ABSTRACT
I live in the People’s Republic of Cambridge, whose foreign policy, a longstanding issue in local elections, has absolutely nothing to do with our AAA bond rating or our troubled schools. Our relations with Cuba may be a charming local quirk, but they open up a more basic point about explaining what matters in public life. Journalists, who more than political scientists explain politics to the public, ought to pay more attention to explaining what political science has told us as regards what the officials chosen in the contest can and will actually do in the job, as opposed merely to repackaging the candidates’ positions and self-presentations.
