The Message Matters : The Economy and Presidential Campaigns.
Title:
The Message Matters : The Economy and Presidential Campaigns.
Author:
Vavreck, Lynn.
ISBN:
9781400830480
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (232 pages)
Series:
Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives
Contents:
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue -- Chapter 1: Presidential Campaigns -- Basic Questions -- What's Coming -- Part i -- Chapter 2: How and Why Campaigns Matter -- The Challenge -- Something's Happening in America -- The Importance of the Economy -- The Importance of the Media -- A Theory of Campaign Effects -- Integrating Literatures -- Spatial Voting: The Past as Predictor of the Future -- Retrospective Voting and Campaign Effects -- Individual-Level Characteristics and Campaign Effects -- Chapter 3: Context Matters: A Campaign Typology -- Theoretical Predictions -- A Campaign Typology -- Clarifying Campaigns -- Insurgent Campaigns -- When the Economy Is Mixed -- Predicting Campaign Types, 1952-2000 -- Part ii -- Chapter 4: The Media Disconnect:Media and Candidate Messages -- Candidates' Messages and How to Measure Them -- Advertisements and Speeches -- Newspaper Coverage -- Coding the Ads, Speeches, and News Coverage -- The Content of Modern Campaigns -- The Media Disconnect -- Chapter 5: The Message Matters: Candidate-Level Tests of the Theory -- Clarifying Campaigns: Dominating Economic Discussion -- Insurgent Campaigns: Issue Selection Matters -- Stevenson 1952 and 1956: Second Time Same as the First -- Goldwater 1964: Just Enough Power to Get the Job Done -- Carter 1980 and Mondale 1984:War through Strength -- Dukakis 1988: An Unfocused American Dream -- Insurgent Candidates Making Wise Choices -- Kennedy 1960: High Hopes -- Nixon 1968: Freedom from Fear or Racial Appeal? -- Carter 1976: Outside and Honest -- Two More Tests of the Theory at the Candidate Level -- A More Rigorous Test of Compliance -- Explaining the Errors in Forecasting Models -- Part iii -- Chapter 6: The Message Matters:Microlevel Tests of the Theory.
Clarifying Candidate Campaign Effects: Do Campaign MessagesShape Voters' Evaluations of Candidates? -- High Fidelity? -- Ads:Messages That Matter -- Clarifying Candidate Campaign Effects: Do Campaign MessagesHelp Voters Learn about Candidates' Issue Positions? -- Measuring Uncertainty -- Reducing Uncertainty -- Campaign Learning about the Economy -- Insurgent-Candidate Campaign Effects: Changing the Debateby Increasing the Importance of Issues -- The Most Important Problem in the Nation -- Most Important Problem and Vote Choice -- Insurgent Candidate Campaign Effects: Being Closer toMost Voters on the Insurgent Issue -- The Difference in Distances -- Differences in Distances and Vote Choice -- The Message and Its Effects -- Chapter 7: Candidates Creating Context -- Can Candidates Create the Context? -- Creating Salience: Finding the Right Insurgent Issue -- Appendix -- References -- Index.
Abstract:
The economy is so powerful in determining the results of U.S. presidential elections that political scientists can predict winners and losers with amazing accuracy long before the campaigns start. But if it is true that "it's the economy, Stupid," why do incumbents in good economies sometimes lose? The reason, Lynn Vavreck argues, is that what matters is not just the state of the economy but how candidates react to it. By demonstrating more precisely than ever before how candidates and their campaigns affect the economic vote, The Message Matters provides a powerful new way of understanding past elections--and predicting future ones. Vavreck examines the past sixty years of presidential elections and offers a new theory of campaigns that explains why electoral victory requires more than simply being the candidate favored by prevailing economic conditions. Using data from presidential elections since 1952, she reveals why, when, and how campaign messages make a difference--and when they can outweigh economic predictors of election outcomes. The Message Matters does more than show why candidates favored by the economy must build their campaigns around economic messages. Vavreck's theory also explains why candidates disadvantaged by the economy must try to focus their elections on noneconomic issues that meet exacting criteria--and why this is so hard to do.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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Electronic Access:
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