Professors and alums provide insight into the White House race

With election day upon us, SMU faculty and alumni are involved in coverage and commentary on President Barack Obama and his GOP challenger Mitt Romney in one of the closest races for the White House in recent memory.

SMU Political Science Professor Dennis Simon, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and co-author of Women & Congressional Elections: A Century of Change, will be on KERA public radio's Think at noon Tuesday, November 6, talking about Tuesday's election, women's issues and women's bids for public office.

Rita Kirk, professor of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs and an expert on how candidates relate to voters, worked with CNN on audience response to the Obama-Romney debates and talked with CNN Monday about the large number of voters still responding "undecided" in polls.

""Independent isn't a party," said Kirk, director of SMU's Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility. "It just means 'none of the above.' People are not really satisfied with either party." Read the full story.

Political Science Professor Cal Jillson, frequently interviewed about national and Texas politics and author of Lone Star Tarnished, was interviewd recently about Hurricane Sandy's impact on the presidential race.

“We have a big storm and how the federal government through FEMA responds to that storm could affect the way people feel about President Obama. If the federal government looks like it’s on its game, that could benefit him a little bit, but more likely just leave the race where it is,” Jillson told Pegasus News. Read the full story.

Three recent graduates of SMU are working for news media and playing roles in the campaign coverage - Emily Minner (’05), Garrett Haake (’07) and Morgan Parmet (’09).

Minner, who has been working on the Atlanta CNN Political Desk as assignment editor since November 2011, told The Daily Campus, “I love being in the know on everything as it happens. Working the assignment desk literally puts you at the central hub of all news gathering. We are the ones who find out about the news first.”

Haake, a four-time Emmy nominee, works for NBC as an embed reporter on the Romney campaign. His job focuses on traveling the country to cover the governor’s every move.

And Parmet, NBC’s media manager of digital content, said, “I think the coolest part about my job is if a producer calls me in a panic saying, ‘I need Romney saying something about Big Bird’ or ‘Give me [Joe] Biden saying he’ll put people back in chains’ and I immediately know what they’re talking about, what day it is and where to grab it.”

Read The Daily Campus story on the three alumni.

Other SMU faculty experts:

Politics
	Matthew Wilson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science Professor Wilson specializes in religion and politics, as well as public opinion, elections and political psychology.
Polls and Surveys
	Lynne Stokes, Ph.D., Professor of Statistical Science She is an expert in surveys, polls and sampling, as well as in non-sampling survey errors, such as errors by interviewers and respondents.
Economy & Unemployment
	Tom Fomby, Ph.D., Professor of Economics He can discuss the Texas economy vs. the rest of the nation, what the unemployment rate means for Texas and political promises about the economy.
Immigration
	Pia Orrenius, Ph.D., Fellow at SMU's Tower Center for Political Studies A senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, her research focuses on the border region and the causes and consequences of Mexico–U.S. migration, illegal immigration, and U.S. immigration policy. She is the author of Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization. See video of her CNN interview .
Education Issues
	David Chard, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Dean He writes op-eds and speaks to journalists on education issues ranging from controversial textbooks to inadequate teacher training. He is an expert on best educational practices.

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