See, I didn't think that was the main substantive point of your post. Thank you for clarifying. I thought you were mostly making a point about the best research in political science emanating from non-top R1 depts and non-R1 depts (though I wasn't entirely sure about that).
In any case, yes, supply is exceeding demand of Ph.D.s. Point taken.
Tulsa was clearly being a troll, post was written fine enough. I don't get what the dysfunction was. Point was that if you work hard, lower your expectations, and seek a place in terms of fit rather than status it is possible to do well coming from a lower ranked institution.
Tulsa, are you one of those assholes who rejects manuscript based on grammar and style?
See, i didn't think that was your point either. Statements like "I don't think there is so much a huge supply as we are in a depressed market right now," for example, don't seem to support that point. Indeed, this statement is just silly -- read Menand's new book, or Bousquet's. This is a 50 year trend, not a depressed market.
And if an submission's "writing style" including meandering around while making contradictory points and non-sequiturs, yes, I'd reject it.
If I wrote like that I would not be in this profession. My god people, you sure get fixated like Harold on a women.
The key to become competitive in this tough job market is.....advanced stat skills everyone. This NYT article shows that PhD with stat skills, which includes most polisci PhDs graduated within the last decade, are in high demand not just in academic, but also in non-academic setting.
Also try this one (a bit more recent):
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15557443
Bottom line is that if you've got reasonable statistical skills, you should have no difficulty finding a job that pays [very] well. Though not necessarily the job you were originally trained for, nor the TT position that you so richly deserve at one of the ten or twenty top-3 R1s. And your dissertation committee may view you as a complete failure, though when you visit campus in five years and park your Ferrari next to your committee chair's Hyundai, you won't feel so bad.
[of course, I'm making up the last part, since even if you come back to campus in a Ferrari, you won't be able to get a parking permit.]
And even with statistics skills, you will only have a job until such time that some of the Asian students who are constantly getting trashed on PSJR pool the useless dollars earned by their companies, buy yours, and shut it down purely out of spite. At which point you can join the political theorists who are living in appliance boxes under the freeway.
Any questions?