Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: “Wisconsin has historically been a battleground, so when a national tide comes in, the margins to flip things here are smaller,” said David Canon, a political scientist at University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Quoted: His unpredictability “gave him more leverage than an average senator” because both parties had to plead their sides before Feingold would make a decision, said Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin political science professor who studies American politics. “It made the Senate a more interesting body.”

Quoted: “I think Governor-elect Scott Walker and the state Legislature will be completely preoccupied initially solving the budget problems,” said Mark Bugher, director of the University Research Park near the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It?s a significant problem they?ve inherited and it will take a herculean effort to get a balanced budget together and passed by July 1.”

Quoted: Walker?s promise to eliminate the corporate income tax for new businesses will almost certainly deepen the state?s budget deficit, said Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “I would be interested in using it,” says Douglas Weibel, a University of Wisconsin, Madison, researcher who also uses microfluidics devices to study bacterial chemotaxis. He thinks that the new chip could address cellular differences in migrating bacteria populations — for instance, how cells on the leading edge of migrating bands differ in protein expression from those at the trailing edge.

Quoted: “It?s rare to find someone who gets into office and reverses course,” said Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor. “Every governor implements their policy incrementally.”

Quoted: The race in Wisconsin reflects a national dissatisfaction with the direction of government, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Quoted: Dennis Dresang, a political-science scholar and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, doesn?t see Tuesday?s Feingold loss in quite such stark terms, arguing that while the state?s penchant for liberalism has taken a sharp detour, it will rise again in Wisconsin and around the country.

Quoted: “There?s a huge question of what governing looks like if tea party folks get elected to the Senate, where each individual can tie the Senate into knots by themselves,” Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, told the Monitor before Election Day. “It?s hard to see how Congress adopts a governing program that would satisfy most of the people in the tea party movement.”

Noted: New technologies, especially minimally invasive technologies, present another problem, said Dr. K. Craig Kent, chair of the Surgery Department at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. When a technology is new and looks like a panacea, everyone wants it and resists being randomly assigned to the comparison group receiving the standard treatment. That desire wanes only after a couple of years when the inevitable drawbacks begin to manifest.

Noted: When this research first came to light last year, University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks cautioned against reading too much into fossilized fingers. He said the index-to-ring ratio “may be correlated with mating system in primates, but that doesn?t mean it?s a good predictor of mating system. … As fossil hominins go, I wouldn?t expect the story to go any further — there just aren?t many hands, so there?s never going to be a significantly predictive result.”

Noted: That said, Kenneth R. Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells BATTLE ?10 that Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D., WI-02) has been running ads in Madison against her opponent, 27-year-old businessman Chad Lee (R). Merely an ??insurance policy? to be sure, Mayer says, but almost unprecedented in a district that voted nearly 70 percent for Obama.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison added: ?If history holds, this is the prediction of a Republican wave of genuinely historical proportions.?

Quoted: Dr. Barbara Knox, a child abuse expert at UW Children?s Hospital.

Quoted: UW-Madison law professor Shubha Ghosh, who specializes in intellectual property and business law.

Noted: Barry Burden, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Madison Area Technical College has not done enough to spread the word to such a wide range of voters.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison added: ?If history holds, this is the prediction of a Republican wave of genuinely historical proportions.?

Ending on an upbeat note is a typical strategy after a hard-fought race, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As voters get ready to head to the polls, each candidate wants to leave them with positive thoughts, he said.

Quoted: “(Polling) is quite accurate,” Barry Burden, a UW political science professor, said. “And we?ve got a number of firms and universities who are now competing for the polling business here, so you?ve got lots of competition, which is generally a good thing.”

Quoted: UW Political Science Professor Barry Burden says, “For an editorial board of a newspaper to endorse a candidate, I think it carries more weight. This is a non-partisan decision made by a group of editors based on reporting over several weeks or months.”

Forget the negative attack ads you?ve seen for the past few weeks. Sen. Russ Feingold and his challenger Ron Johnson have toned it down and softened it up lately. “These are classic close-the-deal ads,” says UW political science professor David Canon.  “The music makes it feel softer.”

Quoted: The book is especially welcome because of the paucity of black characters in quality children?s literature, said Kathleen T. Horning, director of the Cooperative Children?s Book Center at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. According to the center?s statistics, about 5,000 children?s books were published in the United States in 2009, and 157 featured major black characters.

George Stephanopulos discusses the last minute election advertising blitz with UW-Madison political scientist Ken Goldstein.

Quoted: James Kenneth Powell, Doctorate, UW-Madison Buddhist studies.

What?s the best way for people to learn how to handle money? That?s what the UW-Madison Center for Financial Security wants to find out. Established in 2008 within the School of Human Ecology, the center is an effort to combine resources in areas such as consumer science, economics, sociology, education, psychology and even library science to get the public better educated, financially. J. Michael Collins is leading the five-year project.

Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Quoted: “Democrats currently disappointed with Obama will likely be less disappointed if he spends the next two years fighting a GOP Congress” should Republicans do well on Election Day, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling analyst.

Quoted: “There is the scary kind of issue if the governor and lieutenant governor are on the same plane and it goes down,” said Dennis Dresang, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If people vote straight-party ticket, that could sweep in somebody that you otherwise would think, ?that?s not the kind of person I want.?”

Quoted: ?There are only so many hours to run television advertisements,? said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?Campaigns wisely have looked to more cost-effective ways to target voters more narrowly.?

Quoted: “If history holds, then this is the prediction of a Republican wave of genuinely historical proportions, possibly beyond the 1994 election,” when Democrats lost control of the House and Senate, says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With Republican voters reporting record levels of enthusiasm, the GOP is poised for gains well beyond the turnover of 39 seats it needs to take control of the House.

Quoted: Michael Rothschild, a professor of business at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has researched the likelihood of terrorist attacks on the United States, said the probability of an attack was still too low to deter him from visiting the president?s neighborhood.

Quoted: ?Making things less complicated can actually make a lot of money,? said Gregg C. Vanderheiden, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has worked on accessibility issues for decades.

Quoted: But James Shatava, a retired agricultural economist from the University of Wisconsin, is doubtful. ?Fewer students commented on my International Harvester sign in my office as the years went by,? he said.

Quoted: Running against Washington, however, is trickier for Democrats. ?The fact is, the Democrats own the current situation,? said Ken Goldstein, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: But the negative ads can be effective if they provide information of concern to voters, said Ken Goldstein, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies political ads.

Quoted: For the market to mature, it may be necessary for private companies, which have minimal disclosure requirements, to share more information about themselves. ?Getting these companies on board is essential to making these markets work from a legal standpoint,? says Darian Ibrahim, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has studied private stock sales.

Quoted: Kenneth Goldstein, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin who monitors advertising in political races nationwide, said last-minute advertising is unlikely to affect a race, like this one, where the frontrunner, Rubio, has held the lead for months.

Quoted: The partisan makeup of Texas is working in favor of incumbent Rick Perry, a Republican. The state?s unemployment rate is at 8.1 percent ? lower than the national average but high enough to fuel political attacks in similarly situated states, such as Iowa and Massachusetts. ?There is no doubt that the partisan make-up of the state is shielding Rick Perry from a fairly devastating critique on the unemployment rate,? says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.