Jagiellonian University Press

Challenges and Expectations

EDITORS

Paweł Laidler

Maciej Turek

2012 U.S. Presidential

Election

2012 U.S

. Presidential Election

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As every presidential election, the 2012 cycle was also unique. On the one side we had president Barack Obama, who either due to his own shortcomings or rather the character of the inherited politi-cal regime, as defi ned by Stephen Skowronek (1997), was struggling for reelection. On the other, we had former Massachusetts gover-nor, Mitt Romney – the fi rst major party candidate since Walter Mondale, and the fi rst Republican since Ronald Reagan, who had not held a public offi ce at the time of his nomination.

In this volume 26 scholars, from all around the world, take a look on how those two public fi gures, with so different backgrounds and life stories, though having graduate degrees from the same Alma Mater, were directing their ways to the White House. Nevertheless, discussing what strategy did they take, what rhetoric applied, and what policy proposed on domestic and international issues, as well as what campaign innovations introduced is only a part of the story. The other one is that the 2012 contest was presented in a broader picture of historical and legal context of the American presidential elections.

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2012 U.S. Presidential

Election

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Jagiellonian University Press

EDITORS

Paweł Laidler Maciej Turek

2012 U.S. Presidential

Election

Laidler_ Turek_2012 US Presidential Election_StrTytulowe.indd 3 2014-07-09 23:02:29

Th e publication of this volume was supported by the Jagiellonian University by the Division of Vice-Rector for Educational Aff airs, the Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow

ReviewerProf. dr hab. Andrzej Mania

Cover designPracownia Register

© Copyright by Paweł Laidler, Maciej Turek & Jagiellonian University Press First edition, Kraków 2014 All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any eletronic, mechanical, or other means, now know or hereaft er invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers

ISBN 978-83-233-3743-0

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 7

PART ONE: LAW, HISTORY, AND POLITICS OF THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Robert Podolnjak, Th e Constitution, the Electoral College, and the American Concept of Democracy – a View from Europe .......................................................... 11

Jolanta Daszyńska, Th e Elections of the First Th ree American Presidents: How Did Americans Elect Washington, Adams and Jeff erson? ........................................ 31

Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek, White House Hostess, Pet Causes Campaigner, Convention Speaker – Evolution of Position and Role of American First Lady ...................................................................................................................... 47

Marco Morini, A Study on the Re-election Chances of American Presidents: Does the Unemployment Rate Matter? ...................................................................... 65

Paweł Laidler, Conservative Crime Control v. Liberal Due Process and Presidential Elections ........................................................................................... 83

Magdalena Modrzejewska, Presidential Debate. Where Is the Question? .................. 99

PART TWO: DOMESTIC FRONT

Donathan Brown, Th e Rhetorical Currency of Immigration Reform .......................... 117

Anna Bartnik, Hispanics in the 2012 Presidential Elections ......................................... 129

Zinovia Lialiouti, Discursive Strategies in an Era of Economic Crisis: Barack Obama, the American Dream and the American Middle Class ............................. 143

Alix Meyer, Th e White House in 2013: Tax Shelter from the Storm? ........................... 163

Søren Christian Reimer, From the Political Wilderness to ‘Civil War’: Th e Republican Party during Obama’s First Term .................................................... 183

Károly Pintér, God’s Chosen Candidate: Mitt Romney and the Role of Religion in the 2012 Presidential Campaign ............................................................................ 203

Paulina Napierała, Barack Obama, Religion, and the Separation of Church and State ............................................................................................................................... 223

John Bloom, Th e Renewed Importance of Intelligent Design ........................................ 249

6 Table of Contents

PART THREE: MEDIA AND CULTURE IN AND ON CONTEMPORARY ELECTIONS

AND POLITICSIstván Szokonya, U.S. Elections (Web) 2.0 – Can Romney Outdo Obama

in Social Media? ........................................................................................................... 265

Anna Severse, Th e Synergy of Microtargeting and Social Media Unlocks the Code of the American Presidential Election 2012 .............................................................. 273

