UI in the National Political News

April 2008

Peterson discusses late night comedy, politics (Washington Post, April 28)
University of Iowa professor RUSSELL PETERSON, author of "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke," published by Rutgers University Press, discusses his new book and explores "Is Late Night Comedy Hurting Democracy?" in a Washington Post political podcast. Link to article

Columnist cites Iowa Electronic Markets (Congressional Quarterly, April 30)
A column about whether Sen. Hillary Clinton will leave the Democratic primary contest notes that online electronic markets, such as Intrade and the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS, estimate roughly 5 to 1 in favor of Obama over Clinton, but slightly below the almost 6 to 1 spread a couple of months ago. Link to article

IEM says Clinton's chances are slim (New York Post, April 28)
Despite Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania, the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS at the University of Iowa College of Business rate her chances as slim. Link to article

IEM cited in column (Wall Street Journal, April 28)
Columnist L. Gordon Crovitz cites the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS at the UI while discussing election odds for 2008. Link to article

Lewis-Beck's political prediction model noted (Washington Post, April 25)
In this article about the mathematics behind the delegate and superdelegate numbers needed to earn the Democratic presidential nomination, it's said that observers agree that the math is most definitely not in Sen. Hillary Clinton's favor. But everyone watches the race because it's still a race, because politics doesn't always obey the predictions. Back in 2000, a whole lot of political scientists used models to predict who would win the presidential election, and a whole lot of them picked a guy who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Not-My-Presidency. That was the year that "everything went up in flames," says the University of Iowa's MICHAEL S. LEWIS-BECK, who had Al Gore winning with 56.9 percent of the vote. Link to article

Peterson comments on politics on talk shows (WAQY, April 23)
RUSSELL PETERSON, who teaches in the UI's Department of American Studies, is interviewed on about his new book, "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke." He comments on how people get political news from talk shows and programs such as the "Daily Show." The radio station is based in Hartford, Conn. Link to audio clip

Clinton still lags in Iowa Electronic Markets (MSNBC, April 23)
In the Iowa Electronic Markets, online users can invest up to $500 in shares that are tied to the outcome of the Democratic (or Republican) primary season. On Wednesday, you could have bought into Clinton's chances at around 18 cents a share. You might think that Clinton's stock would have risen (and Obama's stock would have fallen) after Tuesday's win, but the market was relatively unchanged. "In fact, Obama has moved up a point and a half," said University of Iowa spokesman TOM SNEE. Snee said Obama's slight strengthening may be due to the perception that he still has the nomination locked up, and that Clinton is running out of time and money. Link to article

Obama continues to lead Iowa Electronic Markets (TIME, April 23)
On Monday, the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS showed that Barack Obama had a 75 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination; Hillary Clinton was at 21 percent. The prediction markets, run by professors at the Henry B. Tippie College of Business, let people buy and sell futures contracts pegged to each candidate's chances of winning. On Wednesday morning, after Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary, Obama contracts were trading at 78.9 cents (indicating a 78.9 percent chance of winning the nomination), and Clinton was at 18.2 cents. Link to article

Editorial notes Peterson book (Herald and Review, April 20)
An editorial notes that University of Iowa professor RUSSELL PETERSON, a former political cartoonist and stand-up comedian, recently wrote "Strange Bedfellows: How Late Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke." Peterson said repeated jokes that portray politicians as fools, corrupt, egomaniacs and laughable discourages participation the democratic process. Peterson told the McClatchy-Tribune News Service: "I really do think that this sort of belief, that it doesn't matter, is one of the most damaging beliefs that a democracy can harbor. I don't think comedy invented that belief, but it's one of the most important avenues through which it is expressed." The newspaper is based in Decatur, Ill. Link to article

IEM forecasts election outcomes (Green Bay Press Gazette, April 20)
Snapshots of the presidential contest's outcome are straightforward with the Iowa Electronic Markets. Open to anyone, the simulated stock market was established in 1998 and is overseen by the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA's business college as a research tool. Link to article

Gronbeck: debate questions could prove helpful (Los Angeles Times, April 18)
For nearly an hour, the 10.7 million viewers of the Democratic presidential debate did not hear a single question about the economy, Iraq or healthcare. Instead, they heard ABC newsmen Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, the moderators, revisit controversies about Obama's former pastor, Obama's failure to wear flag lapel pins, and his casual association with a '60s radical. Many who watched were livid. However, BRUCE GRONBECK, a professor of communications studies at the University of Iowa, said that these kinds of questions, coming before the Democrats have settled on a nominee, might prove helpful to the party's candidate in the long run. "If you handle them well, the media may not cover them as enthusiastically and the public becomes inured as well," he said. Link to article

Iowa Electronic Markets see sharp shift (Yahoo News, April 17)
This, like 1992, is a U.S. presidential election year. Then, consumers' pessimism virtually gave the Democrats the presidency. Markets had assumed the same would be true in 2008 -- until recently. The IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS' presidential futures have seen a sharp shift in the past few days. They now put the Republicans' chances, for a long time less than 40 percent, at 46.4 percent, their highest since February last year. Link to article

Democrats, Obama favored in IEM (New York Times, April 15)
The markets are speaking at the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS at the University of Iowa, and they are saying that the Democrats have an edge to take the White House in the fall and that Barack Obama is the favored candidate over Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Iowa Electronic Markets, which requires investors to put in real money, is proving to be a possible election oracle. The market is a simulated futures market, except that instead of trading cattle futures or treasury bills, the University of Iowa market trades political futures -- betting on who is going to win in the fall. This article was posted on the NEW YORK TIMES POLITICS BLOG. Link to article

