The selling of the President 2004: a marketing perspective

• George W. Bush won the 2004 US Presidential election despite the facts of one thousand people losing their life in the Iraq war, the highest rate of increase in unemployment in 70 years and a vitriolic propaganda campaign (Michael Moore, etc.) against him. This case study seeks to explain the success through the prism of marketing theory and conceptual structures, that is, that the Bush team had a superior communications strategy and, within those parameters, superior marketing elements. Thus we seek to surface and integrate a number of causal explanations for his victory that arose from a political marketing orientation, specifically the offer of a ‘coherent narrative’; the conduct of a ‘permanent campaign’; more effective negative advertising (especially by pro‐Bush 527 groups), targeting and packaging; the success of the late campaign ‘big tent’ ploy. None of this however seeks to exclude the more purely political explanations for his success (located in such phenomena as the mobilization of the ‘Christian Right’ and the continuity to the aura attached to the ‘911 President’); nor is the application of marketing thought to political contexts treated uncritically.
• A further aim is to introduce political marketing modes of analysis to a political science audience—not to present them as a new ‘correctness’, for they are certainly vulnerable to challenge, but rather to precipitate more of an intellectual exchange between these two disciplines.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fracture patterns on the infant porcine skull following severe blunt impact

The objective of this study was to document patterns of fracture on infant porcine skulls aged 2-28 days (n = 57) because of a single, high energy blunt impact to the parietal bone with rigid (nondeformable) and compliant (deformable) interfaces. Fracture patterns were mapped using Geographic Information System software. For the same generated impact force, the rigid interface produced more fractures than the compliant interface for all ages. This study also showed that this increased level of impact energy versus an earlier study using a lower energy resulted in new sites of fracture initiation and also caused previously defined fractures that propagate into an adjacent bone. Several unique characteristics of bone and diastatic fracture were documented as a function of specimen age, impact energy, and interface. These data describe some baseline characteristics of skull fracture using an animal model that may help guide future studies from forensic case files.     

Agendas and sincerity: a second response to Schwartz

An Ordeshook-Schwartz agenda tree requires a voting theorist to assign a unique “ostensive alternative” to each node, but under some non-pairwise agendas there is no evident principle by which to do this. Therefore Ordeshook-Schwartz sincere voting is not clearly defined under all types of agendas. Farquharson-style agenda trees sidestep this problem and allow one or more definitions of sincere voting under every type of agenda.     

The house of lords and the labour government 1974–79

An analysis of the legislative activity of the House of Lords during the period of Labour government between 1974 and 1979. At the time much of their activity was depicted as a clash between Lords and Commons, between the two chambers of the British legislature – one a ‘one‐sided, hereditary, unprized, unrepresentative, irresponsible absentee’ and other made up of the directly elected representatives of the people.

The author shows that the events during the period were in fact rather more complex than this, being more accurately portrayed as a clash between Government and Parliament facilitated by the House of Lords. In addition, the author points not only to the importance of the peers perceptions of the parliamentary situation at the time, what it was generally as well as at specific times and with regard to specific issues, and to the impact that this had, but also highlights the fact that the political complexion of the House of Lords is far more complex than a simple Conservative‐Labour dichotomy.

By way of conclusion it is argued not only that the activity of the House of Lords during this period provides ample evidence of the extent and nature of the work of the House, but also that the members were doing no more than their constitutional position provides for, namely to scrutinise and revise legislation – it was, as Bagehot observed, a Chamber of ‘temporary rejectors and palpable alterers’.     

Overview of: “The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence: An Evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention”

Research Summary Pulling levers policing draws upon the focused deterrence framework, which has shown considerable promise when directed at youth, gun, and gang offenders. However, much less is known about the viability of pulling levers when applied to different contexts as well as to diverse groups of offenders. We examine the High Point (North Carolina) Drug Market Intervention (DMI), the first site to use pulling levers as a place-based policing approach to disrupt a series of open-air drug markets across the city. Eleven years of longitudinal data are analyzed by using difference-in-difference panel regression analyses combined with finite mixture estimation as a means to test for divergence in violent crime patterns. Several key, although inconsistent, findings are presented. First, we found a statistically significant reduction in violent offenses in specific high-crime places (i.e., high-trajectory census blocks) located across the different targeted neighborhoods compared with the remainder of High Point, and relative to comparable nontargeted areas. Second, the citywide violent crime rate actually increased after a series of interventions unfolded, which may suggest limitations with the approach. Finally, trend analyses indicated the strategy had different levels of violent crime impact throughout unique geographic contexts. Policy Implications Rather than arresting every offender identified as having participated in illicit drug trafficking across various geographic contexts within the city, officials in High Point decided to invite low-risk drug offenders to community notification sessions in order to change their perceived risk of punishment as well as to mobilize community members across the different targeted neighborhoods. The suggestive evidence of potential, although limited, violent crime impact illustrates that this type of policing strategy may hold considerable promise. This interpretation gains credence when considered with prior evaluations of the DMI approach that illustrated the potential for reducing drug-related crime and in light of reports of improved police–community relations. The inconsistent findings across all locations and the overall city increase in violent crime toward the end of the study period, however, raise several concerns when interpreting study results. Additionally, our findings suggest that further replications should include systematic problem-identification, process measures, and more precise research designs.