Politics at the Harvard K. Campaign for President

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The Institute of Politics at the Harvard K. Campaign for President. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017. This book results from a conference sponsored by the Institute of Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that brought together key campaign leaders from the 2016 presidential campaigns to discuss the campaigns and the election. In that light, remember that they are political professionals discussing their strategies and tactics and are not researchers building an argument and compiling empirical evidence.

INSTRUCTIONS

Review in 3 main sections: summary, critique and evaluation, and application. Do not summarize or critique the chapters chronologically; consider the book as a whole. State the contributors’ viewpoints in your words.

1- Summary

  1. Summarize the central theme and purpose of the book.
  2. What are the overall perspectives, objectives, and arguments of the contributors to the conference that ultimately produced the book?
  3.  If the conference organizers that yielded the book wanted you to acquire one idea from the book, what would it be?

2- Critique and Evaluation

Discuss the book’s strengths and weaknesses; balance them in your critique and assessment in the areas below. Provide concrete evidence for the assertions, and support the claims with references from the textbook. The evaluation should be balanced, respectful, and fair. Control the tone of your critique, and do not evaluate the contributors’ statements and arguments from a merely partisan perspective.

  1. What strikes you as noteworthy? What has the book accomplished? In what ways was the book effective or persuasive?
  2. Challenge the assumptions, approaches, or arguments made by the contributors. Do their explanations and arguments make sense?
  3.  Identify where your contributions are exemplary or deficient in their knowledge, judgments, or organization.
  4. Consider the role of the non-campaigning experts in the narratives; did they effectively provide nonpartisan evaluations or challenges to the claims of the campaign professionals?

Application

  1. Apply the information gained from the Shaw and Burton et al. textbooks to fully assess the significant 2016 presidential campaigns’ strengths and weaknesses.
  2. Include a thoughtful and well-supported assessment of why it is essential to analyze past campaigns today.

References:

  1. School, The Institute of Politics at the Harvard K. Campaign for President. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538104491/Campaign-for-President-The-Managers-Look-at-2016
  2. Shaw, Catherine. The Campaign Manager,  6th Edition. Routledge, 2018. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429491740/campaign-manager-catherine-shaw
  3. Burton, Michael J., William Miller, Daniel Shea. Campaign Craft: The Strategies, Tactics, and Art of Political Campaign Management, 5th Edition,  5th Edition. Praeger, 2015. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2018/POL256/um/Burton-Shea_23-51_.pdf