2012 U.S. Presidential. Election. Challenges. and Expectations EDITORS. Paweł Laidler Maciej Turek. Jagiellonian University Press

Transcription

1 2012 U.S. Presidential Election Challenges and Expectations EDITORS Paweł Laidler Maciej Turek Jagiellonian University Press

2 2012 U.S. Presidential Election

3 2012 U.S. Presidential Election EDITORS Paweł Laidler Maciej Turek Jagiellonian University Press

4 The publication of this volume was supported by the Jagiellonian University by the Division of Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs, the Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow Reviewer Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Mania Cover design Pracownia Register Copyright by Paweł Laidler, Maciej Turek & Jagiellonian University Press First edition, Kraków 2014 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any eletronic, mechanical, or other means, now know or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers ISBN Jagiellonian University Press Editorial Offices: Michałowskiego St. 9/2, Cracow Phone: , , Fax: Distribution: Phone: , Fax: Cell Phone: , sprzedaz@wuj.pl Bank: PEKAO SA, IBAN PL

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction... 7 PART ONE: LAW, HISTORY, AND POLITICS OF THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Robert Podolnjak, The Constitution, the Electoral College, and the American Concept of Democracy a View from Europe Jolanta Daszyńska, The Elections of the First Three American Presidents: How Did Americans Elect Washington, Adams and Jefferson? Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek, White House Hostess, Pet Causes Campaigner, Convention Speaker Evolution of Position and Role of American First Lady Marco Morini, A Study on the Re-election Chances of American Presidents: Does the Unemployment Rate Matter? Paweł Laidler, Conservative Crime Control v. Liberal Due Process and Presidential Elections Magdalena Modrzejewska, Presidential Debate. Where Is the Question? PART TWO: DOMESTIC FRONT Donathan Brown, The Rhetorical Currency of Immigration Reform Anna Bartnik, Hispanics in the 2012 Presidential Elections Zinovia Lialiouti, Discursive Strategies in an Era of Economic Crisis: Barack Obama, the American Dream and the American Middle Class Alix Meyer, The White House in 2013: Tax Shelter from the Storm? Søren Christian Reimer, From the Political Wilderness to Civil War : The Republican Party during Obama s First Term Károly Pintér, God s Chosen Candidate: Mitt Romney and the Role of Religion in the 2012 Presidential Campaign Paulina Napierała, Barack Obama, Religion, and the Separation of Church and State John Bloom, The Renewed Importance of Intelligent Design

6 6 Table of Contents PART THREE: MEDIA AND CULTURE IN AND ON CONTEMPORARY ELECTIONS AND POLITICS István Szokonya, U.S. Elections (Web) 2.0 Can Romney Outdo Obama in Social Media? Anna Severse, The Synergy of Microtargeting and Social Media Unlocks the Code of the American Presidential Election Bożena Pękala, A Comparison of U.S. Presidential Candidates Media Image in Time and Newsweek Maciej Turek, Paul Ryan and the Press Patrick Sadjak, Indecision 2012: Cluster to the White House Redux U.S. Presidential Election, Satire, and the New Political Media Jolanta Szymkowska-Bartyzel, Cowboys Go to Washington Cowboy Culture in Presidential Politics PART FOUR: INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT OF 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Spasimir Domaradzki, Piotr Józefczyk, The Obama Administration and Human Rights: Between International PR and the American Values Alf Tomas Tønnessen, Mitt Romney s and Paul Ryan s Rhetoric of Anti-Europeanism and American Exceptionalism Mateusz Bogdanowicz, To Conduct or Not to Conduct the World (Again): 2012 U.S. Presidential Candidates Dilemmas Dagmara Suberlak, Europe in the Politics of Barack Obama s Administration Joost Baarssen, Europe Is Working in the United States: Europe and Anti-Europeanism in the 2012 Elections Wojciech Michnik, The United States Foreign Policy under Barack Obama s Administration: An Early Assessment Notes about the Authors

