Month: May 2011
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Twitter roundup
Twitter roundup (5/24-5/31) Brendan Nyhan May 31, 2011 at 11:49 AM Powered by Keepstream BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Don’t want to pick on undergrad but post hoc perceptions of who smiled more are not a good way to understand elections http://j.mp/linMEm RealClearPolitics – Articles – Print Article We can predict the answer to that question more than
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New column: Where are the Obama scandals?
I have a new column in Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the striking absence of Obama administration scandals. Here’s how it begins: One of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals. Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency,
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Twitter roundup
Twitter roundup (5/18-5/24) Brendan Nyhan May 24, 2011 at 1:54 PM Powered by Keepstream BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Implausible @jpodhoretz claim — “Why They’re Not Running: $1 Billion Is Why” http://j.mp/jp2KGk So they would have run if Obama had $500M? Why They’re Not Running: $1 Billion Is Why « Commentary Magazine Mitch Daniels’s announcement that he’s not
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The use and abuse of bar graphs
Ken Schultz, a political scientist at Stanford, was inspired by the misleading Wall Street Journal graphic and disappeared Tax Foundation blog post to illustrate just how easy it is to manipulate bar graphs by changing the boundaries of the bins: I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see how easily someone without scruples
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Twitter roundup
Twitter roundup (5/12-5/18) Brendan Nyhan May 18, 2011 at 6:41 PM Powered by Keepstream BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @willwilkinson Romney and cognitive dissonance http://econ.st/ijVlaW Romney and cognitive dissonance May 17th 2011, 19:21 by W.W. | IOWA CITY FOR my money, the most interesting thing about Mitt Romney’s health-care speech last week wasn’t his struggle to defend
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Please Hammer don’t endorse ’em
A friend currently living in Jacksonville reports on the latest in C-list celebrity endorsements. Apparently, MC Hammer thinks City Council candidate Kimberly Daniels is “too legit to quit” (image from mailer): I’m hoping Vanilla Ice will back a competing candidate and they can battle: Update 5/18 9:45 AM: Daniels has a narrow lead going into
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The disappearing Tax Foundation blog post
Last week, Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler praised a Tax Foundation post about a misleading Wall Street Journal editorial graphic: Excellent Tax Foundation take down of misleading WSJ editorial chart. Bravo fact checking! Given my many previous critiques of bogus WSJ graphics, I was shocked to discover that a conservative group best known for
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Why did birther support drop so much?
When President Obama released his long form birth certificate, I was skeptical about its chances of killing the myth that he was not born in this country: Will Wednesday’s release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate put an end to the birther myth? The odds aren’t good. The problem is that people can be extremely resistant
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Twitter roundup
From my Twitter feed (5/6-5/12) Brendan Nyhan May 12, 2011 at 11:31 AM Powered by Keepstream BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Abramowitz: whites high in racial resentment view Obama more negatively, more likely to question that he was born in US http://j.mp/mFiTYG Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball » The Race Factor: White Racial Attitudes and Opinions of Obama
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Do early primary polls matter?
Can early primary polls tell us who is likely to win their party’s nomination for president? In a post a few months ago, I argued they provide little information: If we exclude sitting vice presidents (George H.W. Bush, Al Gore) and the vice president from the previous administration (Walter Mondale), the horse race polls [early