial sample of 812 British Columbian adults also shows that BC NDP leader Adrian Dix continues to hold a superior approval rating—as well as more positive mentions in the Best Premier question—than incumbent head of government Christy Clark.

Voting Intention

Across British Columbia, 45 per cent of decided voters and leaners (unchanged since mid-April) would cast a ballot for the BC NDP candidate in their riding if the provincial election were held tomorrow.

The governing BC Liberals are in second place with 31 per cent (+3), followed by the BC Conservatives with 11 per cent (-1) and the BC Greens with 10 per cent (-3). Three per cent of respondents would vote for other parties, or an independent candidate in their riding.

The BC NDP continues to hold double-digit leads over the BC Liberals in Metro Vancouver (46% to 32%) and Vancouver Island (45% to 25%). The governing party is now six points behind the New Democrats in the Southern Interior (41% to 35%).

The past fortnight allowed the BC Liberals to close the gap with women, going from 24 per cent to 29 per cent—although still trailing the BC NDP (48%) by a considerable margin. Among male voters, the New Democrats are ahead by 11 points (42% to 33%).

The NDP leads across all three age demographics, although the race has tightened considerably among British Columbians aged 55 and over (BC NDP 41%, BC Liberals 37%).

The New Democrats are holding on to four-in-five voters (82%) who supported the party in the 2009 provincial election under Carole James. The BC Liberals have a retention rate of 64 per cent, slightly higher than the 60 per cent they kept in mid-April, but still losing three-in-ten of their 2009 voters to the BC NDP (15%) or the BC Conservatives (14%).

Approval, Momentum, Best Premier and Issues

The approval rating for Official Opposition and NDP leader Adrian Dix increased by four points to 45 per cent, while Premier and BC Liberals leader Christy Clark saw a three-point increase in her numbers (30%). BC Green leader Jane Sterk has an approval rating of 32 per cent, while one-in-five British Columbians (20%) hold positive views on BC Conservative leader John Cummins.

Only Green Party leader Sterk posts a positive momentum score this month (+2), while Dix (-9), Cummins (-15) and Clark (-39) are all on negative territory. Almost half of respondents (48%) say their opinion of the current premier has worsened over the past three months.

One third of British Columbians (32%, +4 since mid-April) think Dix would make the best Premier of British Columbia, while 20 per cent (+2) would select Clark. Cummins and Sterk are in single digits.

It is important to note that the proportion of undecided respondents on the Best Premier question has fallen from 24 per cent to 17 per cent since the start of the campaign.

Dix is regarded as the best of the four political leaders to handle education (38%), health care (39%) and crime (24%). The BC NDP leader trails Sterk on the environment by eight points (32% to 24%). On the economy, Dix is virtually tied with Clark (29% to 27%), while the Premier holds a slight edge over the opposition leader on federal/provincial relations (26% to 23%).

Across the province, 59 per cent of respondents (-2) believe it is time for a change in British Columbia and would like to see a different provincial party elected into power, while 25 per cent (+3) would rather have the BC Liberals re-elected.

Analysis

The New Democrats have not experienced any fluctuation in support since the start of the campaign. The opposition party remains at 45 per cent, with the highest rated leader and the best performer when respondents are asked who should lead the government in Victoria. The NDP keeps comfortable leads in Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, and maintains a good retention rate from the last election.

The BC Liberals are showing signs of improvement, gaining three points in two weeks on the voting intention question. Two weeks ago, only 46 per cent of 2009 BC Liberal voters thought it was not time for a change. This number has increased by 10 points. Still, the 14-point gap among decided voters remains significant, particularly with less than three weeks of campaigning left.

Support for the BC Conservatives in the Southern Interior has not improved. The numbers for leader John Cummins are low, particularly on approval and Best Premier. The Conservative leader is connecting slightly better on crime and federal issues, but not enough to become a crucial factor in the race. The electoral success of this party may hinge on the way the campaign progresses in specific ridings.

