News Release
Office of News and Information Johns Hopkins University 901 South Bond Street, Suite 540 Baltimore, Maryland 21231 Phone: 443-287-9960 | Fax: 443-287-9920 |
October 17, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Amy Lunday acl@jhu.edu 443-287-9960 |
2008 Presidential Election Stories
For stories about the 2008 presidential campaign, consider the following sources from The Johns Hopkins University. Listed with each source is a brief description of his or her area of expertise. Specific contact information is listed for some sources; in cases where it is not, contact Amy Lunday at (443) 287-9960 or acl@jhu.edu.
Race and the Presidency, Going Forward: Presidential
politics from an African-American perspective
Lester Spence, assistant professor of political
science
Spence says that one of the most important questions about
this year's presidential campaign has been whether race will
dampen Obama's electoral chances. With Obama taking what
appears to be a formidable lead among the nationwide
electorate, it appears, Spence says, that the "Bradley
Effect" will not be large enough to derail the election of
the first non-white president. "While those who argue this
represents tremendous progress are not wrong, there are two
related questions that bear further analysis," he says.
"During several recent rallies sponsored by the McCain-Palin
campaign, whites have expressed fear, disdain, and anger at
the possibility of an Obama presidency. Will Obama have to
contend with questions of legitimacy because of his race? On
the other side, black progressives have urged that Obama's
race should not prevent blacks from critiquing his policy
proposals, only to be criticized by other blacks concerned
about Obama's electoral chances. Will this continue once
Obama is elected?"
Reporters seeking an African-American
viewpoint on the 2008 presidential election should consider
working with Spence, whose areas of expertise include black
politics, race in popular culture, public opinion, political
behavior, and the legitimacy of the American courts in the
wake of the 2000 presidential election. Spence, who is
African American, has appeared regularly on National Public
Radio, has served as a source for news stories and offered
commentary in such media outlets as the Washington Post, the
Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Africana.com and Salon.com. More
information about Spence's projects can be found at his Web
site,
blacksmythe.com/. You can reach Spence directly at 410-
948-2709.
Election civility: Trash-talking candidates and water
cooler debates
P.M. Forni, director of the Civility Initiative
at Johns Hopkins and professor of Italian
literature
The candidates' gloves are off on the homestretch of the
campaign trail. Civility expert P.M. Forni is available to
talk to reporters about the increasingly bitter presidential
campaign rhetoric, one of the latest chapters being Sen.
McCain's dismissive and much talked-about referral to
Sen. Obama as "that guy" during the Oct. 7 debate. Forni is
available to discuss how the candidates are behaving,
whether they are projecting the qualities of civility that
we expect in our leaders and how the public might perceive
these tactics (many polls seem to show that voters are
turned off anytime one of the candidates speaks negatively
of his opponent).
As Gov. Palin might put it, "Joe Sixpack"
also suffers from political incivility when debates turn
friends and co-workers into sparring partners. Forni can
offer ways to defuse arguments and techniques for people to
express themselves without offending acquaintances with
differing political views. Forni is the author of
Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate
Conduct. Its follow-up, The Civility Solution: What
to Do When People Are Rude, was published by St.
Martin's Press in June. Read Forni's tips online at
www.jhu.edu/news/home08/jan08/civility.html.
The Impact of the Mortgage Crisis on the Presidential
Campaign
Roger Staiger, adjunct professor of real estate, Johns Hopkins Carey Business
School
Staiger is available to discuss the impact of the current
mortgage crisis, and the effects of the financial turmoil in
general, on the election. He holds an MS in finance from
George Washington University, an MA in international trade
from George Mason University, and an MBA in finance and
investments from George Washington. His professional
experience includes positions with energy, construction,
consulting, finance, and loan companies. Contact Patrick
Ercolano at 410-516-6955 or
pae@jhu.edu.
Electronic Medical Records, Lowering Health Care Costs
and Covering the Uninsured
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have
both endorsed using electronic medical records and
information technology as a means to improve the quality
of health care in the United States and contain high
costs.
Jonathan Weiner, DrPH, professor of
health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, studies the application of
electronic health records and how their use could reform
health care in the United States. Weiner can also discuss
the candidates' plans for expanding health care coverage to
the uninsured.
Contact Tim Parsons at 410-955-7619 or
tmparson@jhsph.edu.
Health Care and the Presidential Campaign
Douglas Hough, assistant professor of the business of
health, Johns Hopkins Carey
Business School
Hough has been a research economist at the American Medical
Association, a manager in the health care consulting
division of Coopers & Lybrand, and a partner in two health
care strategy consulting firms. He is a frequent speaker and
author on health care issues as they relate to physicians.
He is co-editor of the three-volume set The Business of
Healthcare, published by Praeger. Hough earned an MS and
a PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin and a BS
in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Contact Patrick Ercolano at 410-516-6955 or pae@jhu.edu.
