The American Campaign: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote (Joseph V. Hughes Jr. and Holly O. Hughes Series on the Presidency and Leadership) [Hardcover]

James E. Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Joseph V. Hughes Jr. and Holly O. Hughes Series on the Presidency and Leadership | Publication Date: April 2000

Reporting data and predicting trends through the 2008 campaign, this classroom-tested volume offers again James E. Campbell's "theory of the predictable campaign," incorporating the fundamental conditions that systematically affect the presidential vote: political competition, presidential incumbency, and election-year economic conditions.

Campbell's cogent thinking and clear style present students with a readable survey of presidential elections and political scientists' ways of studying them. The American Campaign also shows how and why journalists have mistakenly assigned a pattern of unpredictability and critical significance to the vagaries of individual campaigns.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Campbell, a political science professor, argues that presidential campaigns do affect election results in a systematic, predictable way. Although these effects are constrained (by voters' partisanship, economic conditions, incumbency, and competition), Campbell gives post^-Labor Day campaigns credit, on average, for four percentage points' impact on the national vote, with the campaigns decisive in two of the last 13 elections (1948 and 1960). Over a longer period, campaigns have played a critical role in 20 percent of presidential races. Campbell describes the systematic and unsystematic effects of campaigns on both local and national levels; uses statistical analysis to challenge the notion that Americans are becoming less partisan; and suggests that campaigns exert much of their effect by influencing the partisanship of late-deciding voters. Larger libraries where serious studies of politics circulate will want to consider this thoughtful entry in the current debate over whether U.S. political campaigns matter and, if so, how much and why. Mary Carroll

Review

"The American Campaign is the best book ever written by a political scientist about presidential campaigns."--Bill Mayer, Northeastern University

(Bill Mayer, Northeastern University ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890969396
• ISBN-13: 978-0890969397
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,431,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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