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GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Racism may be less of a factor in politics than other realms of life, according to a new University of Florida study, which found few white voters in Florida to be upset by the presidential candidacy of a black man, and many to be proud of it. To assess attitudes among white voters in a southern state about Barack Obama's historic election to the presidency, two UF political scientists analyzed results from four statewide telephone surveys -- each involving between 449 and 829 respondents – conducted in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009. Their study...

When the Republican Party took control of the Texas House of Representatives in 2003, most pundits placed its Democratic members well out in the political wilderness. But new research by Rice political scientist Mark Jones indicates that over time, the Democrats progressively increased their ability to affect the laws coming out of the legislature... Jones, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, chair of the Department of Political Science and a Baker Institute Rice scholar, looked at the ability of the legislature's leadership to control the partisan agenda... Jones measured each representative's FPV win rate -- the percentage...

In politics, there are several mental shortcuts that a skilled political operative can use to manipulate voters: Short Cut One The Drunkard's Search Conducting a drunkard's search a drunkard’s search is to look in the place that's easiest, rather than in the place most likely to yield results. Taken from an old joke about a drunkard who loses his car keys while unlocking his car and is found looking under a streetlamp down the road because the light is better, it has been an object of consideration in the social sciences since at least 1964.

"We know that the moment of greatest danger to a society is when it comes near realizing its most cherished dreams." - Eric Hoffer From its origins in Athens some 2,500 years ago, it has been obvious to some astute observers that democracy, like all other forms of government, carries with it a certain type of energy. Barack Obama rode this unique democratic energy into the White House over a year ago. He called it a "righteous wind" and promised something rather vague that he called "change." To many otherwise innocent American voters, "change" likely meant the change from...

Textbook Hope & Change Malcolm A. Kline, December 4, 2009 A new political science textbook, American Democracy Now, actually makes a stab at balance and, to a surprising degree, can claim some success. The attempt to level the academic playing field is particularly noteworthy since the publisher is McGraw-Hill, which has been scored for inaccuracies in its textbooks by reviewers in Texas and California—the two largest markets for texts. Moreover, the publisher promoted it as the first textbook written by an all-woman team, a politically correct distinction that suggests a similar treatment of civics. Even the title is reminiscent of...

Last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency began implementing Obama administration policy with a “finding” that man-made global warming is a threat to human health. This finding provides the legal foundation for massive regulation of American life that would ultimately chase remaining manufacturing out of the country, sharply reduce America’s standard of living, and tumble the American economy into long term decline. The EPA and Obama are just following the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the UN is as self-interested on this issue as the oil companies — except that it tilts in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

Taxes imposed in the name of global warming are completely bogus. There is no global warming if, by that term, you mean a sudden, dramatic increase in the Earth’s average temperature. The Earth has been cooling for a decade, not warming. It is incumbent on all of us to email, fax, call, and write our Congress critters and tell them they must vote against any legislation regarding “greenhouse gas emissions” or “global warming.” Tell them that a vote for such legislation will be your vote for whoever runs against them in the next elections. The Obama administration and Congress is...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...

I just have a question: Is there a difference between "conservative" and "right wing"? I say there is none, but many people, including conservatives within y family, have said there is a big difference, yet I don't know exactly what that is? Please help... PS. I just finished the book "the Last Jihad" by Joel C Rosenburg. It is a great, fast-paced novel, about a war with Iraq. It was written and published before the war in Iraq. I would recommend it to everyone.

DEMOCRAT You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. REPUBLICAN You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So? SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow. COMMUNIST You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour. CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows. BUREAUCRACY,...

COLLEGE STATION – The more you know the less you care – at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis. “More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming,” states the article, titled “Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA.” The study showed high levels of...

The New York Times has issued a correction for their article about John Kerry’s slam against the military, in which they did not even print his actual words: Corrections: For the Record - New York Times. (Hat tip: Ethel.) A Political Memo article yesterday about the fallout for Senator John Kerry over what he called a “botched joke” referred incompletely to the differences between prepared remarks and what he actually said about the Iraq war to students at Pasadena City College in California on Monday. Mr. Kerry not only dropped the word “us,” but he also rephrased his opening sentence...

Why Jon Stewart isn't funny By Michael Kalin | March 3, 2006 THE SELECTION of Jon Stewart as the host for Sunday night's 2006 Oscars undoubtedly marks a career milestone for the aspiring king of late-night comedy. Unfortunately, however, the ascension of Stewart and ''The Daily Show" into the public eye is no laughing matter. Stewart's ever-increasing popularity among young viewers directly correlates with the declining influence of progressive thought in America. Coincidence? I think not. Let me explain.

CEDAR CITY, Utah -- Students at Southern Utah University are rallying behind a professor who was fired after using the f-word in class, prompting a debate about the school's tolerance for diversity. Political science professor Stephen Roberds worked at the Cedar City campus for six years, and was undergoing peer review for tenure, when he reportedly used the f-word during a heated classroom discussion with a student about a Supreme Court ruling. Roberds quickly apologized to the student and class. Last week, the school essentially fired Roberds by refusing to renew his contract and denying him tenure, insisting that a...

Using County-by-County election return data from USA Today together with County boundary data from the US Census' Tiger database we produced the following graphic depicting the results. Of course, blue is for the democrats, red is for the republicans, and green is for all other. Each county's color is a mix of these three color components in proportion to the results for that county. Counties shown in black represent either missing election data or a mismatch between the US Census data and the USA Today data. For example, the New England states' election return data is given for each municipality...

When his students refused to take his midterm exam last Friday, professor Ted Morgan was not completely surprised; this had happened before in this class. The students of Movements and Legacies of the 1960s, a political science class, refused to take an exam because they felt it was hypocritical in light of what they had learned all semester. “It was not so much protesting that specific exam or that class,” Clare Burchi, ’06, said. “It was more protesting the whole idea of exams and writing down all that we had learned into a little blue book.” Instead of taking the...

From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role Fareed Zakaria Book Description Reviews Table of Contents COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and copyrighted, © 1998, by Princeton University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. Follow links for Class Use and other Permissions. For...