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Expert Sources from America's Colleges and Universities
   
Chris Duncan
Professor and Chair
Political Science Department
University of Dayton
Office: 937/229-3648
E-mail: christopher.duncan@notes.udayton.edu 
Expertise:  Christopher Duncan studies American political culture and historical development.  He has written on public and social policy and is currently working on a book about christianity and American politics.  In terms of the coming election, he can comment on ideological trends and thinking in the American electorate and between various candidates.  He believes that the big story of the coming race will be the Republican Reformation - a major split in the Republican party between mainstream East Coast and Northeastern Republicans and Southern and Midwestern Republicans over the cultural questions that matter most to evangelicals.

Robert D. Loevy
Professor of Political Science
Colorado College
Office:  719/389-6584
Home:  719/471-7848
Cell:  719/640-5895
E-mail: bloevy@ColoradoCollege.edu 
Expertise:  Loevy’s areas of expertise include regional voting patterns (especially Colorado and the West); Colorado government and politics; presidential primaries and elections; U.S. Congress, Colorado government and politics; civil rights movement of the 1960s. Loevy worked on Capitol Hill in the 1960s. He has participated as a campaign consultant or campaign manager in a number of political campaigns in Colorado. He regularly teaches courses in American Government, State and Local Politics, and the Civil Rights Movement. He has been quoted in the New York Times, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and other major newspapers, as well as by television and radio stations around the world. More information available at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dept/PS/Bob%20Loevy.html


Jay Mandle
Professor of Economics
Colgate University
Office: 315/228-7960
E-mail: jmandle@mail.colgate.edu
Expertise:  "Americans don't trust their government or political system.  Cynicism about the motives and interests of our politicians is so deep that voters find themselves in an immobilizing contradiction," wrote Mandle in a recent Newsday column about political corruption.

Author of "Globalization and the Poor," Mandle is an expert in economic policy and treasurer of Democracy Matters, a national college campus-based organization focused on campaign finance reform.  Mandle argues that elections in a democracy can and should be treated as a public good, analogous to the way national security is considered.  All should pay for elections through the public sector because no set of individuals or groups should be permitted disproportionately to benefit from them.  Mandle's commitment to the issue of money in politics is evident in his regular monthly editorial, Money On My Mind, appearing on the Democracy Matters website, www.democracymatters.org


Roderick P. Hart                                       
Professor of Communication Studies
Director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation
The University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/471-5646
E-mail: rodhart@mail.utexas.edu
Expertise:  His areas of special interest are politics and the mass media, presidential studies and rhetorical analysis.  He is the author of twelve books, including: Political Keywords: Using Language that Uses Us; Politics, Discourse, and American Society: New Agendas, Communication in U.S. Elections: New Agendas, and Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good for Us.  He is also the author of DICTION 5.0, a computer program designed to analyze language patterns. Currently, he is the director of the Annette Strauss Institute of for Civic Participation and Dean of the College of Communication.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano
Assistant Professor of Rhetoric
Department of Theater and Rhetoric
Bates College
Office: 207/786-6191
Home: 207/998-8175
E-mail: skelley@bates.edu 
Expertise:  Kelley-Romano's relevant research area is political communication.  She examines editorial cartoons, newspaper coverage of candidates, and the traditional public address genres of campaigning (debates, nominating speeches, apologia, acceptance speeches, and speeches of defeat).  She is concerned with the construction of the appropriate presidential ethos during the campaigning process.  She has published work on newspaper coverage and the public sphere, political cartoons, and the crisis rhetoric surrounding Hurricane Katrina and President Bush.

Daron Shaw                                
Associate Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/232-7275
Cell: 512/608-3840
E-mail: dshaw@jeeves.la.utexas.edu 
Expertise:  Professor Shaw served as a strategist in the 2000 and 2004 presidential election campaigns.  He also has worked as a survey research analyst in political campaigns.  He teaches courses in campaigns and elections, public opinion and voting behavior.  He serves on the editorial board for American Politics Research and on the national decision team for Fox News.  His most recent project is a book on campaigns effects.  He is co-editor of Communications in U.S. Elections: New Agendas, which features innovative research in political communication.

Robert Kraynak
Professor of Political Science
Presidential Scholar
Colgate University                       
Office: 315/228-7525
E-mail: rkraynak@colgate.edu 
Expertise:  Modern political philosophy, American political theory.