The BC Greens are still connecting well with young voters, but have dropped slightly in Vancouver Island. Jane Sterk’s approval rating is barely higher than the premier’s, but she continues to have a low level of name recognition. The debate will provide an opportunity for voters to take a broader look at the Greens, and that may define whether their level of support across the province stays in double digits.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Mario Canseco, Vice President, Angus Reid Public Opinion
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com

Methodology: From April 24 to April 25, 2013, Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 812 randomly selected British Columbia adults who are Angus Reid Forum panellists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.5%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of British Columbia. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

California Skye Dean Lowe

The word California originally referred to the entire region composed of what is today the U.S. state of California, plus all or parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Wyoming, and the Baja California peninsula of Mexico.

The name California is most commonly believed to have derived from a fictional paradise peopled by Black Amazons and ruled by Queen Calafia. The story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Exploits of Esplandian, written as a sequel to Amadís de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a remote land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts, and rich in gold.

Skye or the Isle of Skye (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or Eilean a' Cheò) is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills. Although it has been suggested that the first of these Gaelic names describes a "winged" shape there is no definitive agreement as to the name's origins. Some legends also associate the isle with the mythic figure of Queen Scáthach.

Scáthach, also called the shadow and the warrior maid, is a figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. She is a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the legendary Ulster hero Cú Chulainn in the arts of combat. Texts describe her homeland as Scotland (Alpae); she is especially associated with the Isle of Skye, where her residence Dún Scáith (Fort of Shadows) stands.

The name Den or Dene first appears in England soon after the introduction of surnames. It was apparently derived from the Saxon word for valley – den or dene. After the “great vowel shift” in the language of Elizabethan England, the name was spelled Dean or Deane. It may also be a name for someone thought to resemble a dean, an ecclesiastical official who was the head of a chapter of cannons in a cathedral, deriving from the Old French "D(e)ien", itself coming from the Latin "decanus", meaning "a leader of ten men".

In Cantonese, Luo is usually romanized as Law or Lo, and sometimes Loh, or Lowe. The Luo name may come from 2 sources

1) the name of the state of Luo during the Zhou dynasty (1122–221 bc). This was granted to a descendant of Zhu Rong, a son of Zhuan Xu, legendary emperor of the 26th century bc. Subsequently, his descendants adopted the state name as their surname, or 2) the personal name of Jiang Luo, a son of the grand duke of the state of Qi during the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 bc). His descendants adopted his given name, Luo, as their surname.

BET ON FEHR, NOT BETTMAN

By Murray Chass

December 13, 2012

Welcome to the N.H.L., a.k.a. the Neanderthal Hockey League. You may know its commissioner, Gary Bettman, by another name, too, Fred Flintstone. Or am I insulting good ole Fred?
Before proceeding any further, let me explain why I am demeaning a baseball Web site by writing about hockey. The other day I was asked to do an interview on a Toronto radio show. The host, Dave Naylor of ESPN Radio Toronto, wanted me to talk about Donald Fehr, the head of the hockey players union, whom I covered for years when he was first general counsel and then executive director of the baseball union.
I think I learned more on the show than I offered because I have not followed the hockey negotiations and found hard to believe what Bettman and the owners are saying and doing.
“It’s 1930s stuff,” said a veteran union man whom I asked about the league’s tactics. The man I wanted talk to I couldn’t because Marvin Miller died a couple of weeks ago. I can hear him laughing derisively, though, upon hearing what I had heard.
Miller heard the same things from the baseball owners in his first couple of negotiations with them. By the time the union had won those negotiations, the owners knew who Miller was and what they faced in future talks.
Like the hockey owners, though, they stubbornly stuck to their unrealistic demands and forced two disastrous strikes – the 50-day work stoppage that interrupted the 1981 season and the 1994 strike that forced Commissioner Bud Selig to cancel the World Series for the first time.
Selig and the owners, however, eventually saw the light, resigned themselves to never getting a salary cap, as the other sports had, and negotiated one agreement after another peacefully – three in a row, a figurative hat trick in hockey lingo – and figured out labor peace was more profitable than labor war.
Major League Baseball’s annual revenue has soared beyond $7 billion, and baseball is so awash in money that the two sides don’t need to fight over caps and taxes.
The N.H.L., meanwhile, remains in the dark ages of labor relations. Bettman has made sure they stay there with no apparent emergence or advance in sight.
According to what I learned from the radio interview – and I have no reason to think the truth is otherwise – these are the problems Fehr has created and how the owners view their damnable foe:

