Clearing out the blog backlog

I have just been way too busy this past week… advising, media interviews, grading, state fair, in addition to all the usual demands, so there's lots of great stuff I just haven't blogged.  Each of these, I think, deserves their own full post.  But, rather than just let them disappear forever into the ether, I'll mention each in a bullet point:

• John McCain has been talking a lot about how Obama wants to “spread the wealth around.”  It's called progressive taxation.  Its sensible.  And Matt Yglesias links to a nice video of John McCain defending it.

• TNR's Michael Crowley has a nice look at the booming business of political surveys and what to make of all of it.  

• Newsweek this week makes the claim that we are a Right-leaning nation. Paul Waldman puts the lie to this all-too-common trope.  

• Greensboro News & Record reporter, Joe Killian, has quite an interesting first-person account of being physically assaulted at a Sarah Palin rally in NC last week.  

• And two noteworthy links from Political Scientists extraordinaire, Larry Bartels.  First, Americans are not all that interested in their president being smart.  Of course, you already knew that– but it is nice to see some data on the point.   He's also got a really nice essay (though political science-y) on just how irrational voters are and why this matters.  

Sorry, not to highlight the best parts in a full post, as I like to do, but hopefully you'll find at least some of these worth clicking through to.  I fear that I won't have a lot of time for blog posts till after the election– at which point all my best material will be used up.