"President Clinton's eventual admission of his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky helped change the political landscape," Dr. Kraynak, a Republican now leaning toward supporting Mr. Romney, told Newsday for a recent article.

"There is a way that Clinton softened up public opinion in a way that makes Giuliani possible.  People are genuinely not sure if the office of the presidency is supposed to be a results-oriented job or a moral authority," Dr. Kraynak said.  "Different periods in our history, we value one more than the other." 


John Baughman
Associate Professor and Chair
Political Science Department
Bates College
Office: 207/786-6465
E-mail: jbaughma@bates.edu 
Expertise:  Committee influence on national policy.  Author of the book Common Ground, which traces the development of congressional institutions in the Antebellum era and the transformation of the House from a small council of equals into a powerful and complex modern legislature.                   

Though ordinarily hidden from public view, most of the legislative work of the U.S. House of Representatives takes place in its committees.  There the political battles are fought and the technical decisions made before a bill emerges for a final vote by the full House.  Most of the important issues of the day -- global warming, homeland security, energy policy, health care reform, international trade -- are complex enough that many committees are in a position to influence policy, each with its own parochial concerns.


Sean Theriault                      
Assistant Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/232-7279
Cell: 832/21-3991
E-mail: seant@gov.utexas.edu 
Expertise:  Professor Theriault researches party polarization in the U.S. Congress and the disconnect between elected officials' views and those of their constituencies.  He is the author of The Power of the People: Congressional Competition, Public Attention, and Voter Retribution (The Ohio State University Press, 2005) -- and articles on subjects ranging from presidential rhetoric (Presidential Studies Quarterly) to congressional careers (Legislative Studies Quarterly).

Tom Cronin
McHugh Professor of American Institutions and Leadership, Political Science Department
Colorado College
Office:  719/227-8249
Cell:   719/393-2448
E-mail:  Tom.Cronin@coloradocollege.edu 
Expertise:  Cronin is the author of more than 150 scholarly or public affairs articles and the author, co-author, or editor of 10 books including The State of the Presidency; U.S. vs. Crime-in-the-Streets; Direct Democracy; Government by the People; Colorado Politics and Government; The Paradoxes of the American Presidency. He has served as president of the Western Political Science Association, president of the Presidency Research Group and President of CRC, Inc. Courses taught include: The American Presidency, Leadership in Theory and Practice and American Politics and Government. More information available at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dept/PS/Tom%20Cronin.html

Robert Johnstone                                    
Professor of Politics
Earlham College
Office: 765/983-1264
Home: 765/962-5443
E-mail: bobj@earlham.edu
Expertise:  A widely-quoted authority on the history of the American presidency and political leadership, Bob Johnstone also is a noted scholar of American constitutional law, "from Marbury v. Madison to U.S. v. Nixon to Roe v. Wade."  As he informs many of his constitutional law students (quoting Alexis de Tocqueville), "Scarcely any political question arises in the United States which is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question."  

Stephen Butler
Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and African and African American Studies
Earlham College
Office: 765/983-1662
Home: 765/966-0347
Email: stephenb@earlham.edu 
Expertise:  Butler can respond to such issues as:  How might shifting demographics - not to mention lingering resentments - caused by the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of persons  from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affect the next round of presidential voting in certain key electoral districts/states, particularly in Florida and Texas? He can also offer a historical perspective on the impact of the just re-authorized Voting Rights Act.

Carrie Keating
Professor of Psychology
Colgate University
Office: 315/228-7355
Home: 315-345-9055
E-mail: ckeating@mail.colgate.edu
Expertise: Keating focuses on the elusive quality of charisma by investigating the skills and traits associated with social dominance and leadership. She also studies facial structure and form of the presidential candidates and how we perceive such traits as trustworthiness, strength, weakness, intellectually superiority, and charisma, to name a few. Together with colleagues and student collaborators, she has discovered that humans convey dominance through facial expressions akin to those of other primates; that facial features which make people appear powerful also make them seem untrustworthy; that people who are socially powerful have unusually good acting skills; and that persuasive performances begin with kidding oneself. Her studies of dominance and deception have been featured in the print, radio, and broadcast media outlets in the U.S. and abroad, including PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers, Dateline NBC, Discovery Magazine, The McLaughlin Group, McLaughlin One-On-One, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Learning Channel.


