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Theory & political commentary
Yesterday I argued that Hurricane Sandy may enhance President Obama’s prospects for re-election. Today, in the aftermath of the worst storm to hit the eastern seaboard of the United States in 100 years, we cannot be sure the election will be held as planned. We can be certain, though, that ...
The massive hurricane bearing down on the eastern seaboard has disrupted both presidential campaigns. Mitt Romney cancelled trips to Virginia and New Hampshire and President Obama missed a trip to Florida in order to attend to the emergency. Some think the storm will depress voter turnout in early ...
Why has there been so little discussion of Mitt Romney's Mormonism? Aside from some jokes on late-night television, dialogue about the Republican nominee's religious affiliation has been remarkably sparse. One year ago, Mitt Romney’s religion was the talk of the campaign. Strategists worried ...
Of the 303 million people living in the United States, half or so are registered to vote. It’s rather impressive to think that a good proportion of the 150 million have been watching the debates, the last of which aired on Monday night. Here are the numbers: Debate #1 (October 3): 67.2 million ...
So that’s it: the presidential debate season is over. Romney won the first, Obama took the second and...who won the third? Some say the San Francisco Giants, playing opposite the candidates on Fox and earning a trip to the World Series. But the polls, here and here, say that Obama scored a ...
In his post at The Stone on Wednesday, Gary Gutting urges us to recalibrate our assessments of presidential candidates in two ways: (1) by putting less stock in candidates’ successes or failures and (2) by voting for a party, not a person. The first suggestion makes a lot of sense. The second, I ...
After his loss in Tuesday night’s debate, the Republican nominee for president is now known as the candidate who goes out of his way to compile resumes on female job candidates and stuff them into binders. The response from the GIF community has been fast and furious. Here are a few of the best ...
In a hilariously foul-mouthed video last month, comedian Sarah Silverman called attention to Republican-led attempts to suppress turnout among left-leaning voters in November. “Hey black people, old people, poor people and students,” the video begins, “guess what you have in common? Lawmakers are ...
As the candidates gear up for Tuesday night’s second presidential debate, it occurs to me how strange a ritual this is. President Obama, according to Helene Cooper of the New York Times, is focusing his preparation on tactics rather than substance: This time, instead of focusing on the nuts ...
Mitt Romney, the candidate who has made a career out of shifting his positions to suit the political climate and maximize his electoral prospects, may have gone too far with his most recent (now retracted) policy pivot. Thomas Hobbes, the 17th-century political theorist, would be especially ...
On Wednesday, affirmative action will be back on the Supreme Court’s agenda when it hears oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas , a case in which a white woman claims she was rejected from the university because of her race. Nine years after the Court ruled in Grutter v. Bollinger that the ...
The votes are in: Mitt Romney won Wednesday night’s debate. A CBS poll showed 46 percent of uncommitted voters pegging Romney as the winner, versus 22 percent choosing Obama. Even the analysts at MSNBC were disappointed with the president. Ed Schultz was “stunned” by Obama’s weak performance, and ...
Is de facto racial segregation in public schools a problem? A strong and vocal majority of readers responding to my Economist post on the dearth of blacks and Hispanics at some elite high schools in New York City think the answer is clearly no. My post looked at a federal civil rights complaint ...
As Obama and Romney attack each other for waging “class warfare,” a new study from the Public Religion Research Institute shows how little anyone really knows about the largest block of American voters: the white working-class. As this graph from the report illustrates, 36 percent of the ...
Arguments on both sides of this question were aired at a thought-provoking colloquium sponsored by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College on September 21-22: “Does the President Matter? A Conference on the American Age of Disrepair.” Video recordings of the proceedings are available here. Let’s ...