Those and other questions were put to Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s former deputy mayor for government affairs and communications, on March 26 in an interview launching Fordham’s Oral Archive on Governance in New York City: The Bloomberg Years.

Wolfson was interviewed by Costas Panagopoulos, PhD, professor of political science and director of Fordham’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy. Wolfson offered an insider’s glimpse of the former mayor as person, policymaker, and visionary.

He said that, contrary to Bloomberg’s media image as billionaire technocrat, the businessman-turned-mayor was adept at wearing a politician’s hat and enjoyed mingling with the public during campaigns and other public events.

“People forget that the skills he brought to Bloomberg Industries were the skills of a salesman,” said Wolfson, who still works with Bloomberg on his philanthropic endeavors. “He knows how to sell a vision, a concept,” something he has done since he was designing and creating financial information terminals as an entrepreneur.

Nevertheless, Wolfson said that Bloomberg’s foremost talent—in fact, “his calling”—is in bullpen-style management and in the running of a complex organization. It was that aspect of being mayor that Bloomberg enjoyed the most.

Another asset was Bloomberg’s lack of political experience prior to his election—a plus because he didn’t know what “couldn’t be done.”

“He hadn’t spent 20 years in politics learning the ‘rules of the road,’ which tend to narrow people’s sense of what is possible,” said Wolfson. “It was easier for him to see his way toward ‘yes.’”

That Bloomberg vision, coupled with his willingness to push unpopular public policies, resulted in political wins, such as his citywide smoking ban, but also failures, such as congestion pricing and a ban on large sugary drinks.

Even then, said Wolfson, Bloomberg saw success in his attempt to pass regulations on sugar intake, because it inspired a closer look at the issue.

“What we tried to do with sugary drinks in New York changed the debate nationally,” he said. “Sometimes what one person might call a failure he would consider a success: Okay, the court struck it down but we changed the conversation.”

As a manager, Bloomberg showed fierce loyalty to staff, said Wolfson. Under his tenure, it was frowned upon to be unsupportive of a colleague; Bloomberg once told him that “the day that newspapers are going after you, that’s the day I walk around with my arm around you.” When questioned by news media, Bloomberg has refused to criticize the current mayor, Bill de Blasio–which Wolfson sayshe does out of respect for the office in which they both have served.

Those areas in which the Bloomberg administration faced public criticism— stop-and-frisk, low-income housing, income inequality, the disastrous school chancellor appointment of Cathie Black—were also raised.

Regarding Black, Wolfson said that Bloomberg would never use the word “sorry” with regard to the appointment, but acknowledges that she was not the right fit. As to poverty and income inequality, Wolfson said the mayor would not view himself as the “great leveler,” rather he sought to create opportunities for poor and middle-class New Yorkers, who he said fared better than the poor in other cities during economic downturns. In fact, he welcomed the rich as a means of strengthening the city’s tax base in order to redistribute monies to those in need.

Bloomberg took office in 2002, immediately following the single most tragic event in the history of the city. Wolfson speculated that he will be remembered as “the guy who came in after 9/11” and created the memorial museum to honor those who died. The larger legacy, however, will be the mayor’s vision for rebuilding an economically collapsed, spiritually broken city.

“At a time of enormous difficulty in the city’s history, he was able to assume leadership [and]give people confidence in New York,” he said. “He believed in the promise and the future of New York. [Even today] he sees it as a gateway to opportunity.”

— Janet Sassi

With yet another election season in the making—this one primarily of local interest—the pros and cons of campaign finance are again making news.

Thanks to new funding, Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., associate professor of political science and director of Fordham’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy, will have a chance to substantially weigh in on the subject.

Panagopoulos secured nearly $1 million from the Open Society Foundation and the Omidyar Network’s Democracy Fund to conduct a series of field experiments to study aspects of campaign finance, making it the department’s largest grant ever procured by a faculty member.

He will be collaborating with Donald Green, Ph.D., of Columbia University, and Jonathan Krasno, Ph.D., of Binghamton University. The project will be housed at the center.

