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As the election approaches, each candidate is doing anything in his power to obtain more votes. In Colorado,Florida and Nevada the Latino voting population could possibly determine who wins the 2012 election. President Obama has a "leg up" on Romney with the Latino voters, but will Romney be able to do anything to make himself more appealing to Latino voters? If not, how devastating will the outcome be for his campaign?

They are chasing the latino votes, definitely. Their discussion of this in the last debate was interesting - Obama accused Romney of considering the Arizona immigration law as a "model for the country," which as far as I can tell just isn't true. Who knows with Romney, though - he certainly has been associating with the guy who designed that law. In response to John's point, I think the Romney campaign is kind of forced to stick to the economic aspects of gender discrimination and Hispanic issues. The fact is that the Republican party has a worse record on rights for minorities, so they're playing up their statement that the improved economy under Romney would help get rid of the gender/racial inequities in the country.

It's clear now that the Republicans have a serious problem with Latino support. I wonder how they will deal with this problem in the future. I think bipartisan immigration reform could be a big deal. I see that being the big issues in the next couple years. It seems like demographically, if the Republicans can't get any support from people of color, are going to have an issue as Latinos are the largest growing population in America.

This article is from the website of a conservative think tank, The Manhattan Institute. It's interesting to read a conservative criticize Romney for being out of touch with the American people when he focuses his economic argument on only the "four sore years" of the Obama administration. She highlights the number of times Romney referred to 4 years during the debate missing his opportunity to acknowledge that Americans know that the economy crashed well before 2009. She aptly states that Americans remember well the "white as a ghost" President Bush, "the panicked Congress", the "helpless" GOP standard bearer, McCain. She also points out that Americans are feeling like we already hit bottom and that it's not the time to focus only on the negative. Given that she seems more nuanced in her thinking, I was particularly interested to read her criticisms of Obama's reaction to the financial crisis, especially, according to her, his missed opportunity to encourage states to fix their pension and benefit problems, by bailing them out temporarily with the stimulus money.

I am glad you posted this, as it offers a different type of critique of Romney. I read an essay like this from another conservative think tank criticizing Romney's energy policies and they both have expanded my perspective, it seems that more disparaging reviews of candidates from within their parties are more productive. It's interesting to consider what Romney would be like as a more positive candidate and how he might end up like an Obama from 2008. The benefits of an optimistic, or at least more constructive, campaign are great. This article also highlights something which comes up a lot for me when thinking about the election, in which candidates really under-estimate their constituencies' intelligence. There is definitely a difference between selling the perspective you want to use to win and ignoring the reality of what people know.

After the election, it's pretty clear that "four sore years" didn't work. I wonder if there was really much else Romney could have focused on. I think Romney dug himself more holes than he holes he really dug for Obama. There were Republican governors running for reelection talking about how great the economy was while Romney was running for president talking about how bad it was. It really shows how you can spin a situation any way to suit you.

I was looking on the WSJ and I found this general article about how President Obama is leading in most of the swing states. I think this is interesting because it reminded me of a thought that I have had for a while which is that perhaps one of the reasons that Romney isn't as popular as Obama is that he can't connect as well. When I hear Obama speak, while I might not agree with his views, I feel drawn to his charisma. On the other hand, Romney appears stiff and uptight. While this article does not address that point directly, I think that it shows some of the repercussions that a lack of connection can have.

I agree: stiff is definitely a good word for his presence on stage. The point you brought up speaks a lot what I look at as a competition between the candidate in terms of relatability. With jobs being arguably the most central issue of each campaign, and "middle class" being the buzzword, I've noticed both Obama and Romney striving to fit this image. While Romney's income puts him as far from working class as it gets, I think that the difficultly we have relating to him has much more to do with his stiff and uptight presence, like you said. Similarly, I think the way people relate with Obama has much more to do with the charisma you mentioned than his actual relationship to the middle class.