Bożena Pękala, A Comparison of U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Media Image in Time and Newsweek .............................................................................................. 283

Maciej Turek, Paul Ryan and the Press ........................................................................... 299

Patrick Sadjak, Indecision 2012: Cluster to the White House Redux – U.S. Presidential Election, Satire, and the New Political Media ...................................... 315

Jolanta Szymkowska-Bartyzel, Cowboys Go to Washington – Cowboy Culture in Presidential Politics ................................................................................................. 327

PART FOUR: INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT OF 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Spasimir Domaradzki, Piotr Józefczyk, Th e Obama Administration and Human Rights: Between International PR and the American Values................................... 345

Alf Tomas Tønnessen, Mitt Romney’s and Paul Ryan’s Rhetoric of Anti-Europeanism and American Exceptionalism ................................................... 363

Mateusz Bogdanowicz, To Conduct or Not to Conduct the World (Again): 2012 U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Dilemmas .......................................................... 377

Dagmara Suberlak, Europe in the Politics of Barack Obama’s Administration ............................................................................................................. 391

Joost Baarssen, Europe Is Working in the United States: “Europe” and Anti-Europeanism in the 2012 Elections ................................................................... 405

Wojciech Michnik, Th e United States’ Foreign Policy under Barack Obama’sAdministration: An Early Assessment........................................................................ 425

Notes about the Authors.................................................................................................. 435

Introduc on

On November 6, 2012, Barack Obama was reelected as the 44th President of the United States, aft er the most expensive and one of the longest presidential campaigns. By defeating Mitt Romney, Obama became the fi rst Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to gain the majority of popular votes and only second to win two presidential elections aft er the World War II.

10 days before this historical event, a few dozens of European and Ameri-can scholars met at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków to discuss the issues related to the 2012 presidential election. Clearly, we had no idea what the fi nal outcome of the election would be, but all were able to provide some in-sights on the fi rst term of Obama presidency, the 2012 elections itself, putting this campaign in context of presidential election through the entire American history, as well as forecast which path the United States would take and which issues would be the most pressing for the next president.

We are pleased to present the work of those of the colleagues who chose to share their work in the printed version. We divided the received papers into four parts, depending on the subjects of the presented scholarship. Th e vol-ume opens with papers on issues related to historical and legal aspects of the American presidential election (Robert Podolnjak, Jolanta Daszyńska), and then discussion focuses on the dynamics of contemporary campaignsand most important elements of these enterprises (Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek, Marco Morini, Paweł Laidler, Magdalena Modrzejewska). Th e sec-ond part is devoted the issues of domestic policy and electoral context. While Donathan Brown and Anna Bartnik analyze, respectively, the signifi cance of immigration reform and Latino voters, Zinovia Lialiouti and Alix Meyer give us their views on economic policy. In this part of the volume, readers will also fi nd interesting papers about the Republican Party during Obama’s fi rst term (Søren Christian Reimer), and about critical issues of religion (Károly Pintér, Paulina Napierała, John Bloom).

Moving to the part where authors debate how elections are run, seen and covered in the 21st century United States, István Szokonya and Anna Severse introduce us with the new media campaigning. Bożena Pękala and Maciej Turek describe how the candidates are presented in the print media, while

8 Introduc on

Patrick Sadjak shows that even so serious people as presidential candidates can be still vulnerable enough to fi nd themselves main characters in the po-litical satire broadcast. In an attempt to tie American presidents with one of most common symbolic cliches, Jolanta Szymkowska-Bartyzel investigates the cowboy symbolism in actions of selected U.S. chief executives.

Finally, reminding us that the United States is the only remaining super-power, authors off er their views on the international context of the 2012 American presidential elections. Spasimir Domaradzki and Piotr Józefczyk speak about the human rights, whereas Alf Tomas Tønnessen, Dagmara Suberlak, and Joost Baarsseen analyze the European aspect of both Barack Obama foreign policy and the issue of Europe in both Republican Party pri-maries and race of Obama and Mitt Romney. Last, but not least, Wojciech Michnik presents tentative, fi rst-term only assessment of foreign policy of the United States under Barack Obama, whereas Mateusz Bogdanowicz deals with the issue that presidential candidates have in mind for more than a cen-tury: what should be the role of the United States in the global arena.

