Knecht Dissects Clinton, Trump Campaigns

Thomas Knecht, associate professor of political science at Westmont, reflects on the unprecedented surprises of the 2016 race for the White House in a talk on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 5:30 p.m. at University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara Street. The Westmont Downtown Lecture, “Breaking All the Rules: Making Sense of the 2016 Presidential Election,” is free and open to the public. No tickets are required; the limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

The lecture will try to make sense of the nominations of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and predict what might happen come November. “We’ll look at how candidates use various campaign strategies to make their way to the White House, and why those strategies usually don’t matter that much,” he says. In fact, I’ll argue that the things people tend to focus on — campaign ads, debates, media coverage, issue positions, gaffs and hair — usually have little effect on who becomes the next president.”

Knecht, a Stanford graduate who earned a master’s degree and doctorate at UC Santa Barbara, has written a book, “Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs: How Public Opinion Affects Presidential Decision Making.” He has also published research papers, “A Pragmatic Response to an Unexpected Constraint: Problem Representation in a Complex Humanitarian Emergency” to Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 5 and “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: The Stages of Presidential Decision-making,” with M. Stephen Weatherford in International Studies Quarterly 50.

The lecture series, Westmont Downtown: Conversations about Things that Matter, and the President’s Breakfast are sponsored by the Westmont Foundation.