Impertinent Questions

Senator Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, based on a conservative Associated Press tally of delegates.

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Few in the United States have taken the opportunity to acknowledge, much less to commemorate, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the U.S. slave trade in 1808.
For this reason, I was pleased to see that Senator John McCain gave a campaign speech on Wednesday in Michigan, in which he took the importance of the British and […]

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How did the Democratic candidates for president actually do on Tuesday? 
The results are still being calculated, especially from the Texas caucuses, where even unofficial results are still coming in.
However, as of this morning, we finally have reliable estimates for all the delegates to be awarded from Tuesday, and the overall result is now clearer than ever. […]

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In this post, I provide summary results from Tsunami Tuesday and offer analysis and responses on a few issues that I’ve been asked about.
As always, this post is intended to be helpful to those who have expressed an interest in hearing from me. It may not be at all useful to those who have no […]

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This post is for those who’ve been asking me questions about “Tsunami Tuesday” — in particular, what to look for as election returns come in tonight (and tomorrow morning) from the 24 states holding primaries, caucuses, or conventions today.

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Here are a few of my thoughts in response to the results in Iowa last night:

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There’s more polling data out of Iowa this morning. This time, the poll was of likely Republican caucus-goers, again conducted for the Washington Post and ABC News.
The story here, surprising perhaps only in its magnitude, is the momentum of Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is the first choice of 24% of those polled, which puts him […]

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There’s some fascinating polling data out of Iowa this morning, courtesy of the Washington Post and ABC News.
To start with, Barack Obama leads, with 30% of those who say they’re likely to attend the Democratic caucuses, followed by Hillary Clinton with 26% and John Edwards at 22%. (Bill Richardson is in fourth place with 11%.)

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Roger Kimball, at Pajamas Media, has an extended essay today arguing against affirmative action, hyphenated Americans, immigration, and multiculturalism.
Kimball’s essay, which draws heavily on arguments from Sam Huntington, offers many of the usual objections to the preceding elements of progressive politics, as well as to such related concepts as arguments by philosophers and social scientists […]

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The New York Times has a feature article this morning on new empirical studies by economists, suggesting that the execution of criminals may have a deterrent effect after all.
This research, which purports to show that each execution prevents several violent deaths, is highly controversial, but it adds a new element to the legal and political debate […]

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