Obama's Victory Research Articles

The performance of truth: politicians, fact-checking journalism, and the struggle to tackle COVID-19 misinformation.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO, February 2, 2020) reported that the spread of coronavirus disease has been accompanied by a “massive infodemic,” the COVID-19 outbreak has become a national and international battleground of a struggle against misinformation. Fact-checking outlets around the world have been actively counteracting false and misleading information surrounding the pandemic. In this article, we conceptualize fact checkers in terms of the “interpretative power” that journalism holds in processes of political performances (Alexander in Soc Theory 22(4): 527–573, 2004, in: The performance of politics. Obama’s victory and the struggle for democratic power. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2010). Drawing on virus-related fact checks from Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) database, we make two arguments. First, we argue that the new phenomenon of specialized “fact checking” might be considered as a further explicitly differentiated element of Alexander’s model of cultural performance, which fulfills a double duty: trying to contribute to further “de-fusion” (separating audiences from actors when the latter lack authenticity and credibility) on the one hand, and working to overcome it on the other. Second, we explain how new fact-checking practices have become a reflexive supplement to the news media of the civil sphere that might be able to help the civil sphere’s communicative institutions to defend truthfulness in a manner that contributes to democracy.

Modern Sexism and the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: Reassessing the Casualties of the “War on Women”

The 2012 contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney included fierce dialogue about women and issues typically connected to them. The inflammatory comments that conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh made about female law student Sandra Fluke and the Affordable Health Care Act's (ACA) requirements that all workplaces cover contraceptives were central topics in the news. The controversy literally followed Romney in the form of “Pillamina,” a human-sized costume designed to look like a pack of birth control pills that shadowed the candidate's summer swing state tour. While “Pillamina” was the work of Planned Parenthood's Action Fund, the Obama campaign also took aim at Romney on this issue, running a television commercial featuring “Dawn and Alex,” two women talking about how out of touch Romney is with women's health issues. The Romney campaign's attempts to counter these attacks and shift the focus of conversation were largely thwarted, as questionable comments from Republican Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock brought the issue of abortion to the forefront. Both of these statements added fuel to the narrative that Republicans are out of touch with women's needs. And Romney himself contributed to the problem, as his notorious “binders full of women” debate response broadened the scope of the issue from reproductive rights to more general issues about gender equality. Altogether, these Republican comments and positions opened the door for Democrats on the campaign trail to attack the party, and a popular conclusion is that this “War on Women” narrative hurt the Republican Party and played an integral part in Obama's victory.

I Got Algorithm: Can There Be a Nate Silver in Intelligence?

Nate Silver is a prominent statistician/statistical probability analyst who, among other achievements, may be best known for making a very accurate prediction of President Barack Obama's victory an...

Dynamic Success on YouTube: A Longitudinal Analysis of Click Counts and Contents of Political Candidate Clips during the 2009 German National Election

Since the 2008 Obama victory, mass media and academic research have contributed to the widespread notion that modern political campaigns are won in the so-called ‘web 2.0’, more precisely on YouTube. While respective studies were able to identify some major factors for the success of political YouTube videos, some videos ‘failed’ to have the presumed success online. This lack of clarity has not been convincingly explained by cross-sectional designs without taking into account the dynamic aspects of the success of YouTube videos. This study evaluates and validates the impact of presentation, professionalism, topic, age and the typical slope of the website-visits over time on the total amount of page visits. Political YouTube videos were analysed over a five-month period before the 2009 German national election. Most strikingly, one has to ignore some of the YouTube conventions to be successful on the platform during an election campaign, like uploading user-generated content.

Identity Politics Is Not Enough: Why the Left Needs Universalism to Survive

Identity Politics Is Not Enough: Why the Left Needs Universalism to Survive

Dramatic performances in the play of politics: Egypt, Obama and the works of Jeffrey Alexander

