Hill column  .

Does it really matter whether Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage was a direct response to Sarah Palin’s exhortation to “rearm” instead of retreating, or Michele Bachmann’s appeal for “armed and dangerous”…

We each like to believe we are pretty normal, pretty much like everyone else. Other people know what we know; we see things the way most other people do. However,…

Regular readers (at least those who believe anything I say) recognize economic performance as a key determinant of electoral outcomes. Instead of rehearsing all the evidence for this proposition again,…

Turnout fetishists, who interpret this and most every election in terms of who did and did not come to the polls, are again infesting the commentariat. Of course, almost by…

While I was focused on campaigns, two new studies rippled through the sports world, demolishing icons and challenging long-held assumptions. Contrary to conventional wisdom – as well as untold hours…

James Carville was not the first person to discern a link between politics and the economy. Though no one had phrased it quite so artfully before (“It’s the economy, stupid”),…

Understanding the great wave that washed away so many fine Democratic members of the House begins neither with ideology nor policy, but with performance and exposure. We will explore some…

While Paul Simon found 50 ways to leave your lover, I’m going to catalogue 15 ways to think about how many House seats Democrats will lose next week. History ordains…

Polling drives the Democratic debacle narrative. Generic horse-races fan the flames, aided by a host of polls in states and districts across the country. We followed the odyssey of the…

For months, the narrative has been imprinted on our brains: Weighed down by an economy that still feels mired in recession and a president whose popularity is sagging as a…