A Spectator’s Guide To American Presidential Elections

Description

A Spectator’s Guide to American Presidential Elections was written to provide a supplemental reading source on this topic. This 171-page book is written in a clear, informative, and often entertaining style. It uses many anecdotes and examples from past elections to engage students and convey both the strategies and drama of political campaigns. Unlike books which focus on voting statistics or the events of a single election, A Spectator’s Guide to American Presidential Elections focuses on:

• Many of the major strategies and tactics used by presidential candidates
• The use of key issues — economics, war and peace, social issues and character issues — to carve out winning campaign strategies
• Three of the most significant elections of modern American history — the 1932 race between Hoover and FDR, the 1980 campaign between Carter and Reagan, and the 2004 election between Kerry and Bush.

About the Author

John McCarthy received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and his B.A. from Holy Cross College. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of California (Irvine) and taught for many years at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Currently, he is a Professor of Political Science at California Baptist University. From 1984 to 1991 he was a member of the senior staff of the Governor of California and from 1992 to 1993 served on the staff of the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Over the years, he has been involved in several state-wide gubernatorial races in California and has also successfully managed several local campaigns.