by Michael Garson
(Author’s Note: Some of the ideas, facts, and vignettes offered in this story are derived from a course taught by Dennis Chong at Northwestern University in the Spring of 2008. Most of the content is also lifted from a lecture given by Michael Garson for the National High School Institute in the Summer of 2008.)
Hopefully this isn’t news to any readers, but you won’t be seeing a Public Opinion round at a major tournament anytime soon. Further, you are unlikely to get “What is public opinion?” in any round. Unlike the overwhelming majority of topic-based articles, this one flies under the radar. However, I would argue in my boundless sense of self-importance that public opinion is as, if not more, important as any other issue. Understanding HOW and WHY public policy is devised and implemented is highly significant. Many extempers have little difficulty explaining why a particular policy is the most effective. Yet is only the select few (like you, who is reading this article!) can understand how and if that policy can be enacted. Great ideas that are political impossible will never come to fruition. That is the beauty of understanding public opinion: it is one of the most abstract issues but has the most pragmatic and concrete of uses.
What IS PUBLIC OPINION?
Why we vote
Figuring out what poll to use and what voting trends are at work is a great start. Looking at the Cook Political Report’s electoral report and figuring out what states are swing states is a help. But we all must ask the essential question: what makes us go to the polls. In an election that will be largely, if not entirely, decided on Obama’s ability to get out underrepresented groups (youth and African-Americans), voting paradigms need to be fleshed out. Because if the “likely voters” don’t hit the polls, then statistics can’t save your analysis.
The original theory on voting was:
Value of voting = pB – C
In this equation, p= the probability that a single vote will tip an election (considering that no presidential election has been decided by less than 1,000 votes, let alone one, this number is as close to zero as possible. Moreover, the Electoral College automatically makes the voters Texas and California absolutely irrelevant).
“B” is the absolute benefit of your candidate winning. If McCain’s tax cuts save you $1,000, staying in Iraq is worth $200 to you, but having pro-life Supreme Court justice is the same as losing $500, then the B of voting McCain is $700. B involves economic gains/losses as well as the economic value of noneconomic decisions. Put another way, how much money would you need to vote your least preferred candidate?
“C” is the cost of voting. This is pretty straightforward. Gas prices are high, so you spend $2 to get to the polls. You also spend an hour driving, waiting, and voting. Finally, you spend time deciding which candidate is the best choice for you. All that time and money makes voting expensive!
Using this analysis, no one should vote. The virtual zero that “p” represents is guaranteed to make C more powerful. However, millions of voters hit the polls every election. Therefore, there is an additional variable, “b”.
“b” is the social benefit of voting. This is the key that causes people to hit the polls! There is value to being with a group of people and saying, “I voted for ____”. Many Americans want to tell their grandchildren that they voted for the first African-American president. Others want to put their minds at ease and know they did their part to protect the rights of the unborn.
Conclusion:
Since pB is very close to zero, the question is whether or not C outweighs b. For those who have that scenario, they’ll stay at home. For those who think there is a great deal to gain by excercising their constituitional right will be those who put someone in the White House. While I suggest looking at polls, trends, and battlegrounds, think about the race. Think about politics and elections on a grand scale. Have candidates sufficiently convinced their supporters to actually vote? Disaffected evangelicals can boost McCain in the Upper Midwest and urban minorities can deliver Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Disclaimer: I don’t think national elections can be decided solely based on voting incentives. However, extempers would be wise to analyze the feasibility of issues to be voting issues. If offshore oil drilling will put people in the voting booth, it’s important. If Barack’s middle name doesn’t boost turnout, it doesn’t matter.
Voting preferences
The Tipping Point:
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fantastic book entitled The Tipping Point. The work suggests that ideas, environs, and people all contribute to an idea getting big. Fads, trends, and preferences all require certain conditions to be met. While we are much more interested in why illegal immigration isn’t as important as it was two years ago than the rise of Blue’s Clues, Gladwell offers some clues. First, the message should, but need not be, good. From pet rocks to gas tax holidays, bad ideas have been bought into. It helps if the idea is actually a good one, but this is not a prerequisite. If millions can be convinced that communism is good, then it isn’t that hard to advocate massive deficit spending. So when analyzing if the public will get behind something, it is insufficient to simply bash the policy. There is an important distinction between good policy and popular policy. Understanding what people like to hear and what people need to hear are crucial aspects to comprehending public policy.