“Political scientists have been studying campaign finance for decades, but the research has been inconclusive because of thorny methodological and legal issues,” said Panagopoulos. “We’re very glad that our funders recognize the importance of lingering questions regarding campaign finance.”

Panagopoulos and his team will look at how disclosure of, and public awareness of, who finances campaigns influences voters. They will also examine what strategies motivate small donors. He said that the explosion of information related to PACs, Super PACs, and various threshold laws have only complicated the conversation.

“There are tremendous misconceptions about campaign fundraising,” he said. “We simply don’t have a good sense of what it takes to motivate small donors to participate, for example.”

Panagopoulos said that because donors donate in various jurisdictions, the study would take into consideration the “layers of democracy,” such as distinctions between campaign finance laws at the federal, state, and local levels. There are also institutional arrangements to consider, such as matching funds and public financing programs.

“Our intent is to try and see how these programs affect contributing behavior,” he said.

The initial phase will include two or three pilot studies in 2013 and then the full-scale studies will roll out shortly thereafter. The study will conclude in 2015.

“We are not prejudging the outcomes,” Panagopoulos said. “There are competing expectations and claims, and we hope our studies will help to separate fact from fiction in a way that informs public policy debates about these important topics.”

Aditi Bagchi,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms,” Bloomberg, February 11

Tom Beaudoin, Ph.D.,

associate professor of practical theology, GRE,

“Woodford and the Quest for Meaning,” ABC Radio, February 16

Mary Bly, Ph.D.,

professor of English, A&S,

“How do Bestselling Novelists Court Cupid on Valentine’s Day?,” Washington Post, February 14

James Brudney,

professor of law, LAW,

“Nutter Seeks High Court’s OK to Impose His Terms on City Workers,” Philly.com, March 1

Charles C. Camosy, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Drone Warfare Faces Barrage of Moral Questions,” Catholic San Francisco, February 20

Colin M. Cathcart, M.F.A.,

associate professor of architecture, A&S,

“New York City Traffic Ranked the Worst Among the Nation: Study,” AM New York, February 6

Saul Cornell, Ph.D.,

The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History, A&S,

“After Newtown: Guns in America,” WNET-TV, February 19

Carole Cox, Ph.D.,

professor of social service, GSS,

“Boomer Stress,” Norwich Bulletin, February 19

George Demacopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” ABC, World News Now, February 28

Christopher Dietrich, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of history, A&S,

“Bad Precedent: Obama’s Drone Doctrine is Nixon’s Cambodia Doctrine (Dietrich),” Informed Comment, February 11

John Entelis, Ph.D.,

professor of political science, A&S,

“John Brennan,” BBC Radio, February 9

Howard Erichson,

professor of law, LAW,

“High-Stakes Trial Begins for 2010 Gulf Oil Spill,” Amarillo Globe-News, February 25

Laura Gonzalez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of finance, BUS,

“Recortes al Presupuesto Podrían Afectar el Seguro Social y Medicare,” Mundo Fox, February 8

Albert Greco, Ph.D.,

professor of marketing, BUS,

“Why Would Anyone Want to Buy a Bookstore?,” Marketplace, February 25

Karen J. Greenberg, Ph.D.,

director of the Center on National Security, LAW,

“Alleged Sept. 11 Plotters in Court, but Lawyers Do the Talking,” National Public Radio, February 11

Stephen R. Grimm, Ph.D.,

associate professor of philosophy, A&S,

“Grants from Foundations and Corporations of More Than $100,000 in 2013,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 28

Tanya Hernandez, Ph.D.,
professor of law, LAW,

“Brazil’s Affirmative Action Law Offers a Huge Hand Up,” Christian Science Monitor, February 12

J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Vatican Conclave,” Huffington Post, March 4

Robert Hume, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“USA: Supreme Court Case Update – DOMA/Prop 8 Briefs Streaming In,” Gay Marriage Watch, February 28

Clare Huntington,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Sunday Dialogue: How to Give Families a Path Out of Poverty,” The New York Times, February 9

Nicholas Johnson,

professor of law, LAW,

“Neil Heslin, Father of Newtown Victim, Testifies at Senate Assault Weapons Ban Hearing,”Huffington Post, February 27

