Final Grades Posted on Howdy

Enjoy your break!

Last Minute Office Hours

I will hold office hours to answer your last minute questions tomorrow from 10am-11:30am and 1-2pm. In addition, feel free to email with questions.

Remember that the final exam is in our regular class room from 8am-10am on Tuesday. Please make sure to bring two blue books in the event you need extra paper.

Good luck with the studying!

Grades Posted

Your grades are posted on e-Learning. You will notice that your grades include the final draft of the paper but do not include the most recent quiz. I will update when I finish grading the quizzes.

See you tomorrow for the Final Exam review session.

Reading for Friday Posted on Course Reserves

Friday's assigned reading, "Impact on Public Responses," from Evaluating Campaign Quality, is now available on the library's course reserve website.

Campaign Ethics

What standards (if any) should campaigns follow? How should campaigns be judged? Clearly a tradeoff exists between 1) winning election and 2) informing the public. The first is a private good where benefits are distributed to the winning candidate, the candidate's staff, and supporters. The second is a public good where benefits are distributed throughout society.

For the rest of the week we will talk about campaign reform, ethics, and norms. Please take a look at the Code of Ethics established by the American Association of Political Consultants, the governing body of professional campaign workers. See you in class on Wednesday and do not forget to bring the final draft of your papers to turn in.

Extra Office Hours

I will hold extra office hours tomorrow (Tuesday) from 10am-12pm to discuss your papers. I will also be available during the day and into the evening tomorrow to answer your questions.

Why did Harry Reid Survive the GOP Wave? (Part II)

So I posted an article last week that discussing the Reid campaign operation. Here is an article that discusses the Angle campaign operation. So, it is possible that Reid won reelection both because of his campaign's quality and his opponent's poor campaign.

Lecture Tomorrow

So I realized that I failed to provide the Sulkin article on the library's reserves. Please find it if you can, and if not, do not worry as I will lecture on it briefly tomorrow.

Why did Harry Reid Survive the GOP Wave?

A great question. Let's go to the source and find out from his consultants and strategists. Notice the discussion of polling, targeting, developing a message, and mobilization--all concepts we've talked about recently in class.

See you Friday.

Office Hours Today Cancelled

There will be no office hours today. Please contact me via email if you need to meet.

For Friday

Thank you for keeping up with the reading. For Friday, please make sure to read Jamie Carson, Gregory Koger, Matthew Lebo, and Everett Young, "The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress," American Journal of Political Science Volume 54, Issue 3, pages 598-616 (July 2010). The article should be available through the library's main page by searching under e-journals or via Google Scholar on a campus computer. Please contact me if you have problems accessing the article.

Election Interpretations

Here is a link to the blog that I showed in class the other day. Please make sure to take a look at the entries, "Did Controversial Roll Call Votes Doom the Democrats?", "How Much Did the Tea Party Help GOP Candidates?", and "The Forecasts and the Outcome."

See you all in class.

Election Day

True to form, we have a national media outlet analyzing whether House Dems are receiving an electoral benefit or punishment for voting against their party leaders. The link is here. Of course, what they fail to take into account is that these House Democrats would be in competitive reelection races regardless of how they voted on Health Care Reform -- or even if Health Care Reform had not even been on the agenda. Keep that in mind as you follow the election pundits who claim that Health Care--or really any specific issue (except for maybe the economy)--is responsible for the inevitable Democratic losses.

Election Eve

Three things are certain to happen tomorrow:

First, the GOP will make gains in the House. Second, the GOP will make gains the Senate. Third, the GOP will make gains in partisan control of governorships. The uncertainty, then, is how large the gains will be for the Republican Party.

I've compiled a few links for you to take a look at through the course of the day before the polls close. As usual, you should also check the major news outlets for Election Day campaign coverage.

As the results come in tomorrow night, check out this post to determine how big the gains are likely to be for the Republicans. Fivethirtyeight developed a ranking for each congressional district to indicate how big the gains for the GOP will be based on the election results in that district. For example, the table indicates that if TX-23 congressional district switches from Democrat Ciro Rodriguez to Republican Francisco Canseco, the Republicans will be winning a gain of roughly 54 seats. Another example would be that the table indicates that if the Republican wins in Hawaii's First congressional district, the Republicans would be expected to make a gain of at least 68 seats. On the other hand, if the Democrat Salazar can manage to hang on in Colorado's Third congressional district, the Republicans will have trouble winning more than 29 seats in the House. In other words, from the blog:

"What you should be looking for is whether Republicans are consistently winning seats with magic numbers in the 60s, 70s, 80s or higher. If so, they could be in for a very big night. Conversely, if Democrats are holding onto seats with magic numbers in the teens, 20s, or 30s, that means they are overperforming their forecasts and could hold the House."


The magic number appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the tables.

The exams are graded and will be returned in class on Wednesday.

I'll be posting other interesting election information. From today's class, here is a link to Intrade: http://www.intrade.com/ and a link to Gallup's generic ballot information: http://www.gallup.com/poll/144125/Republicans-Appear-Poised-Win-Big-Tuesday.aspx

For those of you volunteering on campaigns, best of luck tomorrow. The rest of us will have to wait to see how it all plays out.

