Authors Mike Kimel and Michael Kanell in US News and World Report

Authors Mike Kimel and Michael Kanell use data to turn some commonly held assumptions on their head in interview The ‘Conservative’ Reagan and Other Political Myths Dispelled with reporter Zach Miner.

In their book Presimetrics: What the Facts Tell Us About How the Presidents Measure Up on the Issues We Care About, Kimel, who has built statistical software used by the military and NASA, and Kanell, who covers economics for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, use hard data to quantify and assess presidential performance on a variety of issues. Focusing on the presidencies from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush, and drawing on data from various government sources, they compare and rank presidential performance on issues such as taxes and healthcare. Kimel recently spoke to U.S. News about the merits of using data to assess presidents and why Ronald Reagan might not be as conservative as the public believes.