Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Oct 23rd, 2010

Summary: The real problem with Michele Bachmann is not her self-centeredness, her unresponsiveness to the needs of her constituents, her meager legislative accomplishments, or even her voting record; it’s her delusion-like paranoia, her shameless conspiracy-peddling, and her incessant fear-mongering. Now it has been revealed that Bachmann’s contact with reality is even more tenuous than previously thought, with the discovery that Bachmann had asked the Minnesota Secretary of State to remove her name from the publicly available voter registration records under a legal provision designed to protect past or potential victims of domestic abuse. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 23, 2009, Aubrey Immelman, in a public service announcement, provided information about the upcoming 2009 St. Cloud-area Veterans Day Parade.


Aug 11th, 2010

Summary: Primary election results in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District (MN-06). … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 11, 2009 Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.


Jul 30th, 2010

Summary: The results of a July 2010 KSTP/SurveyUSA poll show Republican Michele Bachmann with a significant lead of 9 points over Democrat Tarryl Clark, with 8 points combined for Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson and unaffiliated independent Aubrey Immelman, and 5 percent undecided. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 30, 2009 Aubrey Immelman featured a New York Times report that Col. Timothy R. Reese, a senior American military adviser in Baghdad, had concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffered from entrenched deficiencies but were able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it was therefore time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.” In his report, Col. Reese detailed Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management, and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure.


Apr 17th, 2010

Summary: Despite a recent upsurge in threats and violence by far-right groups and loners, the Homeland Security Department appears gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials say that even though, in light of recent events, a controversial report issued a year ago by Homeland Security about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department has done nothing to re-issue the report or update it. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 17, 2009, Aubrey Immelman featured abstracts of research projects on the personality characteristics and leadership style of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under his direction.


Apr 16th, 2010

Summary: Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public and tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 16, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a Homeland Security Department intelligence estimate warned that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members and incite violence. He also reported on a pro-life public lecture by Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.


Aug 5th, 2009

Summary: Aubrey Immelman describes the difficult challenges of mobilizing a cross-partisan majority in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District to defeat U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (who does not have majority support in her district), in the 2010 Minnesota state primary election. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 22nd day of his 2008 campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman received a telephone call from a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps regarding a Spanish-language community forum in Cold Spring, Minn., “to help residents understand their rights and discuss legal and civil rights issues,” followed by a workshop “on immigration and detained immigrants’ rights.” He also featured, as a public service announcement to help draw attention to the sacrifice of National Guard citizen soldiers serving in Iraq and the families they leave behind, Part 3 of the Associated Press series, “The Longest Deployment” (the story of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour of duty in Iraq).


Jul 27th, 2009

Summary: First in a two-part series examining the outlook for the 2010 U.S. House of Representatives election in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. Part I surveys the political environment in which the contest will take place. Part II, to follow closer to the election, will take a look at the candidates. … One-year retrospective: On the 13th day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Sunday, July 27, 2008, Aubrey Immelman posted a public service announcement to help raise funds for memorials in honor of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and observed a day of rest.


May 24th, 2009

Summary: Speculation about the potential entry of Tarryl Clark, assistant majority leader in the Minnesota senate, into the race for the Democratic endorsement to run against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) in the 2010 general election for U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.


Nov 3rd, 2008

Summary: On the 16th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that in the final week of the campaign he mounted a ground assault with an advertising blitz comprising ads in 25 newspapers across the district with a combined circulation of approximately 150,000.


Oct 31st, 2008

Summary: On the 13th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that he had launched a ground assault, with campaign ads running in 25 newspapers with a combined circulation of approximately 150,000.