Business and the Presidential Campaign
Phillip H. Phan, professor of management, Johns Hopkins Carey Business
School
Phan can address a number of business-related topics,
including mergers and acquisitions; strategic alliances;
innovation and entrepreneurship; the airline industry,
software, and forestry industries; telecommunications and
media; and corporate governance. Phan has consulted for
numerous organizations including the World Bank, Hewlett-
Packard, Nokia, Ernst & Young, and Singapore Airlines, and
he is a regular expert contributor to major media outlets
around the world. He earned a PhD in strategic management
from the University of Washington. Contact Patrick Ercolano
at 410-516-6955 or
pae@jhu.edu.
Foreign Policy and the Election
Johns Hopkins can offer numerous sources at the Paul H. Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies who can speak to
reporters about foreign policy and the election. For
information, contact Felisa Neuringer Klubes, director of
communications and marketing, at 202-663-5626 or fklubes@jhu.edu.
Presidential power
Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, professors of political
science
The American presidency is out of control and this long
campaign has offered little hope of restoring the
traditional balance of power in Washington, say Matthew
Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, Johns Hopkins political
scientists and authors of Presidential Power: Unchecked
and Unbalanced (W.W. Norton & Co., April 2007, $27.95).
Picking up where Crenson's and Ginsberg's first co-authored
book, Downsizing Democracy, left off, Presidential
Power explains the exponential growth of the White
House's authority since the mid-20th century. Writing for a
general audience, they approach their subject as they would
a murder mystery, looking at the motives, means and
opportunities leading to the aggrandizement of power by the
commanders-in-chief. More details about the book are
available online at
www.jhu.edu/news/home07/jun07/prespowr.html.
Embracing cynicism in the face of political posturing
Benjamin Ginsberg, professor of political
science
If you hate politics, you aren't alone. In his book The
American Lie: Government by the People and Other Political
Fables (Paradigm Publishers, July 2007), Johns Hopkins
political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg suggests that
embracing one's inner cynic is important for keeping
political rhetoric at bay. Politics is not about truth,
justice and principle, Ginsberg asserts. Rather, he says,
it's about money, power and status. Ginsberg argues that
politicians pretend to fight for principle in order to
conceal their true selfish motives. Ginsberg encourages
citizens to become "realistically cynical" in their
participation in the 2008 election process, to think outside
the ballot box and find new ways to act on behalf of their
own individual interests and the greater public good. And if
voters do make it to the polls, Ginsberg's advice is, "When
in doubt, vote them out." Details on the book are online at
www.jhu.edu/news/home07/jul07/ginsberg.html.
Electronic Voting Machines: Can We Trust Their
Results?
Avi Rubin, professor of
computer science and technical director of the Information Security
Institute at Johns Hopkins
Avi Rubin has conducted research on the electronic voting
machines that many states bought to try to avoid the
"hanging chads" and other punch card ballot problems that
created an uproar during the 2000 presidential election.
Rubin believes the touchscreen
machines pose problems of their own, because they are
vulnerable to tampering and, in the absence of a paper
trail, do not permit a meaningful recount in a contested
race. Rubin has testified before government panels regarding
his concerns. He also has studied security hazards posed by
Internet voting. In addition to his research, Rubin can
discuss his hands-on election-day experiences with voting
machines as an election judge in Baltimore County. Rubin's
book Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy
in the Age of Electronic Voting (Random House, September
2006) tells of both his role as a whistle-blower and his
observations of electronic voting in action. Rubin leads A
Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and
Transparent Elections (ACCURATE), a team of computer
scientists and other academic researchers from across the
country working to help bring the latest research, insights
and innovations from the lab to the voting booth, with
funding from the National Science Foundation. See
www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111660 .
Contact Phil Sneiderman at 443-287-9960 or prs@jhu.edu.
K-12 Education and the Election
Robert Slavin, director of the Center for Research and
Reform in Education at the School of Education;
director of the Institute for Effective Education at the
University of York, England; and co-founder and chairman of
the Success for All
Foundation
A national expert on school reform, he can speak to a broad
range of pressing educational issues in our nation's public
school system, including No Child Left Behind, school
testing and literacy. Contact: rslavin@jhu.edu or Chris
Atkins Godack, (410) 516-8590 or cgodack@jhu.edu.
Public policy and propaganda on the campaign trail
Martin Lattman, instructor, Department of Marketing, Johns Hopkins Carey Business
School
While Martin Lattman isn't a political scholar, his
marketing expertise would be useful to reporters interested
in understanding the positioning that the candidates are
trying to achieve. Specifically, this refers to the
distinctive place that Obama and McCain are hoping to occupy
in the minds of their target voter audiences. "For
politicians, this is a particularly vexing challenge because
they're trying to appeal to multiple constituencies,"
Lattman said. "I think that Obama has done a reasonably good
job with this, whereas McCain is lagging at this stage. In
fairness to him, he has the burden of being associated with
an unpopular president, so he's faced with the dilemma of
how aggressively he should separate himself from the Bush
administration."