Introduction

With a new administration in office and running the machinery of government, Forum authors appear to have returned to some enduring concerns from the election and the transition. Michael Crespin, Charles Finocchiaro, and Emily Wanless return to the issue of earmarks and attack the conventional wisdom about them. Byron Shafer and Amber Wichowsky bring back the argument about the democratic values attaching to caucuses versus primaries and apply a unique 'natural experiment' to them. Brian Arbour asks what really would have happened had the Democratic nominating contest been run under the actual Republican rules and comes to some provocative conclusions. Alan Siaroff tackles the same issue in a different way and locates the impact of Democratic rules in some surprising places. Travis Ridout asks what recent nominating campaigns have shown us about an emerging conventional wisdom on old versus new means of campaigning and finds that the old retain a strong sticking power. Nicholas Seabrook goes looking for the geographical story of the election result, most especially for the impact of geographic clusters within it. And Harold Wilensky looks at American healthcare in comparative perspective, asking what it would take to make the U.S. converge with other developed nations. Lastly, Benjamin Bishin addresses new work from Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields on 'wedge issues', and asks where such concerns may be going.