This Week's Schedule

Wednesday: Review for Exam Two. Bring questions to class.

Friday: Exam Two in class.

Papers due in Class Wednesday

This is a reminder that papers are due in class on Wednesday. The expectations for the papers are available here and the course syllabus discusses the papers as well; it is available here. Do not forget to include boldface headings that separate out each section. This will allow me to determine how you are applying your congressional election to the theories and concepts discussed in class.

I'm sure some of you are finished, some of you are revising and editing, and some of you are starting. As you are in these various stages of completion, keep in mind that you should state explicitly how the findings you have about your congressional election relate back to the theories and concepts from the class.

Best of luck with the writing and feel free to email me any questions.

Money in the Midterms

The New York Times article and graphic I discussed in class on Friday is available here.

Also, do not forget that the paper is due in class on Wednesday. The requirements for the paper are in a document posted to the course blog a few weeks ago.

See you in class on Monday.

Organizational Success and Organizational Failure

I hope you all had a great weekend!

This week's reading focuses on campaign organizations. What do most of us know about campaign organizations? Unfortunately, not too much. The media, of course, is willing to share their thoughts about good and bad campaigns. Here and here are two articles from the 2008 presidential campaign that focus on the shortcomings of the McCain campaign and the successes of the Obama campaign.

While these articles offer some insights as to how the organizations work and how principals actors within the organizations perceived their successes and failures, what more can be said about the McCain and Obama campaigns? Think critically about what else was occurring in the strategic context that allowed the media to portray the Obama campaign as innovative, strategic, and successful, while at the same time portraying the McCain campaign as being in disarray. In particular, I want you to consider which approach is more likely to describe the dynamics of campaign organizations:

1. Campaign organizations --> political outcomes
In this approach, the strategic moves by campaign organizations influence voters, the media, etc., and ultimately lead to political outcomes. How would we see evidence of this?
OR...
2. Political outcomes --> Campaign organizations
In this approach, the political context influences the decisions campaigns make about their organizational structure, strategy, and tactics. How would we see evidence of this?

I will have the exams back to you at some point this week. See you in class.

Nonprofits and Campaign Activity

Today's New York Times has an article about Senate Democrats requesting that the IRS begin to investigate whether nonprofit groups under the 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) tax status are following the law. Recall that these groups' primary purpose may not be campaign activity.

Pastors Defy Tax Code

We talked in class on Friday about the different ways independent groups get involved in campaigns. Non-profit, tax exempt groups are allowed to get involved with campaigns, but only to the extent that they do not endorse candidates. On the other hand, they can get involved with nonpartisan activity, such as holding candidate forums, educating voters, and registering voters. These groups fall under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS tax code, and as such, they receive tax exempt status. This means that these groups do not have to pay taxes on their income. The most obvious example of a 501(c)(3) organization is a church. Indeed, according to a recent ABC News article located here, a number of pastors plan to get involved in partisan politics this year. In fact, these churches will be sending copies of their partisan sermons to the IRS in the hopes that the IRS will investigate them.

Why do they want to be investigated? The churches see an investigation as an opportunity to file a federal lawsuit against the IRS which prevents them from engaging in partisan activity. They feel that the courts, rather than having the law overturned by Congress, is a venue where they are likely to be more successful. The opposite view is that churches are free to give up their tax exempt status if they wish to engage in partisan activity. Regardless of what position you take on the issue, this shows that churches, like business groups, labor unions, candidates, and parties, are all planning to get involved with this year's election.

Americans for Job Security

The New York Times has a timely article (given our reading this week) on Americans for Job Security, a tax-exempt 501(c)(6) business organization. The article is here. Take a look at the graphics and video clips associated with the article.

Parties and Interests Go on the Offensive

One of my favorite things about campaigns is TV advertising. While we will not be discussing advertising in class for another few weeks, TV ads are the most direct way to relate the reading to real world political examples. Herrnson Chapter 4 describes the three types of campaigns that parties can conduct to assist candidates: independent, parallel, and coordinated campaigns.

One feature of independent campaigns, or independent expenditures, is that they often employ a different tone because by law, they must not coordinate with the candidates or the rest of the party. Here is an example of an independent expenditure TV ad paid for by the Republican Party in 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgSZyZDvbtY&feature=related

Here is an example of a TV advertisement paid for by Citizens for the Republic, a 501(c)(4) organization:http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/09/23/group-updates-iconic-reagan-ad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fwashwire%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Washington+Wire%29

While these are just two examples, we will talk more in depth in a few weeks about why and how television ads work.

UPDATE:

Here are two articles that discuss the sometimes confusing world of campaign finance:
The first, from the Columbia Journalism Review: NYT on the ABC’s of 501(c)s
and the second, from the New York Times, referring to the recent Citizens United Supreme Court case:
Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit.
Finally, a summary from electionlawblog.org, on the Disclose Act, the legislative response by those unhappy with the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case: http://electionlawblog.org/archives/DISCLOSE%20Act_Sec-by-Sec.pdf

Yesterday's Lecture

Now posted here. See you all in class tomorrow.

