On this episode of inFocus, I’m joined by Dr. Marc Hetherington and Dr. Jonathan Weiler, authors of Prius or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide. The book was published in 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
I read the book a few years ago and it had a big impact on how think about public opinion, political behaviour, and what impacts both. In their book, Hetherington and Weiler show that the key to understanding polarization in the United States requires understanding how personality and worldviews impact opinions and behaviour.
They also show that these factors also impact what we drive, where we live, where we vacation, and not surprising how we vote.
In this episode of inFocus with David Coletto, we look at the Conservative Party of Canada's road to victory.I share some analysis I did on how current Conservative supporters compare with those open to voting for the party.The analysis reveals a bumpy road for the party - how to appeal to the base when it has very different views and priorities than those the party needs to attract to grow.You can see my full analysis over at the Abacus Data website: https://abacusdata.ca/conservative-party-canada-gap/ ...
Welcome to the first episode of Season 2 of inFocus with David Coletto. Former PM Kim Campbell is notorious for saying that an election is no time to discuss serious issues. That might be true, but it turns out the best way to win an election campaign may be to run on issues that voters care about and want action on. Donald Trump did it. Boris Johnson did it. And Justin Trudeau did it. That's what I learned from my chat with David Shor, an American data scientist who worked on the 2012 Obama campaign, the 2015 Canadian Liberal campaign, and currently is the head of data science at Open Labs, a progressive non-profit. On the 2012 Obama campaign, Shor worked on the team that developed a polling model that projected Obama’s vote share within 1 percentage point in eight of the nine battleground states. Prior to working on the Obama campaign, David also worked alongside Nate Silver. A recent New York Magazine article by Eric Levitz that got a lot of attention describes David as “a self-avowed socialist who insists that big-dollar donors pull the Democratic Party left. An adherent of Leninist vanguardism and the median voter theorem. And someone who can answer any question about US politics by referencing at least three peer-reviewed studies. He’s recently appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and HBO’s the Bill Maher show. So the obvious next booking was inFocus with David Coletto, right? I’m thrilled he agreed to chat. We talked about his thoughts on polling, campaigns, and the simple but important lesson that running election campaigns on issues people care about works. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic, like all crises, put a bright spotlight on political leadership. Political leaders, at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, were tested in ways few ever imagined when they first ran for office. The past 13 months have forced leaders to communicate and engage the public more frequently and in a different manner than normal. In this episode of inFocus, I’m joined by two people who know a lot about communications, leadership, and political branding. I wanted to get their takes on how our political leaders have done, how leading through a crisis is different, and what it all means for the future of Canadian politics. Jeni Armstrong is an instructor at the Clayton H. Riddell Graduate Program in Political Management at Carleton University. For 20 years she has been a leading communication professional most recently serving as Director of Communications for former Finance Minister Bill Morneau. Before that, she served as the lead speechwriter for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Dr. Alex Marland is a professor of Political Science at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Dr. Marland is an expert on Canadian politics, communications, and political branding. His book, Brand Command: Canadian Politics and Democracy in the Age of Message Control published by UBC press in 2016 won the Donner Prize for best public policy book by a Canadian. ...
