John Sides, political scientist and author of "The Gamble"

We all know the high points of elections – the zingers, the gotchas and the flat out mistakes. They’re often called “game changers,” and our recent campaigns have seen plenty of them. From Mitt Romney’s 47 percent speech to President Obama’s debate debacle to so-many others that are now long-forgotten, the 2012 Presidential campaign was defined by these near-daily seminal events.Or was it? What if the headlines that drive our minute-by-minute news cycles – the narratives that many of us believe define our politics – don’t define much reality at all? What if the data reveal something different than we commonly believe?Among the many trends of popular political coverage today, perhaps the most telling is growing mix of scientific data analysis and narrative storytelling. And more than ever, this mix is revealing new truths in our political landscape.One leader in this trend: John Sides, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. He is co-founder of The Monkey Cage, the popular political blog now hosted by the Washington Post and co-author of one of the highly-influential book, “The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election.”