Recently in Election Politics Category

Obama should just use this as a campaign poster for 2012.  It's kind of hard to argue with results.  Note:  All incomes grew, even the highest, when a Democrat is president. From Princeton Professor Larry M. Bartel and Slate.com:...

I have taught a lot of workshops over the years, and one of the components that I cover when I deliver a workshop on change management is something called the "Emotional Contagion Theory."In the March 2005 issue of The Journal of Applied Psychology, Richard Saavedra and Thomas Sy at California State University at Long Beach examined the effects of a leader's mood on a group. They took 189 volunteer undergraduates, divided them into 63 groups of...

The reactions that I've read this morning to President Obama's speech yesterday in Ohio seem to divide along the lines of "too little, too late" and "it's about time, where has this guy been for the last 20 months?" To the first group I would say, better late than never. If it's not Election Day, it's not too late. To the second, nothing happens in the past. OK, mistakes were made, but to paraphrase Willie...

There has been a plethora of polling data related to the upcoming mid-term elections released in the last few days--some confusing, some not so much. The confusing; this series of questions from a Washington Post/ABC News poll: Which party do you trust to do a better job on the problems facing the country? Democrats. Which party better represents your values? Democrats. Which party is more concerned with people like you? Democrats.  If the election were...

Any of this sound familiar? "The U.S. economy has been crippled by a financial crisis. The president's policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high. More action is clearly needed. Yet the public has soured on government activism, and seems poised to deal Democrats a severe defeat in the midterm elections.[...]Gallup polling... [a]sked whether government spending should be increased to fight the slump, 63 percent of those polled...

I remember sitting in political science classes as a freshman and sophmore at TCU. It was then that I learned the most interesting and powerful fact in politics. Young people don't vote. This shocked me. I remember filling out my first vote for Bill Clinton as a high school senior. I grew up in a political household. My dad was a political science major and history teacher as well. It just seemed natural. Furthermore, I...

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) on the GOP's "first move" should they gain the majority in the mid-terms: "House Republicans' first move in the majority would be to extend tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) suggested Wednesday evening.  Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said that House Republicans would look to extend the tax cuts they helped President George W. Bush pass in 2001...

Rival press conferences were held last Friday in Downtown Houston as details continue to emerge about what appears to be a campaign of suppression and intimidation against poor and minority voters by conservatives in Houston and Harris County, Texas.One press conference was held by the non-partisan voter registration group Houston Votes, while the other was conducted by a right-wing group called the Liberty Institute and a local tea party outfit. I attended both events.(Above--Houston Votes...

As I wrote yesterday, Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Leo Vasquez is harassing the Houston Votes voter registration drive so that many among the poor, the young, and in our Hispanic community may be denied the right to vote.Mr. Vasquez is working in tandem with local Tea Party groups. This despite the fact that Mr. Vasquez was defeated in the Republican primary earlier this year. At the time of his defeat, Mr. Vasquez said he felt that one...

These "Christian nation" people make my head hurt worse than it already does: "Appearing before the Republican Women of Bossier with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) cast the November elections as a choice between godlessness and Christianity. He also called bipartisanship impossible. "We have two competing world views here and there is no way that we can reach across the aisle -- one is going to have to win," Fleming said. "We...