1) Do a "Jacobson" style analysis of the electoral history and upcoming situation faced by a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (if your chosen member has served only one term, your analysis should discuss past elections). This means you should draw on our class readings to describe in general the electoral considerations faced by a member of the House, and then present data pertaining to these considerations for your member.
2) Do a "Fenno" style analysis of the "home style" and/or role orientation of an individual member of Congress. This means you should draw on your class readings to describe in general the constituency characteristics faced by your member, and then present data pertaining to these characteristics (e.g. visits, spending, campaign style, committee assignments, legislating).
Hints:
a) The intent of this assignment is to show that you can learn about and analyze
the electoral situation of a politician based on publicly available information,
and integrate that material with the readings, lectures, and class discussions.
The more you accomplish this goal, the better off you are.
b) the "data" for this paper can come from a variety of sources, including
the CQ Weekly edition, various websites on campaigns and campaign spending,
the Congressional Universe, the House and/or Senate web sites, campaign web
sites
c) An excellent paper will contain an interesting and relevant variety of data;
sensitivity to the different and sometimes conflicting goals of elections or
role orientations, and how your case fits into this framework. A less than excellent
paper will be a journalistic account of the particular situation faced in the
recent election with some reference to Jacobson or Fenno. A poor paper will
contain little reference to history or to the arguments or readings in class.
Bureaucratic Stuff:
These are political science papers, not memos. This means that I expect a thesis
paragraph including a set of claims, and then considerations of multiple pieces
of evidence, and a conclusion, even though there is less an "argument"
in this assignment than there is a description of a body of literature (campaigns,
roles) and then summary of relevant data for one case.
This paper should be not more than 5 typed pages in length (double-spaced),
not counting tables, figures, or other information that you might deem relevant.
The paper will be evaluated according to the following criteria, in rough order
of importance: creativity and ambition, organization and coherence of argument,
coverage of relevant material, spelling and grammar.
Note: while I will not penalize heavily for spelling and grammar mistakes, it
is difficult to follow an argument when the reader is distracted by an egregious
error every second or third line. In this era of grammar and spell checkers,
there is no excuse for bad spelling. It also makes the reader suspect that the
writer hasn't even bothered to do more than one draft. This would be a mistake.