Mark Mellman

I’m about to make some enemies. In recent weeks, passionate denunciations of “superdelegates” have rolled in from most quarters of the Democratic Party. They’ve been labeled unfair, unjust and even…

We dissect the failings of political pollsters at length — and there’s much to criticize. However, those of us in politics face a test each Election Day. We’re either right…

It’s the question I get most often from those who, like me, abhor Donald Trump and the poison he peddles: “How can so many people find him appealing?” Part of…

Having failed (as of Monday) to stem the Trump tide with voters, the Republican establishment is looking to the party’s Cleveland convention as the site of its counter-coup. It won’t…

Leadership consists, in important measure, of creating identities, defining situations, interpreting realities and explaining what’s happening to people in terms that followers understand and can relate to. Charismatic leadership emerges…

Imitation is, as we all know, the highest form of flattery. It can also be dumb. Politics, where anecdote passes for evidence, is particularly susceptible to the dangers of imitation.…

There’s a facile assumption abroad in the land that the two “outsider” presidential candidates in their respective parties, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are different sides of the same coin,…

The first two nominating events of this election cycle, Iowa and New Hampshire, produced different winners in both parties. Why? It wasn’t an intervening event or an issue that played…

Last weekend, a leading conservative intellectual promised me Donald Trump would not win Iowa. “How can you be so sure?” I asked. “God,” he replied, “looks out for children, drunkards…

As polls pour out of early primary states, it’s worth examining just how complex and fragile those instruments are. Recently we’ve been treated to three polling autopsies that illustrate potential…