Elections Books - Page 5

Miami and the Siege of Chicago (New York Review Books Classics)

Norman Mailer

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

1968. The Vietnam War was raging. President Lyndon Johnson, facing a challenge in his own Democratic Party from the maverick antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy, announced that he would not seek a second term. In April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and riots broke out in inner cities throughout America. Bobby Kennedy was killed after winning the California primary in June. In August, Republicans met in Miami, picking the little-loved Richard Nixon as their candidate, while in September, Democrats in Chicago backed the ineffectual vice president, Hubert Humphrey. TVs across the country showed antiwar protesters filling the streets of Chicago and the police running amok, beating and arresting demonstrators and delegates alike.
In Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Norman Mailer, America’s most protean and provocative writer, brings a novelist’s eye to bear on the events of 1968, a decisive year in modern American politics, from which today’s bitterly divided country arose.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Revised Ed: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything

Joe Trippi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Addition 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A great addition to the original, Joe. It's amazing how far we have come in such a short amount of time both in terms of bad and good. Hopefully readers will heed the words of this book. Keep the revolution alive.

Editorial Review:

When Joe Trippi signed on to manage Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, the long-shot candidate had 432 known supporters and $100,000 in the bank. Within a year the most obscure horse in the field was the front-runner, with $50 million in the campaign till, thanks to Trippi and his team. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is the incredible story of how Joe Trippi's revolutionary use of the Internet forever changed politics as we know it. Trippi's memoir cum manifesto offers a blueprint for engaging Americans in real dialogue—and is an instruction manual for how businesspeople, government leaders, and anyone else can make use of democracy. In a new afterword, Trippi reviews how these lessons have influenced the 2008 campaign, a race marked by higher voter interest than any other in recent history.

Controversies in Voting Behavior

Richard G. Niemi

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

More Informative than Controversial 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This volume collects influential articles in political science, dealing with issues that might be rather contentious, if you happen to be student or professor in the field. "Controversies" is hardly an accurate title for this book, except that some of these articles probably inspired two professors to argue with each other over the results of tedious multiple regression analyses of voting patterns. But many of the articles here are at least informative if you're interested in potentially important issues like voter turnout (and why it's so low in America), the political knowledge of the public, divided government, or party identification. The expert submissions will surely be of interest to the informed person with interests in the scholarly side of political science. But as is usual in the field, the writing is almost uniformly bland and pedantic (except for Robert "Bowling Alone" Putnam and a couple of others), making the collection quite tedious and repetitive overall. [~doomsdayer520~]

Editorial Review:

The sixteen readings in this volume, all of which are newly selected for this fourth edition, and most of which are reproduced in their entirety, are organized around six debates:

Why is voter turnout low, and why is it declining?
Does the public's lack of political information matter?
What determines the vote, and to what extent do campaigns matter?
Is divided government intentional on the part of voters?
How much does politics affect party identification?
Is the party system changing?

Niemi and Weisberg supply section introductions that weave the readings together, establish useful context, and help to sort out conflicting interpretations and diverging opinions that emerge across the chapters. Collectively, the readings and supporting essays in Controversies in Voting Behavior provide an illuminating look at some of the most lively and fascinating issues being debated in this field today.

How to Win a Local Election: A Complete Step-By-Step Guide

Lawrence Grey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Book for First Time Candidates and Campaigners 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I have used this book and its predecessor for numerous local campaigns. It is not written at a theoretical level but is a nuts-and-bolts primer for small campaigns. I have other books on the subject, but this is the one I recommend most highly.

I find that many people who want to run for political office at the local level really have no idea about the mechanics of a campaign. By the time they realize that it is no easy task, they are too far gone or too dejected to turn their campaigns around. This book is an excellent guide for them to read before they start. I like the fact that Judge Grey demands a basic analysis of what it will take to win before a candidate commits himself.

I also think the judge's willingness to make recommendations (i.e. don't run as an independent, his insistence that no campaign is too small for a campaign manager) sets his book apart from others. The title of this book is "How to WIN a Local Election", not how to run one. In fact, he capitalizes the word "WIN" himself. Often times these books are written by political science professors who lose sight of the objective of a political campaign-- to "WIN" !

In short, this is an excellent primer for small local campaigns. Good enough that I buy copies to give to potential candidates before they throw their hat in the ring.

Editorial Review:

There are approximately 537,000 elective offices. Local elections are held every year. Following a chronology similar to a typical campaign, this book lays out a detailed framework from the moment the candidate decides to run for elected office. Nothing is certain in politics, but this book will ensure an efficient and effective campaign.

Presidential Elections and Other Cool Facts

Syl Sobel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Terrific! 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Syl Sobel has taken a complicated subject and made it understandable and interesting for the elementary school student. This book is easy to read, with short chapters and filled with a ton of information. It also includes a lot of fun facts that everyone will enjoy about different presidents, their wives and some of our more interesting elections. A wonderful resource with a glossary, index and bibliography.

