Fresh Politics, New Media

I'm sure that Michael LaCour hoped to make the front page of The New York Times many times over during his career as a Princeton political scientist -- preferably being featured in articles that talked about groundbreaking research (and real results), not his fabrication of a study with Columbia University political scientist Donald Green on the impact of political canvassing on public opinion toward same-sex marriage. The story of the "great gay marriage hoax" is a compelling one for academic researchers, policy activists, and the general public alike. The revelation by Green that the data may have been fabricated , has many reputable news organizations issuing retractions and apologies including Ira Glass over at This American Life . And plenty of academics were jamming up Retraction Watch, making it hard to access Ivan Oransky's breaking post as well as Brockman, Kalla, and Arronow's Irregularities in LaCour (2014) that noted the study's problemat...

A new article I wrote on trends in public opinion toward employment discrimination is now available online at The International Journal of Public Opinion Research . The article will later be in print in the journal's special issue on Public Opinion about Gay Rights/Marriage being edited by Paul Brewer . The piece examines evolving views on whether school boards should have the authority to fire known homosexual teachers between 1987-2012 (N=35,578). In the process, I consider whether we have seen a sea change in public opinion on the issue similar to the dynamic we've recently been witnessing with the same-sex marriage debate. As the chart below shows, 51.5% of Americans expressed support for the practice when Pew first started collecting data in 1987. By 2012, only 21% of Americans still expressed support for the practice. These individuals are what researchers call the hard core , those who retain minority viewpoints in the face of majority opposition. As the results sugge...

In Thursday's New York Times , Nate Silver discusses two fundamental qualities voters look for when evaluating candidates in a presidential primary contest: (1) electability and (2) a candidate who will promote an agreeable (in this case conservative Republican) policy agenda. Often times, it's electability that matters most to primary voters (aka the party faithful) because they seek a candidate who can ultimately win in a general election. As Silver notes, Perry does well in promoting a conservative agenda but is lacking when it comes to perceptions of electability. Romney on the other hand may not appeal to the policy preferences of more conservative Republican voters but he does give off an air of electability when it comes time to think about the general election. The importance of electability was especially evident during the 2004 Democratic primary. In the early days of the primary I worked with a team of pollsters hired by a candidate who was promoting a very cred...

Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of The New York Times , has an interesting piece in this Sunday's NYT  Magazine . In the essay, Keller suggests that: "w hen it comes to the religious beliefs of our would-be presidents, we are a little squeamish about probing too aggressively." Keller is correct in making his claim about our reluctance to ask the hard questions regarding religion. In the piece, Keller subsequently argues that we need to ask candidates for honest answers about their religious beliefs, their adherence to religious doctrine and deference to biblical authority, and the influence that religious values and convictions play in shaping attitudes toward science and social policy. In other words, understanding what a candidate believes and how they apply these beliefs to political and national life is of paramount importance. As an academic who studies how religious and ideological value predispositions shape public opinion and political participation , I ca...

Hendrik Hertzberg presents an interesting essay in The New Yorker . In the piece, Hertzberg refutes Obama's recent statement: “Voters may have chosen divided government,” President Obama  said  Tuesday, just after signing the debt-limit bill, “but they sure didn’t vote for dysfunctional government.” Hertzberg suggests that voters actually prefer united not divided government -- specifically a government that is united under the banner of the political party they support. To choose divided government, means engaging in "split-ticket" voting, a practice that most voters -- many of whom rely primarily on heuristic cues when making political decision making  -- don't actually engage in on a regular basis.  Rather as Hertzberg and political scientists Barry Burden and David Kimball argue (in a more academic fashion in their 2002 book ), divided government is a result of the political system rather than the preferences of voters.  Specifically, the changing dy...

Stanley Greenberg offers a very insightful column in the Sunday Review section of today's New York Times . Greenberg, Bill Clinton's former pollster and principal of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, offers some useful suggestions for Democrats seeking to regain the faith and support of voters.  Recent polls show that the majority of Americans support President Obama, the Senate Democrats, and their efforts to handle the debt ceiling debacle. Moreover, voters are disappointed by the sentiments of Speaker Boehner and House Republicans and their support of proposals like "Cut, Cap, and Balance."  Unfortunately, even the voters who have a pretty good understanding of the ins and outs of the debt ceiling debate have short-term memories. By the time November 2012 rolls around, Obama and the Democrats' actions will seem like relics of the past, especially if unemployment continues to hover around 9%.  What Democrats need to do is follow Greenberg's advice: If th...

This weekend, New York State will begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples -- this Sunday to be precise. Many New York judges have volunteered to work on Sunday in order to expedite the issuing of marriage licenses according to a story in last week's New York Times . An Op-Ed column by Frank Bruni in today's New York Times  highlights how the new law will change the lives of one New York City family. The story about  dads Jonathan Mintz and John Feinblatt and daughters Maeve and Georgia is heartwarming. The piece emphasizes the personal nature of the issue  -- an angle that proved important during the debate over the bill's passage in New York last month.  In fact, some would argue that the framing of the same-sex marriage debate has shifted. News coverage focuses less on moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage and instead emphasizes concerns about equality and civil rights and the influence of personal and social contact on public opinion....

Nate Silver has a new post over at 538  on the future of same-sex marriage and civil unions ballot initiatives at the state level. In this updated analysis, Silver works to predict the likelihood that various US states will approve bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions. Using data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Study (yay Anneberg!), Silver incorporates three key state-level variables: median age, ideological orientation (balance between liberals and conservatives), and religiosity. Silver is correct to incorporate these three considerations -- previous research ( my own work included ) shows strong and significant negative relationships between conservative political ideology, religiosity, age, and opinions toward same-sex marriage. Also included are two time-trend or time series variables that measure different approaches to changing public opinion on the issue: a linear trend and an accelerated trend that is set-up to match national shifts in public opinion...

Frank Bruni offers an interesting take on the same-sex marriage debate in today's New York Times new Sunday Review section. Yes, the same Frank Bruni who was the NYT 's former chief restaurant critic. Bruni stresses how personal connections with gays and lesbians in one's own social circle or network continue to shape the same-sex marriage debate and influence changes in public policy -- most recently in New York State. Bruni writes: " This issue will increasingly transcend partisan politics and hinge less on party affiliation or archaic religious doctrine than on the intimate, everyday dynamics of family and friendship." I think Bruni stresses a very important point and one that is backed up by solid evidence from recent public opinion polls. In a recent article entitled, " New Voters, New Outlook? Predispositions, Social Networks, and the Changing Dynamics of Gay Civil Rights ," published in the June 2011 issue of Social Science Quarterly  wi...