Penn State University Libraries - CAS 478 - The Rhetoric of Presidential Campaigns

• National Journal — a news magazine dedicated to politics - it also does a good job of analyzing political ads.

• Newspaper Photo AP Archive — a wide range of photos and some video chronicling current and historical election campaigns - from the Associated Press.

• Vanderbilt Television News Archive

• www.4president.us — this website has a nice collection of ads back to the 1960 presidential campaign.

• Youtube — has lots of campaign ads, including historical ads - just search for a candidate's name and the year of the election. See what the ads for Eisenhower were like!

• The Living Room candidate — Presidential Campaign commercials from 1952-2008.

• Paley Center for Media iCollection — wonderful source for historical television programming, including streaming video of 18,000+ television shows, radio programs & commercials. Note: You do need to register and set a password when you first enter the database.

• NBC Learn — NBC broadcasts from the 1930s to today, including NBC news, ads, speeches, interviews, and more.

For more television news sources, consult the Libraries' Television News Program Sources research guide.

Other Presidential Speeches

For more speeches at other points in the presidency try this page with resources for historical speeches:

• Historical Speeches

• Voices of Democracy — a collection of famous speeches and public debates

• American Rhetoric — a collection of speeches divided into different categories

Fact-Checking the Media

The following organizations claim to monitor bias in the media — either from a left- or right-leaning perspective:

• Accurracy in Media — a conservative watchdog group since 1986

• Media Matters for America — a liberal watchdog group

• PolitiFact — from the St. Petersburg Times, this sources keeps tabs on all the claims made by candidates, checks facts, and rates the claims from True to "Pants on Fire" lies

With the controversial Supreme Court Decision in Citizen's United v. the FEC, there will be more money spent this campaign cycle than ever before. Here are a few places that will be tracking spending:

• Federal Election Commission (FEC)
  "In 1975, Congress created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) — the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC, which is an independent regulatory agency, are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections."

• OpenSecrets.org
  "Your guide to the money in elections." By many standards the best of the websites, and certainly the most user-friendly guide to money in politics.

• CampaignMoney.com
  "The purpose of campaignmoney.com, a non-partisan website, is to make available in the easiest way possible the names of financial donors to federal political campaigns. These records are a matter of public record provided by the Federal Election Commission. There is no charge for perusing the lists on campaignmoney.com".

• Follow the Money
  "The National Institute on Money in State Politics is the only non-partisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states."

• Silent Partners: How Political Non-Profits Work the System [Center for Public Integrity]
  This was a study of the money spent by political advocacy groups during the 2000-2006 election cycles. While historical, it provides an interesting window into the influence this money has on the election cycle. This is money that is not controlled under federal campaign finance law.

As campaign season progresses the elections seem more and more like a horse race. Watch the polls go up and down at some of these sites. Look carefully at a broad range of polls and remember that polls are nothing more than a snapshot in time.

• Gallup
  A veteran polling institution that has been tracking elections for over 60 years.

• Real Clear Politics Polls
  A great site because it consolidates polls from a number of sources in one place, making it easy to compare numbers.

• Pollster
  Pollster tracks, aggregates, and analyzes political polls (including presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial races). The site provides links to other polling and survey research groups and resources, and has a very helpful FAQ page that explains how political polling is done. [College and Research Library News, 69 (1), p. 20]

• Fivethirtyeight.com
  For the statistical geek who really wants to understand what the numbers mean, this is the place to go.

For more information on polling, consult the Libraries' Polls and Surveys research guide.

Try the databases below to find journal articles and scholarly analysis related to politics, campaigns, and rhetoric:

• Communication & Mass Media Complete

• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts — some full text is available in this database which includes links out to E-Journal content through Penn State Get It! links.

• Penn State Center for Democratic Debate — nonpartisan, interdisciplinary center for research, teaching, and outreach on issues of civic engagement and democratic deliberation

• American Rhetoric — in addition to speeches, has specialized sections for Christian Rhetoric and Rhetoric of 9/11, audio clips for figures of speech, and more

• Taylor and Francis Online

• Academic Search Complete

• LionSearch — one single search box that searches across all library resources for books, scholarly journals, e-books, newspapers, and more!

• JSTOR