There's "nothing to encourage presidential candidates to get uglier" in their debates, according to a new book by three members of Central Michigan University's communication faculty.
The Democracy Fellows Project at Wake Forest University helped students learn a new way of talking about politics without the polarized debate that turns young people off. Projects took students from campus to the broader community and helped them realize their own power to influence the democratic process.
As the political process has gone high-tech, a URI political science professor is examining the influence of the Internet on individuals during political campaigns. He is available to comment throughout this year's presidential campaign.
Forget billboards, direct mail, even newspaper and radio ads. If you really want to reach people and win a 21st-century election, the Internet is a must "“ and you can thank a wrestler-turned-politician for the idea.
The Bradley effect may be alive and multiplying after Super Tuesday. Sifting through overnight results, University of Washington researchers have found that race still plays a role in American politics and it showed up Tuesday in surprising ways in the tallies from four states holding Democratic primary elections.
Voter turnout on Super Tuesday, and in earlier primaries, is on pace to break the record turnout seen during the 1972 presidential primaries. With 27 percent of eligible citizens voting in primaries so far, this year's primary turnout will eclipse the 25.9 percent average recorded in 1972, according to a preliminary Presidential primary report issued today by American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE).
USC Marshall expert available to discuss election impacts of social networking and other new-media technologies. How are social-networking technologies transforming this year's election? With Super Tuesday's tsunami of state primaries about to crest, some campaigns have effectively harnessed the power of many-to-many communications technologies such as social networking, while others have struggled. Social networking is this generation's equivalent of the television in 1968 or radio in 1932, a once-a-generation transformative media platform that reshapes the political discourse for those politicians savvy enough to understand it.
Randall Miller, Ph.D., political expert and commentator offers insights into the role Pennsylvania might play in the presidential election after the votes are tallied on Super Tuesday.
With 22 states in play in the Super Tuesday (Feb. 5) jockeying for the White House, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has experts able to analyze the race, its many moving parts and what Tuesday's primary and caucus results might mean for Wisconsin's Feb. 19 primary.
Presidential candidates spent $107 million on television advertising so far this season, with nearly all of it spent in the run-up to the earliest primaries and caucuses and almost none of it on Super Tuesday states, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows.
Forget the polling data on how the remaining presidential contenders might fare against each other in November. You can get a visceral sense of what the match-ups may produce by the way the candidates move. As certified movement analysts, we see campaigns as elaborate dances and, sometimes, athletic confrontations, says Karen Bradley at the University of Maryland and her colleague Karen Studd at George Mason.
With the front edge of 75 million Baby Boomers now hitting sixty years of age, policies that affect seniors could gain substantial attention in this year's U.S. presidential race. The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) examined positions from leading candidates and today released their findings on seven issues affecting America's aging population.
Whether it's out of frustration with the current administration or because they've embraced and identified with a candidate's platform, young people are voting in record numbers this primary season. With this early and significant turnout, candidates and political pundits want to know more about this demographic and their voting behavior before November's election day.
Political candidates who use songs to appeal to the American public for their campaigns is a strategy that dates back to George Washington. The pros and cons of this approach are intriguing.
Has Barack Obama's movement grown strong enough that he can win in states where he hasn't campaigned extensively? That's the overriding question as voters head to the polls on Super Tuesday, says Rowan University professor Larry Butler.
Katherine A. S. Sibley, Ph.D., chair and professor of history at Saint Joseph's University and an expert in the role first ladies have played in the White House, comments on the new dynamics gender diversity brings to this history-making election.
If politics were like high school, Republicans would be the football stars and Democrats would be chess club captains. Those stereotypes are the easiest way to summarize part of the conclusions made by a marketing professor at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.
To influence voters, especially those without strong ideological beliefs, presidential candidates should pay as much attention to their oratorical skills as stances on issues, said political scientist Christian Grose. Also, highly educated voters are more likely than those with fewer years of schooling to be influenced by complex speech.
Electronic voting technology, especially touch screen systems, easily pass the tests of voter confidence and satisfaction, but users still make too many mistakes and ask too often for help, says a major new study led by the University of Maryland and conducted with the University of Rochester and the University of Michigan.
As the presidential hopefuls hit the campaign trail hard, news outlets from across the country are turning to Colgate University professors for their insight and perspective. Colgate faculty can provide analysis on topics ranging from facial characteristics of candidates and hand gestures to campaign finance reform and spending.
University at Buffalo political science professor James E. Campbell has studied presidential campaigns for more than three decades and says this year's race for party nominations is the "most peculiar" he can remember.
Experts from Binghamton University, State University of New York, are available to discuss issues related to the 2008 presidential campaign, including 1) illegal immigration 2) the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain 3) economic globalization 4) campaign financing 5) voter turnout.
Are we at a tipping point where our country is ready to elect an African-American president? Stephen Jones, Central Michigan University assistant professor of history and authority on African-Americans in the legal process, is available to discuss how we might be.
University of Richmond leadership professor explains the double bind facing Hillary Clinton as she tries to demonstrate masculine, leader-like traits without appearing too masculine.
A new study appearing in the February issue of Political Psychology finds moral values can be significant motivators of political engagement, but equally so for voters on both ends of the political spectrum.