Peterson comedy critique is cited (Chicago Tribune, April 13)
RUSSELL PETERSON, a University of Iowa professor who once worked as a political cartoonist and stand-up comedian, contends that the cumulative effect of nightly monologues by Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien is corrosive. If all politicians are corrupt, laughable, puffed-up egomaniacs, what difference does it make who gets your vote, or whether you vote at all? "I really do think that this sort of belief, that it doesn't matter, is one of the most damaging beliefs that a democracy can harbor," said Peterson, author of the recently published "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke." This story was linked by USA Today.
Link to article

Gronbeck: McCain 'almost untouchable' (Yahoo Finance UK and Ireland, April 10)
Presidential Republican candidate John McCain has been battling to control his infamous temper since childhood, when schoolmates nicknamed him "McNasty" and "Punk." Until now, discussion of McCain's temper has been largely restricted to the chattering classes of Washington and Phoenix. "It will only become an election issue if he shows a flash of anger on the campaign trail that brings it to wider attention," predicts BRUCE GRONBECK, an expert on presidential character at the University of Iowa. Democrats may try to make a connection between McCain's temper and his bellicose rhetoric on Iraq and the "war on terror" to sow unease about his becoming president. But any overt attacks against the character of a revered war hero would risk backfiring. "He is almost untouchable," says Gronbeck. Link to article

Reporter raves about Peterson's political humor book (Washington Post, April 10)
Troy Patterson, the television critic at Slate, shares in an online transcript how he is pleased as punch that the Washington Post invited him to discuss "The Satire Recession," his recent piece about political comedy. The article concerns late-night TV in general and "Saturday Night Live" in particular, and it is heavily indebted to a new book titled "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke." The book, written by an American Studies professor at the University of Iowa named RUSSELL L. PETERSON and published by Rutgers University Press, is excellent -- essential reading, he believes, for everyone who takes funny business seriously. Link to article

Leicht: mortgage crisis may help Democrats (Congressional Quarterly, April 10)
KEVIN LEICHT, director of the University of Iowa's Institute for Inequality Studies and its Social Science Research Center, says the national foreclosure crisis could help position Democrats to make gains in Pennsylvania's "swing" suburbs -- places with mixed politics and middle-class economic profiles -- because the issue extends from the pocketbook to the heartstrings. "People buy houses as a financial investment. You're in this house. You're in this neighborhood. It's a sign that you've made it to the middle class," he said. "For the middle class a home is such a central piece of the American dream, when you mess with that it's like messing with the American flag." Link to article

'Cafferty File' notes Iowa Electronic Market prices (CNN, April 9)
Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination, and the odds are he'll go all the way to the White House. So say the bettors in the prediction markets. Reuters reports that traders in the Dublin-based "Intrade" market give Obama an 86 percent chance of being the nominee, versus a 13 percent chance for Hillary Clinton. On the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS at the University of Iowa, traders give Obama an 83 percent chance of winning, compared to a 13 percent chance for Clinton. Link to article

Iowa Electronic Markets traders favor Obama (Reuters, April 9)
Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton will win several state nominating contests in the coming months but has little chance of becoming the party's candidate for the November 2008 election, traders were betting on Tuesday. On the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA traders are giving Obama an 82.9 percent chance of winning, versus a 12.8 percent chance for Clinton. Prediction exchanges let traders buy and sell contracts on the likelihood of future events. Contracts are structured so the prices can be read as a percent likelihood of an event occurring. Studies of prediction markets have shown they have an accuracy comparable to that of public opinion polls. The article appeared in several media outlets, including the BOSTON GLOBE, NEW YORK TIMES, AOL NEWS, YAHOO! NEWS, and several others. Link to article

Covington comments on Pennsylvania primary (Morning Call, April 9)
What happened to predictions of Pennsylvania enjoying the blanket-the-state politicking of New Hampshire and Iowa? In a word, size. The retail politics used in smaller states doesn't work in Pennsylvania, which has a half-dozen media markets and more than 4 million Democratic voters spread over 45,000 square miles. "It makes no sense to meet people face to face if you are only going to meet a drop in the bucket," said CARY COVINGTON, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. "In a place like Pennsylvania, how can you possibly reach a critical mass of people except through television advertising?" The newspaper is based in Pennsylvania. Link to article

Peterson book praised (Slate.com, April 8)
In a review of "Not Just Another Cable News Show" a new political satire show on CNN, the writer notes RUSSELL L. PETERSON, of the American Studies department at the University of Iowa, and his new book "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke." The writer calls the book "acultural analysis so smart, supple, and frisky that it instantly stands as required reading for every aspiring critic in the country." Link to article

Gronbeck discusses Obama youth appeal (Indianapolis Star, April 6)
"Obama has been much more effective in reaching younger voters," said BRUCE GRONBECK, who runs the Center for Media Studies and Political Culture at the University of Iowa. "His campaign got a good jump on the young voters and has held on." Link to article

Peterson's book is reviewed (Salon, April 5)
UI faculty member RUSSELL L. PETERSON's "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke" is reviewed. Link to article

Gronbeck comments of perception of Clinton (Colorado Springs Gazette, April 5)
The flap over Hillary Clinton's claim that she braved sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia has highlighted a problem that's plagued her for much of her public life: A lot of people think she's dishonest. "She's fought that from the days of his presidency from Travelgate," the flap over the White House Travel Office, said BRUCE GRONBECK, a communications professor at the University of Iowa. "I don't ever expect her to have strong trust numbers. (But) she has an amazing ability to recover. She's an extraordinary healer. She can heal herself and carry on." Link to article

Rove's UI appearance cited (Huffington Post, April 2)
In this column about Karl Rove's recent interview with GQ magazine, it's noted he made an appearance at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, during which he "scolded the attendees." Link to article