After David Weigel ripped it apart quot a strange bit of make-work that offers almost zero insight about politics quot I had to visit the Brookings Institution rsquo s Congressional Moneyball site and it rsquo s even worse than I imagined Sports metaphors are overused in hacky political analys

Like two alley cats backing away from each other the Democratic and Republican parties in most states have become more polarized over the past two decades making it harder to pass legislation with the support of both liberals and conservatives And California mdash which has adopted such electio

It rsquo s easy to despair over the political media rsquo s obsession with scandal and election strategy but Pope Francis rsquo statements on economic inequality mdash paired with the news hook of the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson rsquo s War on Poverty mdash haven rsquo t gone unnoticed

nbsp The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that for the first time in history a majority of the members of Congress during the last session were millionaires Of 534 current members of Congress at least 268 had an average net worth of 1 million or more in 2012 according to disclosures fi

The results of a new Gallup poll ldquo Forty-two percent of Americans on average identified as political independents in 2013 the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago Meanwhile Republican identification fell to 25 the lowest over that ti

In his New Year rsquo s Day column for the Washington Post George Will appears to endorse an idea that was explored in this blog last fall see the post ldquo Cato Institute Choosy Voters Choose Smaller Government rdquo Because voters aren rsquo t taking the time to follow everything their go