Faculty experts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can provide expert commentary on this year’s midterm campaigns and election, as well as state races in North Carolina.
Faculty experts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can provide expert commentary on this year’s midterm campaigns and election, as well as state races in North Carolina.
The Carolina News Studio is available for live and or pre-recorded television interviews with election experts. It is also equipped with ISDN connectivity for radio interviews. http://uncnews.unc.edu/broadcast-studio.html
For help reaching experts or scheduling studio time, please contact News Services, (919) 962-2091.
A list of experts by topic and their contact information follows:
- U.S. and state politics
- Opinion polls, public opinion, recession’s effect on voters
- Military
- Voting access/voting fraud
- Elections law
- Immigration and citizenship
- Environmental and energy law
- Tax policy
- Political communications, media representation of gender
Jason Roberts, Ph.D.
Associate professor of political science
College of Arts and Sciences
(612) 590-7116
jroberts@unc.edu
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Roberts can speak to the dynamics of the 2010 midterm elections, including whether Republicans are likely to gain majorities in Congress
Roberts specializes in American political institutions, with an emphasis on the U.S. Congress. He can discuss the general dynamics of the 2010 midterm elections, including whether Republicans are likely to gain majorities in Congress. “I think it’s highly unlikely that they would pick up the Senate,” he says. “In terms of the House, there’s maybe a 50-50 chance, at best.”
Leroy Towns
Professor of the practice of journalism and research fellow
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Program on Public Life
(919) 843-5388
dltowns@email.unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.jomc.unc.edu/faculty-staff-journalism-faculty/towns-leroy
Photo: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/towns_leory2.JPG
From 1980 to 2001, Towns served as chief of staff for Rep. and later Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, managing all aspects of the Washington and state offices. He directed eight successful U.S. House of Representatives campaigns and two U.S. Senate campaigns. He was the senator's principal adviser and speechwriter and served as his staff for the Senate Committee on Ethics. Before joining Roberts' staff, Towns was press secretary to Kansas Gov. Robert F. Bennett.
Towns served as political reporter and Sunday editor of the Topeka (Kansas) Capitol-Journal and as state correspondent for the Harris Newspapers. He won awards from the Kansas Press Association for column writing and from the American Political Science Association for political reporting. He also served as founding editor of Kansas Business News, a statewide magazine covering business and economic development.
Towns hosts Talk Politics: The Political Communication Weblog at http://weblogs.jomc.unc.edu/talkpolitics/. The blog promotes discussion of media and politics where they intersect as political communication.
Ferrel Guillory
Director of the Program on Public Life and
Lecturer, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
(919) 962-5936, (919) 259-2708
guillory@unc.edu
Online bio: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RCEDWDXFE
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Guillory can comment on the effect of Tea Party activists on Southern politics and the current U.S. and North Carolina races, voter registration, population trends and migration patterns effects on voting trends in the South.
Guillory founded the Program on Public Life to connect the academic resources at UNC-Chapel Hill with the governmental, journalism and civic leaders of North Carolina and the South. The September 2010 issue of N.C. DataNet examines the dramatic recent increase in the frequency of public opinion polling in North Carolina. Before most voters can even form a strong impression about candidates, political campaign stories are often framed in terms of survey results.
Guillory spent more than 20 years as a reporter, Washington correspondent, editorial page editor and columnist for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
Opinion polls, public opinion, recession’s effect on voters
James Stimson, Ph.D.
Raymond Dawson Bicentennial Professor of Political Science
College of Arts and Sciences
(919) 962-0428
jstimson@email.unc.edu
Online bio: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RVSRXDFFF
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Stimson can address how the continuing recession is likely to influence the electorate. “What I know from my research is that voters will blame whoever’s in office – it doesn’t matter what policies they’ve pursued. Voters also will vote against incumbents who have had nothing to do with the current situation.”
In addition, he said, “My work on policy preferences in the American electorate shows almost no change since Barack Obama's election, contrary to much speculation of a broad movement to the right in American public opinion. The partisan movement toward the Republicans is real and uncontested. It is the explanation offered that voters have somehow shifted to the right in response to Obama or his policies that is not true.”
George Rabinowitz, Ph.D.
Burton Craige Professor of Political Science
College of Arts and Sciences
(919) 962-0407
Rabinowitz@unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.unc.edu/depts/polisci/faculty_pages/rabinowitz.html
Photo:
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Rabinowitz’s principal research interest is in electoral politics with a special emphasis on the role of issues on voter choice and in the structuring of party systems. He has studied the potential for success by extreme candidates – expertise that bears on predictions for the expected success or failure of Tea Party candidates in November.
W. Hodding Carter III
University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy
College of Arts and Sciences
(919) 843-3236
hoddingcarter@unc.edu
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Carter can discuss Southern politics and this election season’s similarities, or lack thereof, to 1946, 1966 and 2004. All those elections brought Republican gains in Congress. He also can analyze media coverage of current campaigns.
Carter was the voice of the State Department in President Jimmy Carter’s (no relation) administration during the Iran hostage crisis. He worked on two winning national Democratic presidential campaigns: Carter’s, in 1976, and Lyndon Johnson’s, in 1964. He was a delegate to four Democratic national conventions, covered five others as a reporter and commentator and has taught public policy journalism at several universities. Carter has been a political commentator for ABC, CBS, CNN, CBC and BBC and a syndicated op-ed columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Richard H. Kohn, Ph.D.
Professor of history and the curriculum in peace, war and defense
College of Arts and Sciences
(919) 419-0323 through Oct. 30; on West Coast Oct. 31-Nov. 5 at (919) 491-0374
rhkohn@unc.edu
Online bio: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RRWSRDRFE
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Kohn studies national security and military strategy. He can discuss public opinion on the war in Afghanistan and how public perceptions might affect the upcoming elections; how the outcome of the elections might affect the administration’s waging of the war; and Congressional pressures on the administration.