7 Introduc on On November 6, 2012, Barack Obama was reelected as the 44 th President of the United States, after the most expensive and one of the longest presidential campaigns. By defeating Mitt Romney, Obama became the first Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to gain the majority of popular votes and only second to win two presidential elections after the World War II. 10 days before this historical event, a few dozens of European and American scholars met at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków to discuss the issues related to the 2012 presidential election. Clearly, we had no idea what the final outcome of the election would be, but all were able to provide some insights on the first term of Obama presidency, the 2012 elections itself, putting this campaign in context of presidential election through the entire American history, as well as forecast which path the United States would take and which issues would be the most pressing for the next president. We are pleased to present the work of those of the colleagues who chose to share their work in the printed version. We divided the received papers into four parts, depending on the subjects of the presented scholarship. The volume opens with papers on issues related to historical and legal aspects of the American presidential election (Robert Podolnjak, Jolanta Daszyńska), and then discussion focuses on the dynamics of contemporary campaigns and most important elements of these enterprises (Magdalena Paluszkiewicz- Misiaczek, Marco Morini, Paweł Laidler, Magdalena Modrzejewska). The second part is devoted the issues of domestic policy and electoral context. While Donathan Brown and Anna Bartnik analyze, respectively, the significance of immigration reform and Latino voters, Zinovia Lialiouti and Alix Meyer give us their views on economic policy. In this part of the volume, readers will also find interesting papers about the Republican Party during Obama s first term (Søren Christian Reimer), and about critical issues of religion (Károly Pintér, Paulina Napierała, John Bloom). Moving to the part where authors debate how elections are run, seen and covered in the 21 st century United States, István Szokonya and Anna Severse introduce us with the new media campaigning. Bożena Pękala and Maciej Turek describe how the candidates are presented in the print media, while

8 8 Introduc on Patrick Sadjak shows that even so serious people as presidential candidates can be still vulnerable enough to find themselves main characters in the political satire broadcast. In an attempt to tie American presidents with one of most common symbolic cliches, Jolanta Szymkowska-Bartyzel investigates the cowboy symbolism in actions of selected U.S. chief executives. Finally, reminding us that the United States is the only remaining superpower, authors offer their views on the international context of the 2012 American presidential elections. Spasimir Domaradzki and Piotr Józefczyk speak about the human rights, whereas Alf Tomas Tønnessen, Dagmara Suberlak, and Joost Baarsseen analyze the European aspect of both Barack Obama foreign policy and the issue of Europe in both Republican Party primaries and race of Obama and Mitt Romney. Last, but not least, Wojciech Michnik presents tentative, first-term only assessment of foreign policy of the United States under Barack Obama, whereas Mateusz Bogdanowicz deals with the issue that presidential candidates have in mind for more than a century: what should be the role of the United States in the global arena. At this point we would like to thank Professor Andrzej Mania, Vice-Rector of the Jagiellonian University, Professor Bogdan Szlachta, Dean of the Faculty of International and Political Studies, and Professor Adam Walaszek, Director of the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, for their financial support to publish the volume. We would also like to express our great appreciation to contributors who answered our call and agreed to publish their research in this volume. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with such a wonderful group of scholars and campaign professionals, and we hope that the readers of the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: Challenges and Expectations volume will share our high regard for the results of this collective work. Paweł Laidler Maciej Turek Kraków, Spring 2014

9 NOTES ABOUT THE AUTHORS Joost BAARSSEN Ph.D. student and instructor in Transatlantic and Transnational American Studies at the Ruhr Center of American Studies, TU Dortmund University, Germany. He is a DAAD-scholarship recipient currently writing his dissertation on anti-europeanism in the United States. Before that, he studied American Studies with minors in Peace and Safety Studies and Political Science at the University of Groningen and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. Anna BARTNIK earned her PhD degree in the Institute of Political Science at Jagiellonian University, in Cracow, Poland. Since then she has been working as assistant professor at the Institute of American studies and Polish Diaspora. Her research contains studies on American immigration law, Hispanic immigrants in the USA and local government in the U.S. She has published articles on topics related to her research. She has recently published a book Latino immigrants in the United States after World War II. Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. John BLOOM doctoral student and researcher at the Université de Rennes 2 in Rennes, France. His research interests include religion, education, law, and politics in America, notably pertaining to the separation of Church and State in America. He is currently an ATER (lecturer) for the Université de Rennes 2 s English department. Mateusz BOGDANOWICZ an apprentice of Professor Krzysztof Michałek, is an assistant professor at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. At the Department of English, he runs among others courses in the History and Culture of the English Speaking Countries, methodology, primary sources analysis and MA seminars. His scientific interests encompass American and Canadian Studies, translation and EFL teaching. Apart from his academic duties, M. Bogdanowicz is also the principal and an English teacher at Britannica School of English in Giżycko, Poland. Donathan BROWN Assistant Professor and Editor of the Journal of Race and Policy. Dr. Brown conducts research at the intersection of race, rhetoric and public policy, particularly pertaining to African Americans and Latinos. His research has appeared in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, the Journal of Race and Policy, Communication Law Review,

