Obama's Race

Obama's Race
Author: Michael Tesler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0226793834

Barack Obama’s presidential victory naturally led people to believe that the United States might finally be moving into a post-racial era. Obama’s Race—and its eye-opening account of the role played by race in the election—paints a dramatically different picture. The authors argue that the 2008 election was more polarized by racial attitudes than any other presidential election on record—and perhaps more significantly, that there were two sides to this racialization: resentful opposition to and racially liberal support for Obama. As Obama’s campaign was given a boost in the primaries from racial liberals that extended well beyond that usually offered to ideologically similar white candidates, Hillary Clinton lost much of her longstanding support and instead became the preferred candidate of Democratic racial conservatives. Time and again, voters’ racial predispositions trumped their ideological preferences as John McCain—seldom described as conservative in matters of race—became the darling of racial conservatives from both parties. Hard-hitting and sure to be controversial, Obama’s Race will be both praised and criticized—but certainly not ignored.

Communication in the 2008 U.S. Election

Communication in the 2008 U.S. Election
Author: Mitchell S. McKinney
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2011
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781433109881

The 2008 U.S. election was arguably the most important election of our lifetime: the first African American president was elected to office; the candidacy of Sarah Palin marked only the second time that a major party ticket included a female; and the electoral performance of young citizens - digital natives, greatly attracted by digital media - signaled the highest turnout in a long time.Taking all these issues into consideration, this book offers a landmark examination of the 2008 election from a global perspective, with emphasis on the wide range of digital media utilized by the campaigners and how campaign communication influenced young citizens. The authors argue that the use of digital technologies in the campaign, and the success of Barack Obama in attracting young voters to his cause, provides an excellent case study - perhaps something of a turning point in campaign communication - for carefully examining the emerging role of digital political media, and a continuing renewal in young citizens' electoral engagement. The wide-ranging contributions to this volume provide a comprehensive examination of a historic political campaign and election. The book's findings offer revealing answers regarding the content and effects of various forms of political campaign communication, and raise questions and possibilities for future research.

New Media, Campaigning and the 2008 Facebook Election

New Media, Campaigning and the 2008 Facebook Election
Author: Thomas J. Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2013-12-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317979400

Some political observers dubbed the 2008 presidential campaign as 'the Facebook Election'. Barack Obama, in particular, employed social media such as blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to run a 'grassroots-style' campaign. The Obama campaign was keenly aware that voters, particularly the young, are not simply consumers of information, but conduits of information as well. They often replaced the professional filter of traditional media with a social one. Social media allowed candidates to do electronically what previously had to be done through shoe leather and phone banks: contact volunteers and donors, and schedule and promote events. The 2008 Election marked a new era where the candidates no longer had complete control over their campaign message. The individual viewer in a campaign crowd with a cell phone can record a candidate’s gaffe, post it on YouTube or Flickr and within days millions will be gasping or guffawing. The traditional campaign, with its centralized power and planning, although not dead, now coexists with an unstructured digital democracy. New Media, Campaigning and the 2008 Facebook Election examines the way social media changed how candidates campaigned, how the media covered the election and how voters received information. This book is based on a special issue of Mass Communication & Society.

Game Change

Game Change
Author: John Heilemann
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2010-02-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0061966207

The gripping inside story of the 2008 presidential election, by two of the best political reporters in the country. “It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22.” —The Financial Times “It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true….More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.” —The Financial Times “I can’t put down this book!” —Stephen Colbert Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.

Groundbreakers

Groundbreakers
Author: Elizabeth McKenna
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199394598

