NO FUN TO RUN.

• Author: Thaemert, Rita
• Position: Who Runs for the Legislature? - Review

Who Runs for the Legislature? by Gary F. Moncrief, Peverill Squire and Malcolm E. Jewell. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 07458, 2001. 130 pages, paperback, $18.67 Today, elections for state legislative office are more important than ever, but many fail to attract enough candidates. In any election, more than a third of state legislative seats in the United States are uncontested.

The authors of Who Runs for the Legislature? studied candidates in eight states to learn who decides to venture into the world of legislative politics and how they make the decision to run. Candidates are still predominantly white and male. The largest occupational group to run for office is business people. After that, it's retired people. Seventy-five percent have lived in their communities for at least 10 years. Many have worked on political campaigns. Those with election experience are more likely to wait for an open seat than to challenge an incumbent. One third of the candidates considered themselves "self-starters." Most were recruited by their political party or by elected officials.

A chapter devoted to women, minority and third-party candidates concludes that "traditional recruitment methods may be slow to find people from underrepresented groups to run for office."

The book contains a number of tables from candidate surveys, two-page candidate profiles and sample campaign materials. It is...