CHICAGO — As voters prepare for Election Day, DePaul University
faculty experts are available discuss how the presidential, national and local
elections relate to various topics in U.S. history, politics and culture. Their
expertise includes political marketing, the millennial vote, the psychology of
leadership, voting rights and civil rights. Experts include:
Election process and voter turnout
Erik Tillman, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts
and Social Sciences. Tillman is an expert on elections, primaries and public
opinion. “Donald Trump as a candidate has undermined democratic norms by
alleging electoral fraud and suggesting that he will not accept the election
outcome, while we have found ourselves in the unusual position of dealing with
suspected foreign interference in the campaign. After this election, it will be
crucial for leaders from both parties — and especially the losing party — to
affirm their commitment to the fundamental norms and practices on which
democracy depends,” said Tillman. He adds: “The final challenge for each party
will be mobilizing its voter base to turn out and vote. While the evidence
points to a Clinton victory, control of the Senate is still up for grabs.” Tillman
can be reached at etillman@depaul.edu.
Wayne Steger, Professor of
Political Science, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Steger can
speak about presidential nominations, election forecasting, media coverage of
presidential campaigns, voting behavior and campaign finance. “The intense
polarization of the political parties and the strength of partisan identification
means that the vast majority of people have already made their decision and
know who they will vote for this fall. The big questions are who will vote or
stay home, and what will this election mean for the party coalitions,” said
Steger. He can be reached at 773-325-4240 or wsteger@depaul.edu.
R. Craig Sautter, Adjunct Faculty,
School for New Learning. Sautter is author of three books
on presidential conventions and elections (http://www.presidentialconventions.com). For
more than two decades, he has written and produced radio and TV ads for
candidates running for Congress and other offices across the nation. "This
presidential election is among the most fascinating in U.S. history, matching
one of the most politically experienced candidates ever against one of the
least prepared and most flamboyant. Yet going into the final week, the race
seems to be neck and neck. Why? The reasons are both personal and
institutional, including a reaction against an ‘entitled’ political class that
is prospering while much of the nation is economically hard-pressed. The end
game is likely to be wild." Sautter can be reached at rsautter@depaul.edu
Michael L. Mezey, Professor
Emeritus of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts and Social
Sciences. Mezey is an expert in congressional and presidential elections
and processes, public policymaking and the Electoral College. He can discuss
current polling, the Electoral College, and the electoral coalitions that both
Clinton and Trump need to assemble and energize in order to prevail. He is also
interested in the larger meaning of the Trump candidacy for the process of
presidential selection. Mezey is an editorial board member of Legislative
Studies Quarterly and has published books on Congress and the U.S. presidency.
Mezey can be reached at 773-896-6766 or mmezey@depaul.edu.
Youth vote
Zachary Cook, Adjunct Faculty, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
and School for New Learning. Cook’s academic focus includes the
politics of the millennial youth vote, campaign finance, voter turnout and
political parties and polarization. He can discuss day-to-day tactics and news
narratives of the 2016 presidential campaign and its broader democratic
significance. Cook can be reached at 773-325-8679 or zcook@depaul.edu.
Psychology and leadership
Jaclyn M. Jensen, Associate Professor of Management, Driehaus College of
Business. “While being hostile and negative might be very flashy,
research suggests that type of leadership style does much more harm than good,”
said Jensen. “There are also issues of honesty, openness and transparency when
you want to occupy the highest office in the land,” she said. An organizational
psychologist, Jensen researches negative employee experiences at
work, with a focus on employee mistreatment, conflict, destructive
relationships and hostile work conditions. Jensen can discuss how candidates’
personalities, quirks and traits might make them effective in the workplace and
how they use these qualities to persuade voters. She can be reached at
312-362-6852 or jjense10@depaul.edu.
Race and politics
Valerie Johnson, Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science, College
of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. “The presidential election season has surfaced numerous fissures
in America, most notably those related to race and inequality. Unfortunately,
once again we have missed the opportunity to have an open and honest dialogue
about race, and incessantly pitting groups against one another impedes our
ability to tackle enduring problems we all share in common and whose solution
will require all of our energies. Race is America’s cancer,” said Johnson. She
is an expert on U.S. politics, African-American politics and urban politics,
multiracial political alliances and the politics of urban education. Johnson
can be reached at 773-325-4731 or vjohnso5@depaul.edu.
Christina R.
Rivers, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts and
Social Sciences. Rivers teaches and researches African-American politics and
political thought, as well as civil rights and voting rights law. She is the
author of “The Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Voting Rights, and the U.S.
