The ability to lead a campaign is essential to success for today's college or university president. And campaign experience at some level is generally now a prerequisite credential for presidential candidates, as well as deans and other academic leaders, on both public and private campuses. This book discusses fundamental campaign principles, but is not intended as a how-to guide. Rather, its emphasis is on the strategic decisions that a campaign requires and on campaign leadership. It will be of interest to trustees, advancement professionals, and others concerned with the future of colleges and universities. But, consistent with its sponsorship by the American Council on Education, it emphasizes the campaign leadership of presidents.

Leading the Campaign provides an overview of campaigns in higher education. It emphasizes the leadership role of college and university presidents, but also provides important insights on the role of volunteers and fundraising professionals. It provides lessons and examples that are relevant to all types of nonprofit organizations. The campaign has endured over more than a century as a principal strategy for advancing colleges and universities. It is an approach to fundraising that is rooted in fundamentals of human nature and values and its central principles have proven to be effective under a variety of circumstances. This book focuses on those central principles and how they are being applied in today’s changing environment. The second edition has been revised and updated from the first edition, published in 2010, to provide current data and examples. The book has been expanded to include discussion of emerging trends in campaigns, including the increased importance of social media and online giving. It includes numerous examples drawn from various types of colleges and universities and history-making campaigns.

In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaign? It’s a question those who study elections have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both factors come into play. Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand national polls covering every presidential election from 1952 to 2008, allowing them to see how outcomes take shape over the course of an election year. Polls from the beginning of the year, they show, have virtually no predictive power. By mid-April, when the candidates have been identified and matched in pollsters’ trial heats, preferences have come into focus—and predicted the winner in eleven of the fifteen elections. But a similar process of forming favorites takes place in the last six months, during which voters’ intentions change only gradually, with particular events—including presidential debates—rarely resulting in dramatic change. Ultimately, Erikson and Wlezien show that it is through campaigns that voters are made aware of—or not made aware of—fundamental factors like candidates’ policy positions that determine which ticket will get their votes. In other words, fundamentals matter, but only because of campaigns. Timely and compelling, this book will force us to rethink our assumptions about presidential elections.

A must-read for political candidates and anyone considering running for public office, Power of the Campaign Pyramid, by Ron Wallace and Wesley McCall, offers a proven step-by-step process for winning elections at the local and statewide level. For first-time candidates and veteran politicians alike, election season poses a bewildering gauntlet of challenges: organizing a campaign team, fundraising, filing deadlines, finance laws, voter outreach, speechwriting, interaction with the news media, and fending off opponents' attacks. It's no wonder so many candidates spend buckets of money and personal energy, and yet still fail to galvanize the electorate in their favor. There is a better way. In this one-of-a-kind new release, campaign consultants Wallace and McCall distill years of hard-won experience into a clear, concise, common-sense prescription for running an efficient, effective campaign and winning elections. With real-world examples, they explain how to identify and connect with the most important segment of voters, how to optimize the use of social media, and how to build and lead a winning campaign team. Throughout the book, the authors advocate for running a campaign based on honesty, fairness, facts, and integrity, a timely and welcome rejoinder to politics as usual.

A primer for a new generation of leaders based on the “Campaign Model” developed for Steve Jobs and Mike Murray at Apple Computer. The Leadership Campaign is a playbook for winning in the reality of today’s competitive global business environment. Each of the 10 steps it offers was learned on the most intensely competitive global battlefields. Thirty years ago, the authors were top-tier political consultants who could boast of a dozen presidential wins around the world. Candidates hired the authors’ company to apply to their political campaigns what the authors knew about business communication and marketing strategy. Then, in 1984, Steve Jobs asked them to build the “Campaign Model” for Apple, putting Jobs upfront as his company’s perennial candidate. This time, Jobs essentially asked the authors to apply what they knew about political campaigning to business. Continuously improved, the model has kept on working for their clients ever since, from Apple, Coca-Cola, and Citigroup to Verizon, Visa, and the Walt Disney Company. The Leadership Campaign will help you put these winning strategies to work for your company and your career. You will learn: Success-building communications skills used to train political leaders and CEOs around the world Proven strategies to take control of the competitive dialogue and never let go How to go for the win, the whole win, and nothing but the win for you and your company

divdivIn this provocative book, two leading law professors challenge the existing campaign reform agenda and present a new initiative that avoids the mistakes of the past. Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres build on the example of the secret ballot and propose a system of “secret donation booths” for campaign contributions. They unveil a plan in which the government provides each voter with a special credit card account containing fifty “Patriot dollars” for presidential elections. To use this money, citizens go to their local ATM machine and anonymously send their Patriot dollars to their favorite candidates or political organizations. Americans are free to make additional contributions, but they must also give these gifts anonymously. Because candidates cannot identify who provided the funds, it will be much harder for big contributors to buy political influence. And the need for politicians to compete for the Patriot dollars will give much more power to the people. Ackerman and Ayres work out the operating details of their plan, anticipate problems, design safeguards, suggest overseers, and show how their proposals satisfy the most stringent constitutional requirements. They conclude with a model statute that could serve as the basis of a serious congressional effort to restore Americans’ faith in democratic politics./DIV/DIV