Illinois Governor in Corruption Scandal

Hmmmm. Maybe giving governors the ability to fill empty Senate seats in a bad idea.

Young voters and everybody else

Andrew Gelman on the youth vote in presidential elections, 1988-2008.

And hey, there's another election today and those crazy Minnesotans are still going at it too....

Lieberman, Lieberman, Lieberman

Ben Pershing:

The Senate is a strange place.... Lieberman is retaining his chairmanship because A) Democrats are now close to 60 votes and need to keep every single one; and B) the Senate is all about personal relationships, and a lot of Lieberman's colleagues still like him and are loyal to him on a personal level, despite what he did in the campaign. Of course, a lot of liberal Democrats think that's ridiculous, but the Senate sometimes seems to pride itself on ignoring public opinion.

President-Elect Starts Taking On Burdens of the Job

No time to wait?

Challenged ballots: You be the judge

What is being argued next door.

Vast Obama network becomes a political football

"[I]t is no simple task to convert an insurgency into a standing army."

More on the transitions underway in both parties here: DNC chair faces $15M debt; fight for RNC boss.

On Howard Dean (DNC Chief Dean to Step Down):

Terence R. McAuliffe, who preceded Dean as chairman, praised the former Vermont governor's performance. "He handled it great," McAuliffe said. "He has done everything expected of the DNC chair. These are tough jobs."

On the GOP side: Can Newt Save the GOP?

Election Reflections

Michael Munger, political scientist (and former co-chair of my dissertation committee), reflects on the challenges running for office as a third-party candidate.

Election myths and the mandate debate

My friend and co-author Brendan Nyhan has collected a number of posts from political scientists on the election results and the idea of an electoral mandate.

For South, a Waning Hold on Politics

More from the NY Times on regionalism and party politics.

A New Day, a New Day in Court in Minnesota

Minnesota not done yet. Would Al Franken in the Senate be as funny as I secretly hope? Probably not.

A Way Out of the Wilderness

Jeff Flake (R-AZ 6) on what comes next. A must read.

The next President of the United States

Great picture here. Wonderful blog btw.

Go Vote!

That is all.

Bob Barr on Third Parties

I caught a brief moment of Bob Barr (2008 Libertarian candidate for president) on CNN this morning. The host was asking him to explain why he was running. He revealed no illusions that he might win and claimed that he wanted to play the role of Ross Perot and influence policy debates.

CNN host: "So you call it [being] a spoiler?"

Barr: "No, we call it a public policy advocate."

Why the "Joe the Plumber" Tax Debate Hasn't Helped McCain

Brian Schaffner (at pollster.com) has an interesting post on taxes and the redistribution of wealth arguing why Joe the Plumber hasn't led to a bump in the polls for McCain. Here is the key graphic.

2004/2008

A comparison of the projected Obama vote to the Kerry vote in 2004. After visible home state effects in AZ and MA nothing really stands out. Obama seems to be doing better than Kerry all over.

New York Times Endorsements Through the Ages

The New York Times has endorsed Obama today which isn't very interesting (or at least it's not very surprising). They do have a very interesting time line of their past announcements. Included is this gem from the three candidate race of 1912:

"It is to the interest of the Nation that the Republican party should be preserved as an organized, coherent opposition. The public welfare is not preserved by the collapse of a great party, by the rise of discordant factions in place of a compact organization."

House Republicans Bow to Political Reality

The budget constrained National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has had to make some tough choices about which incumbents to support.

Undecided

David Sedaris on undecided voters, not for the faint of heart.

Obama’s Ad Effort Swamps McCain and Nears Record

More on Obama's groundbreaking advertisement efforts.

The Blogging Scholarship

See, blogging is different than discussion boards. Cash money offer. No need to even send me ten percent.

Obama Ads Invade Video Games

So the Obama campaign has purchased ads in video games. Since I'm not much of a gamer (go Wii Sports!!), I don't think I'll run across any of these. Politico has a gallery of them if you want to take a look.

Is It Over?

Larry Bartels on the probability that Obama wins the election.

