Walter Shapiro has covered the last seven presidential campaigns and just completed a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He can be reached at wshapiro@belnord.org.

Timothy Noah is a former Slate staffer. His  book about income inequality, "The Great Divergence," will be published by Bloomsbury in 2012.

Hanna Rosin is the author of God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission To Save the Nation and a contributing editor at the Atlantic. She can be reached at hanna.rosin@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter.

Jodie T. Allen is the senior editor at the Pew Research Center.

Gregg Easterbrook is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.

Jodie T. Allen is the senior editor at the Pew Research Center.