Editorial Review:

Here's a brand new, informative and fun-to-read book for elementary school use, written by the author of the recently published "How the U.S. Government Works." This text outlines the legal requirements for electing a president, as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. Kids also learn about voter eligibility, the Electoral College, political third parties, and rules and practices related to campaigning for the presidential office. More fascinating facts abound throughout the book, and include the birthplaces of all presidents, the youngest and oldest men elected to the presidency, the vice presidents who stepped in to fill the remaining terms of a previous president, the presidential election that a major newspaper got wrong, and lots more. This book is written on a level that is most helpful to students in the 4th and 5th grades.

Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics (Presidential Elections: Strategies & Structures of American Politics)

David A. Hopkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A must read for one interested in presidential elections! 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Polsby's Presidential Elections offers a clear and cogent account of the presidential election process including the strategic incentives facing: voters, parties, interest groups, candidates, and the press. He debunks myths propounded by the popular press on why Americans don't vote (we're so mobile, not we're alienated), analyzes the differing strategic positions faced by the major parties, and shows how the news media has evolved into a crucially important interest group, with its own interests. The book is easily accessible to those who have no formal training in political science, while it offers new insights for serious students. In sum, Polsby's book should appeal to anyone who wants to understand why presidential elections operate the way they do.

Editorial Review:

Brimming with data and examples from the heated 2004 election, and laced with previews of 2008, the twelfth edition of this classic text offers a complete overview of the presidential election process from the earliest straw polls and fundraisers to final voter turnout and exit interviews. The comprehensive coverage includes campaign strategy, the sequence of electoral events, and the issues, all from the perspective of the various actors in the election process: voters, interest groups, political parties, the media, and the candidates themselves.

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

Alexander Keyssar

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Don't take it for granted 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States should be on your required reading list if you are interested in the history of the democratic experiment in the United States. Alexander Keyssar has produced that most unusual book-both enjoyable and profoundly informative.
Keyssar traces the always contentious right of Americans to participate in democracy. I, like most others, take for granted that voting is part of our system. We are wrong. As this book shows, the right to vote has been-and continues to be-more an issue of which group has the reigns of power than a fundamental right enjoying consensus support.
While The Right to Vote fully covers the struggles of women and African Americans to obtain and keep their voting rights, it also tells the history of voting requirements tied to property ownership, immigration status, and the still-debated criminal status. While focusing on suffrage, Professor Keyssar creates a cohesive political history of the United States.
The Right to Vote is one of those important history books that should be read and then often used as a source of reference for all those concerned about our political system.

Editorial Review:

The Right to Vote is the first comprehensive history of suffrage in the United States in more than eighty years. In this revised edition, Alexander Keyssar chronicles the surprisingly complex and slow evolution of the right to vote from the American Revolution to the present. Keyssar’s account highlights the gap between the hallowed image of the United States as the democratic nation and the reality that it took nearly two centuries for universal suffrage to be achieved. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.

The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns

Samuel L. Popkin

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Reasoning Voter is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaigns—Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984—to arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaigns do matter.

"If you're preparing to run a presidential campaign, and only have time to read one book, make sure to read Sam Popkin's The Reasoning Voter. If you have time to read two books, read The Reasoning Voter twice."—James Carville, Senior Stategist, Clinton/Gore '92

"A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior."—Thomas Byrne Edsall, New York Review of Books
"Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."—David S. Broder, The Washington Post

A New Engagement?: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen

Cliff Zukin, Scott Keeter, Molly Andolina, Krista Jenkins, Michael X. Delli Carpini

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Advance Praise for A New Engagement? 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

"Packed with evidence and insights, A New Engagement? captures the changing nature of citizen participation in America. Generational differences underlie that change, which is remaking our civic and political life. This breakthrough study should be read by all--scholars, pundits, politicos, activists, and citizens--who seek a better understanding of tomorrow's America." -- Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard University

"Based on an impressive array of evidence, this is the fullest and most important work to date on the social and political engagement of all sorts--or the lack of it--of different age cohorts in contemporary America. It persuasively shows how history, perceptions of government performance, and social, cultural, and economic experiences have shaped and distinguished the social and political outlooks and behavior of different generations of adults in the United States." -- Robert Y. Shapiro, Columbia University

"This book is an outstanding study of shifting patterns of civic engagement among successive generations of American citizens. A key finding: generational differences matter, and we should pay more attention to indications of declining political involvement among young adults." -- William A. Galston, Saul Stern Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

"Understanding the future of democracy in America requires us to understand how young people are being mobilized into public life. The impressive range of data collected for and presented in this book are unparalleled in scope or quality for their insights into the public involvement of young Americans. This highly original study is indispensable for understanding how Americans under 30 are orienting themselves to civic life." -- Scott L. Althaus, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Editorial Review:

In searching for answers as to why young people differ vastly from their parents and grandparents when it comes to turning out the vote, A New Engagement challenges the conventional wisdom that today's youth is plagued by a severe case of political apathy. In order to understand the current nature of citizen engagement, it is critical to separate political from civic engagement. Using the results from an original set of surveys and the authors' own primary research, they conclude that while older citizens participate by voting, young people engage by volunteering and being active in their communities.

The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform (Chicago Studies in American Politics)

Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, John Zaller

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Editorial Review:

Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box.
            Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.