2008 and the Party System
Todd and Gawiser, How Obama Won
Study questions will be posted the day before class.
KC Johnson
Pages
- American Political Parties (Fall 2020–1)
- American Political Parties (Fall 2020–2)
- Campus Due Process Documents
- CV
- Duke Case Documents
- Lacrosse Primary Material
- Non-Current Courses
- Senior Thesis Class (fall 2020)
- U.S. & Israel: Presidential Tapes
- US Constitutional History (Summer 2020) (Section 1)
- US Constitutional History (Summer 2020) (Section 2)
- Yemen Tapes
1. Do you agree with Todd and Gawiser that Obama is better at making speeches than in a debate? Why do you think this is?
2. Do you think negative ads help or hurt a campaign? With regard to McCain, do you think not having negative ads hurt him?
3. Hillary Clinton, “got a tad emotional,” in New Hampshire. Was this a clever campaign strategy? Were women thinking that Clinton was not ‘womanly’ enough?
4. Is anyone responsible for Hillary losing so much of the African American vote when she would regularly out poll Obama? If you say it was all Bill, then who is really at fault?
5. What role did campaign financing have in both the primaries and in the general election? Put aside your own personal feelings of the election and think…is it fair? (Obama = 1 Billion / McCain = 500 thousand) Keep in mind also the Primaries…is money the reason Hillary lost?
6. Do you think this an appropriate analogy:
“Our NBC colleague, Tom Brokaw, liked to compare the McCain campaign team to guerilla war fighterrs. They could do quick strikes and shock their foes for a day or two, but like many unsuccessful guerilla armies, the McCain campaign could never advance on the general election battlefield. The never took new ground, never forced the Obama campaign into retreat. The bet the McCain campaign could ever do was slow the Obama campaign from advancing; they never stopped them,”(pg 18-19)