Stylized Facts

"This is the lexis nexis search string that I use for AG appointments."
The string reads as follows:

[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a
candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or
charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra
or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or
controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or
layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict!
or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired
or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or
controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or
firearm!

Jan Williams, with Monica Goodling,at page 21.

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A favorite theme, said Salil Mehra, now a law professor at Temple University, were the values and cultural touchstones that Americans share. Mr. Obama's case in point: his wife, Michelle, a black woman, loved "The Brady Bunch" so much that she could identify every episode by its opening shots.

After the fluff, the meat:

In the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection.

The Long Run: Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart
By JODI KANTOR
Published: July 30, 2008
In his 12 years as a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, Barack Obama was popular and enigmatic.

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There is another way of seeing, but it never
occurs to us to remove our glasses.

-- Ben Wolfson.

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If the Supreme Court can strike down laws as unconstitutional,
why shouldn’t the Council of Economic Advisers be able to strike
down laws as “uneconomical”?

-- Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.

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The best American is not the American who has been here
the longest or the one who just arrived, it is the one who
understands the principles of America the best because
we are a country held together by ideas.

Rudolph W. Giuliani

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Don't think of normalizing torture as losing our
humanity, think of it as investing our humanity
while we defeat evil, after which we'll redeem
our humanity with interest.

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My values and my thinking have been going somewhat to the right.
I watch a lot of O'Reilly. I like a lot of what he says.

-- Perry Mann, 56.
The make love not war Founder of the Erotic Ball.

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Without exception the high-tech cities in the US
are also the most liberal. But it's not because liberals
are smarter that this is so. It's because liberal cities
tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition
have odd ideas.

Conversely, a town that gets praised for being "solid"
or representing "traditional values" may be a fine place
to live, but it's never going to succeed as a startup hub.

-- Paul Graham

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If students fidget, talk or walk out of class, the guide advises seminar
leaders not to "manage" such behaviors, but to explore their underlying
causes. Instructors must remember that to such characteristically
American cultural beliefs as the importance of morality, rationality
and personal responsibility, there are equally valid alternatives that
must be respected.

Instructors must be wary of spurious objectivity, such as a 0-100
grading scale; much better is a 0-5 scale, or, best of all, a check,
check-plus, check-minus scale. And finally, if students do not
contribute to discussions at all, seminar leaders should "make
space for silence."

Continue reading "Make space for silence in discussion" »

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vs

Baseball season is over, rejoice.

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