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BOOK
Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics
Steven Hill
$14.94

About this product:
Was the lesson of Florida punch-cards that we need better machines, or that there's something deeply wrong with a system where the candidate with fewer votes wins the office? "Fixing Elections" shows why it's not just the Electoral College that's outdated, but our entire 18th-century Winner Take All political system, including the way we elect our legislatures.

While voter turnout plummets to single digits (even episodes of "Survivor" drew larger audiences than cast votes for either Gore or Bush), analysts have blamed the growing apathy of the American electorate. But as provocative political critic Steven Hill so eloquently argues, we're not a lazier, less civic-minded people than our grandparents. Voting just seems pointless to many citizens because they recognize the truth: their votes really DON'T count.

A vote for Nader may have been a wasted vote, but so was a vote for Gore in solidly GOP Texas, or Bush in Democratic New York, where the state's winner was a foregone conclusion. In legislatures, rigged district lines render impotent the votes of millions of Americans, Democrat, Republican and independent alike. Democrats in safe GOP legislative districts all across the West and South, and GOP voters in safe urban Democratic districts, have become "orphaned voters" with nowhere to turn, no less than third party supporters everywhere. Entire regions of the country are becoming balkanized political monocultures, dominated by one political party or the other as the political landscape fragments into the "Red and Blue America" that emerged from Election 2000.

Steven Hill argues our geographic-based, Winner Take All political system is at the root of many of our worst political problems, including:

* Single-digit voter turnout in elections all across the nation...

* A Congress that doesn't look or think like America...

* National policy dangerously adrift from public opinion...

* A president who won with less than a popular majority, and fewer votes than his main opponent...

* A growing divide between city-dwellers and middle-America...

* Bitter national division and regional fragmentation that hasn't been seen since the 1960s...

* Political consultants producing McCampaigns of poll-tested blandness...

* Campaign tricks and tactics (polling, focus groups, and the 30 second TV spot) sinisterly suited to Winner Take All's "divide and conquer" incentives...

* Undermining of campaign finance reform...

* An alarming loss of innovative political ideas...

These are some of the disturbing trends highlighted by this pathbreaking and challenging work of political analysis and deconstruction. In the face of cynicism about the American political system, "Fixing Elections" is a refreshing blueprint to resurrect our founders' democratic vision. It will change the way you think about American politics.

BOOK
Election
Tom Perrotta
$4.79

About this product:
Tom Perrotta is a remarkably astute observer and writer of the adolescent experience. His Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies is a delightful collection of coming-of-age stories, which give insight into the joys and agonies of adolescence. In Perrotta's first full-length novel The Wishbones, a 31-year-old musician can't quite cope with the responsibilities of adulthood and instead lives an extended adolescence. Perrotta's much-anticipated second novel Election again successfully ventures into the adolescent psyche.

The book is set in a New Jersey high school amidst a hotbed of political activity: students are voting for their school president. Perrotta's cast of characters are exaggerated but convincing. They convey adolescence as it often is--sometimes painful and frequently awkward. Tracy is the popular girl, smart and pretty, but she isn't quite as perfect as her classmates assume. A sordid affair with a teacher lurks in the shadows. Paul is the jovial football jock, but his parent's divorce has left him hurt and vulnerable. Then there is Paul's younger and geekier sister Tammy, the tormented underdog struggling with her sexuality. Plot develops through a series of mini-chapters, narrated by the main protagonists. There are also frequent interjections from Mr. M, the all-around good teacher every kid loves--the kind of teacher Hollywood loves to enshrine in sentimental flicks. A genuine crescendo of excitement and anticipation consumes the reader, as we eagerly await who has won the election. This is a novel of teenagers on the brink of adulthood, and is probably best appreciated by grownups with enough perspective on their own adolescent experiences to be able to take the bitter with the sweet.

BOOK
The Elections of 2008 (Elections of (Year))
Michael Nelson
$25.00

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Michael Nelson once again brings together top-notch scholars to analyze all aspects of the 2008 elections. Available mere months after the November 4th elections, this volume provides an insightful look at the contests, their outcomes, and their implications for the future.

With original, first-rate analysis, chapter authors capture the drama as well as critique the importance of particular races -- all the while giving perspective to the larger trends and effects of the election results. An invaluable and incredibly current resource when imparting the significance of voting and elections in the classroom, instructors can count on The Elections of 2008 to pique students' interest while providing a fascinating read and unsurpassed analysis.

BOOK
Capital Mysteries #10: The Election-Day Disaster (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Ron Roy
$1.77

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THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION is less than a week away, but KC and Marshall have more important things on their minds—their Halloween party at the White House! The morning after the costume party, though, KC and Marshall wake up to a trick, not a treat. Someone has posted damaging photos of the president on the Internet, photos that were digitally doctored! Will they ruin President Thornton’s chances for a second term? Or can KC and Marshall rescue the election?

