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Presidential Candidates (presidential + candidate)
Selected AbstractsCritical Elections and Political Realignments in the USA: 1860,2000POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2003Norman Schofield The sequence of US presidential elections from 1964 to 1972 is generally regarded as heralding a fundamental political realignment, during which time civil rights became as important a cleavage as economic rights. In certain respects, this realignment mirrored the transformation of politics that occurred in the period before the Civil War. Formal models of voting (based on assumptions of rational voters, and plurality-maximizing candidates) have typically been unable to provide an account of such realignments. In this paper, we propose that US politics necessarily involves two dimensions of policy. Whatever positions US presidential candidates adopt, there will always be two groups of disaffected voters. Such voters may be mobilized by third party candidates, and may eventually be absorbed into one or other of the two dominant party coalitions. The policy compromise, or change, required of the successful presidential candidate then triggers the political realignment. A formal activist-voter model is presented, as a first step in understanding such a dynamic equilibrium between parties and voters. [source] Retrospective Voting in Presidential PrimariesPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2010WILLIAM G. MAYER Though retrospective performance evaluations are now widely appreciated as a major influence on voting in general elections, their influence in presidential primaries has rarely been noticed. Using exit polls conducted by major media organizations over the last nine election cycles, this article shows that retrospective voting is an important, indeed dominant, factor in two types of situations: when an incumbent president is running for reelection, and when an incumbent vice president is seeking to become his party's next presidential candidate. This finding, in turn, helps explain two significant institutional features of the contemporary presidential nomination process: why most recent presidents have been renominated without much difficulty, and why the vice presidency has become such a good launching pad for presidential candidacies. [source] Polls and Elections: Opinion Formation, Polarization, and Presidential ReelectionPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2009BARRY C. BURDEN The authors examine the dynamics of public opinion formation and change around a sitting president and their implications for reelection contests. Because of the biases inherent in information processing and the information environment, two distinct, but simultaneous, effects of citizen learning during a presidential term are expected. For those with prior opinions of the president, learning contributes to more polarized evaluations of the president. For those initially uncertain about the president, learning contributes to opinion formation about the president. Because the gap in uncertainty generally favors the incumbent over a lesser-known challenger, races with an incumbent presidential candidate are typically marked, perhaps paradoxically, by both a polarization of public opinion and an incumbency advantage. [source] The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian RuleAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010Beatriz Magaloni How can autocrats be restrained from rigging elections when they hold a huge military advantage over their opponents? This article suggests that even when opposition parties have no military capacity to win a revolt, opposition unity and a consequent threat of massive civil disobedience can compel autocrats to hold clean elections and leave office by triggering splits within the state apparatus and the defection of the armed forces. Opposition unity can be elite-driven, when parties unite prior to elections to endorse a common presidential candidate, or voter-driven, when elites stand divided at the polls and voters spontaneously rebel against fraud. Moreover, the article identifies some conditions under which autocrats will tie their hands willingly not to commit fraud by delegating power to an independent electoral commission. The article develops these ideas through a formal game and the discussion of various case studies. [source] Leadership quality and follower affect: A study of U.S. presidential candidatesJOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES, Issue 4 2008M. David Albritton Using the tripartite model of attitude structure as a conceptual basis, this article investigates voter attitudes toward presidential candidates, including cognitive and affective assessments of these leaders as well as behavioral intentions and voting behavior. Data collected from the seven most recent U.S. presidential elections were used to compare Democratic and Republican Party candidates who were successful in securing votes to those who were unsuccessful. Here, follower perceptions of leader intelligence, feelings of pride and hope, as well as feelings of fear and anger were found to be statistically different between the two groups. Additionally, regression analysis using follower assessments of candidates' leadership quality, as dependent upon certain perceptual traits of that leader, are presented. Candidates perceived to be higher in intelligence, considered to possess stronger degrees of inspirational quality, and judged more "likeable," in terms of generating stronger degrees of positive follower affect and lower degrees of negative follower affect, are considered better quality leaders. Followers' perceptions of these traits are found to be key predictors of whether that follower will consider a leader to be of high quality. [source] Expertise, Evaluative Motivation, and the Structure of Citizens' Ideological CommitmentsPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2007Christopher M. Federico Political psychologists have typically argued that ideological commitments are structured in a bipolar fashion, where a positive evaluation of conservative objects implies a negative evaluation of liberal objects (and vice versa). Individual differences in conformity to this pattern are usually attributed to an ability-related variable, i.e., political expertise. Departing from this strict focus on ability, this study examines the hypotheses that an important motivational variable,the need to evaluate, or the desire to form opinions of objects as "good" or "bad",would (1) predict deviations from ideological bipolarity, even controlling for expertise; and (2) moderate the relationship between expertise and deviations from bipolarity. Data from two national surveys provided evidence for these hypotheses and indicated that the results extended to deviations from bipolarity in evaluations of presidential candidates and political parties. [source] Critical Elections and Political Realignments in the USA: 1860,2000POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2003Norman Schofield The sequence of US presidential elections from 1964 to 1972 is generally regarded as heralding a fundamental political realignment, during which time civil rights became as important a cleavage as economic rights. In certain respects, this realignment mirrored the transformation of politics that occurred in the period before the Civil War. Formal models of voting (based on assumptions of rational voters, and plurality-maximizing candidates) have typically been unable to provide an account of such realignments. In this paper, we propose that US politics