Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post

lol...allrighty then...you go right on thinking its not a science if you want while the people who know it is use what they know to work the system.

Numbers don't lie. Cliometrics and it's uses in Political Science are well known factors that involve a lot of in depth statistical analysis.

If money wasn't a factor Romney wouldn't be pulling back ahead of Newt in the primaries right now.

On another note :

There is a lot of overlap in things the Tea Party and the Occupy movements want and I think they would be better served by combining their independent efforts and dropping or excluding the two primary parties from participation....haven't we seen this before with the Reform and Whig parties back in the day?

How can you establish an empirical, causal connection between campaign contributions and candidate electability. One could say that Huntsman receives no money because he is not popular, OR that he is not popular because he receives no money from PACs and special interest groups. This is my problem with the social sciences AS A WHOLE. the only two I can tolerate are econometrics (not micro or macro) and Psychology. The others don't seem to establlish much of a conclusion. And econ is rapdily losing any of the meager credibility it had before