The 2000 Presidential Election and the Foundations of Party Politics

Campaigns suddenly seem to matter, as do questions about the electoral process in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. The authors examine the U.S. electoral process as an integrated event spanning a full year, drawing upon the Annenberg 2000 Election Study. The scale of their fieldwork is such that they have been able to isolate key turning points and that dynamics can be studied within certain segments. Johnston, Hagen and Jamieson have also utilized candidate appearances, news coverage, and campaign advertising to provide this integrated account of a U.S. campaign. Richard Johnston is Professor and Head of Political Science at the University of British Columbia and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. He is co-author of Letting the People Decide (Stanford University Press, 1992) and The Challenge of Direct Democracy (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996). Michael G. Hagen is Associate Research Professor and Director of the Center for Public Interest Polling at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. He is co-author of Race and Inequality: A Study in American Values (Chatham House, 1986) and a contributor to Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology (Cambridge, 2003). Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Ware Professor of Communication and Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author or co-author of twelve books on politics and media including Packaging the Presidency (Oxford University Press, 1988).