Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines communication strategy in a political campaign, specifically by examining how often and under what circumstances campaigns discuss the records and experience of the candidates in their communications with voters. Specifically, I find that political campaigns discuss the records of their candidate and their opponent in the communications with voters in nearly 80% of the television advertisements aired by Senate campaigns in the 2000 elections. The use of these records is contingent on the political experience of the two candidates. Candidates who have served in higher office are more likely to see their records discussed in an election—both by their campaign to promote their candidacy, and by their opponent as a means to attack their candidacy. These findings indicate that the experience of the two candidates plays a vital role in the strategic calculations made by political campaigns regarding the messages they wish to transmit to voters.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper offers a
consideration of the relationship between political rule and political
rhetoric from the perspective of classical political history. It takes
as its point of departure an often overlooked digression in Book I of
Thucydides’ War of the Peloponnesians and Athenians. The digression
comes between the third speech of the Corinthians and the first speech
of Pericles just before the Peloponnesian war begins. Each speech
offers a different attempt at grounding the goodness of their
respective counsel. The substance of the digression, on the other hand,
concerns the fates of three political men– Cylon, Pausanias, and
Themistocles – and their respective postures towards ruling. This
digression has been overlooked because it has been traditionally
understood to constitute either a sign of the unfinished character of
Book I or Thucydides’ taste for engaging in historical biography.
Careful reconsideration of this digression and its lessons regarding
the goodness of political rule, taken in context, shows how the need to
establish the goodness of the political counsel under consideration
must satisfy certain rhetorical constraints. In short, the digression
shows that political counsel must possess a uniquely Periclean
character. But by showing how this apparent digression bears on the
ostensibly main object of the speeches, and is thus more than just a
digression, this paper hopes to clarify Thucydides’ own rhetoric. But
whereas the work’s lessons about political rule bear on the rhetoric of
political men, a clarification of Thucydides’ rhetoric should bear on
his understanding of political rule.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: How do youths reconcile political information from two bases of social experience: the home and the neighborhood? Using the NELS merged with ROAD, I examine the differential effects of home politics and neighborhood politics on youth voter turnout.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Feminism has gone through many changes over the last twenty years. As a nation moving forward, we have to ask ourselves the difficult question--What is feminism in the 21st Century?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper analyzes the conditions under which governments rely on different fiscal instruments to increase their electoral prospects and the influence of those instruments on the political business cycle.