The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns / Edition 2

by Samuel L. Popkin

Overview

The Reasoning Voter is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaigns—Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984—to arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaigns do matter.

"If you're preparing to run a presidential campaign, and only have time to read one book, make sure to read Sam Popkin's The Reasoning Voter. If you have time to read two books, read The Reasoning Voter twice."—James Carville, Senior Stategist, Clinton/Gore '92

"A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior."—Thomas Byrne Edsall, New York Review of Books
"Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."—David S. Broder, The Washington Post

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226675459
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	06/15/1994
Edition description:	1
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. The Reasoning Voter
2. Acquiring Data: The Process of Becoming Informed
3. Going without Data: Information Shortcuts
4. Going beyond the Data: Evidence and Inference in Voting
5. Attributable Benefits and Political Symbols
6. Expectations and Reassessments: Surges and Declines in Presidential Primaries
7. The Democratic Primaries of 1976: Watergate and the Rise of Jimmy Carter
8. The Republican Primaries of 1980: George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and the Legacy of '76
9. The Fight to Redirect the Democratic Coalition in 1984
10. Conclusion
Notes
Biography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Anchoring his analysis to case studies of three primary campaigns--Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984--and drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, Popkin (political science, U. of California, San Diego) critiques the conventional wisdom about presidential elections and the way voters make their choices. His revisionist account shows that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Popkin uses data from primary elections -- in which both the time for campaigning and information are scarce - to . . . [suggest] that voters pick candidates closely reflecting their own positions on a variety of issues.' -- New York Review of Books

Tomislav Z. Longinovic

A rigorous, refreshing rebuttal of conventional thinking, the book argues that Americans take more than echoes of slogans and sound-bites into the voting booth. . . .Shrewdly reveals the realities of the electoral process. -- Chicago Tribune Books

Robert Schmuhl

"A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior."

New York Review of Books - Thomas Byrne Edsall

"If you're preparing to run a presidential campaign, and only have time to read one book, make sure to read Sam Popkin's The Reasoning Voter. If you have time to read two books, read The Reasoning Voter twice."

James Carville

A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior.

— Thomas Byrne Edsall

New York Review of Books