• Fehr is the object of the owners’ disdain.
• He is in over his head in the negotiations.
• People on the owners’ side say his problem is he doesn’t understand hockey.
• He outraged Bettman by trying to negotiate off a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
• There can be no deal with Fehr at the bargaining table.
• Fehr is leading the players down the garden path.
• He is taking it further than the players want to go.
• He is out of step with what the players want.

I have no reason to doubt that the owners view Fehr with disdain. He is not giving them what they want. That stance invites disdain even though as the man hired to protect the players’ right to earn a fair share of league revenue, Fehr is simply doing what the players hired him to do.
Is he over his head in the negotiations? Bettman has been N.H.L. commissioner for 20 years. I don’t know if he was involved in the league’s labor negotiations before he became commissioner, but it doesn’t matter either way.
Fehr became general counsel of the baseball union in 1977. When Bettman became N.H.L. commissioner, Fehr had already had 16 years of experience in dealing with labor matters, and he learned and did his job under the master, Marvin Miller.
As a senior vice president and general counsel of the National Basketball Association, Bettman learned under David Stern. I knew Marvin Miller as well as almost anyone, and David Stern is no Marvin Miller.
If Stern hadn’t had Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the N.B.A. might still be a minor league. Stern was lucky; luck had nothing to do with Miller’s success.
Nevertheless, Bettman is a David Stern wannabe. He doesn’t appreciate the fact that he hasn’t been able to do in the N.H.L. what Stern has done in the N.B.A., however he has done it.
Despite his questionable leadership, Bettman has had things his way under previous union leaders. He has run roughshod over previous union leaders. But with what effect on the league?
The New York Times had an excellent article this week by its hockey writer, Jeff Z. Klein about the negative impact Bettman’s lockout strategy has had on the league. Bettman’s lockouts, Klein wrote, have cost the league nearly 10 percent of its regular-season games during Bettman’s tenure.
The missed games, in turn, experts told Klein, have undermined the league’s potential revenue growth.
I suspect that when Bettman was an infant and starting to talk, before he learned to say mama and dada, he learned the word lockout. “Baby wanna lockout?” his parents asked him.
If that was the way he grew up, can he be blamed for being king of the lockout? Bettman doesn’t negotiate; he just locks out and expects the players to bow to his demands.
Well, Gary, that’s not how Fehr operates. Miller didn’t teach him to give in to the owners’ demands. Fehr was the baseball union’s local counsel in Kansas City in 1976 when Richard Moss, the union’s brilliant general counsel, successfully beat back the owners’ appeal of the arbitration decision that created free agency.
Fehr apparently has gotten under Bettman’s skin. Naylor, the Toronto radio host, told me Bettman was “almost quivering he was so angry at Fehr when he stepped to the microphone” for a news conference at which he addressed the take-it-or-leave-it offer. “A lot of people who have covered Bettman a long time had never seen that kind of reaction,” Naylor said.
How audacious was it for Fehr to make a counterproposal? If for no other reason, it was good because it antagonized Bettman. But did Fehr violate some labor rule that prohibits a counterproposal to any kind of offer? He did not, and since the idea supposedly is to get an agreement, why should any offer be dismissed?
It was pure Bettman arrogance saying who is this newcomer to challenge me? Instead of trying to make a deal that would benefit the league, Bettman is trying to hammer Fehr into submission so he would accept a deal that would benefit the owners.
If the owners really think there can be no deal with Fehr at the table, they have another thought coming. They won’t get a deal if Fehr isn’t at the table. Maybe Canadian owners don’t understand United States labor law, but unions have the right to be represented by whomever they want. The employer has no right to say whom they will or will not negotiate with.
Furthermore, if the owners think Fehr is in over his head or is leading the players down the garden path, they are fooling themselves. If Bettman has told them this fiction, they should find someone else to represent them at the bargaining table.
Fehr is a baseball guy who doesn’t understand hockey? It’s not very likely that the hockey players would agree with that canard. Anyway, what’s to understand? No negotiator needs experience in hockey to know what it means to cut players’ salaries.
If Bettman and the owners want to reject Fehr as the players’ negotiator, they do so at their own peril. They will only strengthen the players’ resolve. Athletes in any sport are the most competitive people in life.
If the players don’t like what Fehr is doing, they can rein him in. They have the right to speak up and tell him what they want. If they don’t like what their leader is doing, they will let him know. They knew what they were getting when they hired Fehr. That’s why they hired him.
The owners, on the other hand, might ask if Bettman is supposed to be so good why are they always embroiled in lockouts and labor disputes instead of growing their revenue?
I would conclude by saying Bettman has met his match, but I think the man is overmatched.

