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Over the past twenty years, presidential candidates have developed an entertainment talk show strategy in which they routinely chat with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman, and Jon Stewart. In fact, between 1992 and 2012, there have been more than 200 candidate interviews on daytime and late night talk shows with nearly every presidential candidate--from long shot primary contender to major party nominee--hitting the talk show circuit at some point during the campaign. This book explores the development of the entertainment talk show strategy and assesses its impact on presidential campaigns. The chapters mix detailed narrative with extensive empirical data on audiences, content, viewer reaction, and press coverage to explain why candidates have embraced this strategy and the conditions under which these interviews are most likely to meet their expectations. The book also explores how these interviews can enhance campaigns by connecting a critical segment of the voting population with candidates who provide useful political information in a casual setting. Talk Show Campaigns shows that this is more than a gimmick--it's a key part of how candidates communicate with voters, which reveals a lot about how campaigns have changed over the past two decades.

"Over the past twenty years, presidential candidates have developed an entertainment talk show strategy in which they routinely chat with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman, and Jon Stewart. In fact, between 1992 and 2012, there have been more than 220 candidate interviews on daytime and late night talk shows with nearly every presidential candidate--from long shot primary contender to major party nominee--hitting the talk show circuit at some point during the campaign. This book explores the development of the entertainment talk show strategy and assesses its impact on presidential campaigns. The chapters mix detailed narrative with extensive empirical data on audiences, content, viewer reaction, and press coverage to explain why candidates have embraced this strategy and the conditions under which these interviews are most likely to meet their expectations. The book also explores how these interviews can enhance campaigns by connecting a critical segment of the voting population with candidates who provide useful political information in a casual setting. Talk Show Campaigns shows that this is more than a gimmick--it's a key part of how candidates communicate with voters, which reveals a lot about how campaigns have changed over the past two decades"--Provided by publisher

This article undertakes an empirical assessment of a key element of the permanent campaign for the presidency by systematically examining presidential travel from 1977 through 2004. I find that presidential travel does target large, competitive states, and that such strategic targeting has increased over time, supporting the notion that the permanent campaign is on the rise. However, substantial differences between reelection and other years, as well as measures of the breadth of presidential travel and proportional attention to the states, indicate that electoral concerns do not thoroughly permeate patterns of presidential activity throughout a president's years in office, as the logic of the permanent campaign would suggest.

Discusses what voters could learn from what candidates said during the 2000 US primaries, unaddressed issues such as urban sprawl, poverty, school vouchers, and foreign policy; some focus on religion and politics; 22 articles.

AbstractThis article is adapted from the report "Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns," written by Joseph Graf, Grant Reeher, Michael J. Malbin, and Costas Panagopoulos. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, George Washington University, and Campaign Finance Institute, March, 2006. 64 pages. www.ipdi.org and www.cfinst.org.