Republicans Begin to Consider Challenging Obama

If you followed politics any this weekend, you probably noticed that a number of 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls were at events in Iowa (the Ronald Reagan Dinner) and in Washington, DC (the Values Voter summit) in order to determine whether they should run for the party's nomination. This is indicative of two topics we covered thus far in class. First, the 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls are attempting to determine where to position themselves ideologically to win the party's nomination, a task for them that is becoming increasingly difficult given the recent Tea Party success within the party. Second, it indicates that the candidates are considering factors about the decision to run that we discussed in class on Friday and will continue to discuss in class on Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/us/politics/18repubs.html?_r=1&ref=politics

Delaware: It's Not Just for Tax-Free Shopping Anymore

What the heck is going on in Delaware?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/14/AR2010091407063.html?hpid=topnews

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/the-morning-after-whose-party-is-it/

Last night, unknown perennial candidate Christine O'Donnell defeated Representative Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate. This is notable because O'Donnell was under attack from Castle and the Delaware Republican Party, and because Castle served two terms as the state's governor and multiple terms in the House of Representatives. But what do last night's results from Delaware mean?

If you read the articles closely, you should be able to pick up on two themes articulated by the media about what the election means. First, the media is arguing that the election indicates strength of the Tea Party movement, signaling that conservative activists in Delaware (and nationally) preferred O'Donnell over the more moderate Castle. Rep. Castle was one of the more moderate Republicans in the House, which makes sense, given that John McCain only received 37% of the vote in Delaware in 2008. This argument basically states that the election was about ideology, that Castle was far too moderate for voters and Tea Party activists who were a considerable portion of the Delaware Republican primary electorate. If the election was about ideology, and O'Donnell defeated Castle, what can we say about the candidates' relationships to the Median Voter in the Delaware Republican primary? The articles also hint that O'Donnell's victory means that the election is likely to lean toward the Democratic candidate - what does this imply for the candidates' relationships to the Median Voter of Delaware's general election voters?

Second, the articles also discuss an "anti-establishment" and "anti-Washington" element to the election results. This should not be confused with an interpretation of the election based on ideology. Instead, this interpretation argues that poor government performance - on issues like the economy, the War in Afghanistan, the Gulf oil spill, etc. - is causing voters to reject Washington incumbents.

These arguments are different - one is arguing that the election was about ideology, and the other arguing that the election is about poor government performance. Which do you think best describes the relationship between the Tea Party, the Republican Party, and current defeats of Republican incumbents in primaries?

UPDATE:

The consequences of this primary for the general election campaign are clear, according to a new poll by Public Policy Polling:

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/09/coons-up-big.html

Papers

Hi all-

As promised, on Monday I will discuss in detail my expectations for the research paper. Here is a link where you can find a document on the research paper.

I hope you had a great weekend and see you in class on Monday!

UPDATE:

A newer version of the paper instructions is available here.

Lecture available

Hi all-

I've made last Wednesday's slides available here.

Here's a few ads to take a look at:

What party is this candidate?

Roy Blunt (R-MO) for U.S. Senate on Taxes and the Economy

See you all in class.

-Chris

For Next Week

It was good to see you all again yesterday. I have two items for you:

Campaigns in the United States are candidate-centered. Here is the example I was going to show you in class.

Bobby Bright for Congress: Independence

Congressman Bright is clearly running for re-election by running against his own party. The same is true in the next example:

Obama-Terry Voter?

Lee Terry was an incumbent Republican congressman from Omaha, Nebraska, but thought it advantageous to tie his fortunes to Barack Obama's.

For Monday, don't forget to read Johnston on Party Identification and for Wednesday read the Shepsle article.

Remember, class is cancelled for this Friday, September 3.

I'll make the slides available shortly.

Howdy

Howdy Ags!

It was nice to meet all of you in class today. As I stated in class, I graduated in 2005 from Furman University where I majored in Political Science and was active in campus and community politics. After working on a few campaigns and at a trade association in Washington, I decided to move to Aggieland for a Ph.D. in Political Science. When I'm not working on my dissertation or prepping class you can find me at the Buffalo Wild Wings in College Station -- usually trying frantically to have a television turned to watch my Tar Heels play.

As the syllabus states, part of the required reading will be following this blog and the coverage of elections in national and Texas media. Here are a few links for you to check on periodically:

The New York Times

Washington Post

Congressional Quarterly

Politico

For the Texas media perspective, you should check on:

Houston Chronicle


Dallas Morning News


Austin American-Statesman

Here are a few TV ads currently running from congressional elections around the country:

-The U.S. Chamber of Commerce for Rob Portman (R) - Ohio Senate

-The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee against Roy Blunt (R) - Missouri Senate

-Rep. Chet Edwards (D) against Bill Flores (R) - TX 17

-Bill Flores (R) against Rep. Chet Edwards (D) - TX 17

and Mick Mulvaney (R) against Rep. John Spratt (D) - SC 5

Don't forget to read Herrnson, Intro. and Chapter 1 and Jacobson, Chapters 1 and 2. See you all on Wednesday.

Gig 'em.