Comments? Please send email to comments@murraychass.com.

Copyright © 2008 Murray Chass. All rights reserved.

Flip Flop Fly Ball – Losing One’s Religion

Posted by Craig Robinson under Flip Flop Fly Ball on Nov 21, 2012

As noted this morning, News Corp and the New York Yankees are now awfully cosy. This news does not sit well with all Yankees fans, most notably our own Craig Robinson. Seems Craig is now in search of a new team. Follow his process as he seeks a new rooting interest. Enjoy!

Hit the jump for the final decision!

Luxury Tax Explained

The Effects of the Luxury Tax

by Wendy Thurm - November 9, 2012

Major League Baseball’s general managers are meeting in Palm Springs, Calif., this week, which kicks the Hot Stove burner from simmer to medium-low. The burner will turn to high next month at the Winter Meetings in Nashville.

Even on simmer, there is word from the Bronx that the Yankees won’t pursue “big time” — or even “less-than-big-time” — free agents this winter, despite rotation and outfield needs. We can debate whether to accept the “word from the Bronx” as true or just a negotiating ploy. What we do know is this: Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner has said repeatedly that he wants to bring the Yankees below the $189 million luxury tax threshold in 2014. Why? Well, that takes some explaining.

The luxury tax is a shorthand term for the Competitive Balance Tax provisions in theCollective Bargaining Agreement. It imposes a penalty on teams with player payrolls above a set threshold.  The tax is levied only on the portion of a team’s payroll that exceeds the predetermined amount. The luxury tax was first introduced in the 2003-2006 CBA and was designed to keep player payrolls from skyrocketing, without setting a hard salary cap.

The current CBA covers the 2012 through 2016 seasons and sets the following payroll thresholds for each year:

2012: $178 million
2013:  $178 million
2014: $189 million
2015: $189 million
2016: $189 million

So, for example, if a team’s payroll for 2012 was $185 million, that team would be taxed on $7 million ($185 million – $178 million). But what’s the tax rate? That depends. The rate is tied to a team’s luxury tax history. If the team wasn’t assessed a tax in the prior season, then the tax rate is 20%. If the team paid the luxury tax in 2011 at a 22.5% rate, then the tax rate for 2012 is 30%. A 30% luxury tax rate in 2011 would yield a 40% rate for the same team in 2012. And a 40% luxury tax rate in 2011 would mean a 42.5% rate in 2012. For the seasons 2013 through 2016, the initial rate goes down (from 20% to 17.5%), the 30% and 40% tax rates stay the same and the 42.5% rate shoots up to 50%.

