The 2012 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective

This is a comprehensive analysis of Campaign 2012, from the growing political role of candidates’ wives, to the dysfunctional presidential debates, to Romney’s rhetorically challenged response to attacks, to the increasingly sophisticated use of social media. The volume is important reading for anyone who wants to stay current in presidential campaign communication. — John H. Parmalee, professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of North Florida, and author of Politics and the Twitter Revolution

By any measure the 2012 Presidential campaign was bound to be an unusual national spectacle. An African American President presiding over a struggling economy was vulnerable. The GOP foundered early in uncharacteristic disarray. And the interests of voters usually thought to be on the margins of the electorate―African Americans, Latinos, and younger women―would eventually converge to give Barack Obama a comfortable victory. Critical assessments of national campaigns always benefit from multiple voices and perspectives. In this perceptive collection, Robert E. Denton Jr. presides over a penetrating and original examination of these and other forces using his own slate of seasoned political scholars. The nine essays in The 2012 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective match the readability of conventional journalistic narratives, but easily surpass them in providing critical insights on a host of presentational variables: the drama of the presidential debates, the surrogacy of the candidates’ spouses, social media magnifying various triumphs and gaffs, advertising offensives in a handful of states, and fateful rhetorical choices made by each side in the run-up to November 6th. Few accounts of the 2012 campaign have been so detailed and thorough in assessing the candidates’ messages. — Gary C. Woodward, The College of New Jersey and author of the Perfect Response and Center Stage: Media and the Performance of American Politics

Robert Denton has once again brought together a team of political communication scholars who apply a wide range of theories and methods to analyzing a presidential campaign. From traditional speeches by candidates and their wives to twitter reactions from citizens, every type of campaign communication is explored. Denton’s observation in his introduction that the more presidential campaign communication changes, the more it remains the same is evident throughout each chapter’s analysis. The need for apologia, the dominance of the American Dream in presidential rhetoric, complaints about debate formats and their limitations–both old and new–or increased reliance on negative advertising are not new themes in analyzing these quadrennial events. However, the authors demonstrate that context matters and that each plays out in some unique way in 2012. — Diana B. Carlin, Saint Louis University, Professor Emerita