Good afternoon my lovely followers! It's nice to see so many of you stumbling onto my blog looking for something to entertain you (turn back, there's nothing but academics here). Anywho, what follows is a critical review of another AP GOPO blog, as mandated by the calendar assignment dated 9/2/13. Mrs. Wharton, ready your implements of grading.
The blog I will be reviewing is AP GOPO Mrs. Wharton by Brett Winward, my fellow GOPO blogsman. Brett's first post is short and to the point, which I respect. His selection process for his book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State; Why Americans Vote the Way They Do? is logical, similar to my process of selection. He does a good job of describing the books content, though I personally believe he could've added a few more details to his second and third posts.
Brett's book is similar to mine, in that both of our books are mainly focused on political partisanship. However, while my book demonstrated the effects of partisanship in the government, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State; Why Americans Vote the Way They Do? seems to focus more on how our attributes affect our own partisanship. Another similarity is that both Brett and I considered our authors to have the expertise required to be legitimate in their fields. In addition, both of our books do indicate how economics affects our political choices. Some other differences may be that the author of my selection is a political columnist while the author of Brett's has no listed achievements in political science. In addition, the main focus of Brett's book was how people vote, while mine was the corruption in our government manifested as behaviors of politicians, which are arguably two vastly different topics. Furthermore, I suspect Andrew Gelman didn't unnecessarily discuss the physical appearance of two score people over the course of his work, unlike Elizabeth Drew.
One question I would pose to Brett is as follows:
Which characteristic does the author express most affects people's voting choices (i.e. is it race, religion, age, income, etc.)?
