This email came to Joan Meyer. The reference below is to work that has come out of Yale (Don Green, now at Columbia, and Alan Gerber). It is accurate that this has penetrated political campaigning on both sides of the aisle. The email is a bit over the top, and we could secure the actual academics and not just the journalist! However, I wonder if Issenberg may be on a book tour and thus be a cheap “get” for us.
I work with journalist Sasha Issenberg.
His new book, The Victory Lab, will be released in September, and I am currently setting up events for the fall. I heard about the Reed College Public Policy Lecture Series and thought he might be a good fit.
In The Victory Lab, Sasha moves from university research labs to campaign war rooms to tell the hidden story — described by Politico as “Moneyball for politics” — of the analytical revolution upending the way campaigns are run in the 21st century.
The Victory Lab follows the renegade academics who introduced randomized-control experiments to the study of elections, part of a century-long effort by political scientists unlock the secrets of who votes and why — and whether campaigns can do anything to push people in their direction. Armed with findings from field experiments, insights from behavioral psychology, predictive-modeling techniques and reams of new data on individual voters, the smartest campaigns now believe they know who you will vote for even before you do. The Victory Lab presents a secret history of modern American politics, pulling back the curtain on the tactics and strategies used by some of the era’s most important figures—including Barack Obama and Mitt Romney—and the academics whose breakthroughs made it possible.
There is already buzz about the book based on a chapter released last summer called “Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America” and Sasha will be doing many media appearances in September.
I would love to set up an event in mid-October as interest will be highest around the upcoming election. The week of October 15th would be ideal for us, but we have some flexibility. Let me know what you think.