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.

"Presidential Campaign Communication" is designed to help readers understand and appreciate more fully the ways that the people of the United States use the process of human communication to select their Presidents. It explores presidential politics as one of the things about which Americans talk, thereby building relationships and redefining communities and shaping public identities and priorities.

The book highlights three major areas: Presidential Campaigns as Communication - A consideration of the ways in which Constitutional requirements create political challenges that can only be met by influencing people through communication. Relevant communication theories are introduced and applied to frame the communication challenges facing candidates, voters and the media.Stages of the Campaign for the White House - Presidential campaigns evolve through identifiable stages - from surfacing through the primaries and nomination to resolution in the Electoral College. Each stage presents a different set of communication dynamics and challenges for the participants, and different ways for observers to understand the progress being made.Modes of Presidential Campaign Communication. - Laws and rules, political debates, campaign speeches, advertising, news coverage, email and "You Tube" provide political actors with a variety of ways to shape the campaign's evolution.

Written with verve and clarity, and illustrated with varied examples including the 2008 campaigns, "Presidential Campaign Communication" is required reading for all students of politics and the media, and for anyone seeking to understand more fully the system of democracy in the United States, and the central role that communication plays therein.