What Will Happen in the Elections of 2012?

The Ashbrook Center will host an Oct. 12 colloquium entitled “What will happen in the elections of 2012?” featuring a panel discussion of faculty members from the Ashland University Department of History and Political Science.

There is no charge to attend this event, which will be held in the Ashbrook Center at 3 p.m. For more information, contact Lisa M. Ormiston at 419 289-5429 or [email protected].

Summary: The Republicans suffered disastrous defeats in both the elections of 2006 and 2008. The GOP lost both the U.S. Senate and the House in 2006, and not only did the Democrats add to their numbers in both houses of Congress in 2008, but their candidate Barack Obama was elected president. The Democrats, fully in control in Washington, worked hard on their promised agenda and were able to make good on many of their promises, including the passing of the health care legislation. But they were unpersuasive and the GOP took the House back in 2010 and politics has been at a stalemate since.  The elections of 2012 promises to be both interesting and consequential. Will the 2010 tidal wave against the Democrats continue?  Or, will the Democrats–under President Obama’s leadership–be able to hold the presidency, the Senate, and take back the House?  Will Mitt Romney be able to run an effective, principled, and persuasive campaign?  Our distinguished panel will consider all this and more in a conversation to which the public is invited.

Panel: The panel will be chaired by Professor Peter Schramm (PhD, Claremont), professor of political science, and the participants will be two other members of the Department: Jeffrey Sikkenga (PhD, Toronto), associate professor of political science; and Michael Schwarz (PhD, Kentucky), assistant professor of history.

Peter W. Schramm is the Executive Director of the Ashbrook Center, a Professor of Political Science, and also Chairman of the Master in American History and Government program at Ashland University.  He was awarded the Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship by the Heritage Foundation, and the Outstanding American by Choice Award by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services. He also wrote the Introduction to Lord Charnwood’s Abraham Lincoln: A Biography.

Michael Schwarz is Assistant Professor of History and fellow of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University. He has published essays on Founding-era politics and foreign relations, including articles on Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton in the Journal of the Early Republic and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Madison and Monroe. A forthcoming essay, “The Origins of Jeffersonian Nationalism,” will appear in the Journal of Southern History. He also has contributed op-ed pieces to the Columbus Dispatch. Dr. Schwarz teaches regularly in the MAHG summer and online programs and recently was named Ashland University’s outstanding male faculty member of the year for 2011-12.

Jeffrey Sikkenga is an associate professor of political science at Ashland University,adjunct fellow of the John M. Ashbrook Center, and senior fellow in the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia. He has taught courses and published articles in American politics, the US Constitution, and political thought. He has written editorials for newspapers like USAToday and been a political commentator for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and NBC-29, the Columbus, Ohio NBC affiliate.