The Myth of the Rational Voter:
In another influential work, Bryan Caplan seeks to find the manifestations of voting irrationalities. Caplan asserts that there are fears and predispositions that voters may have. Through Caplan and other works, I have found three important issues on which voting behavior is more “social” and less “science”.
A) Anti-free trade
Hopefully, the wondrous work by Adam Smith has been studied and understood by the extemping community. The Invisible Hand and Ricardo’s research on specialization are the foundation of global capitalism. Only when economies are free to pursue profits in endeavors that are most profitable can global prosperity increase. Therefore, we should reduce all tariffs to zero. With all countries on equal footing, wealth be properly distributed. Developing countries will benefit from increased employment and developed countries will receive cheaper goods and services. However, voters intentionally ignore these basic principles.
Many a presidential candidate has ridden economic nationalism to the White House. Congressmen in heavily subsidized districts must swear off free trade to ensure their political future. The reason is because of the nature of the issue. The advantage of free trade is relatively small ($5 shirt or $4 shirt) and spread across the entire country (I’ll assume all Americans buy shirts). The disadvantage of lost jobs is very acute. The steel worker in Bethlehem, PA and the textile worker in Cary, North Carolina both can physically see their job move to a different country. Since they lose thousands, they will vote solely on protectionist measures. As a means of irrational fear and solidarity, those who are safe from outsourcing will also oppose free trade policy. The chasm between economic efficiency and the society’s preferred distribution of wealth often results in public support for the latter at the cost of the former.
B) Race
With Barack Obama, race has (finally) become an issue the media and the extemping community can discuss. Though I would love America to be able to move past the color of a person’s skin, we have not as of yet. While any given individual might not have racial predispositions, enough people in the electorate do to make it important. Dealing with race is extremely delicate, in public opinion and in extemp. There is a natural predisposition for extempers and voters to not seem racist. I have heard speakers intentionally duck race as an issue or paint it so vaguely that nothing is really being said. Yet, we can use this predisposition to our advantage and showcase our level of understanding
Tali Mendelberg, one of the leading experts on race in public policy, studied how the race card is played. The research is unsurprising, but very important. In short, many Americans do have racial attitudes. Minorities tend to support their own, regardless of ideology, and the “white, protestant” majority tends to oppose minorities. Moreover, people will avoid racism when it confronts them overtly. For example, when race is directly facing people (if an epithet or slur is uttered), there is a reaction to support the minority candidate. However, when the issue is subtly offered, such as in the Willie Horton ad, voters act on their racism without feeling racist.
Let’s look at how this relates to the 2008 election:
African-American voters were originally split between Clinton and Obama in early 2008. Once Hillary made race an issue, via her husband’s Jesse Jackson comment during the campaign in South Carolina, African-Americans rallied around Obama.
As of this writing, the McCain campaign has intentionally avoided anything that could even be remotely interpreted as racist. However, Obama has started to make it an issue. He has suggested that the Republicans will say that he (Obama) does not look the presidents on the dollar bills. Though it is a bit counterintuitive, Obama should make race an issue, politically speaking. If he makes race an issue, then anyone who supports McCain must accept the (albeit remote) possibility that he/she is discriminating. Further, Hillary outperformed the polls in nearly every primary among white voters. The reason for this could be racial. If someone is supporting Obama, there is no reason to tell a pollster his/her intentions. However, a McCainiac might be a bit apprehensive about telling a complete stranger that he/she will not cast an Obama ballot. Since the polled do not, and cannot, explain why in verbose terms, there is a (albeit irrational) fear of being seen as racist.
Conclusion:
The ideal situation brings a truly colorblind society. At present, we aren’t there and it is absurd to assert as such. Though I don’t advocate being so blunt in speeches, elections do not care aboutl social justice theory and senses of morality. They care about numbers. Obama should guilt non-African-Americans while consolidating his racial base. In contrast, McCain should keep race as undercover as possible. This way he cannot be pegged as a curmudgeonly racist white man and the true racists can hit the polls without guilt.