Political attack ads, widely demonized by pundits and politicians, are instead a kind of multi-vitamin for the democratic process, sparking voters' interest and participation, according to a new book co-authored by University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Kenneth Goldstein.
Johns Hopkins University experts can comment on Hispanic voters, the fate of women candidates in past elections, civility in the midst of a heated election, presidential power and executive-congressional relations, and other aspects of the 2008 election.
Hillary Clinton's changed campaign style made the difference last night, says a University of Maryland political communication expert just back from New Hampshire. Her colleague says voters there humbled media, pollsters and pundits in yesterday's first primary election of 2008.
One of the nation's leading authorities on campaigns and elections will address the UC San Diego Social Sciences Supper Club on January 30, when there will be less than a week to go just before primaries are held on "Super Tuesday" in 23 states including California.
Based on a random sample of registered voters in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland, a new study by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM) finds, surprisingly, that only 1.2 percent of registered voters lack a government-issued photo ID, and more than two-thirds of all registered voters in the three states feel that the electoral system would be trusted more if people had to show an ID to vote.
If the U.S. electorate has increasingly been ready for a woman president, why hasn't there been one? A new book alleges media bias against coverage of women candidates in eight past elections.
As voters go to the polls in New Hampshire, Barak Obama's rhetoric has become a "controversial, key storyline" says University of Maryland political communication expert Shawn Parry-Giles, who has been in New Hampshire observing media and candidates and citizens.
Latest dispatches from New Hampshire as University of Maryland political communication experts trail candidates and media: The power of Obama's oratory, what some consider a lost art, may well say as much about the state of the electorate in the post-Bush years; Hillary Clinton is working hard to be the 2nd 'come back kid' through old fashioned retail politics and citizen engagement...
"The Iowa caucuses provided citizens rare opportunities to meet presidential hopefuls in person, to ask them questions and engage in meaningful dialogues with fellow citizens. It forced the candidates to fan out among the citizenry "“ at truck stops, churches, senior centers, factories, farms, wherever people gather "“ and listen to their concerns," said Rick Hardy, professor and chair of Western Illinois University's political science department.
University of Maryland political communication expert Kathleen Kendall is continuing a 20-year tradition: trailing presidential candidates through New Hampshire from an unusual vantage. Traveling and sitting with the press, Kendall carefully notes the interactions between the candidates, media and citizens. See her dispatches from the Granite State.
Today's Iowa Caucuses may be the last in which the largely rural, sparsely populated and predominately white conservative Midwestern state exerts such a huge influence on the presidential nomination process, predicts Steven S. Smith, a political expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
Politicians may sling mud at one another, but wise workers will stay above the fray during the 2008 presidential election campaign by keeping heated political discussions out of the workplace, a civility expert says.
From Saturday, Jan. 5 through Wednesday, Jan. 9, approximately 30 American University students will rub elbows with the presidential candidates, their campaign staffs and the news media in Manchester, N.H., for the 2008 New Hampshire Presidential Primary.
University of Maryland political communication experts Kathleen E. Kendall and Shawn Parry-Giles will be in New Hampshire to observe the final days of campaigning before the nation's first Primary. Kendall has chronicled the interactions between media, candidates and citizens in New Hampshire since 1988. Kendall and Parry-Giles will be available for media interviews and should be contacted directly.
A new national study of voters who say they might vote in Democractic primaries and caucuses shows a striking disconnect between their explicit and implicit (or unconscious) preference that may mean polls are overestimate support for Barack Obama and underestimating backing for Hillary Clinton.
Election 2008 is in full swing and it is any candidates' ballgame. Central Michigan University experts are available for commentary on various issues including elections and voting, campaign practices, youth political participation, the Iraq war, health care, global warming, candidates' use of the Web and new media, and candidate communication.
When New Hampshire voters cast their first-in-the-nation primary votes January 8, many of them will be doing so for the first time ever. A new analysis of the state's demographic trends finds that New Hampshire, with a total population of 1.3 million, gained 79,000 residents between 2000 and 2006, and that most of this growth came from net migration.
Experts from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) discuss the 2008 presidential campaign. Topics include Mitt Romney's remarks about his religious beliefs; campaign financing; religion and politics; political polling, and African American voters.
University of Arkansas researchers available to comment on the pre-primary period, funds and fundraising, the use of Web sites and blogs, negative campaigning and the impact of debates -- as well as on candidate Mike Huckabee.
With Oprah Winfrey's recent announcement that she will support Barack Obama, it would appear that it is open season for celebrity endorsements in the 2008 presidential election. But do celebrity campaigners make a difference for voters? New research suggests that while celebrity endorsements help a campaign earn visibility, their support yields little return in the voting booth.
Despite some demographic changes--and the recent influx of residents from traditionally liberal states--political science professor Frank Cohen of Franklin Pierce University still sees moderate Republican traditions remaining alive and well among the New Hampshire electorate for decades to come.
Even with polls showing her running neck-and-neck with Barack Obama in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton is acting and sounding like the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. And she is, says Rowan University's Larry Butler.
Michele Dillon, professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, is available to discuss the significance of former Gov. Mitt Romney's upcoming speech about his Mormon faith, and the role of religion and religious voters in presidential elections.