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Conservatives and liberals do not smell the same to potential mates. According to a study published this month in the American Journal of Political Science, people can literally sniff out ideology and this may explain why so many couples share political beliefs. Or, as the studys title says, Assortative Mating on Ideology Could Operate Through Olfactory Cues.

Researchers led by Brown University political scientist Rose McDermott found that, to a small but significant degree, people prefer the body odor of those who vote asthey do.

Previous studies showed long-term mates are more similar when it comes to politics than anything else besides religion. Researchersset out to determine whether this is a purely socially driven phenomenon, or whetherbiology plays a role.

To test the link between smell and party affiliation, researchers rounded up 146 people aged 18 to 40 from a large city in the northeast United States. They used a seven-point scale to determine where they fell on the political spectrum. They sent 21 of these 10 liberals and 11 conservatives home with fragrance-free soap and shampoo and a gauze pad taped to their armpit. The subjects were told not to smoke, drink, use deodorant or perfume, have sex, eat fragrant foods, sleep with people or pets or linger near strong odors.

They returned the stinky armpit pads 24 hours later. Then 125 participants sniffed the stinky pads, taking a break between whiffs to cleanse their nasal palate with the aroma of peppermint oil. The sniffers, who never saw the people whose smells they were evaluating, then rated the attractiveness of each armpit sample on a 1 to 5 scale.

The subjects found the smell of those more ideologically similar to themselves more attractive than those with opposing views.

It appears nature stacks the deck to make politically similar partners more attractive to each other in unconscious ways, the researchers wrote.

Evolution might explain it. Parental similarity in values increases the likelihood that such individuals may be able to say together long enough to raise their children successfully into adulthood, the researchers wrote.

Or, in other words, youre more likely to raise children with someone you agree with than someone you dont. And smell tips you off on your chances of long-term relationship success.

The link between smell and political preference may also be related to how parents transfer their preferences for certain smells to their children. Humans, including mothers, spend most of their time around ideologically similar others, the researcherswrote. If social attitudes are linked to odor, as the literature suggests, then one mechanism that odor preferences transfer from parents to children may operate through their mothers choice of mate.In this way, social processes may drive some of the pathways by which individuals come to prefer those whose ideological smell matches their own.

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Study: Liberals and conservatives sniff out like-minded mates by body odor

Stephen Harper is an election victory away from entering the pantheon of Canadas longest-serving prime ministers and cementing his Conservative agenda in a country dominated by Liberals for most of the past century.

Standing in his way is the heir to that Liberal legacy.

In just over a year as Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, 42, has emerged as the most serious challenger to Harpers nine-year reign, bringing back from the brink of political extinction the party his father Pierre led for 16 years.

Harper and Trudeau, along with leader Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party, are already gearing up for an election scheduled for no later than October 2015, as parliament returns today from a three-month recess.

Public opinion polls now suggest the Liberals are leading and poised to give Harper his toughest political fight since he became prime minister, as he seeks to overcome voter fatigue and scandals that have implicated his office.

To win, Harper has to slow down Trudeau, said Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos Reid in Toronto who worked for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the last Conservative to win a majority before Harper. Justin Trudeau is for real.

According to polling aggregator threehundredeight.com, the Liberals hold a seven percentage point lead over the Conservatives and have led in almost every poll since Trudeau became Liberal leader in April 2013. This represents an abrupt turnaround from the May 2011 general election in which the Liberals fell to third place, a historic low that led some political observers to question the partys future viability.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harpers success has been his ability to make his party more palatable to suburban voters in eastern Canada and to groups that had historically been more likely to favor the Liberals: immigrants, women and French-speakers. Close

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Trudeau Blocks Harper Path to History as Liberals Revive

Stephen Harper is an election victory away from entering the pantheon of Canada's longest- serving prime ministers and cementing his Conservative agenda in a country dominated by Liberals for most of the past century.

Standing in his way is the heir to that Liberal legacy.

In just over a year as Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, 42, has emerged as the most serious challenger to Harper's nine-year reign, bringing back from the brink of political extinction the party his father Pierre led for 16 years.