A) Tax cuts
Perhaps the most obvious voting preference that we have regards taxes. While everyone generally wants low taxes, the main emphasis is on tax cuts and/or rebates. There seems to be something about getting that check back FROM the government instead of writing one TO the government. However, how money is distributed usually gets lost in the shuffle. On balance, most Americans want the “wealthy” to pay more and the “poor” to pay less. Yet, this fundamental principle of progressive taxation frequently gets hidden. It is for this reason that all tax cuts are supported.
The easy justification of tax cuts is the ignorance that surrounds deficits. Without falling from the purview of this article, suffice it to say that all government expenditures must be paid back at some point. Those who do not understand, know, or accept this truism are willing to let any and all applicable taxpayers be showered in government money.
The slightly more complex version comes from poor research. It is only after the “Bush Tax Cuts” were implemented did Democrats truly gain traction calling them tax cuts for the rich. While they most certainly are, they did cut taxes across the board. Larry Bartels studies the tax cuts and notes that lower and middle class voters support the tax cut program because their individual tax burdens were dropped in nominal terms. Yet, when doing the research, Bartels found the tax cuts shifted the burden to the lower and middle classes in real terms. Voters were not recognizing that if $1 goes in their pockets and $5 goes into their neighbors’ pockets, they are getting the short end of the stick.
Pollster Frank Luntz is widely credited for incorporating framing into the tax conversation. The Estate Tax is a tax which gives the government a portion of inheritances when they are transferred. So when a wealthy person dies and wills his/her assets to family, Uncle Sam is first on the payroll. However, Luntz used focus groups and found that the “estate tax” could be called the “death tax”. By implying that the government taxes a person for dying, which is not too misleading of a representation, Luntz sparked public opposition to the tax. More importantly, he disguised the fact that the Estate/Death tax only applies to individuals who are so wealthy that most Americans would never feel its effects. This tax is only placed on the rich and is “good” for other taxpayers. Yet, the power of the correct frame, and selective ignorance, play into Americans’ decision calculus and alter public opinion.
Polling
What’s in a poll?
The most important thing that extempers can do with regards to polls is not read them. Though they are not wholly useless, polls frequently only serve to confuse the issues. The extemper who spoke at NFLs in June cited polls and found that Barack Obama had a double-digit lead over John McCain. Projected electoral maps gave Obama a 70 vote lead, turning Red homelands like Montana, Georgia, Virginia, and even Alaska blue. As of this writing, RealClear Politics has given John McCain a 275-265 edge. As we get closer, polls will be more helpful, but never fully accurate. Look no further than the Democratic New Hampshire primary, where all polls gave Obama a 3-7 point lead. By the end of the night, Hillary Clinton pulled the upset. Moreover, exit polls showed that Hillary did not even do disproportionately well among voters who decided in the last 24 hours. What does this mean? It means that the polls were sampling the wrong people and/or getting the wrong responses. History is littered with examples of polls being completely inaccurate. Who is polled, when they are polled, and how they are polled all affect accuracy. Moreover, public opinion can move very quickly. A poll that is a week old might be totally off if a major news story has broke. Finally, polls on public attitudes never are tested. In early November, we can look at which polling company or political prognosticators most closely predicted the outcome (my bet is on the Cook Political Report) of elections. Yet, there is no feasible way of actually finding out how many Americans support gay marriage or want to overturn Roe v. Wade.
1. The rise of the New Media
MySpace, YourSpace, & OurSpace
I find myself quite lucky to be writing about New Media to those who are most likely to use it (intelligent high school students). I do hope you appreciate the humor in using New Media to talk about it. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for someone, Logan Scisco, to reach out across the country, solicit articles, compile them, and distribute them to complete and total strangers. The information age has saturated every aspect of society, including politics.
First, the bad news: politics can get ugly quicker. Bad news and slips of the tongue are never beyond technology’s reach. I was told a story by a political strategist who attended an opponents’ campaign rally. The candidate was speaking to a Hispanic audience in Southern California, got caught up in emotion, and suggested that illegal immigrants should be able to vote. This strategist discreetly had his cell phone recording the entire speech. He instantly sent the recording to media outlets during the speech. As this female candidate walked off the stage, she was already being bombarded with questions about the comment. News can travel faster than politicians, let alone their damage control teams.