Jeffrey Lantis
Professor of Political Science
The College of Wooster
Office: 330/263-2408
E-mail: jlantis@wooster.edu 
Expertise:  How do Barack Obama and John McCain differ on their proposed responses to Russia's invasion of Georgia? How do they compare on troop withdrawal from Iraq? What is their stance on free-trade agreements? Jeffrey Lantis, professor of political science at The College of Wooster, is an expert on international relations, foreign policy analysis, European politics, and international security. He is the author of The Life and Death of International Treaties (2008), Strategic Dilemmas and the Evolution of German Foreign Policy Since Unification (2002), and Domestic Constraints and the Breakdown of International Agreements (1997).

Andy Rotter
Professor of History
Colgate University
Office: 315-228-7513
E-mail: arotter@mail.colgate.edu
Expertise:  Rotter focuses on U.S. diplomatic history, recent U.S. history -- particularly the Vietnam War -- and how, historically, they have affected presidential races. "At the time of the 1968 elections, for example, the Vietnam War had become a liability for Vice President and presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey — he was seen as being saddled with the war," said Rotter. "Richard Nixon came in with a roadmap for the area, and he was elected." The situation with Iraq, he said, isn’t all that different. "Even if we pull all of our troops out of the country — which doesn’t seem likely in two years — American voters want someone with a plan for Iraq, as well as the economy, health care, and other hot button issues." Author of Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology and The Path to Vietnam, Rotter has been published in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of American History, Diplomatic History, and The International History Review. He has been quoted by Newsday, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other media outlets.

Spencer Kelly
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Colgate University
Office: 315/228-7350 
Home: 315/824-8206

E-mail: skelly@mail.colgate.edu
Expertise:  Kelly applies his research -- on the role of hand gestures in producing language-- to politicians and public figures from around the world.  From President Bush’s palm movements to Saddam Hussein’s pointing, Kelly can analyze the possible meanings and functions of the hand gestures we repeatedly see in the media. “Gesture, and other forms of visual communication, are tightly integrated with our understanding of language,” he said.  “Gesture may represent one of the earliest forms of communication in the evolution of language.”  Kelly has been quoted by numerous media outlets worldwide, including Danish public television, Radio 3 in Hong Kong, the Orlando Sentinel, the New York Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


David Leal
Associate Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/471-1343
E-mail: dleal@gov.utexas.edu
Expertise:  Professor Leal specializes in Latino politics, particularly public opinion and political behavior, state and local politics, and the U.S. Congress.  He is the co-editor of Latino Politics: Identity, Mobilization, and Representation (University of Virginia Press, forthcoming) and is the author of Electing America's Governors: The Politics of Executive Elections (Palgrave-Macmillan, forthcoming). 

Angela Bos
Assistant Professor of Political Science
The College of Wooster
Office: 330/263-2411
Home: 612/802-9726
E-mail: abos@wooster.edu 
Expertise:  What goes on in a voter's mind when the curtain of the voting booth closes? What will the role of race and gender, both among candidates and the electorate, be in this election? What can we make of public opinion polls, and how accurately do they reflect the sentiments of the voters? Angela Bos, assistant professor of political science at The College of Wooster, has studied these and other issues and would be available to address them through broadcast and print media. A political psychologist, Bos has extensively researched these topics and is prepared to provide a unique perspective about their potential impact on the election.

Bruce Buchanan
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/232-7212
Home: 512/451-3414
E-mail: bruceb@mail.la.utexas.edu 
Expertise:  Professor Buchanan specializes in presidential and American politics, American institutions, public policy and political behavior.  His books include The Presidential Experience (Prentice-Hall, 1978), The Citizen's Presidency (Congressional Quarterly, 1987), Electing A President (Texas, 1991), Renewing Presidential Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), The State of the Presidency (ed, LBJ School/Library 2002), Presidential Campaign Quality (Prentice-Hall, 2004) and The Policy Partnership (Routledge, 2004). 