Michael E. Lee, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Tiempo: Watch this Week’s Show,” WABC 7, February 17

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.,

professor of theology, A&S,

“Remembering Benedict — the Teacher, the Traditionalist,” The Saratogian, March 1

Dawn B. Lerman, Ph.D.,

director of the Center for Positive Marketing, marketing area chair, and professor of marketing, BUS,

“Study: Google, Facebook, Walmart Fill Consumer Needs,” Tech Investor News, February 12

Paul Levinson, Ph.D.,

professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“Will Oscar Host Seth MacFarlane Be Asked Back? Probably Not,” Yahoo! News via Christian Science Monitor, February 26

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Ph.D.,

professor of history and director of Latin American and Latino Studies, A&S,

“Escaping Gang Violence, Growing Number of Teens Cross Border,” WNYC, December 28

Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D.,

visiting associate professor of marketing, BUS,

“On TV, an Everyday Muslim as Everyday American,” The New York Times, February 8

Elizabeth Maresca,

clinical associate professor of law, LAW,

“Poll: 87 Percent Say Never OK to Cheat on Taxes,” KWQC, February 26

Carlos McCray, Ed.D.,

associate professor of education leadership, GRE,

“Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School,” Take Part, January 18

Micki McGee, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of sociology, A&S,

“Do Self-Help Books Work?,” Chicago Sun Times, February 21

Mark Naison, Ph.D.,

professor of African and African American Studies and history, and principal investigator of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), A&S,

“Professor: Why Teach For America Can’t Recruit in my Classroom,” Washington Post, February 18

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“Analysis: Obama to Republicans – Can We Just Move On?,” WHTC 1450, February 13

Kimani Paul-Emile,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Some Patients Won’t See Nurses of Different Race,” Cleveland Plain Dealer via AP, February 22

Michael Peppard, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Big Man on Campus isn’t on Campus,” Commonweal, February 20

Francis Petit, Ed.D.,

associate dean and director of Executive Programs, BUS,

“Marissa Mayer Takes Flak for Gathering Her Troops,” E-Commerce Times, March 1

Rose Perez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of social work, GSS,

“Education Segment,” Mundo Fox, January 21

Wullianallur “R.P.” Raghupathi, Ph.D.,

professor of information systems, BUS,

“¿Qué Tiene Silicon Valley para Producir ‘Frutos’ Como Steve Jobs?,” CNN, February 24

Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D.,

Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and professor of law and founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, LAW,

“Google App Store Policy Raises Privacy Concerns,” Reuters, February 14

Erick Rengifo-Minaya, Ph.D.,

associate professor of economics, BUS,

“Noticias MundoFOX 10PM Parte II,” Mundo Fox Noticias, February 8

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J.,

The Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” WNBC, Sunday “Today in NY,” March 13

Susan Scafidi,

professor of law, LAW,

“Diamonds: How $60B Industry Thrives on Symbolism,” CBS This Morning, February 21

Christine Janssen-Selvadurai, Ph.D.,director of the entrepreneurship program at the Gabelli School of Business and co-director of both Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Fordham Foundry, BUS,

“NYC Embraces Silicon Valley’s Appetite for Risk,” Crain’s New York Business, February 6

Ellen Silber, Ph.D.,

director of Mentoring Latinas, GSS,

“Mentoring Program Serves Young Latinas Aiming Higher in New York City,” Fox News Latino, February 25

Janet Sternberg, Ph.D.,assistant professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“What are You Supposed to Do When You Have, Like, 106,926 Unread Emails?,” Huffington Post, February 25

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D.,professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation: Interview with Maureen Tilley of Fordham University,” WPIX, February 17

Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D.,

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology and chair of the department, A&S,

“As Conclave to Select New Pope Begins, English-Speaking Cardinals Lead Charge to Reform Vatican,” Daily News, March 4

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D.,dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, GSS,

“Ceremony Held for NASW Foundation Award Recipients,” Social Work Blog, February 28

More features in this issue:

People

In Focus: Faculty and Research

Back to Inside Fordham home page

Copyright © 2013, Fordham University.

