Presidential campaigns do affect the outcome of
elections.The effects of presidential campaigns
are systematic and predictable.
These bold arguments, based on careful, reflective
analysis of campaigns and previous studies of them,
refute both the common wisdom of political scientists
that campaigns do not matter and the implied belief of
journalists, evidenced by their reporting every four years,
that little else matters.
In this compelling culmination of ten years of work in this
field, James E. Campbell offers "the 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 book 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 the serious predictive models of presidential
election outcomes, a historical summary of many of America’s
important presidential elections, and a significant new
contribution to the understanding of presidential campaigns
and how and why they matter.
Every four years, the presidential campaign is the focal point
of American politics. The American Campaign, sure to
fascinate political scientists and historians, will also be of
enduring importance to all voters who have a vested interest in
this distinctively American political process.
________________________________________________________
JAMES E. CAMPBELL, professor of political science at
State University of New York at Buffalo, is a leading scholar
of the electoral process and the presidency.
Number Six: Joseph V. Hughes, Jr., and Holly O. Hughes Series
in the Presidency and Leadership Studies
