Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- The Stakes -- Forecasting Models and the Record of the Previous Administration -- The Persuasibility of the Electorate -- News and Ads -- Perceptions of Candidate Traits -- Personality and Issues -- Ads, News, and Enlightenment -- Democratic/Republican Asymmetry -- What We Do Not Do -- Data and Analyses -- The Book -- 2 The Evolution of Vote Intentions -- Phases in the Campaign -- Other Dynamics -- Asymmetric Mobilization -- Diminishing Amplitude of Swings -- Conclusions -- Accounting for Phases -- Phases and Political Cognition -- Coexistence of Patterns -- 3 The Landscape -- The Balance of Forces -- Social Structure -- Party Identification -- Ideological Self-Designation -- Party and Ideology as Free-Standing Factors -- Overall Balance -- Geographic Stability and the Battleground -- The Relative Strength of Candidates' Links to Groups -- Who Shifted? -- The General Pattern -- The Liberal-Conservative Gap -- The General Pattern -- Conclusions -- Balance -- Potential for Movement -- An Alternative Reading -- The Natural Experiment -- 4 Ads and News -- The Geographic Concentration of Effort -- Models of Resource Allocation -- Geography of Visits -- Geography of Ads -- Dynamics of Ads -- The Balance of Forces -- Volume -- Impact -- The Dynamics of TV News -- Volume -- Valence -- Impact -- The Missing Link: Interest in the News -- Intensity of Interest -- Theoretical Stakes -- Evidence -- Conclusions -- 5 The Economy, Clinton, and the First Phase -- The Economy -- Failures of Prediction -- The Economy in the Campaign -- Economic Perceptions -- The Clinton Factor -- Conclusions -- 6 Candidate Traits and the Second Phase -- The Perceptual Tradeoff -- Ads, News, and Character -- Conclusions -- 7 Social Security and the Third Phase.

Early Exchanges -- The "Free Media" -- The Debates -- Network News -- Advertising Attack and Counterattack -- Dynamics of Voter Perception -- Dynamics of Voter Opinion -- Impact on the Vote -- Conclusions -- 8 Conclusions -- Recapitulation in Detail -- The Shape of Vote Dynamics -- Allocation of Resources -- The Burden of Recent History -- Executive Fitness and Interpretive Credibility -- The Battle for the Center -- The Requirement for Skill -- The Nature of Campaign Communications -- Links between Ads and News -- Campaigns and the Quality of Electoral Choice -- Some Open Questions -- Personal versus Impersonal Influence -- Ads: Quantity and Quality -- Other Possible Effects of Ads -- Political Cognition -- Campaigns in Competitive Context -- Appendix Tables -- References -- Index.