Supreme Court” and has written about the implications of mass incarceration on
minority voting rights. Her current work is on mass incarceration, particularly
felon disenfranchisement laws and prison-based gerrymanders. Rivers has also
taken an interest in prison education. She recently taught a course on law and
politics at Stateville Correctional Center as part of the Inside-Out Prison
Exchange Program at DePaul. Rivers can be reached at 773-325-4593 or crivers@depaul.edu.
Latino Vote
Maria De Moya, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication, College of
Communication. De Moya studies how immigrants are treated in the media, as well
as how ethnic organizations communicate. She can discuss how public relations
campaigns target ethnic communities, specifically Latinos. De Moya believes
presidential candidates are portraying Latinos as “saints or sinners,” polar
opposite stereotypes that will alienate many Latino voters. She can speak to
issues that matter to Latinos and effective messages that will resonate with
voters. De Moya is fluent in Spanish and can be reached at 312-362-6099 or mdemoyat@depaul.edu.
Political marketing
Bruce Newman, Professor of Marketing,
Driehaus College of Business.
"The 2016 race presents two different but equally challenging marketing
obstacles for each of the presidential candidates to overcome, much like an
organization in crisis trying to hold onto its customers with a convincing
public relations pitch,” said Newman. “In the end, each candidate will need to
drive the thinking of voters in a direction that suits their own respective
‘niches’ in the political marketplace, where public opinion is the currency,"
said Newman. An expert in the application of marketing technology to politics,
Newman’s book “The Marketing Revolution in Politics” explores how recent U.S. presidential
campaigns have adopted the latest marketing techniques, learning from the
winning formulas President Barack Obama’s campaigns pioneered. Newman was a
communication adviser to the senior staff in the Clinton White House in 1995
and 1996. He is the author of several books on the subject, including “The
Marketing of the President,” and is editor of the Journal of Political
Marketing. Newman can be reached at 312-362-5186 or bnewman@depaul.edu.
Influence of journalism, communication on elections
Bruce
Evensen, Professor of Journalism, College of Communication. Evensen teaches a
course called “The Press and the Presidency” and can speak to the role of mass
media in presidential campaigns, including how candidates attempt to use the
media and how media use the candidates in the presidential race to garner page
views. He can be reached at bevensen@depaul.edu or 312-362-7616.
Paul Booth, Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies,
College of Computing and Digital Media. Booth is an expert in the
use of social media and how candidates use it to reach their fans. “One of the
most effective uses of social media in this election is to garner fans,” said Booth.
“Candidates will have to appeal to different groups at different times.” Booth
can be reached at 312-362-7753 or pbooth@depaul.edu.
Benjamin Epstein, Assistant Professor of Political Science,
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Epstein researches how
political communication has changed in the U.S. over time and the intersection
of the Internet and politics today. “Political communication changes have
created greater potential for a more people to gather, create, and share
political information, but it has also created new challenges for both the
creators and consumers of political information,” said Epstein. In a
forthcoming book, "The Political Communication Cycle," Epstein
explores the technological, behavioral and political roles that interact in the
recurring process of political communication change. “The current period of
rapid political communication change actually has a long history that can help
provide insights into how, why and when various political actors innovate their
strategies and where our political communication practices might be headed,” he
said. Epstein can be reached at bepstein@depaul.edu.
Economics
Michael Miller, Associate Professor of Economics, Driehaus College of
Business. An expert in the areas of monetary and fiscal policy
decisions, Miller believes the key to economic success going forward is
economic growth, not income redistribution. “Government fiscal policy must be
devised so as to allow the American economic engine to grow at its full
potential, which will be rooted most firmly in the encouragement of
entrepreneurship,” said Miller. “The funding of social programs and having
workers realize the fruits of their hard work cannot occur without this
growth.” Miller can be reached at 312-362-8477 or mmiller@depaul.edu.
History
Margaret Storey, Professor of History, College of Liberal Arts and Social
Sciences. Storey is a historian who researches the Civil War and American
history. “There are interesting parallels between the pre-Civil War political
environment and our own,” she said. “Our system is built on compromise, but
when compromise doesn’t happen, politics — or the art of the possible — itself
can break down. Leading up to the Civil War, similarly intransigent positions
forced changes in the party structure and the way that politics was conducted,
and those changes had dramatic, and often unanticipated, consequences.” She can
be reached at 773-325-7482 or mstorey@depaul.edu.
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Media Contact:
Kristin Claes Mathews
kristin.mathews@depaul.edu
312-241-9856