Peter Murmann

The Economists provides a good review of Obama’s acceptance speech. The Democratic convention:  Barack Obama’s pitch to the centre PERHAPS because there are so few of them, campaign strategists for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney can describe the undecided voters who will help determine the outcome of this year’s election with remarkable precision. On Thursday evening [Read More]

The conservative commentator put the finger on Mitt’s problem. Given the state of the economy, by any historical standard, Barack Obama should be 15 points behind Mitt Romney. Why is he tied? The empathy gap. On “caring about average people,” Obama wins by 22 points. Maintaining that gap was a principal goal of the Democratic [Read More]

Last night I was never a big fan of Clinton the person but last night’s speech to win over people who have not made up their mind on how to vote was masterful.

Behind the Scenes of the Speech. How Bill Clinton ad-libs his way to a winning speech

Two minutes after ten Thursday night, I turned on my TV to watch Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. But there was Client Eastwood, giving an improvised speech that struck me as bizarre. During the past two days, the Client Eastwood show is the talked about event. If you have missed what Eastwood said, here is a [Read More]

I am too far away from Russia to have a sense whether Putin was clever or stupid to put a rock band behind bars for two years. Pussy Riots will become infinitely more famous after this judgement.

Eduardo Porter in the NY Times gives a good overview of the relative taxation level in different countries. What he is leaving out is that the US at least twice as much on military expenditures than the other industrialized countries. There is something to be said for universal health care systems. When my son developed a [Read More]

There is a correlation between population size and medals won. But India is the puzzle. Britain did well, which seems to suggest that having the games at homes leads to better performance.

No longer can anyone claim the two presidential tickets are not offering stark contrasts. Now a real debate about the future of government can take place. John Dickerson reports in Slate. Someone Is Going To Be Very Disappointed By the Ryan VP Pick Rejoice! It’s Ryan! Conservatives are thrilled by Romney’s VP pick. So are Democrats. [Read More]