The Winning Message: Candidate Behavior, Campaign Discourse, and Democracy

by Adam F. Simon

Overview

This study breaks new ground in investigating candidate behavior in American electoral campaigns. It centers on a question of equal importance to citizens and scholars: how can we produce better political campaigns? First, Simon develops the idea of dialogue as a standard for evaluating political campaigns. Second, he reveals that candidates' self-interest in winning leads to avoiding dialogue or substantive campaign discourse. Third, the text demonstrates the beneficial effects produced by the little dialogue that actually occurs and finally, pinpoints the forces responsible for these rare occurrences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521807333
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2002
Series:	Communication, Society and Politics
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.67(d)
Lexile:	1260L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. Dialogue: a standard for campaign discourse; 3. Understanding campaigns: background, theory, and methods; 4. The ventriloquist's hand: a game-theoretic model of campaigns; 5. Duck or Punch? Dialogue in a California Gubernatorial Election; 6. Dialogue and its effects in contemporary American elections; 7. Explaining and predicting the occurrence of dialogue; 8. Conclusion: toward more substantive campaign discourse; Appendix A. Analysis of the model of campaigns in mass elections; Appendix B. Experimental procedures; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Recommended for upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research libraries." Choice

"The deliberative character of political campaigns is an important subject worthy of careful and serious attention, which is what it receives in Adam Simon's The Winning Message." Perspectives on Politics

From the Publisher

Utilizing dialogue (where a candidate will address the same issues raised by his opponent) as a measuring stick for political campaigns, Simon (U. of Washington, St. Louis) presents a game-theoretic formal model for predicting when campaigns will engage in substantive debate rather than empty sloganeering. The model is then applied to the 1994 California gubernatorial election in which attempts by challenger Kathleen Wilson to engage in dialogue were unsuccessful in unseating incumbent Pete Wilson. The level of dialogue in senatorial races between 1988 and 1992 is also measured. Simon finds that while the level of dialogue is quite low in U.S. Senate campaigns, more dialogue is directly connected to a better informed electorate. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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