Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns: Electoral Politics in America

Review of Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns: Electoral Politics in America This book analyzes what has happened in history of electoral politics, what has worked and what has not worked, and why it has worked or not worked. It also studies the ingredients of a successful campaign. The primary focus of the book is congressional campaigns. In the history of the electoral politics, in particular two campaigns are discussed. The California Gubernatorial race of Ronald Reagan and the political career of Franklin Roosevelt are compared and contrasted. The authors display the heavy influence that the Democratic party played in shooting Roosevelt to the top of the party. On the other hand, Reagan used less political power and more public relations. The book states, "Franklin Roosevelt was elected governor with the personnel and machinery of a great political party, after years of service in that party. Ronald Reagan was elected governor with personnel and techniques of contemporary public relations - and only the label of a party he had joined four years earlier." These two contrasting campaigns demonstrate the weakening of the political party's role in election and the increased value of information and technology. In analyzing what constitutes a campaign the book defines a three stage process. These three stages are cognition, affect, and evaluation. The campaign only influences how voters travel through each of these stages. The first stage, cognition, is the point at which voters recognize that an individual is a candidate for a particular office. The second stage, affect, voters develop positive or negative opinions about the candidate. In the last stage, evaluation, the voters decide if their votes will be cast for this candidate. The book states the component that makes a campaign successful or unsuccessful is dependent on its resources. The campaign's resources are the candidate, its organization, which includes it staff and volunteers, and finances, which the book declares as the most important to success. All of these components blend together to make a successful campaign. The authors illustrate the value of technology in the campaign process. Before television, door to door campaigning was used more often. Today, with television and a host of other electronic mediums it is possible to reach a greater poll of prospective voters. This new technology also presents new challenges to campaigns. For example, more money is required, because the cost of getting the message out is higher. The book states that use of television was slow to catch on for the use of congressional campaigns. Congressional candidates viewed using money for television as a waste of resources, because their message would hit many persons outside their district. Today, this is not true. Today, any successful campaign most employ the technological opportunities available. While reading this book, I thought of the unsuccessful c