Inside Political Campaigns: Theory and Practice

As Dan Nimmo notes in his introduction, Inside Political Campaigns endeavors to trace the sources of professional campaign wizardry by encapsulating the theories and concepts that practitioners and scholars alike claim to guide and rationalize consultants’ magical weaving of strategies, tactics, and techniques into a ‘winning tapestry of political communication.’ This study presents the theoretical areas political communication consultants draw upon in making strategic and tactical decisions in political campaigns. And it provides an understanding of what motivates political consultants to choose a particular campaign strategy by explaining how various strategies work with the voting public. While the book is research-driven, its academic findings are tempered and expanded by the authors’ personal political consulting experiences. The text will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners alike in political communication, advertising, public opinion, political science, political rhetoric, and campaigns and elections.