The Reasoning Voteris an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaigns--Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984--to arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaignsdomatter. "If you're preparing to run a presidential campaign, and only have time to read one book, make sure to read Sam Popkin'sThe Reasoning Voter. If you have time to read two books, readThe Reasoning Votertwice."--James Carville, Senior Stategist, Clinton/Gore '92 "A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior."--Thomas Byrne Edsall,New York Review of Books "Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."--David S. Broder,The Washington Post