At this point we would like to thank Professor Andrzej Mania, Vice-Rec-tor of the Jagiellonian University, Professor Bogdan Szlachta, Dean of the Faculty of International and Political Studies, and Professor Adam Walaszek, Director of the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, for their fi nancial support to publish the volume. We would also like to express our great appreciation to contributors who answered our call and agreed to pub-lish their research in this volume. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with such a wonderful group of scholars and campaign professionals, and we hope that the readers of the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: Challenges and Expectations volume will share our high regard for the results of this collec-tive work.

Paweł LaidlerMaciej Turek

Kraków, Spring 2014

NOTES ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Joost BAARSSEN – Ph.D. student and instructor in Transatlantic and Transnational American Studies at the Ruhr Center of American Studies, TU Dortmund Univer-sity, Germany. He is a DAAD-scholarship recipient currently writing his dissertation on anti-Europeanism in the United States. Before that, he studied American Studies with minors in Peace and Safety Studies and Political Science at the University of Groningen and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Anna BARTNIK– earned her PhD degree in the Institute of Political Science at Ja-giellonian University, in Cracow, Poland. Since then she has been working as assis-tant professor at the Institute of American studies and Polish Diaspora. Her research contains studies on American immigration law, Hispanic immigrants in the USA and local government in the U.S. She has published articles on topics related to her research. She has recently published a book “Latino immigrants in the United States aft er World War II. Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.”

John BLOOM – doctoral student and researcher at the Université de Rennes 2 in Rennes, France. His research interests include religion, education, law, and politics in America, notably pertaining to the separation of Church and State in America. He is currently an ATER (lecturer) for the Université de Rennes 2’s English department.

Mateusz BOGDANOWICZ – an apprentice of Professor Krzysztof Michałek, is an assistant professor at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. At the Department of English, he runs – among others – courses in the History and Cul-ture of the English Speaking Countries, methodology, primary sources analysis and MA seminars. His scientifi c interests encompass American and Canadian Studies, translation and EFL teaching. Apart from his academic duties, M. Bogdanowicz is also the principal and an English teacher at “Britannica” School of English in Giży-cko, Poland.

Donathan BROWN – Assistant Professor and Editor of the Journal of Race and Policy. Dr. Brown conducts research at the intersection of race, rhetoric and public policy, particularly pertaining to African Americans and Latinos. His research has appeared in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, the International Journal of Dis-crimination and the Law, the Journal of Race and Policy, Communication Law Review,

436 Notes about the Authors

the Widener Journal of Law, Economics & Race, Studies in Ethnicity and National-ism, Th e Closed Border: An Encyclopedia of Anti-Immigration Sentiment in the United States, and the Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity.

Jolanta DASZYŃSKA – interested in American history, especially of the formative years of the early Republic, states’ rights and the crises in American history. She is also the President of Polish Historical Society in Łódź.

Spasimir DOMARADZKI – Ph.D. Assistant Professor at Lazarski University, War-saw, Poland. 2008 Wilbur Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center, Mecosta, Michigan. Lec-turer of American Foreign Policy, Government and Comparative Politics and Civil Liberties. OSCE Election Observer.

Piotr JÓZEFCZYK – former Ph.D student at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora. Interested in U.S.  Constitutional law, the role of Supreme Courtand its impact on social and governmental politics, based on the principle of equality of law since the times of slavery, through segregation and emancipation period, up to the affi rmative action.

Paweł LAIDLER – lawyer, political scientist, adjunct Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora. Specialist in U.S. legal system and the clash of law and politics in governmental relations. Author of books and articles about U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. attorney general, checks-and-balances system and Ameri-can criminal procedure. Grantee of Sasakawa Young Leaders’ Fellowship Fund at Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.), and JFK Institute for American Studies (Freie Universität Berlin).

