The Feed

Consumers swipe millions of debit and credit cards every day in electronic transactions for which merchants are charged a small but significant fee. The results add up to one big swipe for a financial services industry that profits from both market power and political influence. Main Street retailers are trying hard to change that, pushing back ...

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” When John Adams penned those words in 1770, he probably didn’t anticipate modern presidential campaigns, where wishes, inclinations and passions—even outright denials—often run roughshod over facts. Two indisputable ...

It’s well documented that super PACs and other outside spenders are crucial in the race for the White House. Less well known is that they may also decide control of the House of Representatives. According to a recent analysis of the 25 toss-up races identified by the Cook Political Report, outside group spending through the first two weeks of ...

I am a political statistician, or, perhaps I should say, a statistical political scientist. Announcing this to someone can elicit diminished eye contact, but every four years I experience a temporary surge in popularity. For months now people I know have been stopping me on the street to ask who I think will win the ...

One of the major growth industries in Washington is the promotion of budget hysteria. Well-funded groups have weekly, if not daily, events designed to hype the country’s budget situation. Much of the national media, most importantly The Washington Post, have enlisted in this effort, devoting both their opinion and news sections toward this goal. Unfortunately for ...

In 2008, Montana was the canary in the coal mine. About a month before the election, a local citizen named Jacob Eaton formally challenged Kevin Furey’s voter registration, swearing that he was no longer eligible to vote. Furey had asked the post office to change his address from Helena to Missoula. Eaton asked local election officials to take ...

The title of Hanna Rosin’s new book, “The End of Men,” now serves as shorthand for a slightly less apocalyptic event: the end of male economic advantage. Ms. Rosin and others, including Liza Mundy, author of “The Richer Sex,” assert that this end is nigh. Those who disagree, like me, challenge many of their quantitative ...

“I think we quite likely are in a different period, where an issue that seemed to be settled by 1970 is unsettled again,” Keyssar told me. “I don’t think anyone is going to propose that we impose a property restriction, or impose racial restrictions, but I think there is certainly conflict over any measures that ...

The 2012 presidential campaign may seem like it’s all about the economy, but it’s really being driven by the chief political development of the last 30 years: the Republican Party’s movement further to the ideological right. Mitt Romney’s attempts to win over his party’s increasingly hard-line base forced him to tack far to the right ...

FOR almost 20 years, I’ve been spending time on a craggy stretch of British Columbia’s shoreline called the Sunshine Coast. This summer, I had an experience that reminded me why I love this place, and why I chose to have a child in this sparsely populated part of the world. It was 5 a.m. and ...