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What's the "interesting new phenomenon" that this political article elucidates to make it not off-topic?

Attempting to measure the performance of a political party statistically and without being influenced by the personalities involved is interesting and new. The particular approach described is horrendously flawed, but it seems possible that there is good discussion to be had in proposing a better methodology.

Flag it if you think it's off-topic, and then something mysterious and not well documented might or might not happen. Personally, I decided it merited neither an upvote nor a flag.

"Attempting to measure the performance of a political party statistically and without being influenced by the personalities involved is interesting and new."

I've been presented with these exact same arguments back in High School, which was in the early 80s. You can skew the numbers to favor Republicans by just choosing the data ranges from when the politicians actually joined office.

In over two decades of being involved in politics in some capacity I've found that the only difference between the two major parties is how they want to legislate control of my life.

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