As the GOP leadership in the House struggles to unite its fractious members around a deal to avoid a government shutdown or a default on the nation’s debt, polling from Pew out this week shows why that may be harder than ever. Tea Party Republicans, Pew found, are much more […] Read more »
Tea Party Increasingly Unhappy with GOP Leadership
As lawmakers return for what promises to be a busy fall session, GOP congressional leaders face mounting disapproval among Tea Party Republicans. Just 27% of Republicans and GOP leaners who agree with the Tea Party approve of the job Republican leaders in Congress are doing, compared with 71% who disapprove. […] Read more »
5 Memorable Moments When Town Hall Meetings Turned To Rage
As members of Congress retreated to their home states and districts during the 2009 August recess, the growing Tea Party movement and anger over the pending health care reform bill led protesters across the country to confront their elected representatives at town hall meetings. Demonstrations at some of these gatherings […] Read more »
The scandal attention cycle
… George Washington University political scientist Danny Hayes has described how the “issue attention cycle” results in a surge in news coverage of a new issue like gun control followed by a fairly rapid decline, which received increased attention after the Sandy Hook massacre but ultimately trailed off, following a […] Read more »
The Immigration Fight Is the Battle for the Soul of the GOP
… If immigration reform goes down to defeat, it will mean that the right has won the defining post-2012 battle between Republican factions. … It will mean that, in the climactic confrontation between the establishment and the Tea Party, the Tea Party won. [cont.] Molly Ball, The Atlantic Read more »
Sorry, Wrong Number
As a statistician and political scientist, I care about getting the numbers right, and I am also interested in how people get things wrong. With economic statistics, it is often all about interpretation: were President Obama’s policies a failure given that unemployment was higher at the end of his first […] Read more »