This paper addresses a simple but basic question: How many voters change their mind during the month preceding an election? The question is simple and basic, yet the vast and rich literature on voting and elections has somehow managed to avoid it. Despite all the talk about the impact of campaigns, I have not come across estimates of how many people vote for a party other than the one they intended to support at the beginning of the campaign.

Scoring lawmakers based upon the votes they cast while serving in Congress is both commonplace and politically consequential. However, scoring legislators' voting records is not without its problems—even when performed by organizations without a specific policy agenda. A telling illustration of the impact that these scores have on political debate recently arose in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries.

Conventional wisdom about the 2004 presidential election holds that it will be an exceptionally tight race. This wisdom is grounded in the results of the 2000 presidential election, current polls, and a general sense that electoral competition at the presidential level has tightened over the past decade. While there is ample justification for these beliefs, an examination of long-term voting trends (i.e., normal voting patterns) paints a different picture. In terms of the relative size of their electoral base, and its distribution across states, the Democrats begin the 2004 campaign with a distinct electoral advantage. Historically speaking, they have not begun a presidential campaign in such a strong position since 1944. Practically speaking, all the Democrats need to do is win the states in which they have a normal vote advantage to capture the presidency. If the Democrats can do this they need not win any Southern states in which the Republicans hold an electoral edge, including Florida. Moreover, even if Ralph Nader matches his statelevel returns in 2000, this will not be sufficient (by itself) to overcome the Democrats' electoral advantage in states that are essential to attaining an Electoral College majority.

Election forecasting, as a science with models to be tested, got its start in political science 20 years ago (Lewis-Beck and Rice 1984; Rosenstone 1983). When the enterprise began, it was not popular. Forecasts, while entertaining, were not held to be serious research. As high-quality models with accurate forecasts were published in leading journals (see review in Lewis-Beck and Rice 1992), forecasting achieved more respect in the discipline. The 1996 presidential election was a high point. Forecasters formulated models that accurately predicted, well in advance, the presidential winner's vote share (Campbell and Garand 2000). This encouraged forecasters to ply their trade for new elections, and in 2000 scholars again met media demands to predict the presidential vote. On the front page of the Washington Post in May, one forecaster predicted a Gore victory and was quoted as saying, “It's not even going to be close” (Kaiser 2000). In the end, most of the 2000 forecasts greatly overestimated Gore's share of the vote.

Many different elements make up the strength of a president, but a president with a majority in both houses of Congress works from a position of power. While a congressional majority does not guarantee that a president can pass his agenda (witness Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton presidency), a president that has majority in Congress will have natural allies instead of natural enemies when he works to enact his legislative agenda.

The 2000 presidential election was an historic election. Many Americans revisited that institution given its perfunctory three paragraphs in their high school civics texts—the Electoral College. The closeness of the election and the ambiguity of electoral versus popular votes made many question how presidents are chosen. The realization that citizens vote not for candidates, but for electors further complicated understanding. Although many experts detailed the reasons for the Electoral College, the problems associated with it, and the infamous elections resulting from it, little was said about those for whom we actually cast our ballots. Simply put, we know surprisingly little about those who serve as electors. The conventional wisdom is that electors are chosen for their party service and/or their financial contributions. Beyond this impressionistic understanding, a great vacuum of knowledge exists.

More than a century has passed since the fictional Mr. Dooley declared in his rich Irish brogue that “The Soopreme Court follows the illiction returns,” but until now no hard evidence has existed of just how fixated the Court is on presidential elections [but see Flemming and Wood 1997; Mishler and Sheehan 1993]. Fortunately, now we have proof positive, which we serendipitously unearthed from its resting place in the Library of Congress, where it was entombed deep in the personal papers of Justice Harry Blackmun.

They did not seem to be in a position to help the other body. Yet, on October 10, 2002, members of the House Judiciary Committee listened to witnesses discuss how the Senate could be more efficient. In 2003, Senate committees heard similar testimony. During the hearings, eminent law professors suggested that the practice of allowing filibusters on judicial nominees could not be imposed by previous Senates on the current one. It, therefore, would be within the power of the 51 Republican Senators to uphold a point of order against the filibuster and proceed to govern by majority rule (Kmiec 2003). In Washington, this course of action is called the “nuclear option.” Although the informal use of the nuclear option has several variations, each variation has a common underlying feature that can be formally defined. The nuclear option is a dramatic refusal to recognize delaying tactics permitted under the rules that facilitates the institutionalization of majoritarian procedures in a legislative body. Occurring in legislatures such as the 1881 British House of Commons, the use of the nuclear option can be a watershed event wherever the majority lacks an unassailable way to end debate.

APSA is pleased to recognize political science faculty members who received campus-wide and department awards for teaching excellence during the 2003–2004 academic year. APSA, Rowman Littlefield Publishers, and Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society, recognize award-winning faculty members each year at the Reception Honoring Teaching at the APSA Annual Meeting. Recognized faculty members receive a certificate noting their accomplishment and their awards are announced in PS and on the APSA web site.

It has been attributed to Mark Twain that he once said no one would do anything if they knew what they were in for. Assuming that most people are risk averse, most people will not gladly expose themselves to experiences or conditions that seem unusually difficult or challenging. With this notion in mind, I have led students through an intellectually, emotionally, and sometimes physically challenging course on urban poverty and social policy. After the course, students were grateful for the challenges, though they did not fully understand what they were getting into at the outset. Such challenges often caught the students by surprise, often leading to new perspectives on policy problems and to introspection of personal values and presuppositions, thereby providing substantial rewards for students as well as their instructor.

