Campaign politics has become increasingly professionalized in recent years. The growing prevalence and influence of paid consultants in the United States and other democracies is one of the most important factors changing the nature of electoral politics. Campaign Warriors thoroughly examines this critical—and controversial—development and its impact on the political system in the U.S. and other countries.The contributors approach the topic from several different perspectives, including the increasing use of "spin doctors" and the resulting loss of influence of state and national political parties. The book investigates the role of these paid advisers: who they are, what they do and why, and how they feel about their work. The contributors discuss the consultant's relationship with candidates and parties, and analyze the effect of their efforts on election outcome. (view table of contents)

We will never know the precise identity of America's first political consultant. It is likely that candidates were seeking favorable coverage in colonial newspapers as early as 1704; it is also likely that by 1745 candidates were using handbills and pamphlets to augment press coverage of campaigns; and we know that one successful candidate, George Washington in 1758, purchased refreshments for potential voters. These traditional approaches to winning votes have in recent years been amplified by consultants who have shown how cable networks, videocassettes, modems, faxes, focus groups, and other means of communication can be put to partisan use. In this book, Robert V. Friedenberg examines all of the communication techniques used in contemporary political campaigning.After providing a history of political consulting, Friedenberg examines the principal communication specialities used in contemporary campaigns. Throughout, political consultants discuss their approaches and evaluate the benefits and shortcomings of these methods. An invaluable text for what is arguably the most rapidly changing field of applied communication, this work is must reading for students and researchers of American politics, applied communication, and contemporary political theory. (view table of contents)

The most influential people in a political race aren't the campaign managers, the strategists or even the candidates themselves. In fact, you won't even find them on a campaign's list of official members or volunteers. Enter the world of the political hitman. Few know that these operatives exist, and campaigns go to great effort to distance themselves from the people who dig up their dirt. But political hitmen wield a secretly powerful position in today's American politics, where scandals derail campaigns and negative campaigning decides who gets elected and who doesn't.For the past twelve years, Stephen Marks has worked silently behind the scenes as one of the country's top opposition researchers: a political hitman and an assassin of reputations. Confessions of a Political Hitman is Marks's intensely personal and explosive story through more than a decade in the underbelly of American political campaigns. From his early days in politics through his rapid movement into the secret world of opposition research, Marks discovers a talent for digging up dirt and uncovering political liabilities. His work involves a wide scope of American politics, from state governments to presidential elections to the Republican Revolution. But the exciting work soon leads to disillusionment as candidates he believed in turn out to be worse than expected, and hypocrisy abounds on both sides of the political fence. Eventually Marks finds himself living in the shadows, both politically and personally, and searching for escape.In Confessions of a Political Hitman, Marks reveals the fascinating and incredible details of what really goes on behind the scenes in American campaigning-including the political realities behind the campaigns, careers and attack ads of some of Washington's heavy hitters, including George W. Bush, John Kerry, Jack Abramoff and countless others. Confessions of a Political Hitman is one man's story about secrets, lies, hypocrisy and influence-painting a troubling picture of whom we elect and how they get elected.

Product Description: For Better or Worse? offers a fresh look at how professional campaign consultants have both positive and negative effects on democracy in the United States. Questioning much of the prevailing conventional wisdom, David A. Dulio employs a unique set of data that empirically examines consultants own attitudes and beliefs to evaluate where they stand in modern democratic elections...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Global Electioneering explores American-style political consulting and its spread to countries throughout the world, emphasizing the roles of communication and technology. Gerald Sussman challenges the common belief that American influence abroad is due strictly to the professionalization of politics and asserts that it is instead affected by economics, industry, and the organizational power of new communication technology...read more

Product Description: Global Electioneering explores American-style political consulting and its spread to countries throughout the world, emphasizing the roles of communication and technology. Gerald Sussman challenges the common belief that American influence abroad is due strictly to the professionalization of politics and asserts that it is instead affected by economics, industry, and the organizational power of new communication technology...read more