Mark Dorosin, J.D.
Senior managing attorney, UNC Center for Civil Rights
School of Law
(919) 843-7896
dorosin@email.unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/directory/dorosinmarke/
Photo: http://www.law.unc.edu/images/personnel/highres/dorosinmarke.jpg
The UNC Center for Civil Rights is coordinating a statewide effort in North Carolina for Election Protection, a national nonpartisan effort to keep voting access fair (http://www.866ourvote.org/). Both the center and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law are sponsoring a toll-free hotline on Election Day (Nov. 2), for voters who have questions about voting or who think they have been denied their right to vote (http://www.law.unc.edu/news/story.aspx?cid=138). The number is (866) OUR-VOTE or (866) 687-8683 or (888) VE-Y-VOTA (888-836-8682). Law students and other volunteers at the School of Law will answer telephones during hours that the polls are open (6 a.m. to 8 p.m.).
Dorosin oversees and coordinates the legal work on the center’s core program areas: educational advancement and fair opportunities, which advocates for pro-integration policies, defending civil rights desegregation laws, and pursuing fair and equitable resources for all students in K-12 public schools, as well as community inclusion and economic development, which focuses on issues related to municipal exclusion, residential segregation, fair housing, and environmental justice.
Robert Joyce, J.D.
Professor of public law and government
School of Government
(919) 966-6860 (business hours only)
joyce@sog.unc.edu
Online bio: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RTVDSXEFF
Photo:
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Joyce can address issues related to elections law, legislative representation and news media-government relations.
An expert on elections law, Joyce was counsel to the Joint Select Committee on Council of State Contested Elections after the November 2004 contested election for superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina. He has practiced law with Chadbourne & Parke in New York and Barber & Joyce in Pittsboro, N.C. He is a past member of the executive committees of the Education Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Council of School Attorneys. His publications include The Law of Employment in North Carolina's Public Schools, The Precinct Manual and chapters in Education Law in North Carolina.
Deborah Weissman, J.D.
Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law
School of Law
(919) 962-3564
weissman@email.unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/directory/weissmandeborahm/
Photo:
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Weissman can speak to immigration and citizenship issues and their effect on the midterm elections. She can also address issues related to human rights, poverty law and civil rights.
Before teaching law, Weissman was a legal advocate for topics such as labor law, education-related civil rights and immigration law. From 1994 to 1998, Weissman was deputy director and later executive director at Legal Services of North Carolina.
Weissman is now an executive committee member for the Consortium in Latin-American Studies at both UNC and Duke University. She is also on the advisory board for the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC. Her publications include “The Legal Production of the Transgressive Family: Binational Family Relationships Between Cuba and the United States,” “The Moral Politics of Social Control: Political Culture and Ordinary Crime in Cuba,” “Gender and Human Rights: Between Morals and Politics.”
Victor Flatt, J.D.
Taft Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law
School of Law
(919) 962-4118
flatt@email.unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/directory/flattvictorb/
Photo: http://www.law.unc.edu/images/personnel/highres/flattvictorb.jpg
Flatt can speak to climate change, energy law, administrative agency process environmental law and their potential impact on the midterm elections.
Flatt is currently the director of the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation and Resources (CLEAR). He served as the first A.L. O'Quinn Chair in Environmental Law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he was also director of the Center for Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Law. His work has focused on the administration of environmental statutes, particularly the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. Flatt has written about and advised policy makers on offsets and the impact of offsets on a carbon market. He has published articles in many notable journals, including the Notre Dame Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Washington Law Review and Ecology Law Quarterly.
Douglas Shackelford, Ph.D.
Meade H. Willis Distinguished Professor of Taxation
Kenan-Flagler Business School
(919) 962-3197
doug_shack@unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/search/detail.cfm?person_id=48
Photo: http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/faculty/search/Hiimages/shackeld.jpg
Shackelford can address the topics of tax policy (including legislation) and current tax practices as they relate to the midterm elections.
Shackelford is currently the director of the UNC Tax Center. He is a research associate in public economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. Shackelford has been published widely in accounting, economics and finance journals.
Karl Smith, Ph.D.
Assistant professor of public economics and government
School of Government
(919) 966-9393
karl@sog.unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.sog.unc.edu/about/directory/kwsmith.html
Photo: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/Smith_Karl.JPG
Smith can address tax policy, structural deficits and economic forecasting in relation to the midterm elections.
Smith was a graduate fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues, where his work was focused on state and local tax reform. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in economics from North Carolina State University. Smith writes and consults primarily on issues of tax reform, structural deficit reduction and long-run public spending trends. He is also the developer of several interactive tax forecasting tools used by the North Carolina General Assembly and the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.
Political communications, media representation of gender
Barbara Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
(919) 843-2099
bfriedman@unc.edu
Online bio: http://www.jomc.unc.edu/faculty-staff-journalism-faculty/friedman-barbara
Photo:
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Friedman’s research focuses primarily on historical and contemporary mass media representations of gender. Additional research examines the role of women in politics and political communication.
She is the author of “From the Battlefront to the Bridal Suite: U.S. and British Mass Media Coverage of British War Brides 1942-1946” (University of Missouri Press, 2007).
Friedman also is the author of “Web Search Savvy: Strategies and Shortcuts for Online Research” (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), reflecting her professional background as a reporter and editor. She is co-director of The Irina Project (TIP), which provides resources for the responsible and accurate reporting of sex trafficking.
Contacts:
Karen Moon LJ Toler
Interim News Director Arts and Humanities Editor
(919) 962-8595 (919) 962-8589
karen_moon@unc.edu laura_toler@unc.edu