While this blog may occasionally make attempts at injecting wit and wryness into our discussion of politics, our name, Smart Politics, is not intended to be playful or oxymoronic. Smart Politics is a blog that reveals a zeal for politics, devoid of cynicism and rants, and replete with provocative non-partisan analysis of important trends in policy and how they impact candidacies in the new election cycle.

Smart Politics is keenly aware of the glut of political blogs, but we are able to offer something unique: as a wing of the Humphrey Institute’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Smart Politics is armed with the largest on-line collection of Upper Midwestern polling and historical election data from which our analyses of pressing policy concerns and intriguing campaign matchups will be drawn.

Smart Politics is guided by the following principals:

1. Smart Politics is non-partisan. No rants. No spin. The only horse Smart Politics has in the race is you. And by ‘you’ we mean independents, Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and even those who are non-political.
2. Smart Politics is non-elitist. Smart Politics' endgame is to engage our audience in a policy discussion. Smart Politics is therefore open to you and seeks not only your commentary, but also your feedback and suggested topics for analysis. Please e-mail Smart Politics to tell us what policy issues or political races in the Upper Midwest are of particular interest to you, and why.
3. Smart Politics is timely. This site will be regularly updated, so please come back to keep up to date on our latest findings on Upper Midwestern politics.
4. Smart Politics is smart. But, more importantly, we are not so unwise as to think that we have a monopoly on thought provoking ideas and analysis. As such we’ll occasionally highlight commentary and articles by journalists and other non-partisan political blogs from across the Upper Midwest.

For those of you who are fascinated by Smart Politics, please be sure to visit the Center's 2006 Elections Project website under our ‘links’ section, for complete reports, historical election and polling data, and candidate profiles.

Thank you for visiting Smart Politics, and we look forward to hearing from you.