Lee P. Sigelman, GWU political science professor, dies at 64

Lee P. Sigelman, 64, a political science professor at George Washington University whose wit enlivened political research, died Dec. 21 at his home in Washington. He had colon cancer that had metastasized to his liver.

Dr. Sigelman delighted in using sophisticated statistical tools to identify real but amusing relationships in social science data while gently satirizing the sometimes overly serious, self-absorbed world of academia.

In a semi-scholarly paper, "Presidents, Extramarital Sex and the Public: Testing a Rational Theory," he said during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that "the most successful presidents are indeed those who are sexually active outside the marital bed."

Dr. Sigelman also analyzed 1,185 predictions on the TV show "The McLaughlin Group" from mid-1993 through 1994. After discarding those that were "simply unintelligible" or "so cryptic that they are impervious to disproof," he concluded that panelists were right just 50.1 percent of the time, he wrote in the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.

Perhaps most notorious was a 1990 piece in The Washington Post's Outlook section, in which Dr. Sigelman wrote that "science has proven that Democrats are significantly dumber than Republicans. . . . In the television age, what really matters is not what candidates have to say about the great issues of the day, which makes remarkably little difference to anyone, but how they look when they are saying it." Democrats, he wrote, are simply uglier than their political rivals.

His first footnote gave a hint that he was joking.

"The rating was done by a middle-aged woman who has an inordinate fondness for pictures of men. She is a known sympathizer of 'L-word' causes, and her knee jerked uncontrollably throughout the exercise. This information should allay any suspicion that the ratings may have been 'cooked' to support the research hypothesis, a strategy that, I hasten to assure the reader, never even occurred to me."

"In spite of the profusion of gleaming pates, sloping foreheads, crossed eyes, flapping ears, prominent proboscises and cascading chins among them, it would be incorrect to conclude that the Democrats have cornered the market in grotesquerie," he continued. "There are ugly Republicans, too. Still, the Democrats possess, in truly awesome abundance, physical attributes that torment the eyes of the beholder. Compared to the ugly duckling Democrats, the Republicans are comely Quayles."

Colleagues told journalists that although Dr. Sigelman would not reveal his personal leanings, they suspected he was a Democrat, although a conflicted one. He contributed to a political science blog, the Monkey Cage, where colleagues posthumously extolled him for his mentorship as well as his colorful spandex bicycling shorts and his efforts to lighten up discourse.

"We political scientists are an awfully stuffy lot," Dr. Sigelman told The Post in 1998. "We dress badly. We bore our students and write dull articles that we publish in political science reviews. So I try to use our research tools to poke fun at ourselves."

Lee Philip Sigelman was born in Watertown, S.D. He received his bachelor's degree in government from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., in 1967 and his doctorate in political science from Vanderbilt University in 1973.

He taught political science at Texas Tech and the University of Kentucky. In 1985, he became director of the political science program at the National Science Foundation. Two years later, he went to the University of Arizona, where he became dean of social and behavioral science.

Dr. Sigelman joined GWU in 1991 as chairman of the political science department, a position he held until 1998, when he returned to teaching full time. He received two of the school's highest awards -- for scholarship, in 1999, and for service, in 2008. From 2001 until 2007, he edited the American Political Science Review.

He wrote more than 250 articles and five books. His latest book, "The Wit and Humor of Political Science," is to be published this year.

Survivors include his wife of 40 years, Carol Kimball Sigelman of Washington.