Overview

Get Out the Vote! Is a practical guide for anyone trying to mobilize voters or organize at the grass roots. Unlike authors of other campaign advice books, Donald Green and Alan Gerber root their work firmly in rigorous science. Their recommendations emerge from thorough experiments conducted in real electoral settings, examining the impact and effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing, telephone calls, direct mail, and other campaign tactics. Since 1998 the authors have conducted research in over a dozen states, studying a wide range of federal, state, and municipal elections. Their book connects theory with practice, informing campaign professionals and local organizers as well as students of electoral politics. They discover that many GOTV tactics used by campaign managers and political consultants are less effective than is often believed. The authors, relying on rigorous and systematic research, challenge much of the conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn't in the political campaigns. The authors' applied form of political science has won acclaim from scholars and earned the attention of campaign professionals and journalists. This book presents their result for a non-academic audience interested in putting campaign research into practice, and the findings will be surprising to many. Get Out the Vote! will help both consultants and the candidates who use their services better understand the efficacy of campaign methods. It is essential reading in an age of electronic communication, professional electioneering and voter apathy.

Full Product Details

9780815732686

Table of Contents

Reviews

Shatters conventional wisdom about GOTV. --Hal Malchow, Campaigns & Elections Magazine, 5/28/2004 ... a no-nonsense guide for anyone striving to mobilize voters... Offers a wealth of solid, easy-to-understand wisdom straight from the horse's mouth. --new campaign finance sourcebook, Wisconsin Bookwatch, 6/1/2004 Green and Gerber have provided a valuable resource for grassroots campaigns across the spectrum. -- National Journal, 4/13/2006 Two Yale political scientists, Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, have studied turnout for years. Their findings, based on dozens of controlled experiments done as part of actual campaigns, are summarized in a slim and readable new book called Get Out the Vote!, which is bound to become a bible for politicians and activists of all stripes. --Alan B. Krueger, The New York Times, 10/14/2004 Thankfully, Green and Gerber's recent book represents important innovations in the study of turnout. --Pat Lyons, Charles University, Prague, Political Studies Review Get Out The Vote! is at once an informal guide for these activists and candidates (they helpfully recommend, for instance, equipping door-to-door canvassers with umbrellas when bad weather threatens) and a serious survey of findings amassed from get out the vote (GOTV) experiments. --Gerard Alexander, Claremont Review of Books

"""Shatters conventional wisdom about GOTV."" --Hal Malchow, Campaigns & Elections Magazine, 5/28/2004 ""... a no-nonsense guide for anyone striving to mobilize voters... Offers a wealth of solid, easy-to-understand wisdom straight from the horse's mouth."" --new campaign finance sourcebook, Wisconsin Bookwatch, 6/1/2004 ""Green and Gerber have provided a valuable resource for grassroots campaigns across the spectrum."" -- National Journal, 4/13/2006 ""Two Yale political scientists, Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, have studied turnout for years. Their findings, based on dozens of controlled experiments done as part of actual campaigns, are summarized in a slim and readable new book called Get Out the Vote!, which is bound to become a bible for politicians and activists of all stripes."" --Alan B. Krueger, The New York Times, 10/14/2004 ""Thankfully, Green and Gerber's recent book represents important innovations in the study of turnout."" --Pat Lyons, Charles University, Prague, Political Studies Review ""Get Out The Vote! is at once an informal guide for these activists and candidates (they helpfully recommend, for instance, equipping door-to-door canvassers with umbrellas when bad weather threatens) and a serious survey of findings amassed from get out the vote (GOTV) experiments."" --Gerard Alexander, Claremont Review of Books"

Author Information

Donald P. Green is a professor of political science at Yale University, where he has taught for more than a decade. An expert on elections and campaign finance, he has written widely on public opinion and political behavior and is coauthor of Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters (Yale, 2000). Alan S. Gerber is a professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University. He has published extensively on campaigns and elections and is coeditor (with Eric Patashnik) of Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance (Brookings, 2006).

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