It was the latest event in a series, Growing Research at Fordham, which highlights faculty findings. First up was political science professor Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., who talked about the type of direct-mail pieces that motivate people to get out and vote. Research has found that invoking civic duty is less effective than promising that someone will take note of whether or not the recipients cast their ballots, he said.

“Turns out people care what others think of them, so they engage in pro-social behavior more often when they know that other people are watching,” he said. Such social cues, along with “information shortcuts,” present a more accurate picture of voters than the image of information seekers who are highly engaged, he said.In fact, all it takes is a subtle suggestion, like a picture of two eyes staring out from a postcard, as he found in his own 2011 study of voters in a Florida municipal election. That image produced a significant increase in turnout, compared to different images on other postcards, he said.

“I will leave it to you to judge whether this evidence speaks to a more shallow or a less shallow nation,” he said.

Education professor Kristen Turner, Ph.D., presented a new take on teens’ “digitalk,” or online messages with idiosyncratic spellings that are often derided as a sign of laziness. In her research, she found that teens’ messages actually followed accepted writing practices like communicating efficiently and tailoring one’s writing to one’s audience.

The teens also strive for a unique voice in their texting, shown by one teen who writes “5” instead of “S”—”just to have me in there,” as he put it, Turner said. Also, the spellings can reflect careful thought rather than shallow impulses, as demonstrated by the girl who wrestled with whether to add three or four y’s at the end of “hey”—”because if she puts four, that means she really likes him,” Turner said.

She found that, overall, the teens’ writing adhered to the idea of reciprocity, or a sort of implicit contract between writer and reader.

“This was pretty sophisticated writer behavior,” she said. “So I’m not trying to say that the teenagers … are Shakespeare. But I’m kind of thinking maybe they’re not doing things that are so bad.”

As far as deep reporting in American newspapers, Beth Knobel, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies, found it’s alive and well despite the shrinking newspaper industry and the flight of readers to the Internet.

“Accountability reporting has not died out. There’s more total original reporting about government in newspapers than there’s probably ever been before,” she said, based on her study of front-page stories in two national papers and two regional ones over 20 years.

Since readers have already gotten their breaking news from the Internet by the time they pick up the paper, journalists have a new incentive to dig deeper into topics, she said.

“If you’re going to get somebody to pay for a newspaper … you have to give them original reporting that’s worth paying for,” she said.

There was bad news, however: While watchdog reporting was growing at the two regional papers, it was dropping at the two national ones, even though they still published a lot of it. Plus, stories tended to have fewer sources and more anonymous sources, she said, noting that people are aware that their quotes can be widely circulated online.

The final presenter—history professor Thierry Rigogne, Ph.D.—argued that academia isn’t immune to shallowness.

He described his current project, a history of a more enduring communication venue: the French coffeehouse, which, in 1800, “looks very much like it is today.”

With 150 books published on the topic and new ones coming out every year, he’s had a hard time convincing people that a history of the coffeehouses hasn’t been written yet. But after slogging through all the books’ sourcing information, much of it slipshod, he found they all trace back to a single text written by a French archivist in 1893.

“The scholarship is really shallow in the case of the café,” he said. “There’s not a single text that doesn’t go back to this one.”

On Oct. 23, Panagopoulos discussed various presidential election-forecasting models and shared the latest polling data with a gathering of alumni and friends at the Hotel Sofitel. “2012: A Race Odyssey” marked the New York City debut of Fordham at the Forefront, a new series of events sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations.

“The median forecast is an estimate of 50.6 percent for Obama, a very slight advantage for the president,” said Panagopoulos, assistant professor of political science at Fordham, and director of the University’s graduate program in elections and campaign management, “But depending on what states those votes are in could end up deciding the outcome of the election.”

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.

Panagopoulos added: “Political scientists are actually quite good at predicting what will happen in presidential elections.”

(See what polling organization made the top of the list of Panagopoulos’ rankings of accuracy in pre-election polling.)

For the 2008 presidential election, nine out of 10 national forecasters predicted Obama winning the two-party popular vote. Alan Abramowitz, the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, projected in his Time for a Change model that John McCain would get 45.7 percent of the two-party vote in 2008. “McCain ultimately got 46.3 percent of the major party vote,” said Panagopoulos. “[The model was] only off by half a percentage point.” In the 2012 forecasts, Abramowitz projected Obama winning 50.6 percent of the popular vote.