necessarily involves two dimensions of policy. Whatever positions US presidential candidates adopt, there will always be two groups of disaffected voters. Such voters may be mobilized by third party candidates, and may eventually be absorbed into one or other of the two dominant party coalitions. The policy compromise, or change, required of the successful presidential candidate then triggers the political realignment. A formal activist-voter model is presented, as a first step in understanding such a dynamic equilibrium between parties and voters. [source] Presidential Fitness and Presidential Lies: The Historical Record and a Proposal for ReformPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2010ROBERT DALLEK Since at least the late nineteenth century, U.S. presidents have engaged in substantial and unjustified deception in a variety of domains, and future presidents will continue to do so unless new mechanisms are created to ensure greater accountability and oversight. The problem is particularly apparent in two very different domains: personal health and foreign policy. Several presidents and presidential candidates have concealed grave health conditions that impaired their ability to govern. As future presidential candidates are unlikely to be more forthcoming about their health, the public interest should be protected by an independent medical panel to evaluate presidential candidates. In foreign policy, recent decades have seen several egregious cases of presidential deception, including Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon on the Chilean coup, and George W. Bush on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Such ethical lapses justify a constitutional recall amendment, under which a congressional supermajority could subject the continued service of a sitting president to a popular vote. [source] The Eagleton Affair: Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern, and the 1972 Vice Presidential NominationPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2009JAMES N. GIGLIO The frequent mention of the Eagleton affair during discussions over vice presidential selections in the past election cycle has further enhanced the relevancy of the controversy surrounding Senator George McGovern's choice of Senator Tom Eagleton as his running mate in 1972. That soon led to Eagleton's forced resignation because of past treatment for depression,the only nominee who has ever had to depart from the ticket. This is the first scholarly study of that controversy. It is grounded in extensive interviews and archival research in the McGovern and the untapped Eagleton Papers. This Greek tragedy has much to say about the two protagonists and the casual way in which political parties sometimes selected vice presidential candidates. As a result, the Eagleton affair has also contributed to a more thoughtful approach to the selection of vice presidential nominees. [source] Requiem for a Lightweight: Vice Presidential Candidate Evaluations and the Presidential VotePRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2001DAVID W. ROMERO Presidential election scholars have recently begun to explore whether vice presidential nominees have a meaningful influence on the presidential vote. Their findings are in conflict. Aggregate-level analyses find little support for the hypothesis that vice presidential candidates bring their ticket any regional or home state advantage. Individual-level analyses, on the other hand, find that vice presidential nominees have a surprisingly powerful influence on the typical voter's vote for president. These conflicting findings suggest that either aggregate-level results underestimate vice presidential nominees' influence on the vote or that individual-level results overestimate vice presidential nominees' influence on the vote. The author assumes it is the latter. Based on this assumption, the author reexamines whether vice presidential candidates influence the individual vote for president. Once rationalization affects are controlled, it is found that vice presidential candidates have no influence on the voters' choice for president. [source] Memoirs of an indifferent trader: Estimating forecast distributions from prediction marketsQUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010Joyce E. Berg C11; C93; D8; G1 Prediction markets for future events are increasingly common and they often trade several contracts for the same event. This paper considers the distribution of a normative risk-neutral trader who, given any portfolio of contracts traded on the event, would choose not to reallocate that portfolio of contracts even if transactions costs were zero. Because common parametric distributions can conflict with observed prediction market prices, the distribution is given a nonparametric representation together with a prior distribution favoring smooth and concentrated distributions. Posterior modal distributions are found for popular vote shares of the U.S. presidential candidates in the 100 days leading up to the elections of 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004, using bid and ask prices on multiple contracts from the Iowa Electronic Markets. On some days, the distributions are multimodal or substantially asymmetric. The derived distributions are more concentrated than the historical distribution of popular vote shares in presidential elections, but do not tend to become more concentrated as time to elections diminishes. [source] Presidential Coattails and Legislative FragmentationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2006Matt Golder Considerable evidence suggests that legislative fragmentation can negatively affect the survival of democratic presidential regimes. While there is a vast literature examining the determinants of legislative fragmentation, one factor that has traditionally been overlooked is the impact of presidential elections. Do presidential elections increase or decrease legislative fragmentation? Does it matter if presidents are elected by plurality rule or by runoff? Using a new dataset that covers all democratic legislative and presidential elections between 1946 and 2000, I find that presidential coattails can reduce, increase, or have no effect on legislative fragmentation depending on the number of presidential candidates. I also find strong evidence that social heterogeneity increases the number of presidential candidates when runoff systems are employed. Taken together, these results suggest that the widespread adoption of runoffs by newly democratic presidential regimes will likely increase legislative fragmentation, thereby putting their democratic survival at increased risk. [source] Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2005James W. Pennebaker What can we learn about presidential candidates by examining their speech in natural conversation? In the present study, the television interviews from the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign of John Kerry (N= 29) and John Edwards (N= 34) were examined using linguistic analyses. Results indicate that Kerry and Edwards were similar in their use of positive emotion words, but that Kerry used significantly higher rates of negative emotion words than did Edwards. Comparisons with televised interviews of Al Gore from the 2000 presidential campaign (N= 17) revealed striking similarities in the linguistic styles of Gore and Kerry. Gore's linguistic style overlapped considerably with that of Kerry on pronoun usage and many cognitive domains. This study points to how linguistic analyses can give us a clearer picture of how political candidates think, act, and feel. [source] | ||||||||||