Sep 20 How Will Foreclosures, Other Housing Problems Play Out in Midterms? After 2 1/2 years of economic trouble, it is hard to cite one singular reason voters are disgruntled going into fall. But one of the biggest culprits in the troubles is undoubtedly the housing market. So at Patchwork Nation, we… Continue reading
Sep 17 Mapping the Midterms: District Types Offer Data Behind the Races By Dante Chinni There are usually two ways of looking at midterm congressional races, neither of them wholly accurate. There is the tendency to see the 435 separate House races as completely individual events - an idea that all politics… Continue reading
Sep 13 Despite Fiscal Concerns, Cultural Issues Still Resonate in Evangelical Epicenters By Dante Chinni The discussion about Islam in America has grown more heated - and ugly - in recent weeks, but the debate is not the same in every community. In some places the talk is concrete - there are diverse populations and… Continue reading
Sep 02 In Hampton Roads, a Military Bastion Meets ‘Austerity’ By Dante Chinni What the military giveth, the military can taketh away. It's not a happy lesson, but it is one that many Military Bastions, counties around armed services installations, have learned in the recent years through rounds of base closings. Continue reading
Aug 30 Impact of Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ Rally Remains Unclear for Tea Party By Dante Chinni Glenn Beck had a good Saturday. Depending on whose crowd estimate you want to believe -- always a tricky game -- somewhere between 87,000 and 500,000 people came to the National Mall for the TV and radio personality's… Continue reading
Aug 26 Is Economic Hardship Bottoming Out? By Dante Chinni When you are down long enough it can be hard to recognize the start of a turnaround. That's actually been the story of the U.S. economy over the past eight months - a touch of good news, followed by set… Continue reading
Aug 23 For Military Bastions, Iraq Troop Withdraw is Not the End By Dante Chinni Amid all the headlines of U.S. soldiers coming home from Iraq, it's tempting to think of military communities filled with happily reunited families preparing to pick up where they left off. That's been a dominant story of the past… Continue reading
Aug 20 Obama in 2010: Just What Is His Base? By Dante Chinni When Barack Obama won the White House, a running theme among the press was how tactically smart the Obama team was in everything from their use of the Web to their ability to see the long-term and not sweat the… Continue reading
Aug 11 Where the Stimulus Went and the Economic Headwind It Faces How much money does it take to restart a sputtering economy? That's the question the federal government has been trying to figure out for the last year and a half. In the past year-plus the American Reinvestment and Recovery… Continue reading
Aug 09 Property Taxes Emerge as Latest Front in Housing Crisis By Lee Banville MISSOULA, Mont. | Foreclosures make headlines. They are a big focus of the media's attention as the troubled economy continues to dominate the news. But even where banks aren't taking over properties, the collapse of the real estate market is… Continue reading