Week 4. This opinion piece looks at the foreign policy credentials of both candidates, especially in light of the embassy storming in Libya and other similar incidents in the Middle this past week. The author paints this interval as weak for both Romney and Obama: Romney for his bizarre and inflammatory comments just after the murder of the ambassador and members of his staff, and Obama for not painting a clear picture of American intentions regarding the attack ("the only thing that can be said for Barack Obama's leadership this week is that he's not Mitt Romney"). He points to the increasing public unease about our presence in the Middle East as the perfect opportunity, a "teachable moment," for Obama to make his position clear. The author presents a conflicting message: as a foreign policy advisor, he would suggest this type of speech, but as a campaign advisor, he would warn against it. With all the talk of the Bush legacy in mind, I think this topic could be of huge advantage to both candidates (more so for Obama) if it were used properly. Obama has the chance to distance himself from the early-2000's surge that much of the public regards as a disaster, and distinguish the profile he plans on having in the region from bumbling foreign policy. I think the strides he has made in his first term toward ending our conflicts are pretty questionable. However, he seems in a prime position right now to ride out whatever he has accomplished for the next few months. Romney kind of made a fool of himself after the attacks, and Obama is not really capitalizing on this. It seems he's been doing good work on this front (the way he has been handling the protests in Egypt, according to the article, has been really skilled and professional) and he should flaunt it more. Similarly, a really strong statement of purpose in the Middle East might help Romney recover. The way he described foreign policy during the RNC does basically nothing to distinguish him from Bush for me. As

I have been hearing a lot about the "60 Minutes" appearances by both candidates on Sunday night. This article picks apart the key points that both candidates made in what the author describes as the "pre-debate." While Obama and Romney were interviewed separately, the juxtaposition of their interview was a clear struggle for undecided voters. The author highlights a controversial handling of foreign policy questions by Obama, as well as a pretty spectacular gaffe by Romney, in which he suggests that emergency room care is an effective way to take care of the 50 million uninsured Americans. From what the author says, the interviews were a compelling look at the candidates without their armor. The article includes a link to the video (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57518495/campaign-2012-obama-vs-romney/?tag=contentMain;contentBody) With a lot of rhetoric from each candidate that we've had to decode in stump speeches and at the conventions, it's nice to see content that is a little more upfront. The opinions the candidates voiced, while they have stirred up critics in either party, strike me as a more honest representation than their own descriptions of themselves. Obama's commentary on the Middle East was complicated for me. While I don't think it was very tactful and clearly on the spot, it seems to coincide with his policy quite well. After the discussion we had in class concerning his drone-strike campaign, the comments he made about Israel as peripheral and our alignment with democracy strike me as more satisfying for more liberal Democrats. I have trouble thinking of the way Romney handled the emergency room question as anything but a mistake. I know very little about healthcare policy, and it's totally clear to me that what he proposes isn't sustainable on any level. From the maintenance of a healthcare system that runs like this to the cost on the individual family, his proposal demonstrates very little thought to me, which might be

Very interesting to see Obama's full quotes and partial quotes used out of context to support his position. Romney's answer on health care and emergency room seems to show his lack of economic sense.

I was most interested by the first and last paragraphs in this New Yorker article about the first Presidential debate. The beginning paragraph talks about how expectations made by the "expectorate" largely came true and how political interpretations and actual situations can be so utterly dominated by the media and other politicians' assumptions. It seems so simple that this sometimes anonymous group of "journalists, columnists, bloggers, television commentators, politicians, and 'strategists'" can have such a great impact on not only the perception of a political event but also the actual happenings because a candidate can just work to fulfill their expectations. People expected Romney to do well and he prepared and he won. (Though this article also makes the interesting distinction that not only did Romney win, Obama lost). The last paragraph frames Romney's flip-flopping tendencies in a different and more positive light. By constantly changing his viewpoints, both in his political career and as of late, Romney cannot be pinned down and sold as a specific type of bad person to the electorate. When Romney alters where he stands on the political spectrum and often successfully pulls himself into the center, the Obama campaign can again and again maintain that "all the evidence indicates that Romney has no 'core beliefs,'" but it makes their negative campaign much more difficult.

I personally find post-debate coverage helpful to determine who "won" the debate. As a decided voter, it's really hard for me to determine who "won" a debate, because I support what Obama/Biden say. That said, I'm not sure if it is helpful to the overall process. Post-debate coverage and polls are here to stay though, so we should get used to them and try to understand them better.

It is hard to look at who one and who lost a debate because it formed by the media. Yes we can all say that Romney came out harder and ready to play, while Obama was in the back seat watching the show. But no debate is going to change the mind of a decided and educated voter. With three debates prior to the election I think we have to wait until all three are finished to really form an idea of who won or lost the debates because then the majority of topics will be put on the table. Bottom line is you can be a great debater, but a not so great leader.