Howard Dean was done in 2004 after his now infamous yell after the Iowa caucus. John McCain has had to see his “100 years” comment far more times than he would like to admit. George W Bush has had to endure video clip after video clip of oratorical weakness. It is debatable whether or not this is good for politics. I still hold out hope that Americans will vote on issues, not the top story on the 11 PM news. However, this seems increasingly difficult if the slightest misstep is caught on tape. I may be in the minority, but I would have flawed candidates than Manchurian ones.
But, there is good news. New media has engaged in Americans in ways never thought of before. Joe Trippi, author of The Revolution Will Not be Televised, and Howard Dean were the first to truly take advantage of the internet. They built a grassroots coalition and enfranchised the politically alienated. Those who viewed politics as a pointless display put on by old, rich, white dudes felt invested. Howard Dean could communicate with them on their terms using their preferred methods of technology. Barack Obama has taken engagement to a whole new level with his campaign. Though I do my best to remain non-partisan, Barack Obama’s website is a thing of beauty. He has carefully perfected how we wants to be perceived by younger voters. He has resources for voters of all backgrounds, races, religions, and voting preferences. He has built an empire.
The Obama Empire is currently the object of affection across the political spectrum. MyBarack Obama allows the campaign to match supporters up with local Obamaniacs. If you enter your zip code onto his site, you can see what Barack Obama events are in your area. Most importantly, Obama has depoliticized politics. There are Barack Obama knitting clubs in Columbus, bowling leagues in Blacksburg, and Patriots watch parties in Hanover. Obama, like facebook , has made himself a cyber-conduit for strangers with common interests. Yet, this is not a simply act of generosity. Obama’s people know that if a group of Obamaniacs all meet for dinner in St. Louis, the campaign will invariably come up. In that group of like-minded voters there is a reinforcement of Obama’s platform. Those who were leaning Democrat will be convinced into being lockstep supporters. Those with only a passing interest may turn into community organizers and campaign volunteers. In short, Obama has gone viral.
For all of the wonders of Obama’s empowerment campaign, it does have a flaw. This style is completely independent of the campaign. When a candidate turns his people lose, he loses control of his own message. The quintessential example occurred recently after Obama voted in support of the FISA bill. Liberals on the site instantly formed a group opposing Barack’s vote on his own website. Surely it seems odd that a candidates’ supporters would bash him on his own site! Yet, this is the result of empowerment. Barack has adopted a bottom-up theory, which has prevented him from funneling information and ideology down the pipe. As discussed, politicians win when they talk about the issues they want to in the context they want to. That power is completely gone. Obama has unleashed people power, but so far is unable to put the genie back in the bottle.
Demographics
1. Values Voters
In 2004, Thomas Frank released a book that solidified what many pollsters had known all along and immediately entered the canon of extemp literature. What’s The Matter With Kansas suggests that the Republican Party has convinced low-income voters in rural areas to vote on social issues instead of economic ones. This conclusion fits perfectly into the stereotype that low-income textile workers in Kentucky should vote Democrat for tax purposes, but do vote for Republicans, presumably on abortion, guns, and gay rights. This notion is largely held among the political community, but is under attack by Larry Bartels.
Bartels’ study finds that low-income voters vote on economic issues more than high-income voters do. Further, there is a greater correlation of social issue preference and partisanship among the college educated than the non-college educated. This means that the MBA on Wall Street is willing to take increased taxes in favor of supporting abortion rights and gay rights.
The context and depth of “values voters” can be debated more learned than us and with more free time than us. At the end of the day, the question comes down to defining a values voter and the working class. Whether or not the working class is uniquely white, as Hillary Clinton suggested, is defined by a certain income, or is based on education level changes the issue. Both major parties like to be representative of the “working class”. There seems to be an element of pride that a candidate can take in claiming the majority of the working class. The perceived champion of the industrious Americans trying to get by will benefit from other voters, as well.
When talking about values voters As a product of the east coast, red staters were treated as foreigners. They are strange and in no way represent or resemble my values and lifestyle. Yet, defining voters by states is absurd. For example, in Illinois, Chicagoland is exceedingly liberal and very cosmopolitan, but downstate is deeply red. Few states are so homogenous that a single stereotype fits the entire population. Surely a few readers can recognize that Cuban voters in Miami are not the same as Jewish retirees in Boca Raton and both feel no connection to social conservatives in the state’s panhandle.
