STATEHOUSE NEWS

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The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board will host a panel discussion and book signing Thursday, October 13, 2016, at 12 p.m. in the Museum Gallery of the Ohio Statehouse. The event will feature Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Pulitzer-nominated journalist Ronald G. Shafer. The panel discussion will be moderated by Tom Suddes, a journalist and Assistant Professor for the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. The trio will discuss the presidential election of 1840 and the special role Ohio plays in the U.S. presidential election every four years. Following the discussion both authors will sign copies of their most recent works in the Map Room of the Ohio Statehouse.

Kondik is the author of The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President. He currently serves as the managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Since 1896, Ohio voters have failed to favor the next president only twice (in 1944 and 1960). Time after time, Ohio has found itself in the thick of the presidential race, and 2016 is shaping up to be no different. What about the Buckeye State makes it so special? In The Bellwether, Kondik blends data-driven research and historical documentation to explain why Ohio is essential to the 2016 election and beyond. More information about Kondik and The Bellwether can be found here: http://bit.ly/2965o0A.

Shafer’s work, The Carnival Campaign: How the Rollicking 1840 Campaign of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” Changed Presidential Elections Forever, digs deep to find the seeds of the modern election cycle in the colorful battle between sitting president Martin Van Buren, a longstanding member of the New York Democratic machine, and upstart William Henry Harrison, a military hero who earned the nickname “Old Tippecanoe” from a battlefield where he fought and won in 1811. Harrison’s Whig Party strategists conducted the first image campaign, painting him as an everyman living in a log cabin and drinking hard cider and painting Van Buren as an elitist dandy. More information about Shafer and The Carnival Campaign can be found here: http://bit.ly/2bClFZ5.

Both titles have Ohio at the center of narratives that help explain the roots of Ohio’s political influence and detail how presidential campaigns have changed over the past 176 years and how they have stayed the same. The panel discussion will begin at 12 p.m. in the Museum Gallery of the Ohio Statehouse, and upon conclusion of the event the authors will move to Map Room of the Ohio Statehouse where the signing portion of the event will take place.

Order The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President and The Carnival Campaign: How the Rollicking 1840 Campaign of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” Changed Presidential Elections Forever here: http://bit.ly/2bVuNf4.

To view this press release and others, visit ohiostatehouse.org.

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