* This article gets at the heart of what confused me tonight: when will we know exactly who one? The entire night, I feel like we kept getting told by various outlets that Obama had won: it was projected as a sure thing, almost as if the papers and sites were racing to see who could be the most current in preemptively calling the results. CNN, for instance, kept releasing its projection as "breaking news," rather than the real-time analysis it actually was. Ohio and Florida (which to my knowledge could have shifted the results entirely) continued to flux after these "official" announcements. I wish I had come across this article earlier in the evening: it highlights the moment that projections receive the "green light" (after polls have closed) and when they start pouring in. When I finally heard that Obama had won for certain, I still had these lingering doubts and wondered exactly when this went from projected to official. The author also suggests that the same elements that contributed to the Florida scandal in 2000 are in place tonight. This interests me, particularly because the state has been hovering around ~90% for most of the night. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to stir up controversy around it. Lastly, the article and election results leave me with the obvious big questions. Now that he's presiding in his last term, will there be a relaxation of efforts to block him? Will he find the bipartisan Washington he failed to reach in his first term? How did what news groups call his "demographic gamble" play out, particularly with the Latino vote?

This NYTimes article uses data gathered by the Pew Research Center, and the Rothenberg Political report to chart the different factions of the Democratic Party according to their relative influence, motivating issues and standard bearers. It exposes important unifying issues like equity (fairness) and uncovers differences on other matters like immigration and the size of the federal government. It will be interesting to look at the motivating issues of each group and compare them to the issues Obama focuses on in his speeches and which he stays away from. According to this article, the southern democrats, formerly a large powerful group, are shrinking. Is that because they donít agree with other Democratís position on social issues like gay marriage and positions on immigration and the environment that they are concerned affect employment? Itís also interesting to imagine how this information is gathered and how accurate it is.

It's weird how many of the groups in this are classified as "social conservatives." I feel like living in San Francisco there are a lot of people who support Obama purely because of his positions on abortion and gay marriage. I see a lot of people to whom it seems social issues are pretty much all they think about politically, so its interesting for me to think about people who vote against their personally held social ideology to support their economic interests. Gives some perspective.

The "standard bearers" section of this article really stood out to me. Almost all of those politicians described as "standard bearers" spoke at the convention. Because all of these different prominent politicians in different groups all spoke at the Democratic convention, I believe it shows a united party. If there was a similar analysis of the Republican party, I don't think all of their "standard bearers" would be featured in the convention. For example, the Republican party worked hard to keep folks like Ron Paul off the center stage at the convention, even though he has plenty of supper within the Republican party.

This article addresses the effect of George Bush's legacy on the current election and how it was reflected in the conventions. Clinton, in his speech at the DNC, compared the net job creation of the two parties. This article says that ultimately, not just this sentence but Clinton's entire speech came down to that point: evoking the successes of the Democrats while reminding voters of the many failures of George W. Bush. Clinton's presence, the article says, turned the race into Obama and Clinton vs. Romney and Bush. The article cites some interesting historical examples of presidents who were able to win despite the temporary unpopularity of their parties at the time, and how those candidates distanced themselves from the failed policies with concrete, factual differences in their philosophies. Romney, the article says, has failed to do so.

Great post. I really enjoyed reading this article because I do believe that the legacy of the last elected party plays a major role in future elections. If a president from a particular party succeeds in his own term, his political party gains more credibility because people will connect a president's success with his party. For example(hypothetically speaking), If a democratic president successfully relieves the U.S from economic depression, in the future if depression occurs people would begin to think a democrat is the right candidate to fix the problem.

I agree that the Republican's avoidance of anything too heavily Bush-related is not working in their favor, and like this article notes, whenever a political sensitivity makes a candidate vulnerable, ignoring it is certainly not the best course of action. But this article also shows how Romney is just not well-suited to actually addressing the past failures of Republicans, both because of the early failures in his campaign to sell himself as the type of economically-focused candidate voters want and his unclear values and opinions, and makes it clear that the Republican who will erase the legacy of Bush will not be Romney.

