My rule of thumb is that a vast majority of alleged political scandals will have less electoral impact than the conventional wisdom initially holds. … But the recent admission by the Internal Revenue Service that it targeted conservative organizations with terms like “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names when […] Read more »
The IRS and AP controversies spell trouble for Obama and Democrats
The Justice Department has “secretly obtained” two months of conversations between Associated Press (AP) officials in a move called “unprecedented”. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Cincinnati office singled out new conservative groups for extra scrutiny over the past couple of years. One of these controversies alone would have caused a […] Read more »
Benghazi Investigation Does Not Reignite Broad Public Interest
The public paid limited attention to last week’s congressional hearings on Benghazi. Fewer than half (44%) of Americans say they are following the hearings very or fairly closely, virtually unchanged from late January when Hillary Clinton testified. Last October, 61% said they were following the early stages of the investigation […] Read more »
Why Obama is in trouble on IRS and Benghazi
After a largely scandal-free first term, President Obama appears likely to spend a lot more time mired in the politics of scandal after last week’s Benghazi hearings and Friday’s revelation of alleged political targeting at the IRS. My research suggests that the structural conditions are strongly favorable for a major […] Read more »
Four reasons it’s hard to campaign your way to the presidency
The narrative after the 2012 campaign was that President Obama’s victory was due to his superior campaign — better messaging, better technology, better organizing, better everything. But this narrative had a circular logic to it: Obama won because of his superior campaign, and we know that his campaign was superior […] Read more »
Inside The American Crossroads And Koch Post-Mortems
… In the wake of big Democratic victories in 2012, the outside groups that raised and spent so much on Republicans’ behalf have spent a considerable amount of time and effort analyzing their performance. Their goals are two-fold: Improve their strategies and tactics in order to win future races, and convince […] Read more »