John Sides

Tobin Grant: The Democratic 2012 platform was not its first to exclude “God” from a platform. Indeed, references to God were absent from all Democratic Party platforms between 1960 until 1996. There was also no mention of God in the 1972 Republican platform. Until recently, those platforms that did mention God did so in small […]

Harvard University political science Ryan Enos reports some important findings: Mitt Romney is better looking than almost everyone reading this blog.  Back in 2008, I wrote about how Sarah Palin’s looks put her in the 95th percentile of politicians.  Romney has even Palin beat—he scores above the 99th percentile. These results come from a study […]

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post’s The Fix blog: Say what you want about Paul Ryan’s politics; even Democrats in Congress struggle to find a negative word to say about him. At least, that’s what Republicans have been arguing for the last two weeks. And when it comes to the American public, it appears to […]

Ezra Klein: Romney isn’t always the best speaker. He can be wooden on the stump and gaffe-prone off of it. But his very public weaknesses can obscure the fact that he’s a very, very good politician. He’s an incredible fundraiser. He’s a strong debater. He’s disciplined in his message. He’s strategic. He’s good at picking […]

Here is something you don’t hear too much: voters view Mitt Romney about as favorably as Barack Obama.  At least if voters are asked about whether the candidates are knowledgeable or decent or intelligent or moral or a strong leader.  Those are important qualities, and perceptions of Romney and Obama don’t differ much. One of […]

My new post at the New York Times‘ 538 blog addresses this question.  See also this piece by Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, and this post by Thomas Holbrook.  My posts summarizes some of their research. Here is the bottom line, from me: I would expect only small bumps for either party.  Neither candidate is […]

Jordan Ragusa: So this campaign of late to make Paul Ryan seem like a moderate, bipartisan guy who works with Democrats is just wrong.  The claim that Ryan “works with Democrats about as often as any Republican” is technically true, but very misleading.  But the important point is that the problem isn’t Paul Ryan, the problem is that the […]

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I was on MSNBC’s “The Cycle” yesterday, trying not to look as much like a zombie as I do above and also talking a bit about some of the data from the first chapter of The Gamble, which is called “The Hand You’re […]

From Jeff Smith.  More here. [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]