This article describes Romney's "demographic bind," which has him falling seriously behind in the non-white vote. The Latino and black electorate, the author describes, have begun the process of making strictly red states (like Georgia) into possibly competitive areas of the country in the future. The author points to the 2008 election, when McCain won a safe majority of America's white vote while Obama won 66% of the Latino vote and a whopping 95% of the black vote, as a signal for two different strategies for Romney. On the one hand, he can and is trying to woo thee Latino vote in states like Nevada and Florida (the RNC had really concrete evidence of this in its choice of speakers). Second, and a little more frightening, he can concentrate his efforts on winning an even greater majority of the white electorate. This is a significant challenge, because it would mean a serious effort at reconciling the generally more socially liberal views of white youth with the social conservatism of the Republican Party's. In the case of immigration reform, embracing a more liberal position would be a win-win for Romney: he could win a greater share of the Latino electorate, among which immigration is a serious concern, and a greater percentage of the younger, more socially liberal white vote that has traditionally voted Democrat. This would almost certainly come with consequences among older and less educated white voters, who would see immigration reform like this as a threat to legitimate control of illegal immigration in the future. Of the two, trying to expand the portion of the white vote seems like the losing option. While the example of immigration reform I mentioned could be a place for compromise, I have trouble seeing how Romney or a future Republican candidate could champion a pro-life and pro-choice stance at the same time, for instance. Rather than focusing on incredibly divisive issues, trying to appeal to the Latino electorate seems like a wiser choice. For Romn

This article talks about conservative Super PACs working to unify their message to keep away from uncomfortable blunders that bring the entire party down, to avoid letting "their message [become] diluted," and to maintain Romney's full-throttle attack when the Governor is not in a position to do so himself. The subtle moves that keep Super PACs legal is demonstrated really well in this article, like how the different groups can talk to each other and follow the "themes being emphasized by Mitt Romney's campaign," but cannot "coordinate with Mr. Romney's strategists," which certainly seems like it would be a challenge, since the Romney campaign keeps switching its focus. One of the most interesting aspects of this article is the reference to the Super PACs making sure that they all use the same numbers and statistics when attacking President Obama. It's crazy that there is so much confusion about what seems like the simplest part of pro-Romney advertising, especially when some groups actually think that connecting Obama with "Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and the minister's 'black liberation' theology" is a good idea. The paragraph about how these Super PACs' more cohesive vision will affect Obama's campaign is also really interesting and demonstrates a lot of what seems unfair about large-scale campaign finance issues, since Romney's vision and campaign can literally move beyond him and keep up their work without him or his funds.

What you highlighted from this article emphasizes how shady the distinction is between coordinating a message with a candidate and presenting one independently. From what this article says, along with the presentation in class about campaign finance, the difference between these two methods of supporting a campaign seems pretty arbitrary. This is especially true if, like you said, the groups that can't coordinate with Romney can coordinate with one another. This strategy is the part that scares me the most: Super PAC's are trying to avoid "diluting" their message, but they seem to be diluting the messages of the candidates as a collective. The need to present a cohesive message, like you mentioned, seems to explain why a lot of the criticism in these ads is so vague, simply attacking Obama "as a failed leader" rather than highlighting specific policies or mistakes. In a campaign like Romney's, where the key focus is often a bit of a moving target, sticking to general criticism like this seems like a winning tactic. I agree that the engineering of advertisements is unfair, especially given the cause and effect relationship of ad dollars and poll results that the author suggests.

This article is a great explanation for the article that Miles posted last week, "Romney Adopts Softer Tone in Critique of Obama." Obamacare is the epitome of a centralist solution to healthcare, but the Republicans in the house are too caught up in politics to admit that it is actually a good compromise. It is interesting looking at Romney's own plan for Massachusetts in comparison to Obamacare, because they are essentially the same plan. Because Romney has taken up the issue of "repealing Obamacare," he has really dug himself a hole, because what is the conservative alternative? No healthcare plan? It seems to me that this kind of partisan politics is the reason that Romney is doing so poorly in the election.

This article is the best. It provides such a clear, concise explanation of Obamacare. And it really does, if you know this, invalidate Romney's entire platform. Obamacare is a centrist healthcare plan, and it's just like Romneycare. Romney is running on a platform of "anti-Obama," and all he's saying that he'll do is remove and replace Obama's policies -- but with what? Romney isn't saying. It really is astounding how much vitriol there is in America directed towards Obama, who is largely a centrist in his policies.

This article, like the Obamanomics, shows how too often politics takes precedent over policy. It's very disturbing that when something is as critical as health insurance for as many people as possible, is lost in a political battle. It sounds like even though the Democrats and Republicans agree on the most important aspects of Obamacare, it became mired in its present battle because the White House "rammed the bill through Congress." And the Republicans "lashed back with a vengeance." These political battles seem so petty when so much is at stake and everybody basically agrees on policy.