10 436 Notes about the Authors the Widener Journal of Law, Economics & Race, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, The Closed Border: An Encyclopedia of Anti-Immigration Sentiment in the United States, and the Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity. Jolanta DASZYŃSKA interested in American history, especially of the formative years of the early Republic, states rights and the crises in American history. She is also the President of Polish Historical Society in Łódź. Spasimir DOMARADZKI Ph.D. Assistant Professor at Lazarski University, Warsaw, Poland Wilbur Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center, Mecosta, Michigan. Lecturer of American Foreign Policy, Government and Comparative Politics and Civil Liberties. OSCE Election Observer. Piotr JÓZEFCZYK former Ph.D student at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora. Interested in U.S. Constitutional law, the role of Supreme Court and its impact on social and governmental politics, based on the principle of equality of law since the times of slavery, through segregation and emancipation period, up to the affirmative action. Paweł LAIDLER lawyer, political scientist, adjunct Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora. Specialist in U.S. legal system and the clash of law and politics in governmental relations. Author of books and articles about U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. attorney general, checks-and-balances system and American criminal procedure. Grantee of Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund at Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.), and JFK Institute for American Studies (Freie Universität Berlin). Zinovia LIALIOUTI post-doctoral researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The subject of her research, which is conducted in collaboration with the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies, is the ideology of Americanism and the image of Greece, She holds a PhD from the Department of Politics and History, Panteion University, Athens. The title of her thesis is Greek anti- Americanism, She holds a bachelor on media and communication and a master s degree on Political Science and Sociology from the University of Athens. She has published papers on anti-americanism, American studies, and Greek political culture. Alix MEYER received a Ph.D. from the Université Lyon 2 Lumière and is currently a lecturer at Sciences Po Lyon where he teaches students who specialize in American studies. His research focuses on the contemporary American Congress, the Republican party, the budget process and the welfare state in the United States. He contributed to several collective works on American politics and is a member of the editing board for the journal Transatlantica. He participated in several conferences including the American Political Science Association annual meeting in Seattle in 2011 and has conducted research in Washington D.C. as well as in the archives of Senator Robert Dole and Thomas Daschle.

11 Notes about the Authors 437 Wojciech MICHNIK lecturer at Tischner European University in Kraków and a visiting lecturer at Jagiellonian Univeristy s Department of Political and International Studies. He received his Ph.D. in international relations and politics (2008), MA in cultural studies (2004) and political science (2002) from Jagiellonian University. Mr. Michnik served as a research fellow at Boston University and a visiting scholar at School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University; and at Western Washington University. His current research interests include strategic and security studies; comparative foreign policy and transatlantic relations. Magdalena MODRZEJEWSKA completed her Ph.D. in 2007 in the field Political Science at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. She works at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland; and her research interests include American political thought and broadly understood political philosophy and visual culture. She has been awarded many grants and honors, among them The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund for Young Leaders in 2005, and Fulbright Senior Fellowship in at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Recently she received award from National Science Center from the Polish Government in Marco MORINI Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University (Australia). He did research and gave lectures at the University of Florida, University of Denver and University of Padua (Italy). His main research interest are American Politics, Elections and Political Behaviour. Paulina NAPIERAŁA an Assistant Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Kraków. Her research explores a variety of issues concerning relations between religion and politics in the United States. She conducted her research at Boston College and Harvard University as a Fulbright Fellow, at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, thanks to the Józef Tischner s Scholarship, and at the Freie Universität, Berlin. Magdalena PALUSZKIEWICZ-MISIACZEK Associate Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. PhD dissertation defended in 2004, entitled: Social Advancement and Change of Victorian Ideal of Woman in Canada at the Turn of 19 th and 20 th Centuries. In her current research concentrates on Canadian military policy and veteran- related problems as well as history of women in the USA and Canada and history and contemporary problems of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Bożena PĘKALA associate at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at The Pedagogical University of Cracow. She obtained PhD in 2010 at Institute of Political Studies and International Relations, Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Her academic interests are international relations (especially between France and USA), media and mass communication. Her most important publications are: The Comparison of Press Depictions of the War in Afghanistan (2001) in the American Time and the French L Express magazines in Politeja

