https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/two_parties_many_paths.html
How America’s Political Parties Change (And How They Don’t), by Michael Barone, Encounter Books, 2019, 130 pages
Before American media began to worship at the feet of the statistics gurus (Nate Silver and others), Michael Barone was generally regarded as the writer with the greatest insight into American politics, past and present. Barone’s biennial “Almanac of American Politics”, a thick collection of essays and voting histories on the 50 states, and every Congressional district, provided the best short survey on how American politics was changing at the regional, state and Congressional district level, with analyses of the current officeholders – Governors, Senators, Congressmen, and descriptions of the places they represented. If you met Barone, as I have a few times, he could startle you by describing politics at a granular level – even down to towns or neighborhoods.
But the failure of pretty much every public opinion poll or statistical forecast to accurately predict the results of the 2016 Presidential election results has not diminished the enthusiasm for data analytics, now one of the hottest areas of study in colleges and universities. In Michael Barone’s latest book on America’s two major political parties , he addresses the history of the two parties, the 2016 results, the forecasting failures and what may lay ahead for the two parties.
