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Four decades ago, at the height of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Congress passed and the president signed landmark legislation to ensure voting rights, liberalize and expand immigration, and make higher education more accessible. In 2008, a coalition of minorities and upscale whites formed a coalition to elect Barack Obama to the White House. Although many of the Great Society goals remain elusive, the new Democratic majority assembled by Obama represents the emergence of a Great Society electoral coalition.

This paper contrasts election forecasting models that include macro-economic and financial market variables with forecasts by Fair and the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM), as well estimates made by widely recognized pollsters. The Financial Market Model proposed here incorporates the impact of election year stock market changes, including information about the recent financial crisis. However, the Financial Market Model grossly overestimates the challenger's vote share. The IEM forecast of 53.0 percent, the Fair forecast of 51.9 percent, and the Macro-Economic Market model forecast of 51.5 percent were close to the actual vote share of 53.2 percent for the Democratic nominee, but the Financial Market forecast of 59.4 in this paper would have made the president-elect extremely happy.

Where were interest groups in the 2008 presidential election? In previous elections interest groups have played a crucial, often attacking, role in presidential campaigns. This essay compares the influence of interest groups in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns in terms of financing election activities, shaping the campaign agenda, influencing candidate images and mobilizing voters. Interest groups represented the barking dog that didn't bite in the 2008 presidential election. I offer some explanations involving lessons learned from previous campaigns, strategic calculations by groups, and the challenging issue environment for many interest groups. Despite the muted impact of interest groups in the 2008 presidential campaign, the long-term prognosis is that interest groups will continue to be important in American elections.

This essay explores the scope of the Democratic Party's victory in the 2008 elections by comparing it to other U.S. elections since 1896. Three conclusions are drawn from the analysis: (1) that Obama's personal victory, though significant, was far from being massive, or even unusual, by historical standards; (2) that the Democratic congressional victory of 2008, relative to the midterm election of 2006, falls in the upper range of congressional victories in a presidential year; (3) that the Democrats' victory becomes more impressive in light of its reversal of the 2004 election, which represented the high-water mark for Republicans since 1928. The essay also briefly considers whether and in what sense the Democrats' victory might have inaugurated a party realignment.

Much of the commentary in the wake of last month's presidential election has focused on the magnitude and historic aspects of Barack Obama's victory and the deteriorating economic environment in which it played out. Little thought has been given to the influence of foreign affairs in the election. Yet even in this year's contest, which appears to lend considerable support to economic-based theories of elections, international events clearly played an important role by shaping the nomination process for both major parties and in Obama's selection of Joseph Biden as his running mate.

The presidential turnout rate for those eligible to vote was 61.6% in 2008, which marks the third consecutive increase in presidential turnout rates since the modern low point of 51.7% in 1996. Turnout is no longer declining – if it ever was – and has reverted to the 'high' levels experienced during the 1950s and 1960s. This challenges many theories posited to explain turnout declines. I explore election trends among the states in hopes to provide clues as to why civic engagement has been restored.

This article examines the influences on the 2008 presidential election that led to the election of Barack Obama. There were many reasons why observers expected 2008 to be a strong year for the Democrats. The poor retrospective evaluations of the Bush presidency were thought to be too much of a burden for any Republican presidential candidate to bear successfully. On the other hand, open seat elections have been historically close, in part because successor candidates receive neither the full credit nor the full blame of incumbents. Moreover, in a period of partisan parity and ideological polarization, tight contests are to be expected. Add to these factors the fact that neither party's nominee faced an easy time winning his party's nomination and the fact that McCain was unusually moderate for a Republican presidential candidate and Obama was a northern liberal as well as the first African-American presidential candidate of a major party and there was every reason to suspect a closely decided election. That was the way that the election was shaping up in the polls until the Wall Street meltdown hit in mid-September. It was the "game changer" that tipped the election to Obama.

With the world in the midst of the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression and soft commodity prices depressed, it is easy to forget that barely a year ago sky-rocketing food prices were generating serious political and social strife in more than 30 countries around the world. Were these dramatic increases in price merely a cyclical aberration or do they foreshadow a structural shift in supply and demand that will prove the pessimists right? The price of food is a matter of profound importance for the economic well-being of billions of people and the political stability of the most affected states. Unfortunately, policies aimed at improving short-term food-security issues can end up damaging food security in the long term. Export restrictions or price controls help lower prices for consumers today at the cost of discouraging production and investment tomorrow. All this indicates that we have entered a period of increased uncertainty regarding the future trajectory of food prices, which is likely to have major consequences for future food security and the world economy. (Survival / SWP)

It is unlikely that American officials will again face decisions exactly like those required of the Coalition Provisional Authority in spring 2003. Formal occupations had largely fallen out of favour by the second half of the twentieth century, and the CPA experience is not likely to be replicated. But it is certain that the international community will again find itself assisting societies emerging from conflict to build an enduring peace and establish a representative government. Learning how to best prepare for such a challenge is the key to more-successful future operations. In this regard, the occupation of Iraq provides an object lesson of the costs and consequences of attempting nation building without adequate preparation. (Survival / SWP)

The forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review should broaden the traditional focus of such policy reviews on deterrence requirements and include a thorough analysis of how US nuclear declaratory policy influences the likelihood of nuclear proliferation, the consequences of proliferation, and perceptions of the illegitimacy of nuclear terrorism. Such a broader frame of analysis leads to the conclusion that it would be in the US national interest to adopt a no-first-use declaratory policy, stating clearly that 'the role of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear weapons use by other nuclear weapons states against the United States, our allies, and our armed forces, and to be able respond, with an appropriate range of second-strike nuclear retaliation options, if necessary, in the event that deterrence fails'. (Survival / SWP)