12 438 Notes about the Authors 1(2)/2004 (printed by Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University) and International Policy of the United States between 1989 and 1993 under George Bush Administration in Politeja 2(14)/2010. Károly PINTÉR associate proffesor of American studies at the Institute of English and American Studies of Pázmany Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary. Currently he is Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Faculty of Humanities. His primary research interest is the separation of church and state and its constitutional interpretation by the US Supreme Court, but he has also published an essay on the image of American presidents in popular culture. He has been an avid follower of American presidentional elections since Robert PODOLNJAK Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) Faculty of Law, and the author of three books and over 60 scientific journal articles. His major book is Federalism and Republicanism: The Creation of the American Constitution (2005). Professor Podolnjak is a member of Croatian Association for Constitutional Law and the International Political Science Association. Søren Christian REIMER PhD candidate at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany. He graduated Jena University in April with a magister thesis on the future of the Republican Party after the era of George W. Bush. His research interests include conservatism in the United States and the ethics of the United States Congress. He is recipient of the Landesgraduiertenstipendium of the free state of Thuringia. Patrick SADJAK a graduate student and independent scholar at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. While studying at Pacific University, Oregon he came in contact with political science and got interested in this field of study. His main research interests include U.S. politics and their representation in the media, amongst others in television, movies, newspapers or literature (with a special focus on satire). Furthermore, he tries to dissect politics from a culture studies point of view whenever this is possible. He is currently finishing his M.A. and will start his PhD in March of Recently, an article of his earlier research in the field of visual culture was published in the book Visuelle Kultur als Gegenstand interdisziplinärer Forschung (2012). Anna SEVERSE a post-graduate student at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Journalism faculty. Her 10-year career as an Account Manager in American political advertising generated her strong interest in development of educational programs in that field. In the course of her studies Mrs. Severse had the results of her research published in scientific peer-reviewed journals such as Vestnik MGU, had participated in national and international conferences, and had published a book dedicated to a comparative study of the role new media played in 2008 election in the USA and Russia. Mrs. Severse is working on a project dedicated to political communications in traditional and new media and the influence they have on American democratic election of 2012.

13 Notes about the Authors 439 Dagmara SUBERLAK a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. She has obtained M.A. degree in International Relations on the basis of the thesis Participation of Poland to the European Common Security and Defence Policy. Her research interests include history of the Second World War in Europe and policy of the United States of America. Istvan SZOKONYA received his double MA degrees in English Language and Literature and Communication Studies from Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church, Budapest. Besides being a PR professional, he is pursuing a PhD degree in American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Jolanta SZYMKOWSKA-BARTYZEL a lecturer in the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland). She is one of the founders and editors of Ad Americam: Journal of American Studies. Her scholarly interests focus on the history and reception of American popular culture in Poland. She published a book: Amerykański mit polski konsument, czyli reklamowe oblicza Ameryki [American Myth Polish Customer, or Commercial Faces of America] about American myths and cultural motifs used for persuasive purposes in TV commercials. She is also an author of articles on American popular culture, Americanization and mass media communication. Alf Tomas TØNNESSEN (Ph.D. North-American Area Studies, University of Oslo, 2008) has been an associate professor of American civilization/english at Volda University College, Norway, since He is President of the American Studies Association of Norway, editor of the Newsletter of the Nordic Association for American Studies, international contributing editor for Norway, Journal of American History, and author of the book How Two Political Entrepreneurs Helped Create the American Conservative Movement, : The Ideas of Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich (Lewiston N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009). Maciej TUREK Ph.D, is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University, where under the supervision of Professor Andrzej Mania he conducts research on the media coverage of vice presidential candidates under the auspices of EU-financed Society Environment Technology Project of the Jagiellonian University. Dr. Turek s research interests lies in American politics, elections, campaign finance and flaws of contemporary American democracy. He received scholarships from The Copernicus Society of America and twice from JFK Institute for North American Studies, Free University in Berlin, and was also a participant of ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Currently, Dr. Turek is working on the project on the relations of the campaign finance system and political representation, both in the U.S. and comparatively.

14 Technical editor Mirosław Ruszkiewicz Proofreader Scotia Gilroy Barbara Rydzewska Typesetter Katarzyna Mróz-Jaskuła Jagiellonian University Press Editorial Offices: Michałowskiego St. 9/2, Cracow Phone: , , Fax: