The New Republic

I’m relatively agnostic about gun control. I’m from the West; I have friends who really like their guns. And I live in the East; I have friends who really hate guns. But it should be troubling to partisans of all stripes when terrible political analysis dictates public policy. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened with gun control. This week, the Manchin-Toomey amendment requiring background checks on gun purchases failed in the Senate, in part—perhaps in large part—because senators bought into the myth of an omnipotent National Rifle Association. READ MORE >>

In every election over the last 20 years, Appalachia shifted toward Republicans and the West revolted against the incumbent party’s candidate. These patterns continued in 2008 and 2012, but Seth Stephens-Davidowitz argues that these more recent manifestations are due to racism, since they correlate with the prevalence of racist Google searches. Although this explanation matches the data, it’s not persuasive. READ MORE >>

As a graduate student in economics, I have used Google search data to quantify the cost of racism on President Barack Obama's vote total. I compared the rate at which areas made racist searches on Google to Obama’s vote share, controlling for the vote share of the previous Democratic candidate, John Kerry in 2004. READ MORE >>

After two clear victories and “Bradley Effect” no-shows, it would seem that the fear that racism could cost Barack Obama the presidency was overstated. But Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Harvard, begs to differ; he thinks that racism significantly hindered Obama. READ MORE >>

The future of the GOP has been up for debate since its defeat in last November’s elections, and for the most part the question has been not if, but how Republicans should change. More recently, though, well-respected analysts are debating whether the GOP really needs to change at all. READ MORE >>

It’s not unusual for candidates and interest groups to spend millions of dollars to try to change public opinion. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent $12 million advertising buy is a little less conventional: He’s spending millions to convince voters not to change their minds. READ MORE >>

The Iraq war is “responsible for liberalism’s current political and cultural ascendance.” That’s Ross Douthat’s provocative argument in his Sunday New York Times column, in which he claims the war energized grassroots progressives, tied cultural conservatism to the Bush administration’s unpopular foreign policy, and ended the conservative base’s acquiescence with centrist “compassionate conservatism,” thereby crushing the Bu READ MORE >>

Conservative thinkers have been brainstorming ideas to revive the GOP, but few Republican politicians have been as bold. READ MORE >>

After a decisive victory in November and attendant surge in popularity, President Barack Obama’s post-election honeymoon appears to be coming to an end. READ MORE >>

The Huffington Post reported Saturday that Ashley Judd is planning to announce her candidacy for Senate at the end of April, setting up what would be the most intriguing Senate race of the cycle. As a media-savvy actress with nationwide name recognition—and all the free publicity and fundraising power that entails—Judd might seem a formidable general-election foe for embattled Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. READ MORE >>