The Michigan State University tuition is rising 9.6%. It's president, Lou Anna K. Simon, is making excuses at this very moment on WJR 760 AM radio's Paul W. Smith show. The question is why?

For several months, Zarko Research has possessed the complete salary database of MSU (and the University of Michigan), for several years. Enough data that, unlike the Lansing State Journal's publication of one year's worth of state employee data, can be analyzed for trend and aggregate information.

The biggest reason for these tuition increases is that outrageously paid administrators can't help but continuing to both increase their own pay and their own number of employees. For example, U-Michigan has roughly 38,000 employees, up 5% from last year, with nearly all of the top 1000 employees in 6 figure incomes. President Mary Sue Coleman makes more than the President of the United States or Governor of Michigan, by over 50% in the former case, at an outlandish and ever increasing $600,000 annually. The argument is made that U-M needs to pay these rates to "remain competitive" - yet Ms. Coleman is the highest paid public university president in the nation. A slow reigning in of the salary - even if we weren't number one in the category - would hardly destroy the university. Indeed, we may be "competitive" in elite liberal circles of thought, and professors might love us mightily for what we do to their pocketbooks, but "competitiveness" is also measured by price and value. As a former U-M alum, I love the school, but the price-value delivered to students isn't "competitive" from an outsiders' perspective.

At 38,000 employees, U-M is both approaching a 1-to-1 ratio of employees to students and is nearly as bloated as the State of Michigan, which employs 55,000 persons (on a much larger budget with larger mission). And that's not saying there isn't room for efficiency in the state - its saying U-M is a bureaucratic beast - not a lean wolverine.

The story at MSU isn't quite as bad in raw appetite but the outline is similar.

ZR will be publishing these lists - at least their top 1000s, along with contextual analysis and statistics.

Smith Interviews Cox on Libby
In other radio interview news, Attorney General Mike Cox is criticizing the George Bush pardon of Scooter Libby. Smith's logical question to the AG is whether he was taking the position to buttress his potential 2010 run for Governor. I'd suggest it reinforces recent on-the-street speculation that Cox might run against Carl Levin for US Senate - a move that would be endorsed by ZR. The Libby question is more focused on foreign policy and judiciary questions that such a race would entail, and Cox's maneuver makes sense. With even left wing blogs reporting on Andrew "Rocky" Raczkowski's recent fundraising letter to challenge Levin a second time, the time is now to think about who will challenge Levin. And Rocky - although a nice guy - shouldn't be the person. There would be little downside in having Cox run in 08 for the seat - and while even a Cox win is remote, he's a serious contender - serious enough to require some thought and resource from Levin, whereas Rocky isn't.

Pictured are the relationships between Democratic "Base" (left) precincts and Prop 2 votes and the same for the Republican "Base" precincts (calculated by looking at % of votes going to Michigan State Trustees of each party, subtracting from those bases what amounts to about a 25% dissatisfaction with both main parties due to "undervote" and "third parties" in those races) below. The pictures show a tight correlation, obviously, between precincts with certain party loyalties and Prop 2 votes, as would be expected.

Recently, the Secretary of State finally released databases of voting data for all precincts. The data points therefore are precincts, but with nearly 600 precincts in Oakland County and 1400 in Wayne, this provides a good sample to do some work with. While the SOS data is organized in ways that are far from ideal, they allow some quick aggregate analysis that was previously impossible, here on a county-by-county basis. The graphs show Oakland County, which, as an aggregate, was very near the statewide average (57% voted yes on Proposal 2 here, 57.9 yes statewide). Oakland County also has perhaps the broadest range of types of precincts, from 70% Republican precincts to 10% Republican precincts in Pontiac and Southfield, but mostly in between. It is probably much closer to a cross-section of the state than the data for Wayne (only Oakland is pictured, though I describe numbers from both counties).

The correlation, this time, is surprisingly tighter for Democrats than it is Republicans, with Democrats showing a -.94 correlation coefficient (that doesn't mean 94% voted against Prop 2, it means that 94% of the variation in Prop 2 change on a precinct-by-precinct level results from the party pre-disposition). Republicans chime in at about an .86 coefficient. This would suggest that Democrats broadcast their message on the issue through party channels somewhat efficiently. Visually, one can see wider variation in the highest Republican precincts, suggesting more flexibility at least on this issue (it should also be evident that the Republican base is now smaller than the Dem base in Oakland County!).

