I want to highlight a new political science blog, “Model Politics”:http://today.yougov.com/news/categories/model-politics/.
Regular readers may recall my previous “bleg”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/08/bleg_help_name_a_new_political.html for names for this blog, with vague promises of a prize for the winning nomination. The winner is “Jordan Ragusa”:http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jragusa/, who “proposed”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/08/bleg_help_name_a_new_political.html#comment-42881 Model Politics. (Jordan, email me. I’ll make sure you get something really…um…well, you’ll get something, okay?)
Model Politics is hosted by “YouGov”:http://today.yougov.com/, a polling firm. The roster of contributors, of which I am one, is comprised of political scientists. Contributors will be composing and placing questions and survey experiments on YouGov polls and then writing up the results for Model Politics. This will give political scientists the unusual ability to produce analysis and interpretation of survey data that speak in timely fashion to current political issues and debates.
As a first taste, see the initial three offerings:
* Larry Bartels: “When is a winning issue a losing issue? When the subject is taxing affluent Americans”:http://today.yougov.com/news/2010/10/26/taxes-energized-minority/.
* Michael Tesler: “Old-Fashioned Prejudice and Midterm Vote Preference”:http://today.yougov.com/news/2010/10/26/old-fashioned-prejudice-and-midterm-vote-preferenc/
* Lynn Vavreck: Her piece is “here”:http://today.yougov.com/news/2010/10/26/looking-2010-its-lose-lose-obama-still-ahead/. I want to quote one passage from it: “…if anything, the deflation of potential Republican presidential candidates is ever-so-slightly more precipitous than for President Obama.”
This looks to be a be a neat venture and kudos to “Doug Rivers”:http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/faculty/rivers.html and the folks at YouGov for getting it up and running.