PapaBigears

In collaboration with political scientists Amber Boydstun (University of California, Davis) and Rebecca Glazier (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), and Matthew Pietryka (University of California, Davis), React Labs is planning an educational package for use by instructors during one or more of the presidential or vice-presidential debates in October. React Labs™ is a new […]

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 […]

Journalists tend to mistake the part of the campaign that is exposed to their view — the candidate’s travel and speeches, television ads, public pronouncements of spokesmen and surrogates — for the entirety of the enterprise. They treat elections almost exclusively as an epic strategic battle to win hearts and minds whose primary tools are […]

On the eve of Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention, here is a recap of several key findings: When he was picked, a large fraction of Americans did not know who Paul Ryan was, or at least could not evaluate him.  Among those that could, unfavorable views were more prevalent than favorable views.  This […]

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 […]

Hurricane Isaac, which made landfall in Louisiana last night, has not only disrupted the Republican National Convention but also brought back painful memories of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast seven years ago this week. In August 2005, my wife and our small children and I evacuated to Houston just before the storm destroyed […]

Republicans say yes.  Steven Benen agrees.  I think that conclusion is premature.  The Democrats and Obama retain key advantages on this issue—that is, this particular fight is not yet a draw.  The Republicans continue to fight an uphill battle.  Here is why. 1) Do people know what Ryan’s Medicare plan is? Most do not.  In […]

There is a lot of discussion about the upcoming political science meeting in New Orleans, which is due to begin on Thursday.  See, for example, the #APSA2012 hashtag.  With the goal of moving from a possibly unrepresentative sample of political scientists who are tweeting to a possibly less unrepresentative sample of political scientists who read […]

Here is Shafer’s blog.  Here is Shafer.  Here is a selection from the first post: What observers at home are less able to judge for themselves is the vast array of other politics, that is, electoral politicking not directly involving the presidential candidates, along with the vast array of interest group argument and intended policy […]