Republicans better at picking a president.

• Position: Political Landscape - The American Voter Revisited - Critical essay

It's the candidate, stupid. A book analyzing the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections provides some insight about why George W. Bush captured the White House and the Democratic candidates failed. While Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 famously used the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid" to highlight what it thought was the biggest issue in that election year, the main topic in 2000 and 2004 may have been the candidates themselves. The American Voter Revisited notes that "one of the biggest surprises is that the Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004 both hurt their party's chances and actually drove some voters to Bush. The parties were evenly matched during those elections in terms of many other factors, but the candidates themselves made the difference. Republicans have generally clone better in choosing presidential candidates that the public likes in recent years, and that has been their saving grace."

The book's co-authors include political scientists from the University of Iowa, Iowa City; Michigan State University, East Lansing; and Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. The volume essentially is a replication of The American Voter, a book published in 1960 about the 1952 and 1956 elections. It has become a classic in political science and generally is recognized for establishing the field of voting behavior research. The original book was the first attempt to do a large-scale, national survey of voter attitudes and behavior. For the most part, the new book follows the same research procedures and even the same chapter structure as the original. The authors wanted to see if the conclusions of the original book stood the test of time. Both volumes are based on the National Election Studies--a face-to-face interview with Americans before and after each election--run by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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The gap between the number of people identifying themselves as...