Debate Reaction: Town Hall Debate

On pollster.com there is a collection of surveys related to last night's debate. Most interesting to me is the CBS News survey of 500 voters who previously claimed to be uncommitted. Check it out.

The No Votes

Cool info graphics from the New York Times on the no votes on the bailout plan.

Candidates Clash on the Economy and Iraq in Debate

Who won the debate? Discuss on your blogs.

Lawmakers Agree on Outline of Bailout

Here is post. Here is another interesting post about the bailout.

Now this is a party.

All-Time Favorite Political Ads

This is both a history of TV and political ads. Very interesting and someone requested more video clips.



You can find more ads at The Living Room Candidate.

Big Financiers Start Lobbying for Wider Aid

Did you think the bailout would be politics free?

Pact on Debates Will Let McCain and Obama Spar

The story about the negotiation for setting the rules for the debates is pretty interesting. I also like the idea that the candidates are watching film of their rivals previous debates.

Bush Urges Congress to Enact Rescue Package

Almost by definition a crisis will shock the system it is occurring in. It's fascinating to watch the political system, and in particular the party system, absorb and react to the ongoing economic crisis.

It's easy to mumble vague sentiments about coming together or issue attacks at your rival partisans. But it will be more interesting to see who gets to (re-)build the new regulatory regimes and institutional structure of capitalism that is currently being handled by Treasury Secretary Paulson and the Federal Reserve. Congress will likely not sit on the sidelines for too long.

See also this WSJ article:

"Why does one person have the right to grant $85 billion in a bailout without the scrutiny and transparency the American people deserve?" asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), a reference to the loan the Fed gave AIG with the Treasury Department's blessing.

More in the NY Times which features supportive Democratic Senators.

2008 Iowa Caucus

Pictures from your humble instructor. We were told the Republicans just sorta show up and vote as if it were a primary, so most of the action captures the Democrats.

The Electoral College favors voters in small states

An excellent (and highly readable) post by a political scientist and statistician.

The Power of Political Misinformation

Interesting article on attempts to correct misinformation during campaigns. Note some of the research mentioned was conducted by graduate school friends (and a co-author of mine, Brendan Nyhan, who also provided the pointer).

All Palin all the time

They don't seem to be gathered all together well, but if you click around the ABC News site you can find quite a few video clips of the Palin/ABC interview.

UPDATE: This clip is pretty long.

will.i.vote: Can Young People Actually Make A Difference This Year?

Signs of an increasing youth vote.

Palin Profiteers

Fox News has an article up on different merchandise being sold to cash in on Sarah Palin's sudden popularity. More evidence that parties (and even candidates) have declining ability to control their own media images. Also a gallery of products.

Electoral College Calculator

From the Wall Street Journal, a nifty electoral college calculator.

Obama on Letterman

I tend to find candidates' appearances on The Daily Show to be pretty awesome. McCain is certainly at his best on the couch as compared to the stump. Last night's clip shows that Letterman can still compete with Stewart. Obama is pretty funny too.

Polls, Polls, Polls

In my mind, the best source for kind of horse race polling data we all crave this season is at Pollster.com. One of the nice things they do is to aggregate different polls from many polling firms. This helps to cancel out bad samples that any one pollster might draw in a given week. For the state-level polls this is probably particularly useful.

The 2008 political conventions of the United States

The Big Picture is a blog where each post is a photo set involving some current event. This week, the national political conventions.

Good Blogs

People often ask what are good blogs about politics.

I often point them toward my friend and co-author Brendan Nyhan who maintains a blog that is often focused on spin, the media's coverage of politics, and fact checking more generally.

UWM's Tom Holbrook is maintaining a blog about Election '08. Over at Madison, Charles Franklin has a blog about polling, Political Arithmetik.

The New York Times is now maintaining a fairly large stable of blogs as well. And not all of them are about politics. I'm quite fond of Mark Bittman's food blog Bitten.

If you start to follow multiple blogs you might want to check out using a feed reader so that the posts come to you. Check out Google Reader or maybe NewsGator (I use their NetNewsWire).

The Party Conventions

Among many other places you can find the speeches from the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention at the iTunes Music Store.

Welcome to Fall

Welcome to the Fall 2008 Party Politics in America online course blog.