“High Rollers” is a free eBook preview chapter from John Sides and Lynn Vavreck’s groundbreaking Fall 2013 book, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. Picking up where the third chapter, “All In,” left off, “High Rollers” continues the dramatic story of the 2012 campaign into the […] Read more »
GOP needs to reframe IRS scandal
The Internal Revenue Service scandal needs reframing pronto for Republicans to realize any political gains from it. The current framing is the same tired old “Republican suits versus Democrat suits in Congress” — the one that almost no one in the rest of America is interested in anymore. … The […] Read more »
Nonscandals are having no effect
… GOP comparisons to Watergate reflect either poor historiography or political hackery — or both. Part of what made Watergate such a horrific scandal was the answer to Republican Senate Leader Howard Baker’s (R-Tenn.) famous questions, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” It turned out […] Read more »
Fox News poll: Obama ratings dip, voters say government ‘out of control’
After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.” At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of […] Read more »
Blind Rage: Republicans’ Hatred of Obama Blinds Them to Public’s Lack of Interest in ‘Scandals’
… One wonders how long Republicans are going to bark up this tree, perhaps the wrong tree, while they ignore their own party’s problems, which were shown to be profound in the most recent elections. Clearly none of these recent issues has had a real impact on voters yet. … […] Read more »
Party opinion usurps public opinion
These days, more and more Americans are inclined to judge issues from a partisan viewpoint. In March, according to a Pew Research Center survey, twice as many Republicans (53 percent) as Democrats (27 percent) said the economy was poor. Yet, from everything we know, Republicans are not suffering more economic […] Read more »