The Constitution on the Campaign Trail: The Surprising Political Career of America's Founding Document

The Constitution is the fundamental governing document of the United States. But to what extent do candidates and parties make constitutional arguments in the course of American elections? By examining party platforms, candidate messages, presidential debates, and television ads, The Constitution on the Campaign Trail answers four main questions: How often does constitutional rhetoric appear in campaigns? How much of it is explicit and how much implicit? What constitutional topics receive the most attention? And how often do the electoral competitors engage in an actual constitutional dialogue? The Constitution on the Campaign Trail finds evidence for a long, broad decline in the use of constitutional rhetoric since the mid-19th century. Making matters worse, the modern medium most responsible for conveying campaign messages on a day-to-day basis—television advertising—-has proven least conducive to constitutional argument. To that extent, concerns about a deconstitutionalization of politics are well placed. However, and perhaps surprisingly, American campaigns have actually seen a limited resurgence in constitutional rhetoric over the past four decades, driven in large part by increased concern with judicial issues, rights, and federalism. The book concludes with explanations of past trends and a look to the future. The political analysis found in The Constitution on the Campaign Trail is firmly grounded in historical research and the conclusions reached are trenchant.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 The Constitution and Electoral Politics Chapter 2 The Constitution in the Party Platforms Chapter 3 The Constitution in Candidate Message Chapter 4 The Constitution in Television Advertising Chapter 5 The Constitution in Presidential Debates Chapter 6 The Constitution and Third Parties Chapter 7 Constitutional Rhetoric and Governing Chapter 8 Conclusion: Constitutional Rhetoric and Its Prospects Chapter 9 Appendices Chapter 10 Endnotes

About the Author :
Andrew E. Busch is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of Reagan's Victory: The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right and coauthor (with James Ceaser) of Red Over Blue: The Election of 2004 and American Politics.

Review :
He has invested a prodigious amount of work in measuring and coding constitutional references that should prompt and support further thinking and research on this important topic. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. Andrew Busch provides a fascinating tale of the vagaries of constitutional argument in a campaign context, and that tale comes none too soon. In The Constitution on the Campaign Trail Andrew Busch uncovers a fascinating pattern that will interest students of political rhetoric, campaigns, and American political development. Busch finds that the Constitution is neither dead nor alive in this comprehensive study of campaign rhetoric. In this book a straightforward content analysis of references to the Constitution over the course of American history is transformed into a subtle and detailed account of a cultural twilight zone in which periodic bursts of constitutional enthusiasm punctuate a long-term decay of democratic discourse.