Reference no: EM133487637

Question 1: You will be writing a paper about how an incumbent president interpreted what happened in his first successful election to the White House, and how that shaped the way in which he governed and ran for reëlection.

Question 2: Choose a president other than Barack Obama and Donald Trump who came to office through election, rather than via the death or resignation of his predecessor, and then ran for another term. I would recommend you look for one from the 20th or 21st century, since I expect you'll find research materials easier to come by that way, but if you have a particular reason for wanting to choose one from earlier you are welcome to do so.

Question 3: Just so we're all on the same page, the 20th or 21st century presidents who would qualify are: Taft, Wilson, Hoover, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush.

Question 4: First off, you'll want to map (not literally) the broader debate over what happened in the election which put your president in the White House. So you will want to read about the campaign itself, but more importantly, identify the stories that circulated at the time and in its aftermath about why the election turned out the way it did. Get a good grasp on who embraced and promoted which stories, and what their motives might be for doing so.

Question 5: Then situate the president himself in this debate. You will want to immerse yourself in the president's understanding of how he was elected the first time, and do this by looking for his own statements, from speeches, interviews, memoirs, correspondence and diaries if those became available. You'll also want to look at what those around him - advisers, campaign consultants, political allies and family members, among others - said about the election. Ultimately you'll want to hone in on which stories the president embraced and believed. In some instances he will be direct and overt in this analysis. In other times, it will be implied or suggested. (For those presidents who lost campaigns for the White House before winning one, you may find find meaning in contrasting how they discuss their successful and unsuccessful runs.) Elsewhere I will want you to take note of both absence and emphasis. Which stories for his election does your president not address or invoke? What did he ignore, discount or minimize, either directly or by implication? Did these stories, or points of emphasis within them, vary with the intended audience or did it shift over the course of his or her presidency?

Question 6: You will characterize that story for me - use quotes as appropriate, but you should be synthesizing and summarizing in your own voice. Where useful, contrast your president's analysis with the contemporaneous analysis of journalists, scholars, interest groups, political elites and others. (Don't, however, make this a survey of everything anyone had to say about the election - draw in contrasts only where it illuminates something interesting or important about the president's view.)

Question 7: Once you have that grounding, we're interested first in how the president's processing of these stories shaped the way he governed. What policy areas did he prioritize? What types of proposals did he advance? Did his take on the election affect the way he interacted with his own party and with the opposition? What about his approach to the relative merits of legislative versus executive action?

Question 8: Next you'll look at how the president's processing of those same stories about his election shaped the way he ran for a second term. Can you see their influence on his campaign strategy, tactics or technology? Did he try to adjust his ideological positioning or how he defined opponents? What about how he tried to assemble a winning coalition, or his areas of geographical or demographic emphasis?

Question 9: In some of the above areas, you will find continuities rather than changes, and it's good to note them but only if they are significant in light of the debate over how to interpret the elections. (For example: It's not particularly interesting to me to learn you never leave the house with an umbrella. But I will be intrigued if you don't bring an umbrella today after I heard you complaining yesterday about how terrible it was to be stuck outside in a surprise rainstorm.)

Question 10: Your citations can come in any form you choose (endnotes, footnotes, etc.) as long as you pick a style and stick to it consistently. Regardless of form, they should demonstrate that you consulted a wide and varied range of sources. Both your endnotes and the text of your paper should show that you engaged with the course readings.