Harper and Trudeau, along with leader Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party, are already gearing up for an election scheduled for no later than October 2015, as parliament returns today from a three-month recess.

Public opinion polls now suggest the Liberals are leading and poised to give Harper his toughest political fight since he became prime minister, as he seeks to overcome voter fatigue and scandals that have implicated his office.

To win, Harper "has to slow down Trudeau," said Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos Reid in Toronto who worked for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the last Conservative to win a majority before Harper. "Justin Trudeau is for real."

According to polling aggregator threehundredeight.com, the Liberals hold a seven percentage point lead over the Conservatives and have led in almost every poll since Trudeau became Liberal leader in April 2013. This represents an abrupt turnaround from the May 2011 general election in which the Liberals fell to third place, a historic low that led some political observers to question the party's future viability.

At stake for Harper, 55, is the chance to become one of the country's five longest serving prime ministers. Another win would mark the first time in more than a century that a party leader has won four straight elections.

Finish Program

Victory would also give Harper the opportunity to finish enacting a program that has included cutting federal taxes as a share of output to the smallest in more than 50 years, shrinking the size of government and streamlining approvals for resource development. His administration has broken from past governments by pulling out of the Kyoto climate change treaty, emphasizing law and order and promoting an uncompromising foreign policy in areas such as the Middle East and Ukraine. It's a record Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called a "guide" to center-right parties around the world.

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Trudeau blocks Harper path to history as Canada Liberals revive

Published on September 15, 2014 Other news

FREDERICTON - New Brunswick's Liberal party is taking aim at the New Democrats as they enter the final week of the provincial election campaign.

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant says the NDP platform doesn't contain costs for 24 of its main commitments, but NDP Leader Dominic Cardy says some of the things the Liberals are criticizing aren't even in the party platform for next Monday's election.

Cardy says the attacks are a desperate effort to cover gaffes in the Liberal campaign.

Geoff Martin, a political scientist at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., says the Liberals may be going on the attack because the NDP could play the role of spoiler in some close races with the Progressive Conservatives.

Political scientist Tom Bateman of the University of New Brunswick says the Liberals may have peaked too early in the polls and party officials might be telling Gallant to launch an offensive in the final days.

Gallant says he has an obligation to tell voters what he thinks of Cardy's and Premier David Alward's campaign promises.

Organizations: NDP, Mount Allison University, Progressive Conservatives University of New Brunswick

Geographic location: New Brunswick, FREDERICTON, Sackville

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Liberals take aim at New Democrats in final week of New Brunswick election

WASHINGTON: Bernie Sanders, one of the Senate's leading liberals, said on Sunday he is thinking about running for U.S. president in 2016 as either a Democrat or an independent in a move that could complicate Hillary Clinton's path to the White House.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, could pose a challenge from the left to Clinton, widely seen as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. She has not officially said she is a candidate but has acted very much like one.

"I think anybody who speaks to the needs of the working class and the middle class of this country and shows the courage to take on the billionaire class, I think that candidate will do pretty well," Sanders told the NBC program "Meet the Press," giving a possible preview of his message in the 2016 campaign.

Sanders is serving his second six-year term in the Senate. He has cultivated a following among some American liberals, especially on economic issues like the growing income disparity between rich and poor and corporate greed. He is a self-described socialist who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

"I am thinking about running for president," Sanders said, adding that he must decide whether to run as an independent or wade into the fight for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders is testing the waters in Iowa, a state that holds an important early contest in the nomination process.

"One of the reasons I'm going to Iowa is to get a sense of how people feel about it," he said of his candidacy. "Look, the truth is (there is) profound anger at both political parties, more and more people are becoming independent. The negative is: how do you set up a 50-state infrastructure as an independent?"

Sanders said he has "a lot of respect" for Clinton, but said, "The issue is not Hillary."

With Clinton mindful of the need to appeal to moderates in any general election battle against a Republican in 2016, a Sanders candidacy could force her to the left in the Democratic primaries to head off his challenge.

Conversely, if he runs in the general election as an independent, he could siphon away from her votes from liberals that she could need to beat any Republican nominee.

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Liberal Vermont Senator Sanders may seek US presidency in 2016