Politics

Audie Cornish talks with Ari Shapiro about Mitt Romney's campaigning in the Midwest on Tuesday.

Robert Siegel talks with Scott Horsley about President Obama's campaigning in Ohio on Tuesday.

^{Dante Chinni is the director of Patchwork Nation, which uses demographic, voting and cultural data to study communities. It is part of the nonpartisan, not-for-profit Jefferson Institute, which teamed with NPR to examine what can be learned about different communities through online text analysis. The project had Knight Foundation funding.}

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, unemployment has driven much of the national conversation, and with good reason.

Culture warriors on the left and right would be wise to carefully examine a new survey from the Pew Research Center showing that a growing number of Americans are moving away from religious labels.

The study, titled "Nones" on the Rise, indicates that 1 in 5 Americans now identifies as "religiously unaffiliated," a group that includes those who say they have no particular religion, as well as atheists and agnostics.

In its attempt to turn the tables on Mitt Romney following the Republican presidential nominee's big win in the first presidential debate, President Obama's campaign has sought to enlist Big Bird.

The president has repeatedly reminded supporters at rallies that Romney, during the debate, specifically cited Big Bird when he promised to defund the Public Broadcasting Service to reduce federal deficits.

The economy is bad.  The economy is good.  It needs to be stimulated.  It needs to be left alone.  It's good for Obama.  It's good for Romney. With the discussion leading up to the November election focusing on the economy, host Alan Jennings welcomes guests Kamran Afshar, economist, and Tony Ianelli, CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

You heard Brian mention outside groups spending in Virginia. That spending was made easier by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling back in 2010, which opened the door to more corporate political spending. Loud complaints about that decision came from the state of Montana, where we're going next. It has a history of restricting corporate political spending, and officials worried that outside groups would swamp their tiny media market - which they have, as NPR's Martin Kaste reports.