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Campaigns change how some people vote. How campaigns have this effect is less well understood. The prevailing view is that these effects occur by changing the content of voters' attitudes such as partisanship or issue positions (persuasion) and by changing the weights voters applied to these determinants of vote choice (priming). Recent research has challenged this view and suggests that the support for these priming and persuasion effects is overstated. Unfortunately, no research directly specifies and tests the specific psychological mechanism responsible for campaign priming. In this article, I draw on the differences in the forms of attitude strength and demonstrate that changes in citizens' uncertainty are responsible for these effects. The results suggest that persuasion and changes in uncertainty (but not ambivalence or importance) are responsible for the changes in voters' decisions during the campaign. Substantively, the largest effects occur because of changes in the uncertainty voters have about the nature of the candidates' character traits.

1984 presidential campaign; covers the role of interest groups and television; campaign funds; the future of the Democratic party.

"This book takes a fresh look at direct democracy by exploring how political actors run direct-democratic campaigns. It is the first study of comparative direct-democratic campaigning and examines eight campaigns on four salient policy domains: immigration, health politics, welfare state issues, and economic liberalism centering on the world's champion par excellence of direct-democracy, Switzerland. Bernhard derives much of his analysis through interviews conducted with campaign managers providing first-hand accounts that offer unprecedented access into the organization and strategy behind direct-democratic campaigns. Campaign Strategy in Direct Democracy is essential reading for students and scholars of political communication and political science."--Publisher's website

Presents views on the just financing of political campaigns. Michael Walzer proposes that the reduction of income inequality would remove most of the evils of private campaign financing, & would be preferable to public funding. Joanne Barkan proposes public campaign financing, along with measures to reduce income inequality. Michael Merrill claims that all the proposals for campaign finance reform are flawed, & proposes the development of a nonprofit educational corporation that would be responsible for organizing political campaigns & ensuring fairness. Finally, James B. Rule proposes limiting campaign contributions to donations from private citizens, which would be capped at $1,000. Such limited funding would curtail the overuse of the media by political campaigns. M. Nichols-Wagner