Moreover, values voters are not purely bible-thumping ideologues. It is easy to cast them off as hard-line Christians who are willing to take a pay cut to damn the sinners. Anecdotal evidence and common sense disprove this myth. I read an article by Dennis Chong which examined a small town in Texas. This town was considering giving tax abatements to Apple to build a plant there. However, Apple came under fire because of its policy to give health benefits to cohabitants of employees, regardless of marital status. Many residents were strongly opposed to supporting a company which gave money to unmarried and/or homosexual couples. While this story seems to be another example of bible thumping, Chong’s analysis of interviews shows a different side. The opposition movement worried about the social fabric of the town. If the business attracted the unwed and homosexuals, the social unity and trust of the region would be gone, so they argued. Therefore, there were economic incentives to block the tax abatements. Indeed, social conservatives found a backdoor way to support their social views on economic grounds. This small vignette shows the scope of a socially conservative worldview. We as Americans and extempers would be well served to treat those who disagree with us with the same intellectual respect bestowed on all others.
We decide, You report: Voter Intellect
As consumers of information, voters (and extempers) cannot know everything about everything. Therefore, we all spend different levels of effort in learning which decisions to make. To be clear, those who know less about politics are not necessarily stupid. Hopefully, Albert Einstein spent all his time on math and science and did not worry about politics. At the nexus of interest, natural intelligence, and the opportunity to learn is “voter intellect”. How much voters know about politics goes a long way in understanding how voting patterns can change.
Education
In this information age, it is significantly easier to acquire information. Those who want can find voting records, policy platforms, and statistics in a mater of seconds. Yet, the American public is as politically knowledgeable as it was decades ago. This end result is the result of two opposing factors: education and options. More Americans are graduating high school, college, and obtaining graduate degrees than ever before. Being in educational environments foster learning and spurs political acumen. Yet, as we get more education, we consume less news. The rise of cable stations has allowed people to not watch the news. In the 1960s, anyone who wanted to watch television had to watch the evening news at 6 o’clock. The extent of consumer choice was CBS, Fox, or NBC. Currently, couch potatoes can opt to watch MTV, the Food Network, or HBO. The decline in newspaper readership furthers this thesis. We are busy and want to be entertained. Sadly, our interest in entertainment rarely gets more political than Jon Stewart. Thus, the positive influence of education completely neutralizes the negative influence of less news consumption.
Influencing Voters
So what does this mean? If voters are as smart as they were before, but for wholly different reasons, then there is no difference, right? Wrong.
Political scientists divide the population into three groups of intelligence. The most intelligent politicos are very well-read, will watch and read from multiple sources and can ace any political quiz. The least intelligent people know frighteningly little, do not watch the news, and are unlikely to vote. In the middle reside most Americans. These people are not news junkies, but will scan the front page of a newspaper and watch soft news, like that of MSNBC or Fox News. Studies have shown that partisanship is strongly correlated with political intelligence. In other words, the most intelligent voters are most likely to vote down a party ticket. This relationship makes sense since as voters educate themselves they will find the party that best represents them.
When news that is potentially damaging to a candidate breaks, it affects these three groups very differently. The most educated are unlikely to change their stance, regardless of changing circumstances (example: George W Bush and Nancy Pelosi both are not too fond of letting facts get in the way of ideology). The least educated are most willing to change their voting preference, but are unlikely to get the information. Government bailouts of Fannie and Freddie and recent successes in Iraq are too political for those who are intentionally, blissfully ignorant. Since this slice of the population does not vote and does not care, strategists remove from the equation. So who are we left with? The moderately informed, mildly partisan crowd is the most likely to react to changing political conditions. This group cares enough to accept new information, but is not so ideological as to reject unpopular information. Thus, when strategists talk about getting the undecided voters, it is important to recognize that are likely neither party hacks nor the completely disinterested. It is these people who determine elections, because the other 2 demographics already have decided.
It’s My Party and I’ll vote if I want to…
Though someone feels like being cute every year, I will declare this: there is no chance of a three-party system. The Republicans and Democrats are too entrenched and have been for too many decades. Further, the electoral system is set up for a two-party system. The Electoral College means that a candidate who gets 10% of the vote, like Perot, gets nothing. In order to win anything, a majority is necessary. Since party affiliation runs so deep among so many voters, there is no coalition of voters willing to leave their party.
