As the 2016 election campaign attests, the Grand Old Party―once moderate and even magnanimous―has fallen into a prison of its own making when it comes to presidential politics. After the debacle of the George W. Bush presidency and the rout of the Romney candidacy, Republicans said they must broaden their base, become more inclusive, and return to the warmth of Reagan idealism. Instead, what we have is a bitter, backbiting, and race- and gender-baiting campaign with a candidate more exclusive than any before him. How did we get here and how do we get out? This book tracks the modern history of the Republican Party and shows its decline, even while shining a light on its high points and urging it back in a positive direction. Every reader interested in the US presidential election, the primary process, and the clash of politics and culture will find something enlightening in John White’s exposition. Above all, he puts the Age of Trump into perspective, looking back as well as forward in his analysis. Who is this book for? Students of American government, political parties, campaigns & elections Scholars in political science and political history General readers interested in the current presidential campaign and the health of American democracy Features 1. Current. Anticipates the current state of the Republican Party, at odds with itself as much as with the American public. Includes 2014 midterm election data with an eye toward the 2016 presidential contest. 2. A broad historical sweep. Covers a broad historical period from the 1950s (Eisenhower era) to the present, with a strong emphasis on the Reagan years which represent the GOP at its zenith. 3. Efficient use of polling and demographic data. Takes a broad swath of historical data (including polling data) and presents it in a condensed, readable format. At the same time, the reader is not inundated by polling and demographic data. 4. Bold. Any reader will come away from this book understanding that the GOP predicament is likely to last for some time to come. The problems Republicans face are both intellectual and political. They are not likely to be solved by any one candidate or election and will be compounded and confounded by the events of 2016.

Product Description: PREORDER YOUR EXAM COPY NOW! AVAILABLE JANUARY 2012!From Democrats to Republicans, from the Green Party to the Tea Party, American parties and their politics are continuously adapting, renewing, and evolving to meet the challenges of the times...read more

Change was the theme of the 2008 presidential election. In Winning the White House, 2008, the authors explore the historical and emerging voting patterns shaping this transformative election.  After examining the selection of the Republican and Democratic nominees, they address the most compelling economic, social, and foreign policy concerns facing the electorate during the general election campaign. Surveying the electoral map, they then analyze how control of the White House and Congress hinged on the developing trends across the nation’s four main regions. Within regions, special attention is paid to the battleground states, voters, and issues that were central to Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain.

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Product Description: John White's fascinating new book explores the increasingly dominant role values play in today's public and private life, concluding that a serious rift in political and cultural values in America produced the astounding tie between George W...read more

Product Description: KEY BENEFIT Very readable and interesting, this book provides analyses of contemporary U.S. government and politics issues. One or two substantial essays are devoted to each of the major political topics of the day. It is the ideal supplement to any standard American Government book...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Essays on the need for a more dynamic public philosophy in American politics.This collection addresses the importance of ideas, and ideas of importance, to American politics at the beginning of a new century. On the one hand, the contributors find a distressing absence of ideas in American politics and a parallel rise of the power of political identities, interests, and other detrimental influences. On the other hand, many of the ideas that are present are superficial and unproductive. The contributors debate the role of the major political parties in developing and promoting better ideas to reenergize American politics in the next century, and address the search for a workable public philosophy, party responsibility, party policy among Republicans and Democrats, and democratic citizenship. (view table of contents)

Product Description: With the passage of the Cold War, political parties in nearly every corner of the globe have undergone a vast upheaval. Political Parties and the Collapse of the Old Orders describes these changes using several countries as laboratories: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, and Russia...read more

In Still Seeing Red, John Kenneth White explores how the Cold War molded the internal politics of the United States. In a powerful narrative backed by a rich treasure trove of polling data, White takes the reader through the Cold War years, describing its effect in redrawing the electoral map as we came to know it after World War II. The primary beneficiaries of the altered landscape were reinvigorated Republicans who emerged after five successive defeats to tar the Democrats with the “soft on communism” epithet. A new nationalist Republican party—whose Cold War prescription for winning the White House was copyrighted to Dwight Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan—attained primacy in presidential politics because of two contradictory impulses embedded in the American character: a fanatical preoccupation with communism and a robust liberalism. From 1952 to 1988 Republicans won the presidency seven times in ten tries. The rare Democratic victors—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter—attempted to rearm the Democratic party to fight the Cold War. Their collective failure says much about the politics of the period. Even so, the Republican dream of becoming a majority party became perverted as the Grand Old Party was recast into a top-down party routinely winning the presidency even as its electoral base remained relatively stagnant.In the post–Cold War era, Americans are coming to appreciate how the fifty-year struggle with the Soviet Union organized thinking in such diverse areas as civil rights, social welfare, education, and defense policy. At the same time, Americans are also more aware of how the Cold War shaped their lives—from the “duck and cover” drills in the classrooms to the bomb shelters dug in the backyard when most Baby Boomers were growing up. Like millions of Baby Boomers, Bill Clinton can truthfully say, “I am a child of the Cold War.”With the last gasp of the Soviet Union, Baby Boomers and others are learning that the politics of the Cold War are hard to shed. As the electoral maps are being redrawn once more in the Clinton years, landmarks left behind by the Cold War provide an important reference point. In the height of the Cold War, voters divided the world into “us” noncommunists versus “them” communists and reduced contests for the presidency into battles of which party would be tougher in dealing with the Evil Empire. But in a convoluted post–Cold War era, politics defies such simple characteristics and presidents find it harder to lead. Recalling how John F. Kennedy could so easily rally public opinion, an exasperated Bill Clinton once lamented, “Gosh, I miss the Cold War.”

Product Description: An investigation into the current state of American politics that examines the diminishing significance of the two-party system.

The New Politics of Old Values provides the first assessment of the vital importance of values in the political process by analyzing Ronald Reagan's intuitive appeal to traditional American values including individualism, freedom, and equality of opportunity. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Book by White, John Kenneth