Final Blog For Class on 12/21: Comparing the 2012 Online Campaigns

For our last blog I would like you to take a look at several of the campaign websites for those seeking the office in 2012. You should compare these sites in terms of 1) their style and appearance; 2) what types of information to they offer and what do they emphasize; 3) what tools are available for supporters to use to help the campaigns and how can supporters take action. Keep in mind that while most will ask you for your e mail address you do not need to enter it, you can always click on an option to go directly to the campaign site (though following what the campaigns do might be interesting now that you all love the presidency!) First it will help to take a look at President Obama's campaign site.
Next you should browse through the leading GOP candidates' campaign sites:
Newt Gingrich
Mitt Romney
Ron Paul
Rick Perry
Michelle Bachmann
Rick Santorum
Jon Huntsman

1. Do any of these campaign sites affect how you feel about the candidate?
2. Which campaign(s) seem to be the most pursuasive? Why?
3. What tools or information do you find the most useful/effective for campaigns?
   

For class on 12/14: The Electoral College Debate

The bottom image is an Electoral Cartogram showing the electoral votes apportioned to each state as a result of the 2010 Census.


So you know that whole go out and elect the president thing? Well, it's not really that simple. The framers designed the Electoral College, which today is made up of 538 electors who officially elect the president. The process is a bit complicated, but you can take a look at a great explanation here (or a funny one here or, if you're feeling old school you can watch the schoolhouse rock version). There has been a debate growing since the Constitution was written in 1787 about whether the electoral college is the best way to elect a president. The criticism of the electoral college became more pronounced after the controversial election of 2000, which ended in a Supreme Court decision and George W. Bush's first victory (although Al Gore won the popular vote). A great video describing why many believe the electoral college is unfair and should be replaced by the popular vote selecting the president can be seen here. A recent poll found that nearly 75% of Americans believed that the electoral college should be removed and efforts are being made to try to amend the constitution to change or remove it. However there are many practical reasons why the electoral college still works well as explained in chapter 5 of this video debate titled "In Defense of the Electoral College", not to mentions the fears of faction in a direct democracy described by Joames Madison in Federalist #10. So now its up to you. How should we elect our presidents? Should we keep the electoral college or should we replace it with the popular vote?

For Class on 12/7: The Obama Campaign 2012

While much of the network attention is focused on the battle for the GOP nomination, the Obama campaign has been building on their impressive organizing success of 2008 in preparation for 2012. There is little doubt that the 2008 Obama campaign was arguably the most successful campaign in the history of American politics. In particular the campaign incorporated new technology and social media in a comprehensive and strategic way that provided interactive tools to allow supporters to be active and engaged right from home. Meanwhile it was able to break all records in terms of fundraising. However what may have been lost in the technology hype was the incredible army of volunteers that the campaign organized to go door to door and make phone calls as campaigns have done for decades. Take a look at how the Obama team is preparing for the 2012 campaign. Are there any elements of campaign organizing and strategy that are surprising? What do you think will be the keys to organizing a victorious campaign for 2012?

For Class on 11/30: the First Family

It's Thanksgiving week and along with the focus on food (and black friday shopping and football...) Thanksgiving is often connected with family. The first family is often a fascination of many Americans. The Kennedy administration was often referred to as Camelot, due to the hope and optimism paid to the Kennedys and the first family, along the lines of European royalty. Jaqueline Kennedy along affected culture and style across the country and many first ladies have had direct connections to particular policy areas (none more so that Hillary Clinton, who helped design a health care reform bill). First Lady Michelle Obama, an accomplished lawyer and former boss to her husband, has her own official office and policy areas including the Let's Move campaign. She also has a huge following (also see here) and approval rating substanitally higher than her husband. The children of presidents have also recieved a lot of attention but are often kep out of the spotlight (see Clinton, Chelsea, and Obama, Sasha and Malia).

1. What role does the first family (or more specifically the first lady) play in our understand of, or connection to the president?
2. What role, if any, should the first family play in a president's image and/or campaign?

Enjoy your thanksgiving everyone!

For Class on 11/30: Forecasting the 2012 Election (Double Blog Opportunity)

This Blog will be available for two now three weeks. Once again you can earn two blog credits by substantially adding to the conversation at two different times. We will discuss this blog on 11/30.

OK, we probably shouldn't do it but we all constantly make predictions. We, as a society are addicted to predictions and it's easy to make them because incorrect predictions are a dime a dozen and correct predictions, especially unlikely ones, can get you noticed. There is perhaps no place where this comes into play as regularly as politics where predictions are used so often that we start to assume they are reliable. They aren't. But political predictions based on good social science can carry a bit more weight. This past weekend Nate Silver (who now writes a blog for the NY Times and used to run an independent prediction site knows ans fivethrityeight that used extensive and relaible models) wrote a very interesting piece predicting the 2012 race based on three factors (or variables to use good social science speak): Obama's favorability a year before the election, the economic growth measured by GDP, and how extreme the poltiical views of his opponent are. Read (or thoroughly skim) the article here, and play with the interactive feature predicting the popular vote winner here. You may also want to look at the leading market based prediction service known as intrade, where you can wager on just about anything and use the market to predict what will happen. There are a ton of political markets on the site but the Obama reelection market can be found here. be sure to take a look at how their market works and how best to use it.

1. After reading this interesting article do you think that this prediction model should matter at all? What is useful? What is not?
2. If you looked at the intrade site, do you think that is a better prediction model? Why? Why not?
3. What factor(s) (or variables) not included in Nate Silver's model do you think will play a  major role in determining who wins in Nov. 2012?

For Class on 11/14: Midterm Review Blog

Midterm Review Blog

This week please use the blog to review for the exam. Feel free to post general or specific questions or thoughts and then respond to each others posts. You do not need to write anything more than brief blog entries but I strongly encourage you to check into the blog regularly to look for questions and to help share ideas to review for the exam. The more entries that you add the better for everyone. Make sure to review other entries so that you have correct concepts before the exam.

A couple of hints:

1. Use the review sheet (but don't psych yourself out) it is supposed to help you.
2. Make sure that you have core concepts for each of the sections down, as you begin to connect those large concepts work to include other ideas and identifications connected to those core ideas.
3. Make sure to review readings and class notes.

For Class on 11/2: Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is a movement that has been growing nationwide over the past several weeks. While some criticize this growing movement as having no definitive policy agenda or organized platform, the activists involved are generally organized  against corporate greed, social inequality and other disparities between rich and poor.

These protests have continued to attract support from many around the nation as well as increasing media attention. Take a look at a good summary of this protest movement from the NY Times here and, if you are interested, you can look at the movement's main website here or livestream of events here. Also I suggest you look through a very interesting photo blog running of hundreds of supporters of the movement (identified as "the other 99 percent, as opposed to the top 1% of extremely wealthy Americans) sharing their stories here. Finally there is a very interesting visual description of why these protesters are so upset that gives some good data, which you can find here.

After reading and perusing through this information the growing movement (and there is much much more out there) please start a discussion using the following prompts as a starting point:

1. To what extend to you support the protests?
2. Do you believe that this movement is going to affect the political agenda of the President or GOP candidates? If yes, in what way? If no, why not?