Campaign and Election

The presidential election of 2000 was one of the most memorable in a century, a race so close that it was decided by only 537 votes in Florida. Two months after the Supreme Court put an end to the Florida recounts, key strategists from the Gore and Bush campaigns gathered in Philadelphia to analyze their successes and failures. In an unusually frank discussion, they disclosed the intentions, the research, and the tactics behind their decision-making on matters ranging from message development to campaign advertising to debate strategy. Why did the Gore team not enlist President Clinton's help more extensively in the campaign? How did the Bush campaign undercut Gore's strategy on Social Security? Why was Gore unable to take credit for the strong economy? Was the press fair to the candidates? Did the mistaken calls made by the networks on election night affect the election's outcome? In Electing the President, 2000, campaign insiders offer their answers to these and many other questions. Both candidates' inner circles are well represented. Representatives of the Bush campaign include senior adviser Karl Rove and ad producers Mark McKinnon and Alex Castellanos. Representatives of the Gore campaign include advisers Bob Shrum and Carter Eskew and pollster Stanley Greenberg. With its wealth of behind-the-scenes information, Electing the President, 2000 will be an essential guide for future campaign and political strategists and will benefit anyone seeking to understand this most unusual presidential race.

The Internet is now a part of American democracy. A majority of Americans are online and many of them use the Internet to learn political information and to follow election campaigns. Candidates now invest heavily in Web and e-mail campaign communication tools in order to reach prospective voters, as well as to communicate with journalists, potential donors, and political activists. How are their efforts paying off? Are voters influenced by what they see on the Internet? Do they use online resources to learn about issues and candidates that mainstream media are not covering? Is the Internet empowering the shrinking electorate to return to the polls?L Campaigning Online answers these questions with a close-up look at the dynamics of the 2000 election on the Internet. Examining how candidates present themselves online, and how voters respond to their efforts - including measures of whether they learn from candidates' web sites and whether their opinions are affected by what they see, the authors present the first systematic depiction of the role of campaign web sites in American elections. L The authors paint a portrait of the voters' side and the candidates' side of campaigning on the Internet that has been unavailable so far. They report on a wealth of new data and evidence drawn from national and state-wide surveys, laboratory experiments, interviews with campaign staff, and analysis of web sites themselves.