As political science faculty at East Central University, a small teaching-oriented state school located in rural Oklahoma, we are constantly challenged to provide our students with novel approaches to learning. Oklahoma's traditionalistic political culture is demonstrated to us daily as our students seem to envision themselves as subjects of an inscrutable system rather than potent democratic actors. To enhance understanding of issues related to campaigns and elections, we developed a six-week simulation in which upper-level political science students participated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, as a member of a campaign team, or as a member of the media. Approximately 200 of our Introduction to American Government students were called upon to be the voters in our simulation, a role for which many of our students cast the first ballots of their lives.

Academics and politicians alike decry the deterioration of trust in American political institutions and in political participation. One oft-cited culprit for this deterioration is the conduct of campaigns for elective office, with especial ire focused upon political consultants and the consulting industry. The lack of a civil campaign ethic, it is said, means that the largely unregulated nature of political combat and speech generates campaigns rife with ad hominem attacks and “negative” ads that disgust, discourage, and alienate prospective voters. In response, some parts of the consulting industry have attempted to inculcate a higher level of campaign conduct through candidate and professional campaign codes. Another response is based in the several university programs that offer graduate degrees in political or campaign management, which include varying degrees of training regarding ethical considerations in campaigns.

The past two decades has seen a rising tide of criticism of American universities. This criticism is expressed in national reports, voter initiatives, legislative reports, and by employers and accrediting agencies who have concluded that there is “a crisis of educational quality in our nation's colleges and universities” (Gardiner 1998, 71–88) and that “a disturbing and dangerous mismatch exists between what American society needs from higher education and what it is receiving” (Wingspread Group on Higher Education 1993). From such criticisms, the assessment movement was born (see, for example, Diamond 1998; Palomba and Banta 1999; Allen 2004).

Mentoring is generally defined as a relationship involving guiding, nurturing, and teaching (both formally and informally) between individuals with differing degrees of experience (Adams 1998; Colwell 1998; Rowley 1999). The mentoring process, in and outside the walls of academia, is often cited as a key ingredient in the development of a successful career. However, for many Black women in academia their ability to benefit from mentoring relationships is particularly limited. As part of my involvement in the APSA Mentoring Task Force, I am exploring the concept of mentoring among Black women. I focus on Black women for several reasons. First, I am a member of this group and have a particular interest in exploring the nuances of mentoring. My identification with this group has made me privy to a number of discussions on mentoring, both positive and negative. Second, Black women represent 1.21% of the 4,126 tenure track professors, of which only nine are full professors (Kelly 2002, 22). The large majority of African Americans in the profession are concentrated among the ranks of associate (18 out of 1,230) and assistant professors (20 out of 1,038). The limited number Black women in the profession can result in a condition in which potential mentors are unavailable to junior scholars, or there are few opportunities to establish relationships. My purpose is not to focus on the problems of Black women in academia, instead it is to bring attention to a major issue, mentoring, which can enhance or limit the success of this group in the discipline. In this article, I interview five Black women at various stages in their careers. The interviewees include an undergraduate student, a graduate student (ABD), an assistant professor, an associate professor, and a retired professor. The goal of this article is to reveal the special demands of mentoring on this small minority in the discipline. However, much of the information revealed is useful for anyone interested in the mentoring process.

A senior male faculty member in a political science department discovers that his wife has cancer. She will need to undergo a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatments over the next six months, treatments that will require her traveling to, and remaining overnight at, a hospital that is a 3-hour drive from the campus. Their only child lives over a thousand miles away.

Luke Bierman, director, justice center, American Bar Association, has been named associate editor of Justice System Journal, effective at the end of 2005.

Fred Kort, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, passed away at the age of 85 on July 17, 2004, after a long battle with cancer. Born in Vienna, Fred witnessed the rise of the Nazis and was a student of law at the University of Vienna until 1938 when Jewish students were expelled. As a result, Fred emigrated to the United States in 1939. In 1942 he volunteered for the U.S. Army and returned to Europe with the 11th Armored Division, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and other engagements, and eventually was stationed in Vienna. Upon his return to the United States, Fred enrolled at Northwestern University in 1946, earning his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in four years. He joined the department of political science at the University of Connecticut in 1950 and taught for 40 years, retiring in 1990.

Charles J. Fox, professor of political science at Texas Tech University, died of natural causes Thursday, May 6, at his residence in Lubbock, Texas.

The entry in W. H. Auden's Commonplace Book for “Justice” cautions: “Whoever suffers from the malady of being unable to endure any injustice, must never look out of the window, but stay in his room with the door shut. He would also do well, perhaps, to throw away his mirror.” Susan Moller Okin suffered this malady but rejected the poet's advice. She opened the window and looked in the mirror; her writings reflect sensitivity to injustice and acute awareness that her position of privilege and her good fortune made the work she did a moral imperative. The temper of her work was set by her political sensibility to the consequences of strength and weakness and by unflagging attention to the events of our world.

The world lost a true gentleman and a scholar–an aristocrat of the highest order—in early 2004 when Metin Tamkoc passed away in Istanbul, Turkey. One of his colleagues described him as having “possessed a rare combination of urbanity, seriousness of purpose, and good humor. He treated students and faculty alike with deep respect and pursued the highest standards of scholarship.”