If most elections are decided by forces beyond anyone’s immediate control--whether it’s national economic conditions or voters’ longstanding partisan attachments--do campaigns really matter? Scholars and political consultants will give you different answers. While scholars insist that consultants operate by the seat of their pants, promoting the latest folk wisdom about which strategies and tactics work, not knowing one way or the other until it’s too late, consultants claim that the academics tell us what they already know, or if not, their studies are simply wrong. So, who is right?

Stephen Craig takes up the challenge and brings together the voices and ideas of both groups in this engaging and innovative volume. He aims to determine what we know and do not know--based on empirical, rather than anecdotal, evidence--about the factors that determine election outcomes. While the backdrop is academic, the focus is practical: why do some candidates win and others lose on election day? Each chapter contains an essay from a top scholar in the field, followed in most cases by a response from the political consultants so students actually interact with this discourse. By including the views and experiences of both groups, the result is a dialogue from very different, yet complementary perspectives, on how campaigns matter.

1. Do Campaigns Really Matter?
Thomas M. Holbrook, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

2. Campaign Strategy
Michael John Burton, Ohio University
Daniel M. Shea, Allegheny College

3. Voter Competence
Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard University

4. Money and Elections
John C. Green, University of Akron

5. Political Advertising
Lynda Lee Kaid, University of Florida

6. Free Media in Campaigns
Erika Franklin Fowler, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Kenneth M. Goldstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison

7. Campaigning on the Internet
Dennis W. Johnson, George Washington University

8. Direct Democracy and Candidate Elections
Daniel A. Smith, University of Florida

9. Grassroots Mobilization
Peter W. Wielhouwer, Western Michigan University

10. The Effects of Political Consultants
David A. Dulio, Oakland University

11. Perspectives on Campaign Ethics
R. Sam Garrett, Congressional Research Service
Paul S. Herrnson, University of Maryland
James A. Thurber, American University

12. Two Views from the Trenches
David B. Hill, Hill Research Consultants
David Beattie and Sheryl Lovelady, Hamilton Beattie & Staff

Stephen C. Craig is professor of political science at the University of Florida, as well as director of the university's graduate program in Political Campaigning. He is author of The Malevolent Leaders: Popular Discontent in America (1993); editor of Broken Contract? Changing Relationships between Americans and Their Government (1996); co-editor of After the Boom: The Politics of Generation X (1997), Ambivalence and the Structure of Political Opinion (2005), Ambivalence, Politics, and Public Policy (2005); and has published numerous book chapters and articles in professional journals, including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology. His current research deals with attitude measurement, campaign effects, and other aspects of contemporary public opinion and political behavior in the United States. Craig has worked extensively with both academic and political surveys and continues to conduct polling and focus-group research for clients in Florida and elsewhere.