The Race to 270 by Daron R. Shaw was written several years ago but is perfectly relevant in the political discussions occurring today.
Shaw is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999, he helped craft some of the techniques to be able to get then-Governor Bush to the magic number of 270 electoral college votes. He was also involved in the 2004 re-election campaign.
The subtitle of the book is "The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004." That is what this book is all about. The reading text is only 170 pages that are a quick read.
We all know that states like Texas, Utah, and Idaho were going to vote Republican. We also know that Massachusetts and New York were going Democrat. This book provides some good information on the way that the Bush, Gore, and Kerry campaigns determined the battleground states and what they did in them and why.
What Shaw does better than any other analysis I have read is to look at the ramification of the targeting decisions. He looked at what the campaigns said and what they actually did. When they didn’t match up he points that out. It is really easy to say that North Carolina is a target. It is another thing to actually spend money there. That proves it is a target. Shaw looks at the allocation of resources.
When I read that he was actually part of the Bush campaign team I worried that this was going to be a slanted piece of writing. It doesn’t appear to be. Shaw does a good job of putting the reader at ease. He admits the potential bias but backs up his points with the data.
The other thing that he does well is look at the evaluation of the impact made in the different media markets.
If you are reading FlashReport you are a political junkie. That is a given. The Race to 270 will provide any political junkie with some key guideposts as we look at the national terrain and partisan strategists start to think about how their candidate gets to 270 in November.
Quick read. Great book. It will also give you a better idea of where California really falls in the targeting.
Care to comment on Matt’s review of this book? You can do it here.