This is about how Romney was caught off guard by the Obama victory. Romney was blindly optimistic and overlooked his opposition and the voters of America. They went into election day only really thinking about what they had found in research and did not really touch on the idea of worst case senario. There is defiantly no way someone can win a presidential campaign without thinking of every possibility and how to combat them. In the end his slight unpreparedness was a factor in his loss. 

It is pretty crazy that he took the election as a given, and I tend to agree with you that it is the wrong way to approach an election. In this article, I was particularly fascinated by the way that the author characterizes the Obama ground game as "conservative": especially with the polls behind him, I thought that Obama and his team seemed just as confident as Romney. Maybe this is the important distinction: like you're saying, Romney was "blindly optimistic" and really sincere about this optimism. While I think it's smart for both candidates to act like they're sure they will win, they should always act like it's a close race when running a campaign.

This article shows that in times of need the federal government can really help states. With hurricane Sandy the majority of New Jersey was destroyed and the republican governor Chris Christie was welcome to the federal aid that was given. If Romney was president at the time of the hurricane he would have left it up to the states to rebuild themselves. Sandy is a clear example of how the federal government is for the benefit of the country its inhabitants. The author also brings up Hurricane Betsy, which took place in 1965 and how the governor of Louisiana (who once thought about seceding from the country) realized how the federal government is a necessity in this country. 

It is important to keep in mind the difference between FEMA's response to Katrina during the Bush Administration when it was led by someone who had little disaster experience and FEMA's response to Sandy. This article shows that when political rhetoric is dropped, people do want government to help with disasters. It would seem that government organizations during administrations that take government roles seriously are more likely to have strong government services. I guess that might be wishful thinking.

I pretty much agree with what all you guys are saying. I think Hurricane Sandy has been a good reminder of the need for government services and problem we have with climate change. Hopefully, people will learn from this horrific storm.

This is a really thorough opinion piece about how American politics drift left or right. The mention of how both candidates this election have gained more support whenever they did something left-leaning, like "not until [Obama] began talking like a populist did he begin picking up steam in the polls" and Romney " taking back his promise of tax cuts for the rich and proposing instead to let people choose which tax deductions they wanted to take," is especially interesting and makes the idea that politics are likely to continue to drift rightward even more unsettling. I really enjoy this type of political writing where they talk about how each candidate's win would affect future politics, and this article does it well.

The writer of this article actually seems to think that despite the drift to the right that Obama and more particularly Romney and the Republican party were making is not a good idea. He ends the piece suggesting that whichever candidate wins the election must move away from old Reagan era positions. I agree with him.

I found this piece fascinating. It seems to me like America is moving rightward fiscally, and leftward socially. I wonder how that will look in the future. I agree with what John said about healthcare and defense spending. I think that kind of backs up my point about our fiscal conservatism. The article doesn't talk too much about social issues, but the country really voted liberally on social issues in this election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/politics/gary-johnson-the-libertarian-partys-presidential-nominee-worries-republicans.html?pagewanted=all I read these two articles in tandem and was really interested by the intersections and the role that finances play in American politics and the two-party system. Gary Johnson is a really interesting politician and I sometimes consider him a liberal libertarian. I can't see myself ever voting for him, but I think he offers a unique perspective. The idea that he could be a Ralph Nader "to Mr. Romney's Gore" is interesting, though unlikely considering Johnson's radical views. Furthermore, the idea that Democrats are supporting Johnson is pretty unfounded. The paragraphs about Johnson's limited finances and management of his campaign are especially telling after reading this op-ed piece, which details the way virtually every politician (both now and in early American history) comes from a white-collar background and how that creates these blocks in terms of understanding their constituents and making learned decisions. Two lines that I especially enjoy comparing are: "Would you like to be represented by a millionaire lawyer or a millionaire businessmen?" and "Mr. Johnson said he had no problem being labeled a potential spoiler in an election that he views as "a debate between Coke and Pepsi." (He said he viewed himself as Perrier.)" Trying to understand why there are not more blue-collar politicians around is certainly difficult ("Scholars haven't yet confirmed exactly what that is. (Campaign money? Free time? Party gatekeepers?)"), but as this article notes, determining why we are in the current situation is vastly important. The ending analogy, about the rise of female politicians since the '40s is helpful in demonstrat

Gary Johnson definitely seems like an interesting guy, and I'm all for the unravelling of the two-party system. I don't think I agree with a lot of his ideas, especially his economic policies, but I think any article written about a non-Romney/Obama candidate is a good thing. The Romney/Obama choice is a limited one, and people should obviously be able to pick a candidate who represents their beliefs, not just one who is affiliated with their party or who comes closest.