However, people occasionally jump from one party to another. This trend does happen in the case of major events, but it is still quite rare. The biggest issues to alter party bases are the Civil War, the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, so deeply alienated the South with the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction, that the former Confederate states did not support Republicans in any election for a century. Roosevelt’s New Deal created a coalition of labor, immigrants, and the Solid South for the Democrats. President Johnson’s support of civil rights and his Great Society programs finally destroyed the Solid South. Southerners who blindly supported the Democrats found that their social preferences were best aligned with Republicans. These monumental times changed the foundations of political parties and gave us the electoral maps that we have now.
Before explaining the importance of party affiliation, it is important to reiterate how rare party switching really is. From the 1960s until 2000, the southern states slowly shifted from irreversibly blue to unbreakably red. The gradual nature of change suggests that this was not instantaneous. Some falsely believe that more and more Democrats saw the writing on the wall and went Republican. In fact, it was the younger generations who moved the Democrats out of office. Democrats still do quite well in the south among the oldest of voters; those voters who were trained to vote Democrat. As the younger generations entered voting age in the late 20th century, they were almost universally Republican. This anecdotal tale shows that great party shifts do not change the current population, they simply reset the preferences of the youngest Americans, who lack hardened party preferences.
Yea, yea, yea. WHO DO I VOTE FOR?
I’m not in the business of telling people who to vote for. I reluctantly put faith in the democratic
system to allow my fellow non-felons who are over 18 to make the right choices. But that does not mean that I cannot figure out what general trends determine voting choice. The main determinant of voting is party affiliation. Whether literal (i.e. I have my Constitutional Party ID card) or more symbolic, a majority of Americans are affiliated to one of the major parties. In an evenly contested race, candidates can garner at least 70% of their party’s voters. The additional 30% of the base, the moderates of the other party, and the independents are what electoral victories are truly made of.
There are three factors that go into voters abandoning the party line: platform, past, and personality. First, voters can decide that one candidate has a better platform than another. Those Republicans who want to leave Iraq are more likely to vote for Barack than a generic Republican. In this election, Obama was perceived to have a far superior platform until offshore oil drilling became a key issue. Drilling is an attempt by McCain to change the nature of political discourse and shift the policy comparisons in terms that are favorable to his campaign. Yet, voters also have long memories. Obama has gained great traction saying that McCain will create a 3rd term for George W. Bush. While not entirely true, Obama must marry McCain to the Republican party which is so (relatively) unpopular. Past transgressions by a candidate or party will reflect very positively or negatively in the minds of voters. Barack Obama is virtually invincible in this factor, since Democrats’ record is relatively clean given their short time in control of congress and the positive feelings associated with the Clinton presidency. The final variable is personal characteristics. This element seems the least intuitive to extempers and policy wonks, but makes the sense to less-studious voters. For those who do not know or care about the policy and party differences, they will simply vote for who they like more. Numerous studies tried to figure out how President Bush defeated John Kerry so soundly in 2004 despite having a poor track record. The most conclusive evidence found that Bush made great gains with low and middle-income white female voters compared to 2000. After looking at polling from that demographic, it boiled down to likability. Southern and Midwestern white women simply could not connect with the windsurfing, “duck hunting” Senator from Massachusetts. For all his policy failures and oratorical struggles, Bush came across as a good guy. He was someone that these voters wanted to have dinner with. George became humanized, and that was the difference.
Conclusion
I apologize for the scattered nature of this article, but I tried to offer a wide array of all that studying public opinion has to offer. Again, few, if any, topics addressed will be directly asked in extemp rounds. Yet, public reaction to policies does determine their viability. If the public is, albeit irrationally, staunchly opposed to free trade agreements, it may affect the electability of a free-trade senator. How elections are won and lost can usually be traced to key demographics or issues. Those who spot those wedge issues will show superior command of politics to judges. More importantly, they will understand how the world around them thinks, and perhaps how they themselves understand the world around them.
Sources:
Blink & The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
What’s the Matter with Kansas? By Thomas Frank
“What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?” by Larry Bartels
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/kansas.pdf
“Homer Gets a Tax Cut” by Larry Bartels
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/homer.pdf
Where Have All the Voters Gone? By Martin P. Wattenberg
Suggested Reading:
RealClear Politics’ Jay Cost offers an in-depth look at key demographics and regions of swing states
Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Joe Trippi