Presidential campaigns are our national conversations the widespread and complex communication of issues, images, social reality, and personas. Political communication specialists break down the 2012 presidential campaign and go beyond the quantitative facts, electoral counts, and poll results of the election, to make sense of the political bits of communication that comprise our voting choices. The contributors look at the early campaign period, the nomination process and conventions, the social and political contexts, the debates, the role of candidate spouses, candidate strategies, political strategies, and the use of the Internet and other technologies.

Robert E. Denton, Jr.holds the W. Thomas Rice Chair of Leadership Studies in the Pamplin College of Business and serves as head of the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech.

Preface
Chapter 1: The Presidential Nominating Conventions and the American Dream: Narrative Unity and Political Division. Rachel Holloway
Chapter 2: Change in the Communication Demands of Spouses in the 2012 Nominating Convention, Gwen Brown
Chapter 3: Presidential Debates 2012, Ben Voth
Chapter 4: His to Lose: Strategic Keys to Challenging the Incumbent in 2012, Craig Allen Smith
Chapter 5: Political Advertising in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, John C. Tedesco& Scott W. Dunn
Chapter 6: Death by Taxes: A Post-mortem on Romneys Tax Return Apologia, Joseph M. Valenzano III& Jason A. Edwards
Chapter 7: Presidential Campaigns as Cultural Events: The Convergence of Politics and Popular Culture in Election 2012, Jeffrey P. Jones
Chapter 8: The New Media Campaign of 2012, John Allen Hendricks
Chapter 9: Explaining the Vote in the Election of 2008: Obamas Re-election, Henry C. Kenski& Kate M. Kenski
Index
About the Contributors