“Some of these models were estimated three, four months, sometimes almost up to a year before Election Day, before we even knew who the candidates were,” Panagopoulos said. “It may cause you to wonder if campaigns matter at all if you can come this close to predicting what’s going to happen long before the campaign unfolds.”

The Fordham at the Forefront series was launched on Oct. 1 in Atlanta, where Panagopoulos also spoke about the presidential debates and campaigns. More than 65 alumni attended the New York lecture and reception, representing nine out of Fordham’s 10 schools and colleges and a wide range of class years.

The Office of Alumni Relations intends to host several Forefront events throughout the year in the New York City metro area and around the country, highlighting Fordham faculty members’ expertise in such areas as trust in business, sustainability, and healthcare reform.

“Alumni will always be able to count on Fordham at the Forefront for an engaging presentation and discussion about things that matter in the world,” said Michael Griffin, assistant vice president for alumni relations. “We want to deliver lifelong learning to Fordham alumni and we want to demonstrate Fordham’s leadership in areas of universal significance.”

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and associate professor of political science, has ranked which polling organizations were the most accurate of the 28 organizations he analyzed, based on their pre-election polling.

“For all the ridicule directed towards pre-election polling, the final poll estimates were not far off from the actual nationwide vote shares for the two candidates,” said Panagopoulos.

For all the derision directed toward pre-election polling, the final poll estimates were not far off from the actual nationwide voteshares for the two candidates. On average, pre-election polls from 28 public polling organizations projected a Democratic advantage of 1.07 percentage points on Election Day, which is only about 1.13 percentage points away from the current estimate of a 2.2-point Obama margin in the national popular vote (Obama 50.3% versus Romney 48.1%).

Following the procedures proposed by Martin, Traugott and Kennedy (see Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 2006, pp. 342-369) to assess predictive accuracy, Panagopoulos analyzes poll estimates from 28 polling organizations. Most (22) polls overestimated Romney support, while six (6) overestimated Obama strength (indicated with a * below), but none of the 28 national preelection polls he examined had a significant partisan bias.

The following list ranks the 28 organizations by the predictive accuracy of their final, national pre-election estimates (as reported on pollster.com).

1. Democracy Corps (D)*
2. Pew Research
2. Hartford Courant/UConn
3. ABC/WP
4. Angus-Reid
5. National Journal*
6. Ipsos/Reuters
7. YouGov
8. PPP (D)
8. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP
9. Purple Strategies
10. NBC/WSJ
10. CBS/NYT
10. YouGov/Economist
11. UPI/CVOTER
12. IBD/TIPP
13. CNN/ORC
13. Monmouth/SurveyUSA
13. Politico/GWU/Battleground
13. FOX News
13. Washington Times/JZ Analytics
13. Newsmax/JZ Analytics
13. American Research Group
13. Gravis Marketing
14. Rasmussen
14. Gallup
15. NPR
16. AP/GfK

In 2008, Panagopoulos released the first such report following the 2008 presidential election. The good news is that for the past two presidential elections, pre-election polling has been fairly accurate.

– Costas Panagopoulos

The New York Daily News recently highlighted the Fordham University Masters in Elections and Campaign Management, one of the few programs in the country that trains people to become professional campaign managers.

“They learn what we know about voting behavior and voter psychology and political institutions from an academic point of view,” Fordham professor Costas Panagopoulos told the Daily News.

“Political campaigns have gotten increasingly professionalized over the past few decades, so you need people with specialized skills to be able to manage them effectively,” Panagopoulos said. “We’re talking about an industry that spends tens of billions of dollars, and to allocate those resources efficiently and effectively requires people with specialized training.”

Read more here.

“When both parties have been bought off, you get things like trade agreements that send all our jobs overseas on votes like 90 to 10. You get a vote such as the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which consolidated things like the radio industry and took away an enormous amount of creativity,” he told a packed McNally Amphitheatre at the Fordham School of Law.