Zinovia LIALIOUTI – post-doctoral researcher at the Aristotle University of Th es-saloniki. Th e subject of her research, which is conducted in collaboration with the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies, is “the ideology of Americanism and the image of Greece, 1947-1967”. She holds a  PhD from the Department of Poli-tics and History, Panteion University, Athens. Th e title of her thesis is “Greek anti-Americanism, 1947-1989”. She holds a bachelor on media and communication and a master’s degree on Political Science and Sociology from the University of Athens. She has published papers on anti-Americanism, American studies, and Greek politi-cal culture.

Alix MEYER – received a Ph.D. from the Université Lyon 2 Lumière and is currently a lecturer at Sciences Po Lyon where he teaches students who specialize in American studies. His research focuses on the contemporary American Congress, the Republi-can party, the budget process and the welfare state in the United States. He contrib-uted to several collective works on American politics and is a member of the editing board for the journal Transatlantica. He participated in several conferences including the American Political Science Association annual meeting in Seattle in 2011 and has conducted research in Washington D.C. as well as in the archives of Senator Robert Dole and Th omas Daschle.

437Notes about the Authors

Wojciech MICHNIK – lecturer at Tischner European University in Kraków and a visiting lecturer at Jagiellonian Univeristy’s Department of Political and Interna-tional Studies. He received his Ph.D.  in international relations and politics (2008), MA in cultural studies (2004) and political science (2002) from Jagiellonian Uni-versity. Mr. Michnik served as a research fellow at Boston University and a visiting scholar at School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University; and at Western Washington University. His current research interests include strate-gic and security studies; comparative foreign policy and transatlantic relations.

Magdalena MODRZEJEWSKA – completed her Ph.D. in 2007 in the fi eld Political Science at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. She works at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland; and her research interests include American political thought and broadly understood political philosophy and visual culture. She has been awarded many grants and hon-ors, among them Th e Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund for Young Leaders in 2005, and Fulbright Senior Fellowship in 2011-2012 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Recently she received award from National Science Center from the Polish Government in 2011.

Marco MORINI – Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University (Austra-lia). He did research and gave lectures at the University of Florida, University of Den-ver and University of Padua (Italy). His main research interest are American Politics, Elections and Political Behaviour.

Paulina NAPIERAŁA – an Assistant Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Kraków. Her research explores a vari-ety of issues concerning relations between religion and politics in the United States. She conducted her research at Boston College and Harvard University as a Fulbright Fellow, at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, thanks to the Józef Tischner’s Scholarship, and at the Freie Universität, Berlin.

Magdalena PALUSZKIEWICZ-MISIACZEK – Associate Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. PhD dissertation defended in 2004, entitled: Social Advancement and Change of Vic-torian Ideal of Woman in Canada at the Turn of 19th and 20th Centuries. In her current research concentrates on Canadian military policy and veteran- related problems as well as history of women in the USA and Canada and history and contemporary problems of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.

Bożena PĘKALA – associate at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at Th e Peda-gogical University of Cracow. She obtained PhD in 2010 at Institute of Political Stud-ies and International Relations, Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Her academic interests are international relations (especially between France and USA), media and mass communication. Her most important publications are: “Th e Comparison of Press Depictions of the War in Afghani-stan” (2001) in the American Time and the French L’Express magazines” in Politeja

438 Notes about the Authors

1(2)/2004 (printed by Faculty of International and Political Studies of the Jagiello-nian University) and “International Policy of the United States between 1989 and 1993 under George Bush Administration” in Politeja 2(14)/2010.

Károly PINTÉR – associate proff esor of American studies at the Institute of English and American Studies of Pázmany Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary. Currently he is Vice Dean for Academic Aff airs at the Faculty of Humanities. His primary research interest is the separation of church and state and its constitutional interpretation by the US Supreme Court, but he has also published an essay on the image of American presidents in popular culture. He has been an avid follower of American presidentional elections since 1992.