BOOK
Chosen for Life: The Case for Divine Election
Sam Storms
$10.05

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Divine election is certainly one of the more profound—and controversial—doctrines in the Bible. Does God elect people because they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or does God elect people in order that they will believe in Christ? Much of the disagreement and controversy concerning this doctrine proceeds from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means.

This is why Storms begins his analysis of divine election with an attempt to clarify precisely what is at stake and, at the same time, correct misrepresentations of it. He takes a thorough look at the doctrine as it is presented in Romans 9 as well as the rest of the New Testament. He also explores freedom of will and the order of salvation. Appendixes address "Three Problem Passages" and "Who Can and Cannot Pray for God to Save the Lost?"

BOOK
Campaigns and Elections American Style (Transforming American Politics)
$21.00

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BOOK
Obtaining Your Calling & Election
Terri Hopkins Clawson
$12.00

About this product:
This book is written with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in mind. It describes the process everyone must go through in order to obtain the highest degree of glory in the Celestial Kingdom.

BOOK
A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign
Edward J. Larson
$5.61

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"They could write like angels and scheme like demons." So begins Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Larson's masterful account of the wild ride that was the 1800 presidential election -- an election so convulsive and so momentous to the future of American democracy that Thomas Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution."

This was America's first true presidential campaign, giving birth to our two-party system and indelibly etching the lines of partisanship that have so profoundly shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties -- the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson -- flanked by the brilliant tacticians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who later settled their own differences in a duel.

The country was descending into turmoil, reeling from the terrors of the French Revolution, and on the brink of war with France. Blistering accusations flew as our young nation was torn apart along party lines: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. The stakes could not have been higher.

As the competition heated up, other founders joined the fray -- James Madison, John Jay, James Monroe, Gouverneur Morris, George Clinton, John Marshall, Horatio Gates, and even George Washington -- some of them emerging from retirement to respond to the political crisis gripping the nation and threatening its future.

Drawing on unprecedented, meticulous research of the day-to-day unfolding drama, from diaries and letters of the principal players as well as accounts in the fast-evolving partisan press, Larson vividly re-creates the mounting tension as one state after another voted and the press had the lead passing back and forth. The outcome remained shrouded in doubt long after the voting ended, and as Inauguration Day approached, Congress met in closed session to resolve the crisis. In its first great electoral challenge, our fragile experiment in constitutional democracy hung in the balance.A Magnificent Catastrophe is history writing at its evocative best: the riveting story of the last great contest of the founding period.

BOOK
The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 (Pivotal Moments in American History)
Lynn Parsons
$19.95

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The 1828 presidential election, which pitted Major General Andrew Jackson against incumbent John Quincy Adams, has long been hailed as a watershed moment in American political history. It was the contest in which an unlettered, hot-tempered southwesetern frontiersman, trumpeted by his supporters as a genuine man of the people, soundly defeated a New England "aristocrat" whose education and political résumé were as impressive as any ever seen in American public life. It was, many historians have argued, the country's first truly democratic presidential election. Lynn Hudson Parsons argues that it also established a pattern in which two nationally organized political parties would vie for power in virtually every state. During the election of 1828 voters were introduced to a host of novel campaign tactics, including co-ordinated media, get-out-the-vote efforts, fund-raising, organized rallies, opinion polling, campaign paraphernalia, ethnic voting blocs, "opposition research," and smear tactics.
In The Birth of Modern Politics, Parsons shows that the Adams-Jackson contest began a national debate that is eerily contemporary, pitting those whose cultural, social, and economic values were rooted in community action for the common good against those who believed the common good was best served by giving individuals as much freedom as possible to promote their own interests. It offers fresh and illuminating portraits of both Adams and Jackson and reveals how, despite their vastly different backgrounds, they had started out with many of the same values, admired one another, and had often been allies in common causes. Both were staunch nationalists, and both shared an aversion to organized parties and "electioneering."
But by 1828, caught up in a shifting political landscape, they were plunged into a competition that separated them decisively from the Founding Fathers' era and ushered in a style of politics that is still with us today.

BOOK
Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington
Paul S. Herrnson
$29.00

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Praised for combining solid empirical research with real-world politics, Paul Herrnson provides a thorough and balanced assessment of congressional campaigns and elections. Arguing that successful candidates actually run two campaigns one for votes, the other for resources Congressional Elections shows how this dual strategy affects not only who wins individual races, but who impacts representation in Congress more broadly, and ultimately the entire electoral system. Using campaign data, original survey research, and hundreds of interviews with candidates and political insiders, Herrnson systematically analyzes candidate, party, and PAC strategies to give students a feel for how these crucial avenues of political influence converge. Case studies of individual campaigns are woven throughout to paint vivid portraits of real people raising money, giving speeches, serving constituents, and tackling important policy issues. New coverage and analysis include:

• the 2006 campaign and election results, including the impact the national parties had on the outcomes of individual races;
• the Democrats winning control over the House and Senate;
• the effects of the war in Iraq and political corruption on candidates' issue positioning;
• the role of the Internet in waging political campaigns;
• the use of outside campaigning, advocacy ads, and grassroots activities to influence election outcomes.