“You know what else you get? You get the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and you get a crash in this nations’ economy, on a vote of 92 to 8. And yes, I was on the losing side of all these votes.”

Feingold was at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus for a panel on “The Influence of Money on Political Agendas,” which he shared with Michael Malbin, Ph.D., professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., associate professor of political science and director of Fordham’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

The panel was part of “Money, Media and the Battle for Democracy’s Soul,” an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Fordham Center for Ethics Education and the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.
NBC News political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd delivered the keynote address, “Media Coverage and Election 2012: Navigating the Political Landscape.”

Feingold and Malbin both emphasized that there are concrete ways to reform campaign finance laws, even in the aftermath of the 2010 decision in Citizen’s United, which, in allowing for unrestricted campaign contributions by corporations and unions, has unleashed a flood of unregulated money into the political arena.

Malbin lauded Feingold for his efforts, along with Senator John McCain, to regulate “soft money” via the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, but said efforts like it were akin to sitting on the lid of a pot about to boil over.

Instead, he advocated expansion of campaign finance currently in use in New York City, which allows a 6-to-1 matching system for gifts of $175 or under. The system encourages a greater pool of citizens to run for office, he said, and—just as importantly—encourages more people to give to campaigns.

“This is not only important financially, but it’s also important in terms of what’s the moral content of democracy,” he said, noting that New York could act as a model for the nation. “It’s having people more fully engage in the process that they that should be in fact own.”

Both were withering in their assessments of Citizens United. Where it is particularly insidious is it does not require independent “SuperPACs” to disclose where they get the unlimited funds they are free to spend on political campaigns, they said.

“

Feingold was joined on the panel by Costas Panagopoulos, (center) and Michael Malbin. Photo By Chris Taggart

[In 2002], every time we brought up McCain–Feingold, they said ‘We don’t need this McCain–Feingold stuff; we just need disclosure.’ Until Citizen’s United; then it was ‘Oh now we don’t need disclosure,’” Feingold said.

“A group can shunt the money from a corporation to a SuperPAC, it could be from Exxon, and they could call it ‘Main Street Barbers for Main Street.’”

Feingold, who has founded Progressives United to fight Citizens United, said he suspected that foreign money was now also being used in SuperPACs. Malbin joked that the fig leaf that supposedly separated political campaigns from independent groups is now made of “chiffon.”

“If you don’t think sitting presidents are going to send cabinet members around to ask people to give money to their independent campaigns, one, you haven’t read about Watergate, two, you haven’t read about Bill Clinton, and three, you haven’t read what this White House has said it is going to do,” he said.

“Now, this particular White House may not behave corruptly, but it is absolutely guaranteed that sooner or later, somebody will.”

The panel kicked off the 2012 New York Redistricting Project, a collaborative effort between Fordham, George Mason and Harvard universities that is funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The discussion series will continue at five locations throughout the state, where experts will address key elements and issues related to redistricting. After that, the project will award a $1,000 prize to a college team that submits its own congressional, state assembly or state senate district map.

“For too long, ordinary citizens have lacked awareness of the principles affecting redistricting and have been effectively left out of the decennial process,” said Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham.

“This year our mission is to change all that. It has never been easier to be involved in the redistricting process,” he said.

The panel addressed two aspects of redistricting, which happens every 10 years, in conjunction with the United States Census: Who does it; and how it’s done.

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Panelists noted that although it can seem arcane, the process is extremely important because it determines who Americans will send to the U.S. House of Representatives and their own statehouses.

In New York, the process—which is also known as “gerrymandering”—has been criticized because legislators have used it to ensure the districts they represent are drawn in a way that snuffs out competition.

Dick Dadey, executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens Union, categorized the process in New York between the Democratically held Assembly and the Republican-held Senate as: “Don’t play in my sandbox, and I won’t play in yours.”

“Citizens Union, along with many other groups, have wanted to change that process,” he said.

“We wanted to remove the conflict of interest that exists when legislators get to draw their own lines,” he said. “Essentially what happens in partisan gerrymandering is that legislators in smoke-filled back rooms get to pick the voters before the voters choose them.”