Robert PODOLNJAK – Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) – Faculty of Law, and the author of three books and over 60 scien-tifi c journal articles. His major book is Federalism and Republicanism: Th e Creation of the American Constitution (2005). Professor Podolnjak is a member of Croatian As-sociation for Constitutional Law and the International Political Science Association.

Søren Christian REIMER – PhD candidate at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany. He graduated Jena University in April 20010 with a magister thesis on the future of the Republican Party aft er the era of George W. Bush. His research interests include conservatism in the United States and the ethics of the United States Congress. He is recipient of the Landesgraduiertenstipendium of the free state of Th uringia.

Patrick SADJAK – a graduate student and independent scholar at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. While studying at Pacifi c University, Oregon he came in contact with political science and got interested in this fi eld of study. His main research in-terests include U.S. politics and their representation in the media, amongst others in television, movies, newspapers or literature (with a special focus on satire). Further-more, he tries to dissect politics from a culture studies point of view whenever this is possible. He is currently fi nishing his M.A. and will start his PhD in March of 2013. Recently, an article of his earlier research in the fi eld of visual culture was published in the book Visuelle Kultur als Gegenstand interdisziplinärer Forschung (2012).

Anna SEVERSE – a post-graduate student at the Lomonosov Moscow State Uni-versity, Journalism faculty. Her 10-year career as an Account Manager in American political advertising generated her strong interest in development of educational pro-grams in that fi eld. In the course of her studies Mrs. Severse had the results of her research published in scientifi c peer-reviewed journals such as Vestnik MGU, had participated in national and international conferences, and had published a  book dedicated to a comparative study of the role new media played in 2008 election in the USA and Russia. Mrs. Severse is working on a project dedicated to political com-munications in traditional and new media and the infl uence they have on American democratic election of 2012.

439Notes about the Authors

Dagmara SUBERLAK – a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Nicolaus Coper-nicus University in Torun. She has obtained M.A. degree in International Relations on the basis of the thesis “Participation of Poland to the European Common Security and Defence Policy”. Her research interests include history of the Second World War in Europe and policy of the United States of America.

Istvan SZOKONYA – received his double MA degrees in English Language and Lit-erature and Communication Studies from Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church, Budapest. Besides being a PR professional, he is pursuing a PhD degree in American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Jolanta SZYMKOWSKA-BARTYZEL – a lecturer in the Institute of American Stud-ies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland). She is one of the founders and editors of Ad Americam: Journal of American Studies. Her scholarly interests focus on the history and reception of American popular culture in Poland. She published a book: Amerykański mit – polski konsument, czyli reklamowe oblicza Ameryki [American Myth – Polish Customer, or Commercial Faces of America] about American myths and cultural motifs used for persuasive purposes in TV com-mercials. She is also an author of articles on American popular culture, Americaniza-tion and mass media communication.

Alf Tomas TØNNESSEN – (Ph.D.  North-American Area Studies, University of Oslo, 2008) has been an associate professor of American civilization/English at Volda University College, Norway, since 2010. He is President of the American Studies As-sociation of Norway, editor of the Newsletter of the Nordic Association for American Studies, international contributing editor for Norway, Journal of American History, and author of the book How Two Political Entrepreneurs Helped Create the American Conservative Movement, 1973-1981: Th e Ideas of Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich (Lewiston N.Y.: Th e Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).

Maciej TUREK – Ph.D, is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University, where under the super-vision of Professor Andrzej Mania he conducts research on the media coverage of vice presidential candidates under the auspices of EU-fi nanced “Society – Environ-ment – Technology” Project of the Jagiellonian University. Dr. Turek’s research in-terests lies in American politics, elections, campaign fi nance and fl aws of contempo-rary American democracy. He received scholarships from Th e Copernicus Society of America and twice from JFK Institute for North American Studies, Free University in Berlin, and was also a participant of ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Meth-ods of Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Cur-rently, Dr. Turek is working on the project on the relations of the campaign fi nance system and political representation, both in the U.S. and comparatively.

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