1984, ISBN: 9780226675442

"The Reasoning Voter" is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three … Plus…

"The Reasoning Voter" is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaigns--Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984--to arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaigns "do" matter. "Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."--David S. Broder, "The Washington Post" Media > Book, [PU: University of Chicago Press]<

1991, ISBN: 9780226675442

Hardcover book. 332 pages. Published by University of Chicago Press (1991) Media > Book, [PU: University of Chicago Press]