This essay provides a descriptive interpretation of the role of digital media in the campaigns
of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 with a focus on two themes: personalized political …

WAS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA BORN OUTSIDE the United States, so that his presidency
and all laws passed under it are unconstitutional? Are two out of every five Americans …

Political campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic
deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and …

This chapter reviews what makes voters and elections predictable and discusses when and
how campaigns can matter. Campaign activity in congressional elections also matters. Many …

The electoral college is the extraordinarily complex mechanism by which Americans choose
their president. Is there any justification for such a system, which may elect the candidate …

As a key element of their strategy, recent Presidential campaigns have recruited thousands
of workers to engage in direct voter contact. We conceive of this strategy as a principal-agent …

Much has been written about the historic nature of the Obama campaign. The multi-year,
multi-billion dollar operation elected the nation's first black president, raised and spent more …

Health policy researchers often evaluate the social and economic consequences of chronic
illness, but rarely have they considered the implications of chronic illness on one important …

Scholars studying the causes and consequences of political representation, particularly in
terms of gender and race, often turn to a concept called descriptive representation …

Whatever you think about the widening divide between Democrats and Republicans,
ideological differences do not explain why politicians from the same parties, who share the …