Re-election Bid Research Articles

The 1984 campaign rhetoric of representative George Hansen: A pentadic analysis

This essay employs Kenneth Burke's pentad to examine rhetorical choices made by former U.S. Congressman George Hansen of Idaho as he dramatized two situations: his felony conviction in April of 1984 and his subsequent reelection bid. Hansen's rhetoric was designed to eliminate any personal responsibility for his conviction and to encourage voters to support his reelection on the basis of his past record as a defender of their rights and as their protector from harassment by the federal government. The essay concludes speculatively, suggesting that although Hansen did not win the November, 1984 election, his rhetoric was largely effective because it resulted in substantial identification with the voters of Idaho's Second Congressional District.

Comic book apologia: The “paranoid” rhetoric of congressman George Hansen

Congressman George Hansen, convicted of four felony counts of filing false financial disclosure records, lost his 1984 reelection bid by less than 150 votes. Analyzing Hansen's apologetic rhetoric from the perspective of a generic, “paranoid style” of discourse illuminates why the Congressman was able to defend his character to the satisfaction of nearly one‐half of his constituency. Hansen's case helps to illustrate the development and function of a rhetorical genre in a given, historical context.

Mayor Washington's Bid for Re-Election

Mayor Washington's Bid for Re-Election

Poindexter of Washington: A Study in Progressive Politics

In this study of Miles Poindexter, Insurgent Republican turned conservative, Howard W. Allen reaches beyond the traditional bounds of biography to present a history of the United States Congress during the Progressive era and the early years after World War I.A congressman (190913) and a senator (191323), Miles Poindexter of Washington State was an outspoken, progressive reformer before World War I. He struggled to protect the people from special interests, particularly defending the interest of his section against eastern colonialism. A man with a penchant for absolute positions, Poindexter became caught up in the emotionalism of the Insurgent Republican revolt. At one time or another he championed Socialists, the IWW, the striking textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusettsall unlikely causes for a middle-class lawyer from Spokane.Regarding foreign policy, Poindexter was an uncompromising nationalist who, with Theodore Roosevelt, declared himself a member of the Progressive party in 1912.After 1917 Poindexter actively tried to suppress opponents of the war. Following the war his targets were Bolshevists and other radicals. He also developed intense hostility toward Socialists, the IWW, and organized labor, fearing radicalism and labor. Reversing his former position, he allied himself with the eastern businessmen and regular Republicans in the Senate. Campaigning for the presidency in 1920, he appealed without success to the most conservative members of the party. He was defeated b a progressive Democrat in his 1922 bid for reelection to the Senate.Allen examines the traditional sourcesarchival collections, newspaper files, and congressional reports. When he combines this material with a quantitative analysis of roll-call votes throughout Senator Poindexter s years in Congress, he creates a remarkably useful method never before attempted in political biography.

Presidential Popularity and Presidential Vote

The president's popularity rating is highly predictive of his vote share in a reelection bid, especially when popularity is assessed in June of that year. This June popularity-vote model predicts about as well as the Gallup final preelection poll, and a 50 percent approval rating will ensure reelection.

School Discipline and Punishment in Antebellum America

In 1831 Bostonian parent Moses Jaquith formally accused his son's teacher, Mayhew Grammar Schoolmaster William Clough, of inhuman cruelty.* Clough had severely whipped Jaquith's son when the latter had been unable to pronounce a word because of a speech impediment. Several other parents also charged Clough with cruelty. In a November 8, 1831 letter to the Boston Gazette, one of these parents accused Clough of severely whipping his son for a trifling offense. Angered by such abusive discipline, four hundred Boston citizens petitioned the local school committee to dismiss Clough. Although the school committee supported Clough, the petitioners were not discouraged. Jaquith noted that several of the school committee members had already been defeated in their bid for reelection.'