Nancy Martorano
Assistant Professor of Political Science
University of Dayton
Office: 937/229-3650
E-mail: nancy.martorano@notes.udayton.edu                         
Martorano has conducted research in the areas of urban politics, Southern politics, political parties, interest groups and state legislative electoral politics.  She helped write "Transforming South: Exploring Patterns of State House Seat Contestation," which was published in the American Review of Politics.  She can also discuss youth voting.

Thomas F. Schaller                                       
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Office: 410/455-2845
Cell: 202/299-4778
E-mail: schaller67@hotmail.com
Web site: www.whistlingpastdixie.com  
Expertise:  Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South (Simon & Schuster, 2006), is an emerging star on the national political punditry scene.  In Dixie, Schaller argues that the twin effects of race and religion make the South a hostile environment for Democratic candidates and the party's core messages.

But, Schaller explains, the changing demographics of the Midwest and Southwest offer a combination of issues important to the middle class - including jobs, immigration and the environment - that give the Democrats their best shot to regain the White House.  The GOP can't win without the South, Schaller says, but they also can't win with the South alone.

Schaller is a columnist for the Baltimore Sun and has appeared in various regional and national media including The Nation, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Slate, and the American Prospect, C-SPAN and NPR.

Quoting Schaller: "The dramatic economic, social and political changes of the past half century can be neither rewound nor ignored. The old "three-party" model of regional American partisanship -- with northern and southern Democrats outvoting western Republicans -- is now defunct, replaced by a new three-party model that pairs southern and western Republicans against urban-based Democrats of the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Coast states. Simply put, the South is no longer the "swing" region in American politics: It has swung to the Republicans."


Sidney Milkis
White Burkett Miller Professor of Politics
Assistant Director for Academic Programs, Miller Center of Public Affairs
University of Virginia
Office: 434/924-3037
E-mail: milkis@virginia.edu 
Expertise:  His research focuses on the American presidency, political parties and elections, and American political history.  Milkis calls his "a much more temperate view" of the role of superdelegates than most scholars and pundits.  "The Superdelegates are not just 'hacks,' as the conventional wisdom has it, but, rather elected representatives and important party officials.  To them, the Democratic party is not just as a label for the 2008 campaign; it is a collective organization with a past and future.  Indeed, many of these officials will be running on the Democratic 'ticket' in the Fall, and thus would be central to any hope of developing a governing coalition, should a Democrat be elected president.  Superdelegates were made part of the Democratic presidential selection process in 1984 to add a measure of deliberation and institutional loyalty to a candidate-centered campaign that was all too prone to sacrifice the party for the nominee and issues of the moment."  Milkis' books include: The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal (1993); Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy (1999); Presidential Greatness (2000), coauthored with Marc Landy; and The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2007 (2007), 5th edition, coauthored with Michael Nelson. 

Alice Almond Shrock                                       
Professor of History
Earlham College
Office: 765/983-1261
Home: 765/966-5855
E-mail: alices@earlham.edu 
Expertise:  With an anticipated presidential bid by U.S. Senator Hillary Rodman Clinton (D-NY), Professor Shrock can discuss in historical context the particular challenges faced by women in leadership and politics.  A former assistant with the U.S. Congresswomen's Caucus in Washington, D.C., Dr. Shrock also has served as a women's issues officer in the British House of Commons in London.  She regularly teaches the popular Earlham history course titled "Uppity Women," which examines the roles played by prominent as well as "ordinary" women in influencing social change in America.  An accomplished speaker, Professor Shrock was invited to deliver the keynote address at an international conference on women in leadership convened at Oxford University in England.  She also has been an occasional commentator on comparative American and British politics for the Voice of America radio network.

Mary Dixson                                       
Associate Director
Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation
The University of Texas at Austin
Office: 512/471-7208
E-mail: marycam@mail.utexas.edu 
Expertise:  Dr. Dixson studies political communication and civic education from a qualitative perspective.  Her expertise is in the area of civic and political participation among young people, civic education, and community and campus involvement.  As associate director of the Strauss Institute, she has crafted and led numerous projects at the high school, college, and post-college levels to engage young people in voting, politics, and community engagement.  These projects include co-curricular high school education endeavors, non-partisan campaign training for 18-25 year olds, and campus Get Out The Vote efforts.  She is a regular speaker at civic education and engagement conferences.  She was part of the team that crafted the 2007 Civics: Not Government research report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  She has published in such journals as Presidential Studies Quarterly and the Journal of Communication.