AbstractThis review article explores Jeffrey Alexander's cultural theory of political transformations. In his two recent works Performative Revolution in Egypt (2011) and The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power (2009), Alexander analyses the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of President Barack Obama, respectively. Alexander challenges the idea that revolutions depend primarily on the material conditions of a population, demographic changes, and the capacity of a group of contenders to gather material support for an overthrow. He also argues that the stagecraft of the political horserace matters for national elections. The strong versus weak dramaturgical performances of presidential candidates (rather than macroeconomic or geopolitical changes) proved consequential for changes in the poll numbers of Obama versus McCain, for example. Macroeconomic conditions had to be filtered, interpreted, and made meaningful; the candidate who could cast these material conditions onto the sacred side of civil discourse improved his likelihood of victory. Curiously, many social scientists and political pundits have largely taken performances for granted in the democratic struggle for power, and have therefore rendered the charismatic speeches and the grand narratives (culture) as epiphenomena, plays in the shadow of large structural shifts – a residual variable, or else as shifting, evanescent meanings produced in local, face‐to‐face settings. In the newer understanding, ‘culture’ is a level of analysis researchers use to investigate symbolic patterns and meaningful practices that structure how people act, how they define identities, even how they define what counts as ‘strategic’ or instrumental. Since the 1980s, sociologists working with this notion of culture have crafted different approaches to political culture, in national, organizational, and informal everyday arenas. Their different culture concepts carry different strengths and liabilities for research and they rely on different assumptions about action and meaning. This article reviews these arguments and asks what the limits to Alexander's performative theory are, how his theory can be reformulated to address settled versus unsettled political regimes, and how disaggregating Alexander's concept of audiences along with their roles in political change would provide the theory with greater predictive power.

PRIMARY MODEL GETS IT RIGHT AND EARLY

In January of 2012, the Primary Model predicted that Barack Obama would defeat Mitt Romney by a comfortable margin. He did. Obama's popular vote total topped Romney's by more than four million votes. The Primary Model's forecast was by far the earliest of those assembled in the special 2012PSsymposium (45 (4): 614–617). Even so it predicted an Obama victory with greater certainty (almost 90%) than any other one. To put this performance in perspective, note that several models got it wrong in 2012, and hardly any of the other ones picking Obama to win did so with much certainty. Many preelection polls also failed to predict an Obama victory with their final estimate, including the venerable Gallup Poll. How did the Primary Model get it right so far in advance of Election Day 2012?

Jeffrey C. Alexander, The performance of politics: Obama's victory and the democratic struggle for power, reviewed by Mark D. Brewer

Jeffrey C. Alexander, The performance of politics: Obama's victory and the democratic struggle for power, reviewed by Mark D. Brewer

AFRICA – US: Reaction to Obama's Victory

AFRICA – US: Reaction to Obama's Victory

Change You Can't Believe In

A prediction of the next twenty year under a re-elected Barack Obama: an Obama victory has the potential to inspire increased community involvement and shift some policy making. It comes with a great deal of individual and collective exertion and no small amount of luck. These institutional forces can create, at best, moderately positive outcomes. The alternative to an Obama victory is a future barely worth contemplation. However, there are problematic aspects to Obama's leadership. These aspects will continue to work at the disadvantage for the vast majority of Americans as well as global powers. Aggressive foreign policy and the curtailing of individual freedom is the disastrous hallmark of the American presidency, and it is not limited to Obama. Rather, the current power structure and economic drives reinforce institutional and global inequalities. Never trust a person who has an intimate knowledge of policy development and still wants to go into politics.

US Elections and the Canadian Economy

Canadians are fascinated with elections. In 2012, as in previous election years, Canadians have followed the twists and turns of the US election campaign almost as passionately as if they voted themselves. Because our countries are so closely integrated and policies have a real impact on Canada, people on this side of the border have genuine preferences when it comes to US politics, and for at least the past two decades, including the current election cycle, Canadians have preferred Democrats. It is often said, however, that this preference does not generally reflect the country's actual economic interest. If Canadians chose with their pocketbooks, the argument often goes, they would prefer Republicans. This article puts this proposition to a series of tests, and the results may surprise more than a few.In many ways, the Canadian public's preference for Democrats in the White House is not surprising. The mainstream of Canadian public opinion tends to remain close to the centre on economic and social policies. Canadians favour open immigration and multiculturalism, and their views on religion, foreign policy, health care, the environment, and social policy are more closely aligned with Democratic, rather than Republican, views. Indeed, if Canadians were given ballots this November, a solid majority would cast them for Barack Obama over his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. In 2008, Obama's victory was welcomed with unfettered enthusiasm by the Canadian public, which has remained quite solidly in favour of the Democratic president in the last four years, even as it shifted enough to the right in domestic politics to give Stephen Harper's Conservative government its first majority in Ottawa. A May 2012 Angus Reid poll showed that 60 percent of Canadians thought that Obama's presidency has been good for Canada, against only 13 percent of Canadians who thought the opposite. The same poll shows Obama would win 65 percent of the vote among Canadians, compared to then-presumed Republican challenger Mitt Romney' s nine percent1This preference for Democrats was not always clear-cut over the years, notably in 1984, when Ronald Reagan attracted a fair amount of sympathy in Canada, but it was definitely present in the strong rejection of the Bush presidency from 2000 onward. In 2004, for example, a sizable majority opted for John Kerry over George W. Bush, but that majority was not quite as strong as the support for Obama in 2012. Clearly, the war-prone Jacksonian policy of the Bush administration abroad,2 along with the increasingly radical tone of its conservatism at home, were rejected by the Canadian public. Nonetheless, the same public remained nearly unanimous in saying that the relationship with the United States was important, and two-thirds viewed the overall bilateral relationship as good.3Even if public opinion and the news media tend to lean heavily in favour of the Democrats, a recurring theme of commentary on Canada-US relations is the notion that, in spite of this strongly expressed preference, having Republicans in power in Washington should be better for Canada's economy, if only because of the GOP's reputation as the party of free trade. This is why we are often reminded by experts in Canada- US relations and right-leaning pundits that the public's preference for Democrats is irrational. Such experts confidently assert that the Republicans, who purport to be the champions of free trade and fiscal discipline, are much better for Canada's economy. After all, why would the party that gave us free trade not be the best bet for our exporters? At a recent conference in Montreal, I asked a roomful of distinguished economists whether a Republican or Democratic president is generally preferable for Canada's economy. At least three out of four confidently answered, a Republican.The debate was reignited this summer when Derek Bumey and Fen Osier Hampson wrote that the Democratic administration of Barack Obama had lost Canada by implementing a series of policies that they judged detrimental to the Canadian economy, from the Buy American clause of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to the Obama administration's decision to delay approval for the Keystone pipeline. …

President Obama and Gay Rights: The 2008 and 2012 Presidential Elections

AbstractWe examine the role and potential impact of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) voters in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. We look at trend data from 1990 to 2010 to assess the fluctuations in support for the Democratic Party by GLB voters, specifically a substantial decrease in support during the 2010 midterm elections. We use data from the 2008 election to assess the estimated contribution the GLB vote made toward President Obama's margin of victory in key battleground states. Looking at the Obama administration's record on gay rights, specifically the failure to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), we argue that the Democratic Party could be held accountable in the 2012 election for their failure to provide protection from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Potentially the 2012 election will be closer than the 2008 race, highlighting the importance of the GLB vote to President Obama's reelection in key states. We argue that if President Obama incorporates strong support for ENDA into his reelection platform, the Democratic Party has the chance to recapture the GLB votes it lost in 2010 and maintain enough of the 2008 electoral votes that led to President Obama's victory.

The Obama phenomenon: toward a multiracial democracy

Acknowledgments Charles P. Henry / Introduction The Election 1.Charles P. Henry / The Jackson and Obama Contributions to a Multiracial Democracy 2. Martin Kilson / The Electoral Building Blocks of Barack Obama's Victory 3. Hanes Walton, Jr., Josephine A. V. Allen, Sherman C. Puckett & Donald R. Deskins, Jr. / The Election of Barack Obama and Its Implications for Racial Politics 4. Julianne Malveaux / Did Race, Class, Gender, Generation, or the Economy trump in the 2008 Elections 5. Dianne M. Pinderhughes / Race, The Presidency and Obama's First Year 6. Herb Boyd / Obama and the Media 7. Scharn Robinson / The Impact of the 2008 Campaign on the Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton Culture 8. Alice Walker / Lest We Forget: An open letter to my sisters who are brave 9. Maulana Karenga / Barack Obama's Ambivalent Embrace of Blackness 10. John L. Jackson / Obama, Black Religion, and the Rev. Wright Controversy 11. Dwight Hopkins / Race, Religion, and the Race for the White House 12. Ronald Williams II / Barack Obama and the Politics of Racial Representation 13. Shaun Ossei-Owusu / Barack Obama's Anomalous Relationship with the Hip Hop Community 14. Ula Taylor / First Lady Michelle Obama, Too Black and Too Strong Policy 15. Robin D. G. Kelley / President Obama, Freedom Democrat or Neo-Liberal 16. Clarence Lusane / Globalization and the Obama Doctrine 17. Cheryl Harris / Barack Obama, the Past, Present and Future of Race Remedies Robert L. Allen / Epilogue Contributors

The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election. By Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 392p. $21.95.

The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election. By Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 392p. $21.95. - Volume 10 Issue 1

The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election by Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election <i>by Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson</i>

The performance of politics: Obama's victory and the democratic struggle for power

Preface Prologue Power, Performance and Representation Chapter 1 Civil Sphere and Public Drama Chapter 2 Becoming a Collective Representation Chapter 3 Spirit of the Ground Game Heroes, Binaries and Boundaries Chapter 4 Imagining Heroes Chapter 5 Working the Binaries Chapter 6 Walking the Boundaries Victory and Defeat Chapter 7 Celebrity Metaphor Chapter 8 Palin Effect Chapter 9 Financial Crisis Epilogue Note on Concept and Method Appendix Endnotes Index

The Sword's Other Edge: Perceptions of Discrimination and Racial Policy Opinion after Obama

This study explores the impact of a momentous political event, the election of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008, on perceptions of racism and opinions about racial policy. A representative panel study of Americans interviewed immediately before and after the election reveals a roughly 10 percent decline in perceptions of racial discrimination. About one quarter of respondents revised their perceptions of discrimination downward. We explore several explanations for this decline. First, motivated-reasoning theory would predict larger declines among those whose priors tell them that racism was a diminished force to begin with. Second, changes could be concentrated among those who have the least contact with out-group members, or who are less knowledgeable about politics, and therefore weight Obama's victory heavily in deciding how much racism exists in America. Third, based on theories of emotion and cognition, anxiety but not anger before the election might trigger substantial updating of beliefs. We found the drop in perceived discrimination to be widespread across groups in the population, with conservatives but not necessarily racially resentful whites exhibiting somewhat larger declines. Residential racial context had no effect on changes in perception, though declines were larger among the least politically knowledgeable. More notably, those citizens anxious but not angry before the election displayed much larger declines in perceived discrimination. Finally, declines in perceived discrimination were associated with increases in negative opinions of blacks and heightened opposition to both affirmative action and immigration.

‘Change we can believe in?’ Barack Obama, race and the 2008 US presidential election

This article addresses two questions. It begins by comparing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson. It examines the different background and personalities of Obama and Jackson, together with an analysis of what has changed in US political life in the intervening decades, in an attempt to understand why Obama succeeded where the earlier Jackson campaigns failed. The second part of the article analyses the subsequent general election with a view to determining whether Obama's defeat of John McCain should be seen as a result of a unique set of political circumstances, or evidence of the increasing irrelevance of race in US electoral politics. In particular, this discussion assesses the validity of the claims made by some commentators that Obama's victory marks the beginning of a new ‘post-racial’ era in American political life.

The Obama victory: how media, money, and message shaped the 2008 election

1. Maverick versus Mc-Same Change versus Tax and Spend Liberal 2. Too Old versus Not Ready to Lead 3. What a Difference a Party Makes: Playing to and against Party Assumptions 4. The Issues that Mattered to Specific Groups? Stem Cells, Abortion, Immigration 5. Period One 6. Period Two 7. Period Three 8. Period Four 9. Period Five 10. Was the Election over Before it was over 11. . Will Presidential Campaigns ever be the Same Again? Implications for the Future

‘A curious relationship’: Barack Obama, the 1960s and the election of 2008

ABSTRACT Ward explores the diverse ways in which memories, understandings and misunderstandings of the 1960s were mobilized during the 2008 election cycle. At the time, Barack Obama's campaign and triumph were hailed by many as marking a series of a decisive breaks with the past, notably with the culture wars and fiercely ideological political partisanship unleashed in the late 1960s. Others suggested that Obama represented a new kind of candidate who somehow transcended, or might even heal, the racial divisions in the United States, in a fanciful vogue for ‘post-racialism’ that Ward argues was also connected to popular conceptions of the 1960s and, in particular, to a misreading of the social philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr and his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. While some commentators stressed rupture and discontinuity with the past in interpreting Obama's victory, others—friend and foe alike—were keen to stress continuities with the past, often explicitly with a 1960s routinely, if simplistically, parsed into ‘good’ early and ‘bad’ later periods. ThusWard considers Obama's connections to the civil rights and black power movements, as well as to other 1960s organizing traditions, charismatic leaders and conceptions of federal government, arguing that the decade continues to offer an important, if ambiguous touchstone in contemporary American politics and social memory.