The LDP in Transition? Mass Membership Participation in Party Leadership Selection

A CLEAN REVERSAL and complete surprise were among the phrases commonly employed by the press in describing Masayoshi Ohira's upset victory late in the fall of 1978 over incumbent Takeo Fukuda in the first mass-membership primary for the biennial election of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's president and premierdesignate. Those phrases were seemingly quite appropriate for two reasons: no incumbent LDP leader had ever lost a bid for reelection, and Fukuda had been viewed by the press and the population alike as a sure victor in the primary. The margin of party membership vote between him and Ohira was so conspicuous that Fukuda immediately announced his withdrawal from the selection by the party's parliamentary membership between the two top primary-vote winners. Fukuda's voluntary forfeiture of his candidacy for the final stage of the new leadership selection procedure automatically elevated Ohira to the presidency of the party and, after the formality of parliamentary vote in the LDPcontrolled Diet, the premiership of the nation. Direct participation of rank-and-file members (numbering 1.5 million at the time) in the selection of party leadership was indeed epochal in the history of Japanese party politics. Prior to the fall 1978 event, LDP presidents had always been chosen by the party's parliamentary members numbering around 400 (plus 47 prefectural delegates) gathered at a national party convention or, in the case of an emergency, such as the death or resignation of an incumbent, through informal and secretive negotiations among most senior party leaders. Mass members had no voice whatsoever in the matter. The LDP was indeed a party of notables under the firm control of its MPs, and selection of its leaders

A Reply to Tidmarch

The major disagreement between Professor Tidmarch and myself is over different hunches about at what point in a congressman's career any incumbency advantage would show itself. We apparently agree on the accuracy of my conclusion that incumbency is only worth about two percent of the vote to first-term congressmen. But Tidmarch prefers to view the incumbency advantage as cumulative, increasing with each term the congressman serves, as he learns the ropes, gathers seniority, becomes more visible to his constituents, and perhaps eventually becomes accepted as an institution by them. If Tidmarch's is correct, the typical congressman might gain something like an additional two percentage points at the polls with each term of office he survives. For instance, a five-termer would gain about ten percentage points over his original victory margin, controlling for the partisan trend, rather than the mere two percent increase garnered in his first reelection attempt. Although Tidmarch's non-data based conjecture about a cumulative incumbency advantage contains a certain plausibility, it does not hold up under the scrutiny of some simple empirical tests that can be made with the readily available evidence. For example, my research note shows that when a congressman in the Fifties retired, the average loss to his party was only 2.2 percent of the vote beyond expected. Now, most congressional retirements (voluntary, via death, or a rare primary defeat) occur after several terms of office. Consequently, the minor two percent dip in the vote for a congressman's party when he retires reflects the impact of the loss of several terms of accumulated seniority, wisdom, seasoning, visibility, and prestige-not just one. Furthermore, contrary to Tidmarch's speculation, the vote margins of veteran congressmen do not improve markedly after their first reelection bids. For example, consider what happened to the 85 northern Republicans who sought at least their third term in 1952 and survived to contest the 1958 election. As these representatives gained the experience of an additional three terms, their average gain was only an additional 0.8 percent of the vote, controlling for the northern partisan trend.* Over the same period, the 36 northern Democratic veterans gained only an infinitesimal 0.4 percentage points beyond the northern

Charles Sumner Bird and the Progressive Party in Massachusetts

ONE of the outstanding leaders of the Progressive Party in Massachusetts was Charles Sumner Bird. As the party's gubernatorial candidate in 1912 and 1913 and its principal financial supporter, he was instrumental in developing an organization that for a few years seriously disrupted the usual political balance in Massachusetts. As a businessman, Bird had little experience in the rough and tumble of politics prior to 1912. But he campaigned with the enthusiasm of a convert once he had become convinced of the righteousness of his cause. While his political career was too brief and ultimately too unsuccessful to attract national attention, it has significance in illustrating some of the problems of Progressive Party leadership in an eastern, industrial state. The Roosevelt revolt in Massachusetts followed a period of mounting political unrest and Republican reverses. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Massachusetts was generally considered to be a safe, conservative Republican state and an unlikely area for a political uprising. Senators Lodge and Crane controlled a powerful organization which successfully thwarted any efforts by insurgents to revamp the Republican Party along more liberal lines. But by 1910 the Lodge-Crane machine had become decidedly vulnerable to the assaults of muckrakers and an aroused electorate. The Democratic Party, relatively united for the first time in years, won the governorship in g1910o and again in 1911. Eugene Noble Foss, the new governor, was a former Republican and the first Democrat to hold the office for two successive terms since the early 1890's. Foss directed his attacks primarily against Senator Lodge who, more than any other individual, was held responsible for the blocking of reform and the diminished popularity of the Republican Party. In January, 1911, Lodge barely missed being defeated in his bid for re-election to the Senate, after the most