Political scientists have long argued whether there is really any ldquo mandate rdquo associated with a presidential election Are voters endorsing any specific proposals when they send someone to the White House The current fight over the implementation of Obamacare hinges on an attempt to squeez

Most pundits are predicting disaster for the Republican Party if there rsquo s a federal government shutdown partly because President Bill Clinton is perceived as having stomped GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the court of public opinion after the shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 This perception has

The latest blog post from Robert David Sullivan at '(Un)Conventional Wisdom'

The fight to ldquo defund rdquo Obamacare see last week rsquo s post is a brilliant sleight-of-hand Keeping everyone focused on the implementation of one new government program distracts us from the deep cuts in government spending on practically everything else nbsp We don rsquo t know precis

In contrast to New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mayor Tom Menino remains ridiculously popular.

nbsp Roll Call and the Rothenberg Political Report have posted their first predictions for congressional and gubernatorial races in 2014 mdash and it rsquo s not too early given how far in advance candidate recruitment and fundraising begin nbsp As of now the Democrats need to pick up 17 seats t

We rsquo re 11 days from a possible shutdown of the federal government over congressional Republicans rsquo refusal to authorize any spending that includes the implementation of Obamacare Here rsquo s a roundup of illuminating observations on how we got here and what comes next James C Capretta a

With American politics stuck in a ditch perhaps for at least another decade assuming a Democratic lock on the White House and a Republican lock on the U S House of Representatives fantasies about changing up the system are getting more attention On Monday political scientist Jonathan Bernstein

The polarization of American politics continues to be a fertile topic for researchers with one new study suggesting that our online dating habits contribute to the red-vs -blue schism At the Mischiefs of Faction blog study co-author Casey Klofstad summarizes the findings parents pass their

Over the past week there rsquo s been a hardening consensus that the Republican majority in the U S House with or without the blessing of Speaker John Boehner will force a shutdown of the federal government as part of a last-ditch effort to stop implementation of ldquo Obamacare rdquo the Aff