…four prominent scholars came together on Thursday afternoon for a grim panel discussion on the health of the subfield known as American politics. Three of the four panel members said that the subfield—at least as it is now defined and structured within most political-science departments—has grown bloodless and hyperquantitative…

This debate, perhaps first waged by the Perestroika Movement, seems to be hitting its stride. The article quotes prominent political scientists who decry the subfield’s almost singular focus on the quantitative analysis of legislative committees and subcommittees and public opinion.

As a non-political scientist, I have no dog in this fight. Public administration and political science are sufficiently close to each other, however, that the debate has bearing on PA–especially since the critics of the American Politics subfield in its current form say it must pay more attention to the executive branch.

However, in checking my (physical) mail today, I decided that a good first step would be a carbon tax on junk mail, the production and delivery of which increase carbon emissions and reduce the number of natural carbon scrubbers (trees) in the world. There is no citizen lobby on behalf of junk mail–everyone hates it. And as in the case of telemarketing calls, public disdain for junk mail probably trumps the business lobby.

While feasible administration would seem a barrier to a junk-mail tax, if you really think about it, you receive virtually nothing but junk mail from banks and other junk mailers. It would be easy enough to set-up a system that separates junk from non-junk for the purposes of taxation, and the tax would be levied by way of a higher price of postage.

The big problem, of course, is that Congress would no doubt debate endlessly over what constitutes “junk” and how to establish either an opt-in or opt-out system. There also would be great debate over whether to earmark the revenue for “green” government programs. Nonetheless, targeting junk mailers would be the easiest segue into general carbon taxation, I think.

This piece of news is rather important, given that additional federal resources–which are now more scarce than ever before–have been verbally committed to solving this “problem” in coming years. Ironically, one presidential candidate suggested diverting funds from NASA’s manned mission to Mars to solve it.

Today, it was widely reported in various media that Barack Obama is “having trouble” narrowing the “racial divide” in America. This “finding” is based on a poll conducted by the New York Times; see: Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race. While it’s true that only 31% of white respondents have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama, 35% of white respondents have a favorable opinion of John McCain–a stunning advantage for Sen. McCain.

The Times report on the poll also makes a number of highly dubious empirical linkages. Citing the fact that blacks’ and whites’ racial attitudes have not changed much in recent years, this is presented as evidence that Obama’s candidacy has not done much to close the divide on race.

If I’m not mistaken, Sen. Obama became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party on June 3. Next time you read the results of such a poll, ask yourself: Do I really expect such deep-seeded attitudes to change in less than two months?

Tip: I highly recommend starting from scratch by reading the Archives.