What the 2008 Election Meant: Politics and Governance

Transcript

THOMAS MANN: The previous sessions have covered topics such as parties and partisanship, the fundamentals of the election, including the economy, the war, and the President’s standing. Our third session looked to see how issues get involved in elections, how ideology or ideological proximity might or might not matter, race, gender, and the traits of candidates. And then last time we looked at, more specifically, at campaign effects, money, ads, and mobilization.

Today we’re going to look back on that, look at the election results, and ask, “What do they portend for politics and governance in the days and months and years ahead?” Partly what we’re going to be doing is seeing what we can add, subtract, and amend to the analyses that have been offered up in the last ten days.

The order of our presentations will begin with Larry Bartels, who, as I said, is co-directing and organizing this session with me. Larry, for those who haven’t bought it yet, you must, his book is called Unequal Democracy. And then we’re going to follow with my long time friend and colleague, Gary Jacobson, who is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California San Diego, who has always written definitive work on congressional elections and money in elections, but whose recent book was a book about the Bush presidency, A Divider, Not a Uniter.

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