U.S. Presidential Election of 1992

Quest for the Presidency 1992 reveals for the first time the full story of what really happened in the tumultuous 1992 presidential election. With unparalleled access to the inner workings of the various campaigns, Newsweek's award-winning team of reporters gathered the in-depth stories of the candidates; their handlers, pollsters, and supporters; and their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.

Political campaigns are highly complex and sophisticated communication events: communication of issues, images, social reality, and persons. They are essentially exercises in the creation, recreation, and transmission of "significant symbols" through human communication. As we attempt to make sense of our environment, "political bits" of communication inform our voting choices, world views, and legislative desires. This volume considers the 1992 presidential campaign from a communication perspective. Each chapter focuses on a specific area of political campaign communication: the communication functions and activities across the campaign phases, the nomination conventions, the debates, political advertising, the discussion and framing of issues, candidate images, the role and impact of network and local news, "electronic town hall" meetings, and C-Span.

"The Financing series constitutes a unique resource. ... The volume on the 1992 campaigns is an example of the series at its best. ... There is not much in the study of American politics that merits the word 'indispensable, ' but these nine volumes do". -- American Political Science Review

Candidates in Conflict provides a new perspective for understanding presidential debates by analyzing the three televised debates in 1992 among candidates Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Ross Perot. Viewed by millions and now an expected part of presidential campaigns, the debates captured the attention of the nation. The authors show that presidential candidates, by using persuasive attack and defense strategies, are able either to undermine (in the case of their opponents) or to preserve (for themselves) the vital issues of personal credibility and policy matters. The book includes complete transcripts of the debates.

This is the third of a series of studies of presidential election politics in the South (the first two addressing the 1984 and 1988 elections, respectively). It examines the nomination process in the region, presents a state-by-state analysis of the 1992 presidential election results, and offers some general conclusions regarding contemporary developments in southern electoral and party politics. The volume presents election data of interest to students of presidential elections, the U.S. party system, and southern politics. As such, the work represents a significant contribution to the literature on partisan politics in the South.