Paul Freedman
Assistant Professor of Politics
University of Virginia
Office: 434/924-1372
Home: 434/979-5523
E-mail: pf7h@virginia.edu 
Expertise:  Freedman, who advised ABC News on polling returns during 2000 elections for president and Congress, teaches public opinion, media and politics, voting behavior and polling.  His research covers campaign advertising, political participation and the politics of abortion.  He has taught and written about the use of new media i.e., Web sites, YouTube, etc. to reach young voters in national campaigns.  He is research director for the Project on Campaign Conduct at U.Va.'s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.  The project is a series of public opinion polls aimed at learning what citizens like about campaigns and what they would like to see changed.  In addition, the survey research examines the effect that campaigns have on potential voters.

Jonathan Krasno
Associate Professor of Political Science
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Binghamton University
State University of New York
Office: 607/777-2462
E-mail: jkrasno@binghamton.edu 
Expertise:  Krasno's research focuses on public opinion, congressional elections, campaigns and campaign financing.  He notes that young people aren't likely to vote.  However, to the extent they did in 2004 or will in 2008, all the polls show huge advantages for the Democrats.  But according to Krasno, they're hardly reliable Democrats or liberals, since Republicans have done well in previous cycles, especially Reagan, with different candidates and particularly under different circumstances. 

John McNulty
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Binghamton University
State University of New York
Office: 607/777-6151
E-mail: jmcnulty@binghamton.edu 
Expertise:  McNulty's areas of interest include political behavior, voting behavior, campaigns and elections, political parties, American politics, technology and politics, and methodology.  According to McNulty, the political landscape is strewn with the (metaphorical) corpses of candidates who counted on young voters to propel them to victory.  "This tends to be a special conceit on the Democratic side of the aisle," said McNulty.  "Howard Dean, Bill Bradley, Jerry Brown, Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy - all of these candidates, to various degrees, hoped campus activism and the youth vote would vault them to upset victories in the Democratic presidential primaries.  Not one of them made it work."

McNulty notes that the formula to reliably convert enthusiasm among younger people into votes has not yet been found.  They don't turn out at high rates, nor do they vote as reliably Democratic as they're assumed to, although they do lean slightly more Democratic than the general populace.  "Mostly, they vote like their parents...but less often," said McNulty.  McNulty points out that although Barack Obama seems to be the 'campus' candidate in this cycle, he does not appear to be counting on it.  "To indulge in pure speculation, perhaps since Obama is from a generation too young to have been immersed in the cauldron of Vietnam and Watergate, he sees the youth vote with clearer eyes," said McNulty.


Alex Orlowski
Student
University of Dayton
To reach Orlowski, contact Cameron Fullam, University of Dayton assistant director of media relations, at (o)937/229-3256 or fullam@udayton.edu
Expertise:  Alex Orlowski, a junior sociology/political science major at the University of Dayton, is an excellent source on how to mobilize and inspire this Millennial generation.  Young voters made an impressive showing in Iowa and are expected to make up a quarter of the voting population in the 2008 elections.

He is co-author of Millennials Talk Politics: A Study of College Students Political Engagement, and author of Television Consumption and Civic Engagement Among 15- to 25-Year-Olds. Both studies were released by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement where he served as an intern. The reports are available for download at www.civicyouth.org.


Larry J. Sabato
Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs
Director, Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics and Center for Politics
University of Virginia
Office: 434/924-3604
Home: 434/977-3472
E-mail: ljs@virginia.edu 
Expertise:  Sabato's research interests include national and state government and politics.  He is the author of several books on elections and the constitution, including his latest volume, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country.  He is co-author of Dirty Little Secrets: The Resurgence of Corruption in American Politics, Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics, Campaigns and Elections, The Rise of Political Consultants: New Ways of Winning Elections, and contributes to various journals.  He has served on numerous national and state commissions, including the National Commission for the Renewal of American Democracy and the U.S. Senate Campaign Finance Reform Panel.  He is the recipient of more than two dozen major scholarships, grants and academic awards.  In addition, he is the organizer, through the University of Virginia Center for Politics, of the Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI).  YLI is funded by the United States Congress, the Virginia General Assembly, and private donations.  YLI develops free K-12 civic education resources designed to encourage student interest and participation in the American political process.                   



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