This is a survey of the 90 women and one man who have been married at any time to those who were elected or otherwise became President or Vice-President of the United States (an update from my previous post on this topic in 2007). I'm aware that this is a heteronormative approach; it is determined really by the available records (which are ( Read more... )

I've been updating my presidential stats page to reflect recent developments and also to include some data on the wives of presidents and vice-presidents, and have run up against a slightly surprising problem: I can't find a birth date, not even a year of birth, for the first wife of current Vice-President Joe Biden. As is well known, she was ( Read more... )

I've occasionally posted bits from Stratfor, a group of Texas-based foreign policy analysts, whose general bias is to look at world affairs in terms of geography as the crucial factor, which is interesting but they often tend to miss out on details of the politics. For instance, like many external (and some internal) observers they simply don't get ( Read more... )

The excellent Strange Maps produced a fascinating overlay of Obama votes in this month's presidential election compared with cotton production in 1860. Not surprisingly there is a huge correlation: cotton in 1860 => slaves => black population now => Obama support.


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As evidenced by Katie Couric, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court Case other than Roe v. Wade.

The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historical your lj. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.) For those who see this on your f-list, take the meme to your OWN lj to spread the fun.I'm afraid that apart ( Read more... )

Actually the most interesting bit of psephological anorakery about this year's election so far is Crooked Timber's piece on the time zone biases of the candidates. The only Democratic candidate for either President or Vice-President who was living outside the Central or Eastern time zones (or at least the territory which now forms them) when ( Read more... )

Glad to see (assuming it is confirmed) that Joe Biden has got the nod for the VP slot. If they win, then some of my friends in DC may end up with interesting changes of job...

22) God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, by Jim Wallis ( Read more... )

I do occasionally get funny correspondence about my web page on US Presidential elections and facial hair. But over the last 48 hours I have hit the bigtime: Andrew Sullivan, whose "The Daily Dish" is one of the top US political blogs, linked to it under the flattering title The Ultimate Dish link. Seeing as he is so widely read, I'm not surprised ( Read more... )

33) Letter from America, 1946-2004, by Alistair Cooke ( Read more... )