In Wayne county the coefficient is .65 for Republicans and -.49 for Democrats, suggesting far more volatility in those precincts (.70 for Republicans and -.66 for Democrats if you look at Detroit only, which is logical given Detroit's greater statistical extremes). This makes some sense given the statistical smallness of Republican sample sizes (we're talking literally 1% of votes (a dozen or less raw votes in many) in some precincts for Republicans) in many of those precincts (which would decrease the statistical reliability and increase variation). It should be noted that in Wayne County, Proposal 2 out-polled Dick DeVos by 12 points just about everywhere (40%-28% (or roughly a 40% relative raw vote margin), and even out-polled top Republican vote getter Terri Lynn Land by a point. In Detroit only, Proposal 2 took 6.7% of the vote (14,902 votes) while DeVos took 4.3% of the vote, or 9,903 votes. That's the same county-wide relative vote margin (40-50% more votes in raw vote gains). If you consider the difference between Land (an MCRI-opponent but no one knew it) and DeVos as soft-persuadables, clearly a different position by DeVos could have had an impact (sufficiently large to win, but unlikely one issue would have done all of it). In Oakland County the soft-persuadables get even bigger. There is also about a .68 correlation in Oakland County with the group I label "Party Dissatisfaction" (the 20% of those who didn't vote for MSU Trustee and 5% who voted third-party for that office) and a Yes vote on Proposal 2. That jives with the theory of independents voting in larger numbers for Proposal 2, although the magnitudes of variation in numbers of independents aren't nearly as great as the magnitudes for party loyalty based on geographic changes, so the measurement would have a smaller effect. Still, as independents grew as a percentage, Proposal 2 support grew as a percentage, proving perhaps the most important point here. Since independents are the only really change-able thing in politics, this shows that a DeVos change on MCRI would have played strong where it counted, and it's already proven that it couldn't have hurt him in Detroit. The Republican theory of the election that gave more weight to Detroit turnout than independent swings simply flips traditional electoral math on its head.

The data is both good news and bad news for Democrats. The Oakland County tightness shows that they got their message out - and Democrats generally responded (although the tightness of response doesn't indicate that there weren't a huge number of Democrats voting for Proposal 2 or that a plan couldn't be devised solely around tightening further, it just means the "defectors" were uniformly spread throughout the state, at my guess about about 25-35% of Democratic voters, which is lower than the early polling data in 2004 which put the number at 45-50% and obviously higher than the exit polls). It also means they got creamed among independents and Republicans. That means in future states, making sure their base sticks isn't going to be enough (unless they follow people into the voting booth). If you look at their strategy - the negativity and style of attack suggests it probably closed some of the gap in their base but that it backfired with everyone else (probably more than the closure). Either the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) language wasn't that deceptive to voters in Detroit (6.7% voted for it), or the strategy of calling MCRI deceptive tightened that base, but at the same time alienated independents outside of Detroit.

Again, there is no way to tell whether a Prop 2 voter would have voted for DeVos or Republicans, had they supported Prop 2. But these numbers show it was a mistake everywhere - including even the City of Detroit - to oppose Proposal 2. They also show that in the highly contested swing areas like Oakland County, DeVos had more room to shore up voters on the edge than the Democrats did. While I doubt the change would have caused DeVos to win the race with that issue alone (since no one can know the "tipping point" in each individual mind), even a tiny bump wins enough votes in the key state House seats to retain control over that body, and it keeps DeVos in a realm of competitiveness in the long-run.

The Detroit Free Press analyzes and interviews Mike Cox regarding his chances of running for Governor of Michigan in 2010. In doing so, it unearths this great quote which hits the nail on the head.

Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos "made a mistake" by coming out against Proposal 2, Cox said. The issue would have been a terrific opportunity for DeVos to "show that he was in touch with the concerns of ordinary people."

The Free Press notes:

A lot of Republicans were "just afraid to talk about it," because they didn't want to be criticized by elite leaders in business and the media, Cox said.

He didn't add that their silence made his advocacy more conspicuous (and valuable in a GOP primary down the road).

But we will.

Cox didn't plan it that way. It was the vacancy of the rest of Republican establishment that gives Cox the right to claim to a banner in 2010. And it appears that MCRI as an issue isn't going away anytime soon. There will be straggling legal issues and upcoming brouhahas about a Constitutional Convention and other states fighting the battle.

Right now, the Michigan Republican Gubernatorial picture has Mike Cox and Terri Lynn Land standing like twin towers as leaders. But heavyweights like Candace Miller could appear, and Craig DeRoche is already trying to plot paths of various types to the office. Jack Hoogendyk of Kalamazoo and Nancy Cassis here in Oakland County both ran in 2006 until DeVos got in, and presumably some purpose was in their heads.