Which brings us back to the Yankees and its 2014 payroll.

The Yankees have paid the luxury tax every season since the tax’s inception. In 2011, the Yankees’ tax rate was 40% — the highest possible rate under the previous CBA. That means the team’s tax rate in 2012 is 42.5% and will be 50% in 2013. But if the Yankees keep payroll below $189 million in 2014, it not only avoids the tax that season, but it also lower the team’s luxury-tax rate for 2015 to only 17.5%. That’s right, avoiding the luxury tax for just one year re-sets a team’s tax rate to the lowest under the CBA. Even for the Yankees, the difference between a 50% tax rate and a 17.5% tax rate is significant.

By steering clear of free agents looking for more than one-year deals, the Yankees are well-positioned to get below the $189 million threshold in 2014. The team only has three players under contract in 2014 — CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira— and while those three players add up to more than $70 million in salary, that’s still less than 40% of the luxury tax threshold.

But why not just sign free agents to backloaded contracts? Well, the Yankees could, but it won’t help them on the tax front. That’s because multi-year contracts are given an average annual value (AAV) for assessing the luxury tax, meaning a contract that calls for $10 million in Year 1, $12 million in Year 2, $15 million in Year 3, and $20 million in Year 4 counts as $14.25 million toward the threshold each season. Signing bonuses are also added in to figure out a contract’s AAV.

Then there’s the matter of options. My colleague Eric Seidman explained this issue well over at Phillies Nation in a discussion about Cole Hamels‘ contract extension:

Both vesting and club options are excluded from the calculation, while player options are factored in. If a vesting option vests or a club option is exercised, the salary is treated like a one-year deal for the luxury tax. There is also the issue of timing: If an extension is worked out before a current deal expires, the contracts are consolidated.

Ryan Howard is a perfect example of said consolidation. He was signed to a 3 yr/$54 million contract, and then signed his monster 5 yr/$125 million contract. But because he signed the five-year pact before the initial deal expired, the luxury tax views his contract as 6 yrs/$143 million, for an average annual value of $23.8 million. While that is a bit of a discount relative to the 5 yr/$125 mil deal, it means the Phillies paid almost $6 million more for Howard when calculating luxury tax payroll last year.

But wait, there’s more!

To determine if a team exceeds the tax threshold, you need to do more than simply add up the AAVs of major-league contract for that season. Under the CBA, each team’s payroll also includes a 1/30th share of player-benefit costs: things like contributions to the pension plan, workers compensation premiums, spring training allowances, moving expenses and player medical costs. For 2013, each 1/30th share is valued at $10,799,590. That figure will rise in 2014 and beyond.

For years, the luxury tax could have been called the Yankees-Red Sox tax, as those two teams were the only ones that consistently exceed the threshold limits. And by being repeat offenders, the Yankees and Red Sox faced escalating tax rates. That’s why the Yankees are trying to draw the line for 2014.

That’s not the case for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

New owners spent $2.15 billion to acquire the Dodgers from Frank McCourt earlier this year and then poured millions more into the team through the trade for Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto last August. EPSN’s Jayson Stark wrote yesterday that the Dodgers’ 2013 payroll already exceeds $180 million and that team is looking for further upgrades, whether by trade or free-agent signing. If so, the Dodgers will trigger the luxury tax for the first time next season, leading to a 17.5% tax the difference between $178 million and the team’s final payroll. According to Stark, the Dodgers don’t appear to be the least bit concerned about paying a luxury tax. They want to be build a perennial winner, and if it takes spending over the threshold in 2013 and later, so be it.

Sounds familiar, huh? That’s precisely the way the Yankees did business for years. Now, 10 years after the luxury tax was put in place, the Yankees are showing financial restraint. Whether the Dodgers will spend and spend for 10 years without concern for the luxury tax remains to be seen. But for now, it appears the Yankees have ceded the big money powerhouse label to the Dodgers. Well, at least until 2015.