GOPs Abbott, Democrats Davis to face off in debate
For the first time since 1998, the Republican and Democratic nominees for Texas governor will debate their positions in a South Texas setting.
By: kxan
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GOPs Abbott, Democrats Davis to face off in debate - Video
One idea gaining currency among psychologists and political scientists is that Democrats and Republicans are politically polarized because they are fundamentally different. As one science journalist concluded after reviewing the literature: "A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology and even traits like physiology and genetics."
Americans are certainly polarized. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 36% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats see the opposing party as a threat to the nation's well-being. But are differences in biology and personality really responsible for political polarization? Perhaps in part. Liberals and conservatives obviously have different ideologies, and research indicates that these ideological differences are correlated with differences in biology and personality.
Research published in Current Biology, for example, found that conservatism was associated with increased gray matter in the right amygdala, whereas liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex. Other research has found personality differences such that conservatives have a greater need for order, structure and authority than liberals.
But despite the intuitive appeal of such conclusions, explaining political polarization with differences in biology and personality overlooks a crucial fact: A big part of the reason Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads is that they are so similar.
When Democrats and Republicans in Congress can't pass legislation whether on gun control, immigration or climate change it is often because both sides have dug in with a similar obstinacy. They both think about political information in a partisan, biased manner.
Consider the "party-over-policy" effect, illustrated by Republicans when it came to the Affordable Care Act. The law's basic tenets including the idea of an individual mandate grew out of Republican proposals. But once Democrats got on board, Republicans turned against it, even asserting that the individual mandate was unconstitutional.
The psychological pull to support one's own party and oppose the other is true of both the left and the right. Geoff Cohen of Stanford University conducted experiments on welfare policy in which subjects felt very differently about proposals depending on which party they were told supported them. "If their party endorsed it," the study found, "liberals supported even a harsh welfare program, and conservatives supported even a lavish one." Note the symmetry: Liberal participants were no more likely than conservatives to base their judgments upon the actual content of the policy. Ezra Klein called this kind of party-over-policy thinking the "depressing psychological theory that explains Washington."
It might seem, therefore, that political differences could be minimized if people could somehow be encouraged to consider policies and evidence in their own right. But this turns out to be not so easy to achieve.
In a recent series of studies on "solution aversion," Troy Campbell and Aaron Kay of Duke University found that people's evaluation of scientific evidence was very different depending on whether they saw the policy implications of the science as politically desirable.
Republicans and Democrats read a statement asserting that global temperatures will rise 3.2 degrees in the 21st century. They were then asked to evaluate a proposed policy solution to address the warming. When the policy solution emphasized government regulation (e.g., a tax on carbon admissions), only 22% of Republicans said they believed the temperature projection was accurate. But when the proposed policy solution emphasized the free market, 55% of Republicans accepted the basic science. Liberals exhibited a mirror-image bias when presented with information about crime risk. If a proposed solution threatened liberal ideology, they were more likely to question whether the risk was as severe as described.
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Similarities between Democrats, Republicans make them so different
TIME Politics 2014 Election Senate Democrats Leading TV Ad Blitz As Election Approaches The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee aired more TV ads in key Senate races last week than any other group
This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ruled the TV airwaves last week, even trumping the conservative super PACs and Koch brothers-backed nonprofits theyve accused of trying to buy elections.
The DSCCan official arm of the Democratic Partyaired about 3,800 ads in U.S. Senate races across eight states, according to a new Center for Public Integrity analysis of preliminary estimates provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, an advertising tracking service.
That was more than double the number of ads run by its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, from Tuesday, Sept. 16, through Monday, Sept. 22.
Such dominance isnt shocking against the backdrop of Senate Republicans fundraising hiccups: the NRSC ended August with about $5 million less in the bank than the DSCC, according to the groups most recent campaign finance filings
Its critical that the DSCC use our sizable fundraising advantage over the NRSC to help bridge the gap and stop the Kochs from buying the U.S. Senate, said DSCC spokesman Justin Barasky, referring to the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch whose political network has also been a major player in competitive Senate races.
NRSC spokeswoman Brook Hougesen did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but numerous recent fundraising pleas from the group have bemoaned the Democrats financial advantage.
The midterm environment is toxic for Democrats, yet theres a chance Republicans may not take the Senate, wrote GOP strategist Karl Rove in a fundraising message for the NRSC on Wednesday. Why? The Democrats have a huge money advantage.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., struck a similar tone in a separate recent email: If we are unable to close the fundraising gap, Republicans risk being outspent 3-to-1, 5-to-1, even 6-to-1 in several key battleground races.
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Senate Democrats Leading TV Ad Blitz As Election Approaches
Rep. Zach DorholtTom Scheck / MPR News
The battle for control of the Minnesota House is attracting millions of dollars, according to fundraising numbers released this week.
Republicans need to pick up seven seats to take over the House, and Democrats acknowledge their path to retaining a majority will be struggle in an off-year election that typically favors Republicans.
For the most part, House Democrats have tried to build a firewall around 15 DFL seats they're in jeopardy of losing in November. One of those seats is in St. Cloud, where first-term incumbent Zach Dorholt is running for his political life against former state Rep. Jim Knoblach.
The House DFL Caucus wasted no time defending Dorholt, spending at least $40,000 on radio ads.
"Zach Dorholt delivered $11 million for local schools," an announcer says." On the other hand, Jim Knoblach won't fight for middle class priorities and would bring Minnesota back to gridlock."
Dorholt acknowledges that Knoblach's candidacy has raised the stakes this election year.
"It's become a little more competitive because of who I'm running against," Dorholt said. "That put this seat on the radar."
Another reason Republicans are targeting Dorholt has to do with geography. He's the only DFL legislator serving anywhere in the 6th Congressional District currently represented by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who is not running for re-election.
Dorholt is using that standing to his advantage, recently telling members of the St. Cloud Rotary Club that he has the entire region at heart.
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Democrats in fight to retain Minnesota House
Rpt Democrats Turning On DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz The Real Story
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Rpt Democrats Turning On DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz The Real Story - Video