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.