Convincing lawmakers to voluntarily give up power is extraordinarily difficult, but Dadey said that political momentum was building to the point where an independent commission might be possible.

In 2006, Citizens Union received assurances from gubernatorial candidates that they would veto district lines not drawn by an independent commission. Andrew Cuomo, who was the New York state attorney general at the time, threw his support behind the idea and has continued it as governor.

“Because of the governor’s veto threat, we are now seeing serious negotiations in a way that was unimaginable just a year ago, when many people thought, ‘You’re not going to be able to change the system,’” Dadey said.

Nathaniel Persily, Ph.D., the Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Political Science at Columbia University Law School, served on such a commission during the redistricting process in 2001.

Several factors come into play during redistricting, he said, notably two sections of the 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits the dilution of minority votes. Efforts to have prisoners counted in their pre-incarceration address, and not where they’re jailed, are also underway.

Michael McDonald, Ph.D., associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University, touted the online tool www.publicmapping.org, as something the public can use to shame recalcitrant legislators into doing the right thing.

Two common methods that partisans wield against opponents during redistricting is to dilute their supporters by splitting them into separate districts, or by lumping them into one district surrounded by opposing ones.

Michael Halberstam, Ph.D., a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School, said it is important to remember there are no correct ways to draw districts.

A district drawn to protect an incumbent politician might seem undemocratic, but if it ensures that a minority group’s representative serves in Congress long enough to earn a high-ranking committee assignment, then that might be seen as positive.

“Judgments will always be made, and those judgments will depend on the theory of democracy,” he said. “But what does seem very objectionable—and hence this idea of the democratic legitimacy of the process—is the idea that when legislators get to draw their own boundaries then they decide the outcome of the elections.”

The winner of the project’s student contest will be announced on Monday, Dec. 12, at a ceremony at Fordham. For more information visit http://www.redistrictny.org/.

“I’m not some smart Fordham graduate,” he said, “but I like numbers, and [the Affordable Care Act]is a bill financed by a series of gimmicks and tricks.”

Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff in the Bush administration, spoke on April 14 to nearly 400 students on the Rose Hill campus.

In addition to listing what he did not like about President Barack Obama’s health care law, Rove criticized Obama on government spending and raising the deficit.

“If it continues, it will put us in the dangerous realm of Greece, except there will be no European Union to bail us out,” Rove said.

Regarding entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, Rove said the government is making promises it can’t keep.

“We’ve got to do something about these programs or they’re going to bankrupt the country,” he said.

“I have a 22-year-old in college and he gets money from me each month,” Rove said. “I tell him, ‘Bubba, when it’s gone, it’s gone.’ But the government doesn’t do that. They spend twice what they have.”

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A Fox News contributor and Wall Street Journal columnist, Rove said the American people are ready for change, though he did not reveal whom he would support for president in 2012.

“You cannot make big changes without a president who will define the problem, understand the challenge, offer a concrete vision and get their hands dirty,” he said. “I’m confident one way or another that will happen.”

During a question-and-answer session, Rove was asked if the United States should get involved with democratic movements in the Middle East.

“We ought to be on the right side of liberty,” he said. “The president made a mistake when an election was stolen from the Iranian people in 2009 and said nothing until nearly five weeks later. Words matter.”

When asked whether he thought waterboarding as an interrogation technique was a human rights violation, Rove was unequivocal.

“It is not torture,” he said, drawing a round of sustained cheers from the audience. “If you have a concern about this, go onto my website and read the memos about what enhanced interrogation techniques can be used.”

Addressing the Plame Affair, in which Valerie Plame Wilson was outed as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer, Rove maintained he had nothing to do with it.

When asked why he was the sole person implicated in that scandal, he sarcastically deadpanned, “Because I’m Karl Rove. I’m the devil incarnate.”

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Karl Rove speaks with Fordham students at Campbell Hall on April 14.
Photo by Ken Levinson

Students enrolled in the master’s program in elections and campaign management (ECM) at Fordham and members of the College Republicans, which sponsored the event with the Young America’s Foundation, rubbed elbows with Rove at a reception before his talk.

