Welcome to my new (and first) blog! This blog will be the exhaust pipe for my assorted political thoughts. I often find myself wondering who bloggers are and what they are about, so here's me.
I am a senior undergraduate studying Political Science and Statistics (or Electioneering as I call it) at Duke. I grew up in Raleigh and have been a lifelong Duke fan. I found my way into Political Science by way of the Engineering school and a professor my freshman year who taught me about the world of understanding politics numerically and taught me the power of institutions to affect outcomes - hence the blog name. My passion is using and developing statistics to make strategic decisions. Politics is my chosen applied field. Long term I hope to work as a campaign consultant, most likely in polling. I may, however, end up in the non-political realm doing similar work. I guess not knowing is part of the glory of being young.
Politically, I am a registered Democrat who has worked on Democratic campaigns most recently for Bev Perdue's NC gubernatorial bid doing statistical strategy stuff. My involvement with Governor Perdue has made me ever more interested in politics as a career. However, I don't consider myself exactly a rah-rah party guy. I initially registered unaffiliated and voted Libertarian in the 2004 Presidential contest on the basis of neither major party candidate offering any real solution to the most pressing issue our government faced/faces - budget deficits.
Much of the writings I expect to do here will be something along the lines of the applied stat-type blogs I read (Andrew Gelman, Charles Franklin, Mark Blumenthal, Sam Wang, etc.) and the political blogs I read. I'll probably also get tempted to toss in some general political commentary. I'll be doing research with Professor John Aldrich next semester into undervoting (more on this to come), so I'll probably chronicle some of my work in that realm here as well.
You have a blog!!!!!!!
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