Yesterday, in Electoral Study class, I learned that the most important way of campaigning was by personal contact: door-to-door canvassing, hand-shaking, etc.. Today, coincidentally, I saw an article on Freakonomics talking about the insignificance of e-mailing regarding its get-out-the-vote effect.

If an e-mail message from a campaign or non-profit group were to pop up in your inbox on election day asking you to please go down to your polling place and cast your vote, would you do it?

Probably not, if the results of a study by Notre Dame political scientist David Nickerson are any indication. Nickerson conducted 13 field experiments during elections between 2002 and 2004, and found that aggressive e-mail get-out-the-vote campaigns have virtually no effect on voter turnout.

I find David's results quite consistent with both of my election observation experiences (legislative elections and presidential elections).

Taiwan, Pakistan, Russia, Zimbabwe, and Iran are all having elections this year.

FP has the list. Here's a excerpt of Taiwan from the list:

Taiwan
Parliamentary elections on Jan. 12 and presidential elections on Mar. 22

The contenders:
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its presidential candidate, former Prime Minister Frank Hsieh, square off against former Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and his opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), which supports improved relations with mainland China.

Why it matters:
The stability of the Taiwan Strait hangs in the balance. Since losing power for the first time in 2000, the KMT has watched nervously as President Chen Shui-Bian repeatedly provoked the mainland’s wrath in his quest for independence. Most analysts expect the KMT to increase its majority in parliament—bad news for Taiwanese nationalists. But Chen cleverly set up a referendum, to be held during the presidential contest, asking voters to allow the government to apply for U.N. membership as “Taiwan” rather than “the Republic of China.” That could boost turnout in the DPP’s favor, tilting the elections to Hsieh—and prompting a few thunderbolts from Beijing.

Mankiw comments on the Democratic Candidates Debate in The Pigou Club watches the debates:

"...For the passages I put in bold, Bill Richardson and Barack Obama deserve special commendation, for opposite reasons. As a former energy secretary during the Clinton administration, Richardson has presumably studied these issues. But here he demonstrates extraordinary ignorance (or perhaps extraordinary disingenuousness) about the economic impact of cap-and-trade systems. By contrast, Obama shows extraordinary clarity and honesty about the effects of the policy he is proposing.

The economics is straightforward and uncontroversial. Both carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems put a price on carbon, raising the cost of producing carbon-intensive products such as gasoline and electricity. In both cases, this cost will be passed on to consumers. The only question is whether the government raises revenue through a carbon tax or auction that can be used to reduce other taxes and help offset the adverse income effect.

In case you are curious, Hillary Clinton is the next speaker on this question, but she does not weigh in on the particular issue of carbon taxes vs cap-and-trade. Instead, she offers the typical vacuous blather about mandating utility companies to help make us all more energy efficient. I think of this as "magic wand" economics. Like your fairy god mother, the President can wave a magic wand and make your problems go away."