John Sides

Given the SCOTUS decisions yesterday on same-sex marriage, the arena shifts even more to the individual states.  In light of that, I thought this article was worth highlighting: This article focuses on the link between the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in national legislatures and the existence of equality laws focused […]

Lizza identified this member only as “a freshman Democrat in a tough race.”  More on the demands of “call time” is in this HuffPo piece by Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui.  And here’s Ezra Klein’s Storify with these tweets. [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the New Republic interview with Politico co-founders John Harris and Jim VandeHei.  What struck me about this interview was that Harris and VandeHei seemed to acknowledge a role that some in the news media do not: that of participant, not observer.  Here is Harris’s response to TNR’s […]

Despite ridiculous hype about a recent CNN poll that showed an exaggerated 8-point drop in Obama’s approval rating, there’s no doubt that his approval rating is about 4 points lower than it was in January 2013.  There’s lots of speculation as to why—see, e.g., Nate Silver.  But I want to say why it matters.  Justin […]

Greg Sargent: Which raises a question that I wish the political science eggheads would answer: Are the structural aspects of our politics such that no matter how aggressively Republicans pursue policies that risk alienating core voter groups they need to improve their appeal among, it won’t materially impact the party’s fortunes? Is there a point at […]

Faced with the threat of terrorism, many Americans have supported policies aimed at promoting security even when those policies possibly infringe upon civil liberties. To what extent does this policy support constitute a “terror exception” made by citizens who would otherwise seek the preservation of those liberties, and to what extent does it represent a […]

From a new Washington Post/Pew survey: The shifting views of Democrats and Republicans between 2006 and 2013 is reminiscent of many other trends noted on this blog—such as in views of Ben Bernanke. But there’s one way in which these results show how there isn’t partisanship in everything.  Note than in the 2013 poll, there […]

There has been a lot of conversation about Glenn Greenwald’s story showing that National Security Agency is regularly collecting information about millions of phone calls from Verizon.  Marc Ambinder provides some useful background here.  So is this news—perhaps combined with the government’s investigations of the Associated Press and Fox’s James Rosen—enough to spark a broader […]

As we see in patterns of baby names, liberal elites use esoteric cultural references to demonstrate their elevated social position just as conservatives invoke traditional signals of wealth and affluence. Instead of divides between “Red and Blue states,” it is more accurate to say that America is divided not just by “Red and Blue elites,” […]

recently suggested that Ted Cruz’s tendency to criticize his fellow Republicans was, on balance, not helpful for a presidential bid, if he were to run.  Jon Bernstein has is more sanguine: But feuding with John McCain, and having other Republican senators uncomfortable with his excesses? That’s not going to be what stops him. I’m sticking […]