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 excellent election-year text provides:
a summary and assessment of each of the serious predictive models of presidential election outcomes;
a historical summary of many of America's important presidential elections;
a significant new contribution to the understanding of presidential campaigns and how they matter.
JAMES E. CAMPBELL is a professor of political science at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His numerous articles on voting and elections have been published in journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics.