GPDC Dinner, "The Road to the White House"

The President of the Greater Pinellas Democratic Club, Harvey Morgenstein, asked me to speak at the April dinner meeting about the "Road to the White House" course. (There are typically about 150 or more attendees at these dinner meetings.)

All of the judicial candidates were also going to be speaking at this meeting, so I was delighted that Harvey invited me to bring some of my students to the dinner meeting as well. I was able to invite my Law and Politics class (in which we study judicial campaigns and elections) as well as students in my Road to the White House class.

I briefly discussed course design and implementation and how the course has changed since I developed it in 2004. Unlike the 2004 and 2008 classes, in which I took my class up to New Hampshire where all of the students interned on presidential primary campaigns in the first-in-the-nation primary, this year, in 2012, all students in the class interned on presidential primary campaigns right here in Florida.

In many ways, the impact of this campaign internship requirement in 2012 was similar to the impact of the campaign internship requirement in my American Government class. That is, students signed up for this semester's course largely unaware that there would be any hands-on component to the class.

I shared some of the data from the pre-test/post-test surveys conducted in my American Government classes (before and after the campaign internship requirement) to explain what I learned about the ways in which the internship affected students' attitudes towards campaigns, elections, politics.

You can read the full text of an article I wrote analyzing the data ("Learning Citizenship by Doing") by clicking here

http://www.servicelearning.org/library/resource/8814

I was so pleased that some of the students in the Road to the White House class were able to join me -- and that they were able to share their experiences and what they have learned on the campaign trail.

I should note that 11 students in the class are interning for Republican candidates, 11 are interning for President Obama's re-election or the FDP Democratic Caucuses, and 1 student is interning for the Libertarian campaign.

While this was a Democratic function, I was able to invite all students to come and hear from the judicial candidates regardless of the students' party affiliation.

Coincidentally, many of the guests in the audience had been listening to NPR news on their drive to the event -- and had heard my students and me talking about the Road to the White House class as a part of Mark Schreiner's "University Beat" series.

Click here to hear the radio and to see the TV spots:

http://www.wusf.usf.edu/radio/program/university_beat/episode/2012-04/road_to_the_white_house

WUSF Univerity Beat Television Spot

Click here to see the WUSF University Beat television spot by Mark Schreiner:


http://www.wusf.usf.edu/player/Player.php?itemurl=http://www.wusf.usf.edu/pbcore/22219/video.xml


USF St. Petersburg Road to the White House class (courtesy Judithanne Scourield McLauchlan)
Road to the White House
Students in a USF St. Petersburg political science class are learning the nuts and bolts of presidential campaigns by volunteering for them. It’s called the “Road to the White House,” and University Beat on WUSF TV joins them on the trip.

WUSF 89.7 University Beat: Radio Spot

Click here to listen to the WUSF University Beat story by Mark Schreiner:

http://www.wusf.usf.edu/radio/program/university_beat/episode/2012-04/road_to_the_white_house

Road to the White House

From January’s G-O-P primary to this summer’s Republican National Convention, Florida and the Tampa Bay area are playing a major role in determining who will win the presidential election. A USF St. Petersburg political science class is getting real campaign experience, and you can join these students on the “Road to the White House” this week on University Beat on WUSF 89.7.

Florida Democratic Party Presidential Selection Caucuses: Special Guest: Rick Boylan

As we sought to understand delegate counts, delegate selection, what happens at national nominating conventions, we heard from long-time DNC staffer RICK BOYLAN.

Boylan was the first to computerize the delegate tracking system, back in 1984 (before that, records were kept on index cards). Back in those days, a mainframe computer took up a whole room!

He helped students understand the history behind some of the important rule changes (the credentials challenge in 1964, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago) and the reasoning behind the sequential primaries/caucuses and why the national parties want to stop states from frontloading their primaries.

In the last 2 presidential election cycles, Florida violated the rules of the RNC and the DNC. Both parties penalized Florida in 2008 for violating the rules. In 2012, with the Democratic nominee assured, the Florida Democratic Party was able to come up with a new system for selecting delegates that would comply with party rules. This time, instead of being penalized, Florida actually received "bonus" delegates.

Boylan is heading up the effort to create the FDP Delegate Selection Caucuses (and 3 students in RTWH are interning with him).

Students had lots of great questions, not only about the 2012 Democratic Caucuses in Florida but also about differences between the Democratic and Republican delegate selection processes, drafting the Party platform, and what happens at the conventions.

Social Media and Presidential Campaigns: Special Guest: Larry Biddle

During our week on Media, we discussed social media and presidential campaigns.

Our expert guest speaker was LARRY BIDDLE, one of the masterminds behind the Dean campaign's revolutionary internet campaign and successful internet fundraising program.

Biddle talked with us about the Dean campaign's use of Meet Up technology and the thousands of house parties organized by the campaign all across the country using the internet-based resources.

Biddle helped us to understand this progression of technology as well as how campaigns use the social media tools available to them today (e.g., targeting facebook ads).

Media & Presidential Campaigns: Special Guest: William March, Tampa Tribune

During our week on media and presidential campaigns, we heard from WILLIAM MARCH, veteran reporter from the TAMPA TRIBUNE, who has been covering state and national politics in Florida through many election cycles. (It's rumored that March "covered God back when he was a County Commissioner.")

We talked about the importance of Florida in presidential elections. It is incredibly unlikely that a Republican presidential ticket could get to 270 electoral votes without Florida. Indeed, Florida is the only swing state of the top 4 "mega states," and it is the swingiest of swing states. Of the last 5 presidential elections in Florida, 2 went to Democrats, 2 to Republicans, and 1 was a tie. (If you combine all of the ballots cast in those last 5 elections and tallied them up, there were about 31 million ballots cast. Of those, there was a Democratic advantage of approximately 57,000 votes. 2/10 of a percentage point difference!)

And, of course, within the swing state of Florida, Tampa Bay ("anchor of the I-4 corridor") is in the battleground region of the state.

William March has been covering national and state politics from the vantage point of the Tampa Bay region, and students learned a great deal from his expert analysis of the current Republican primary and the 2012 general election -- as well as his thoughts about media coverage of campaigns and the role of the print media in the current media environment.

Student Presentations: Presidential Campaign Research Papers

In addition to their presidential campaign internships, readings/lecture material/seminar papers, students each conducted research on an historical presidential campaign.

During the week of March 26, students presented their research findings to the class.

The Election of 1800: DEPASQUALE
The Election of 1824: DILLARD
The Election of 1860: BUSCHMAN
The Election of 1888: VARTANIAN
The Election of 1896: LLOYD
The Election of 1912: SCOTT
The Election of 1916: PLANZO
The Election of 1924: ELLINGTON
The Election of 1928: MOTT
The Election of 1948: WOLF
The Election of 1960: BROCKMEIER
The Election of 1976: GUZMAN
The Election of 1980: THOMPSON
The Election of 1988: DIOSO
The Election of 1992: BICKHARDT
The Election of 1996: SHANE
The Election of 2000: BUCHWALTER
The Election of 2004: HUNTSINGER
The Election of 2008: CABRERA

By hearing from colleagues about their research papers, students learned more about each of the presidential campaigns listed above and were able to reflect on how and why presidential campaigns have changed during the 208 year span we covered.