Abstract: Using the results of 202 Gallup opinion polls and 248 state primary elections, this article develops a general model of presidential nomination campaigns. National public opinion is found to play a major role, and state primaries a much lesser role, in winning the presidential nomination. James R. Beniger is a graduate student in sociology and statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. This article was begun while he was Head of the Sampling Office, Survey Research Center, Berkeley, and completed while he was a Research Associate at the Bureau of Social Science Research, Washington.

Abstract: Summative, averaging, and elimination by aspects models of choice were applied to voter decisionmaking in the 1972 New Hampshire presidential primary. Predictions were generated from each of the models and compared to election outcome, candidate preference, and reported vote. The summative and elimination by aspects procedures predicted equally well, and both predicted significantly better than the averaging procedure. Candidate personal attributes were identified by the majority of voters as more important dimensions in deciding for whom to vote than candidate issue positions. Primary elections have many interesting features. Turnout is lower than in general elections. The voters are more involved, and tend to differ from participants in general elections in the same ways that general election voters differ from nonvoters (Ranney and Epstein, 1966; Ranney, 1968). In some states, participation is limited to partisans; in others, independents or members of the rival party may participate if they wish. Often more than two candidates compete for a party's nomination, and voters choosing between them lack the familiar guidepost of party identification. Even nonpartisan elections differ from primaries in this last respect, since voters often know the

Abstract: AS THE CALENDAR POINTS toward the bicentennial of American independence, the United States finds itself in the grip of a pervasive and remarkably long-lived political crisis. Signs of this crisis are everywhere to be seen. They have appeared in a variety of forms: in George Wallace's campaigns, in and out of the Democratic party, since the spring of 1964; in Barry Goldwater's nomination by the Republicans that year; in the assassinations, riots and protest demonstrations of 1967-1972; in the failure of the Democratic conventions of 1968 and 1972 to achieve either legitimacy or consensus; in Richard Nixon's rise from the politically dead in 1968, and in his richly deserved reinterment in 1974; and in much else besides. So far from being exhaustive, such a list of pathological symptoms could be extended almost indefinitely. They add up to a syndrome; and it seems very likely that 1976 will make its own contributions to that list. Conventional wisdom, such as it now exists, stresses the importance of two chief proximate causes of this state of affairs: the Vietnam disaster in foreign policy and the mix of poverty and civilrights programs in the domestic arena. One implication of this argument is that, with Vietnam now in the past and with a general discrediting in public and elite opinion of the kind of experiment in positive federal action associated with the "Great Society," things

Abstract: Presidential politics in the United States has undergone a revolution since 1960. Campaigns are longer and more complex. Television has created an emphasis on personality, rather than on issues, and a volatility that can change situations overnight. This has complicated the job of the press, which must concentrate more on assessing where the political situation stands than on merely reporting what candidates are saying. The relationship between re porters and candidates changes during the various stages of the campaign. It is personal and intimate during the period that precedes the election year, less so as the primaries progress. Later attitudes depend in considerable measure on whether the candidate is perceived as having a real chance of winning his party's nomination, and the presidency. By the time of the general election, intimacy is largely gone, but much depends on whether the candidate permits an "open" atmosphere. The 1976 campaign is likely to match two candi dates running open campaigns, in c...

Abstract: Americans have many reasons for fundamental confidence in their electoral processes, including the steady spread of suffrage, improvements in the administration of voter registration and of elections, and the responsiveness of elected officials to constituent interests. Yet the sources, uses, and regulation of money in nomination and election processes have often proved corrupt. They have fallen short of the high standards used in judging them and led to cynicism and contempt. Attempts at reform have been ob structed by many barriers during the last century, but the 1970s see basic changes in the context in which campaign reg ulation is undertaken, signaling hope ahead. During the past five years 44 states, and the federal government on two occasions, have enacted major legislative changes. Diffi culties and unmet ideals abound, but the nation has entered a new era of effort and promise.