Week 2: October 2

Nominations and Elections

The 2000 American presidential election will probably be the most monitored event in the history of the world, thanks to the Internet and cable television.  One lesson: it will be easy to get overwhelmed by information.  What we attend to is as important as the availability of information.                     

Reading Assignment

Read: Pfiffner and Davidson, Section 3.

Exercise Activities

Weekly Exercise: Check out

• http://www.niu.edu/newsplace/whitehouse.html

• http://www.swickey.com/

  On a weekly basis during the course.

Exercise: Check out the positions of the political parties at their official websites below.

• http://www.rnc.org/

• http://www.democrats.org/index.html

  Money in Elections: http://www.opensecrets.org/home/index.asp

Exercise: Study the requirements for running a campaign as detailed by the Federal Election Commission. 

• http://www.fec.gov/

Exercise: Take a look at this one as a resource for researching candidates and issues:

• http://www.webwhiteblue.org/

• http://www.niu.edu/newsplace/whitehouse.html

Exercise: Check out the election maps

• http://uselectionatlas.org/polgraph.html (kudos to Dave!).

• http://www.worldmedia.fr/elections/

FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE:  Tuesday, October 3^rd.

VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE:  Thursday, October 5^th.

• http://www.debates.org/

(Our presidential debates are privately funded, and you can see adds on the official debate site.  Thoughts?)

Lecture Notes

Lecture Notes for Week 2

Tips on how to read the readings for weeks 1 and 2 

POLS 355 Home 

Syllabus

Week 1    Week 2    Week 3    Week 4    Week 5    

Week 6    Week 7    Week 8    Week 9    Week 10