Andrew Gelman

Paul Krugman quotes Mitt Romney as saying, “It’s time for us to cut back on government,” despite what Krugman describes as “an unprecedented fall in public employment, which is now about 1.4 million jobs less than it would be if it had grown as fast as it did under President George W. Bush.” He summarizes: […]

Joanna Adams sent me some questions regarding the way journalists report on elections. I will post her questions and my replies. I don’t think my replies are particularly brilliant. But I think this might be of interest to you, if only to see the questions that this journalist was asking. Adams: 1. There is a […]

One point I’ve tried to make in discussions of media bias is that journalism is part of the larger communications industry. It is my impression that the news media lean left but the public-relation industry leans right. I was reminded of this by two stories in the newspaper today: Syria’s Assads Turned to West for […]

Chris Hayes rediscovers a point made several years ago by James Flynn. Hayes: The Iron Law of Meritocracy states that eventually the inequality produced by a meritocratic system will grow large enough to subvert the mechanisms of mobility. Flynn: The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abolition of materialist-elitist values is a […]

John quotes Seth Masket’s claim that it didn’t matter that the Republican outspent the Democrat by 7-1 in the recent governor recall election in Wisconsin. Masket writes: Walker and Barrett faced each other less than two years ago. Walker beat Barrett by five points back then, after raising $11 million to Barrett’s $6 million. That […]

Jay Livingston alerted me to this remark by conservative journalist Andrew Ferguson: That the “rich and powerful” are identical to conservatives and Republicans—Edsall’s assumption—is a hoary idea dear to many Democrats and essential to their self-image as the opponents of privilege. It persists even though many of the plushest and most powerful institutions of American […]

Oops. I do remember that line from the First Amendment, though: Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of rich guys to fund campaigns . . . OK, not really. But there’s something about it in the Fourteenth Amendment, I’m sure. [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

From an op-ed by Campbell Brown titled, “Obama: Stop Condescending to Women”: When I [Brown] listen to President Obama speak to and about women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste. . . . But to suggest to women that they deserve dominance instead of equality is at best a cheap applause line. Hmm, […]

John Sides shoots down David Brooks’s claim that “If you look at the fundamentals, the president should be getting crushed right now.” John points out (as does Ezra Klein) that if you look at the fundamentals, you’d expect a close election. OK, there are lots of ways of looking at politics, elections, and the economy, […]

A couple months ago, in discussing Charles Murray’s argument that America’s social leaders should “preach what they practice” (Murray argues that they—-we!—-tend to lead good lives of hard work and moderation but are all too tolerant of antisocial and unproductive behavior among the lower classes), I wrote: Murray does not consider the case of Joe […]