If I Could Hold a Seminar for Political Journalists…
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Morris P. Fiorina
Morris P. Fiorina is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His interests include representation, elections and public opinion, and democratic theory generally.
Abstract
During every election campaign, political journalists make claims and offer interpretations that political scientists who study public opinion, campaigns, and elections know to be inaccurate. In this article, I discuss a number of misconceptions that frequently appear in media discussions of electoral polarization. Chief among these are the confusion between polarization and party sorting, along with the tendency to attribute any changes in voter behavior to changes in the voters, rather than to changes in the candidates who are running and the nature of their campaigns. Also important is the widespread confusion – much of it due to incomplete political science research this time – about independents. A significant part of what journalists get wrong no doubt reflects the unrepresentative political contexts in which they live and work.
About the author
Morris P. Fiorina is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His interests include representation, elections and public opinion, and democratic theory generally.
©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction
- If I Could Hold a Seminar for Political Journalists…
- Sorting the American States into Red and Blue: Culture, Economics, and the 2012 US Presidential Election in Historical Context
- The Miserable Presidential Election of 2012: A First Party-Term Incumbent Survives
- The Presidential Election of 2012 by the Numbers and in Historical Perspective
- Campaign Effects and Dynamics in the 2012 Election
- How the Romney Campaign Blew it
- Negative, Angry, and Ubiquitous: Political Advertising in 2012
- Interest Groups in Electoral Politics: 2012 in Context
- Barking Louder: Interest Groups in the 2012 Election
- Why Super PACs: How the American Party System Outgrew the Campaign Finance System
- Super PACs and the 2012 Elections
- The Primary End Game and General Election Outcomes: Are they Connected?
- Red State/Blue State Divisions in the 2012 Presidential Election
- The Roberts Court in an Era of Polarized Politics
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction
- If I Could Hold a Seminar for Political Journalists…
- Sorting the American States into Red and Blue: Culture, Economics, and the 2012 US Presidential Election in Historical Context
- The Miserable Presidential Election of 2012: A First Party-Term Incumbent Survives
- The Presidential Election of 2012 by the Numbers and in Historical Perspective
- Campaign Effects and Dynamics in the 2012 Election
- How the Romney Campaign Blew it
- Negative, Angry, and Ubiquitous: Political Advertising in 2012
- Interest Groups in Electoral Politics: 2012 in Context
- Barking Louder: Interest Groups in the 2012 Election
- Why Super PACs: How the American Party System Outgrew the Campaign Finance System
- Super PACs and the 2012 Elections
- The Primary End Game and General Election Outcomes: Are they Connected?
- Red State/Blue State Divisions in the 2012 Presidential Election
- The Roberts Court in an Era of Polarized Politics
