Political Scientist John Sides recently claimed that political independents vote for president in a reasonable way based on economic performance. John’s original post led to the amazing claim by New Republic writer Jonathan Chait that John wouldn’t “even want to be friends with anybody who” voted in this manner. I’ve been sensitive to discussions of […]
Andrew Gelman
Andrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University.
Posted inPolitics
There’s No Evidence That Being Principled Wins Elections
George Packer writes: In the fall of 1995, a year after the Democrats had lost control of both houses of Congress in a devastating midterm sweep, Bill Clinton’s advisers were so worried that he would give in to draconian Republican budget cuts that they joked about disconnecting the Oval Office phones to keep him from […]
Posted inPolitics
The Conservative States of America
After noting the increasing political conservatism of people in the poorer states, Richard Florida writes: The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism’s hold on America’s states. This trend stands in sharp contrast to the Great Depression, when America embraced FDR and the New Deal. Liberalism, which is stronger in richer, better-educated, more-diverse, […]