“It’s fitting that Mr. Rove is here to speak to College Republicans, because he served as a College Republican in the 1970s [at the University of Utah],” said Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and the ECM program. “His insight about politics has been prescient and poignant.”

Rove, who kept students giggling throughout his presentation, said he participated in a master’s program at the Hinckley Institute of Practical Politics at the University of Texas that was similar to the ECM at Fordham.

“It led me to my first paid job in politics at the age of 19, and the rest is history,” Rove said. “Along the way, I picked up a couple of pieces of advice. Had a friend in College Republicans who said, ‘If you want to be successful in politics, you have to be able to say no.’ This is either because you’re being asked to work for somebody you don’t want to work for, or you’re being asked to do something you don’t want to do, or most important of all, you’re being asked to comment on something where the most important answer—in your interest—would be yes, but the right answer would be no.”

When asked about the Tea Party, Rove said people often focus on the wrong thing.

“[The Tea Party] is concerned about assets, debt, spending and healthcare,” he said. “These sentiments are vital because it drove independents to vote Republican. The Republican Party better be responsive to the sentiment—not to the movement—and give practical common sense solutions. If not, they’ll lose.”

Rove said he does not claim to be an expert on how the Republicans can win in 2012. But he told the audience the next president must have a clear vision for the country to remain prosperous and vibrant through the 21st century.

“You don’t go to [the White House]to find out who you are,” he said. “You better have clarity on what you want to achieve.

“And you better be willing to compromise,” he said, referring to President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996 and Bush’s 2001 tax cut bill. “Why did these pass? Because of compromise. This can’t be outsourced to other members of the White House staff or congressional leadership. There has to be personal engagement.”

From a podium in the cafeteria atrium at the Lowenstein Center, Silver used his address, “Polls, Predictions and the Role of Internet in the 2008 Elections,” to discuss which pollsters most accurately called the presidential race.

He also answered audience questions about topics as varied as the effects polls can have on voting patterns and the future of Internet polls.

He did not, however, reveal exactly how fivethirtyeight.com works, except to say that his site assigns polls a weighting based on their track record, sample size and timeliness. The weighting, he said, separates his site from another site, realclearpolitics.com, which also predicted that Barack Obama would defeat John McCain last November.

“Online poll aggregators were a key innovation, and one of the main highlights of the 2008 election cycle,” said Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham. “Silver and his website provided timely and reliable data and analysis about trends in candidate support over the course of the election.”

Silver’s analysis showed that Zogby, AP-GFK and Insider Advantage were the most accurate of all polling firms, although the percentages separating them were small. Comparing polling firms can be misleading, he said, because pollsters such as Rasmussen Reports include states like Alaska, whereas Zogby sticks to so-called battleground states.

Quinnipiac University, which is just north of New York City, did not conduct enough national polls to warrant inclusion in his rankings, but he noted that the university does a good job because it knows its area well.

“If you know your state, you know your region, then you can get a little bit of extra mileage out of it. The regional pollsters seem to do best, better than the kind of whole-hog national pollsters,” he said.

One of the most revealing visual aspects of Silver’s presentation came when he showed a color-coded map of the United States much like the red and blue ones familiar to election-watchers.

Dark blue areas showed where Obama performed better than most polls. White areas showed where polls accurately predicted how he would perform, and dark red areas showed where he did worse than had been predicted. There was a lot of red in the Appalachian region, he noted.

“Was there some sort of Bradley Effect, where people said, ‘I’m going to vote for Obama,’ and then decide, ‘I’m not going to vote for a black guy,’ once they got into the voting booth?” he asked.

“Maybe there’s a regional Bradley Effect, but I don’t think there was a national one,” he said. “Washington, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are also very white states, so I don’t think it had any effect on them.”

Silver cautioned that there was no perfect solution to modern polling problems, such as the increase in voters who only use cell phones. Completely random calls to 100 voters at home during the day will statistically reach more women and senior citizens, for example, so as more people go completely wireless, pollsters may need to spend money to pay for calls to cell-phone owners.

Silver’s appearance was sponsored by the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and was co-sponsored by Edison Media Research and the New York Association of Public Opinion Researchers.