Much has been written about the historic nature of the Obama campaign. The multi-year, multi-billion dollar operation elected the nation's first black president, raised and spent more money than any other election effort in history, and built the most sophisticated voter targeting technology ever before used on a national campaign. What is missing from most accounts of the campaign is an understanding of how Obama for America recruited, motivated, developed, and managed its formidable army of 2.2 million volunteers. Unlike previous field campaigns that drew their power from staff, consultants, and paid canvassers, the Obama campaign's capacity came from unpaid local citizens who took responsibility for organizing their own neighborhoods months--and even years--in advance of election day. In so doing, Groundbreakers argues, the campaign engaged citizens in the work of practicing democracy. How did they organize so many volunteers to produce so much valuable work for the campaign? This book describes how. Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han argue that the legacy of Obama for America extends beyond big data and micro-targeting; it also reinvigorated and expanded traditional models of field campaigning. Groundbreakers makes the case that the Obama campaign altered traditional ground games by adopting the principles and practices of community organizing. Drawing on in-depth interviews with OFA field staff and volunteers, this book also argues that a key achievement of the OFA's field organizing was its transformative effect on those who were a part of it. Obama the candidate might have inspired volunteers to join the campaign, but it was the fulfilling relationships that volunteers had with other people--and their deep belief that their work mattered for the work of democracy--that kept them active. Groundbreakers documents how the Obama campaign has inspired a new way of running field campaigns, with lessons for national and international political and civic movements.

Epic Journey

Epic Journey
Author: James W. Ceaser
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2009-04-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 074259968X

With President George W. Bush's approval ratings at record lows, the 2008 election was a contest that Democrats were predicted to win. And with Barack Obama's victory over John McCain, they did. But it was the highly unlikely journey to this likely destination that set this presidential election apart from others.

The Obama Effect

The Obama Effect
Author: Seth K. Goldman
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2014-05-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1610448243

Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign exposed many white Americans more than ever before to a black individual who defied negative stereotypes. While Obama’s politics divided voters, Americans uniformly perceived Obama as highly successful, intelligent, and charismatic. What effect, if any, did the innumerable images of Obama and his family have on racial attitudes among whites? In The Obama Effect, Seth K. Goldman and Diana C. Mutz uncover persuasive evidence that white racial prejudice toward blacks significantly declined during the Obama campaign. Their innovative research rigorously examines how racial attitudes form, and whether they can be changed for the better. The Obama Effect draws from a survey of 20,000 people, whom the authors interviewed up to five times over the course of a year. This panel survey sets the volume apart from most research on racial attitudes. From the summer of 2008 through Obama’s inauguration in 2009, there was a gradual but clear trend toward lower levels of white prejudice against blacks. Goldman and Mutz argue that these changes occurred largely without people’s conscious awareness. Instead, as Obama became increasingly prominent in the media, he emerged as an “exemplar” that countered negative stereotypes in the minds of white Americans. Unfortunately, this change in attitudes did not last. By 2010, racial prejudice among whites had largely returned to pre-2008 levels. Mutz and Goldman argue that news coverage of Obama declined substantially after his election, allowing other, more negative images of African Americans to re-emerge in the media. The Obama Effect arrives at two key conclusions: Racial attitudes can change even within relatively short periods of time, and how African Americans are portrayed in the mass media affects how they change. While Obama’s election did not usher in a “post-racial America,” The Obama Effect provides hopeful evidence that racial attitudes can—and, for a time, did—improve during Obama’s campaign. Engaging and thorough, this volume offers a new understanding of the relationship between the mass media and racial attitudes in America.

How Barack Obama Won

How Barack Obama Won
Author: Chuck Todd
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2012-08-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0345804821

This detailed overview and analysis of the results of Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential win gives us the inside state-by-state guide to how Obama achieved his victory, and allows us to see where the country stood four years ago. Although much has changed in the nearly four years since, How Barack Obama Won remains the essential guide to Obama’s electoral strengths and offers important perspective on his 2012 bid. The votes in each state for Obama and McCain are broken down by percentage according to gender, age, race, party, religious affiliation, education, household income, size of city, and according to views about the most important issues (the economy, terrorism, Iraq, energy, healthcare), the future of the economy (worried, not worried) and the war in Iraq (approve, disapprove).

Who Should Be First?

Who Should Be First?
Author: Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2010-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438433735

Feminists speak out on race and gender in the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Obama Vs. McCain

Obama Vs. McCain
Author: Barack Obama
Publisher: ARC Manor
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: Presidential candidates
ISBN: 9781604502497

This book lists every legislation considered by the U.S. Senate between January 6, 2995 and May 22, 2008 and shows you how Senator Obama and Senator McCain voted on each of these issues.