Articles like these always trouble me. How will this ever change? It is unlikely that it ever will. When we are adults, we will still probably have a two party system with most political candidates being wealthy. I think one of the issues we have in America is the small spectrum on the political scale that the two parties represent. While Democrats and Republicans have their differences, they are still philosophically the same when it comes to what the government should basically do. In other countries, they have more radical thought like liberterians and socialists.

This article stood out to me since it discusses a topic that I often find myself drawn to, which is the appropriateness of identity politics and how they affect not only Democrats, but politics more broadly. While this is a rather brief overview of a large issue, it efficiently mentions where the legacy of identity politics has its roots and how the Democratic focus on minorities has been successful in creating policies that strive for more equality. The article then goes on to discuss how identity politics can alienate key voters who are supporters of the party, but find themselves "excluded from" the focus on topics and issues they, as generally white and older citizens, cannot relate to. Though identity politics began as a way to bring in a more diverse audience of supporters and voters who were often left marginalized by other parties and politicians, the Democrats can easily make their campaigns and policies too specific and exclusive, leaving those not affected by more common forms of prejudice forgotten. I like that this article finishes with the idea that shifting the Democratic focus from tailored appeals to minorities to broader campaigns about unity would avoid the problem Democrats face, but I find it hard to imagine Democrats giving up a type of campaigning that their Republican rivals really struggle with when it gives them such an advantage, even with the alleged cost of forgotten white voters.

While I was reading this article, something about it didn't resonate with me. This is the line that really threw me off, "But if I'm a plain old white insurance salesman, I look at the Democratic Party and say, What's in it for me?" Well, for this salesman what's in it for him is a more fair tax code, a medicare system that will guarantee him health care longer into his life, the list goes on. I don't see how "identity politics" are hurting the Democratic Party, because there are so many issues in politics. I really don't believe the equal rights stance of the Democratic Party would alienate middle-class white men, because the Republican Party's economic policy will hurt these middle class men more. Now, all of my views on this issue are completely biased by my liberal politics, but I just disagreed with what this article was trying to get at.

Interesting article and a great discussion. Identity does impact political leanings, and middle class white men more often vote Republican. I agree that it seems like the Democrats would have a lot to offer the "plain old white insurance salesman," but working class white guys don't seem to see it that way. If only women voted in this country, Republicans would not have a chance. Indeed, you can say the same about Latinos, Jews, African-Americans, immigrants, the poor ... And Republicans have their base groups as well -- white men, evangelical Christians, rural voters and those in the ex-urbs, etc. It turns out that how you vote is enormously impacted by citizenship status, race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.

We have spent a lot of time on this group talking about the bias of particular news-sources, particularly the New York Times. It is interesting to look at more straight-forward endorsements that the paper makes and go back through history to see who else the paper has supported, seeing the first endorsement of Lincoln to their current one for Obama is particularly astounding, considering how often Obama references Lincoln in his speeches. Though most papers try to maintain some bipartisanship, when they do make their political allegiances clear they send a powerful message. I wonder how much influence their endorsements make, especially if they are already a left-leaning or heavily conservative paper and their readership is similarly aligned. But with a paper as widespread and respected as the New York Times, I am sure it has some influence on undecided voters.

I wonder as I look through the changing parties in the endorsements how much it indicates changes in the Democratic and Republican parties and how much it reflects editorial changes. Early on the paper endorsed many Republicans and haven't for many years recently. It was particularly interesting to see how many times they endorsed candidates running against FDR. I would have imagined that the editors of today's paper would have endorsed him during each election.

Cody, I don't think it has much to do with "endorsing along party line" as it has to do with the fact that the editors for the NY times tend to be liberal. I don't think they are just like "oh, we'll support the Democrat." I'm sure it has more to do with the policies and beliefs of the candidates and those beliefs and policies that align with the NY Times tend to be Democratic candidates. I also don't mean to be foolish here, but it seems like liberal policies have worked for the most part. Whenever we here about another era in America, it always harkens back to times with bigger government, higher taxes.