The danger of groupthink is now standard fare in leadership training programs and a widely accepted explanation, among political scientists, for policy-making fiascoes. Efforts to avoid groupthink, however, can lead to an even more serious problem deadlock. Groupthink or Deadlock explores these dual problems in the Eisenhower and Reagan administrations and demonstrates how both presidents were capable of learning and consequently changing their policies, sometimes dramatically, but at the same time doing so in characteristically different ways. Kowert points to the need for leaders to organize their staff in a way that fits their learning and leadership style and allows them to negotiate a path between groupthink and deadlock." (view table of contents)

Product Description: As Dan Nimmo notes in his introduction, Inside Political Campaigns endeavors to trace the sources of professional campaign wizardry by encapsulating the theories and concepts that practitioners and scholars alike claim to guide and rationalize consultants' magical weaving of strategies, tactics, and techniques into a 'winning tapestry of political communication...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

How to communicate in the political world. Paperback 1999 (view table of contents)

Product Description: Despite all the grassroots citizen activity through online avenues in recent years, it is still true that professional consultants are the ones running elections in the US. The second edition of No Place for Amateurs further explores how consultants are reshaping democracy...read more

When it comes to elections, campaigns matter. And despite the ever-increasing role of volunteers and amateurs, modern American political campaigns are a professional affair. Understanding how they are run and how campaign strategies are set requires an in-depth analysis of what political consultants do, from opposition research to public opinion polling and from directing media strategies to mobilzing voters--with fundraising a priority at all stages. At all levels of the electoral arena, modern, sophisticated campaigns cannot hope to be effective without the guiding disciplines of professional consultants. This thoroughly updated edition of Dennis W. Johnson's classic text, originally titled No Place for Amateurs, highlights the growing importance of social media, targeting and analytics, Super PACs and dark money in a post-Citizens United world.

Product Description: A unique empirical and theoretical analysis of political consultants and how they achieve electoral success for their candidates

One of the most closely-watched and controversial aspects of modern political campaigning is the use of negative, attack tactics. This book examines the role played by negative campaigning through a national survey of professional political consultants. Campaign consultants have become vitally important to political candidates in recent years as strategists, fundraisers, and media specialists. The research in this book focuses on how consultants define negative campaigning, including the differences between issue attacks and character attacks, how and when criticism of the opponent should be implemented, and which media should be used to deliver attack messages. A statistical analysis of the survey data reveals insights into behavioral and professional differences among consultants with regard to party affiliation, gender, age, and level of experience. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Campaign consultants are arguably now as famous in the United States as are politicians themselves. During the past decade, those who know the names Bill Clinton, George Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Christine Todd Whitman also recognize the names James Carville, Mary Matalin, Frank Luntz, and Ed Rollins...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Since the beginning of the federal government, Presidents have called upon executive branch officials to provide them with advice regarding matters of policy and administration. While Cabinet members were among the first to play such a role, the creation of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in 1939 and the various agencies located within that structure resulted in a large increase in the number and variety of presidential advisers...read more

Explores the role of the political consultant--campaign experts, pollsters, direct mailers, and media specialists--in political campaigns and the effect of these consultants on the American political system

Product Description: In this witty and contemporaneous essay, Arnold J. Meltsner, as a modern-day Machiavelli, offers advice to government and corporate leaders on the human pitfalls of seeking, evaluating, and using advice. Drawing examples mainly from the Oval Office and recent history, he examines the factors that affect decision making and proposes rules to help rulers maintain vigilance over their advisers and remain sensitive to the politics of personal influence and persuasion...read more

Product Description: In his new book G. William Domhoff provides the most thorough critique to date of state autonomy theory as it has been applied to the American federal government. The view under attack holds that the federal government, rather than the banks and corporations, wields greater power in the United States...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Presents a showcase of the everyday activities, behind-the-scenes confrontations, and unlikely alliances of the people--from lobbyists to staffers to senators--who influence how laws are written and whether or not they will, in fact, become the laws of the land. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. NYT.