Jim Patterson

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has a robust 68 percent job approval rating in his state, including the approval of 60 percent of Democratic voters, according to the Vanderbilt Poll. Read More

Judges that are able to tap into and manage their anger may be more effective on the bench, new research finds. Read More

Tennessee voters prefer the state run the online Health Care Exchange required by the Affordable Health Care Act, according to a new poll from Vanderbilt University. More than 45 questions were asked of voters on a variety of subjects. Read More

Women, homosexuals and people with darker skin tones continue to face discrimination in the Americas, according to responses to the 2012 AmericasBarometer survey of Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project. Read More

Through a set of experiments, Gordon Logan, Nashville musician Jerry Kimbrough and Matthew Crump (now of Brooklyn College-CUNY) have illustrated that guitarists – and players of other related instruments like mandolin, banjo and bass – tend to acquire their skills differently than most other musicians. Read More

Commissioner John R. Norris of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is the marquee speaker at the Southeast Clean Energy Transmission Summit Nov. 14 in Nashville. Read More

Perhaps pulled more into mainstream consciousness by television shows such as “Hard Core Pawn” and “Pawn Stars,” pawn shops have several advantages over the payday loan operations that have become the most visible source of loans for those with poor credit ratings. Read More

Negative advertising may be obligatory in the presidential campaign, but it doesn't seem to be paying off this time around when it comes to changing voter's minds. “It looks like we are way past much bang for the buck with these ads,” said John Geer of Vanderbilt University. Read More

At the moment, Republicans and Democrats can’t even agree on the appeal of a giant yellow Muppet. Democrats gave Big Bird a favorable rating by an 85 percent margin. Only 55 percent of Republicans held that view. Read More

Despite Mitt Romney’s dominant performance in the first presidential debate, President Obama’s favorability rating has been hovering around 50 percent, not enough deterioration to turn the election around for the challenger. Read More

The fixation on maximizing shareholder value for stockholders at the expense of other stakeholders poses a serious threat to the American economy, said Vanderbilt Law School professor Margaret Blair. Read More

Mitt Romney can still win the presidential election if he can convince Americans he has the best plan to reinvigorate the economy, according to analysis by Vanderbilt professor John Geer of two new ads released by Romney’s campaign. Read More

There now is only a small and ever dwindling chance that the remaining undecided voters might influence the outcome of the presidential election, said a Vanderbilt University political scientist. Read More

The video of Mitt Romney dismissing 47 percent of Americans as unreachable by Republicans had little effect on swing voters who will probably decide the Nov. 4 election. Read More

Hope is being offered by Vanderbilt professor Marc Hetherington and a colleague that generational turnover and a few adjustments now could cause the end of gridlock in Congress in the long run. Read More

A new attack ad that chides Mitt Romney for refusing to release more of his tax return information is failing to spark much of a reaction. Read More

Vanderbilt law professor Mike Newton says Libya needs help building a reformed judicial system from the ground up. Read More

A new survey from the Vanderbilt University/YouGov Ad Rating Project shows that the latest attack ad aimed at President Obama is not working as well as previous efforts. Read More

The latest political ad to be rated by the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project shows former president Bill Clinton doing a better job of rallying Democratic voters to re-elect President Obama than the president himself. Read More

Positive ads from President Obama won't get the job done of defeating challenger Mitt Romney in the presidential race, data from the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project continues to suggest. Read More