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Acknowledgments
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Acknowledgments This book began as a paper prepared for a conference entitled “Going to Extremes: The Fate of the Political Center in American Politics,” held at Dartmouth College’s Rockefeller Center in June of 2008. It never would have become a book without the encouragement and enthusiasm of sev eral people who listened to my presentations of the research, suggested new angles for looking at the subject, and convinced me that I was onto something interesting. First and foremost among these people was Jeff Berry, who provided feedback on several of the chapters and shared with me the work he and Sarah Sobieraj were doing on a similar subject. Jeff also graciously fielded one particularly panicked phone call I made when I realized that the 2010 election data were throwing a wrench into my ar gument. Along the way, I presented this work at the 2009 “State of the Parties” conference at the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and at meetings of the American, Midwest, and Western Political Science Associations. Several audience members, discussants, and panel participants also provided helpful comments. In particular, Seth Masket, Michael Heaney, David Magleby, Ron Shaiko, and Ron Hrebenar all provided valuable feedback. One of the nice features of both the Dartmouth and Akron conferences was that the papers were made available on the Internet. Although I am rather hard on the media in this book, it is important to note that many journalists care deeply about getting the story on primaries right. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post and Greg Giroux of Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call both stumbled on the conference papers, contacted me for further details, and wrote about my work. Talking to both of them helped me to think about how to present the argument here to a wider audience and, perhaps just as important, convinced me that there was a wider audi ence for the book. As will become apparent in the pages to follow, a lot of numbers were viii | Acknowledgments crunched in the writing of this book. I am grateful to Michael Malbin and Brendan Glavin at the Campaign Finance Institute for helping me to make sense of the campaign finance data on primary challengers. Two capable research assistants, Amanda Gregoire and Marc Kadushin, also helped with some of the data work here, and Clark University’s Harrington Fund covered the expenses of their work. My colleague Mark Miller also gener ously shared with me his stash of materials on congressional elections. John Boatright helped me with the comparisons between interest groups and business firms in chapter 5, but he is not responsible for any problems in those comparisons. One of the most frustrating things about writing about contemporary politics is the timing of it all. Just when one is wrapping up the book, an other election comes along and requires yet more updating of the story. I owe a large debt to Melody Herr, my editor at the University of Michigan Press, for her enthusiasm about this project and for her efficiency in help ing to get this book done promptly. I had the good fortune to work with Melody and her staff on my previous book, and once it became apparent that she was interested in this one too, I never had any inclination to take it anywhere else. Writing a book can be a lonely, painful experience—or so I hear. This one wasn’t, and for that (and so many other things), I owe thanks to my wife, Audrey, and my children, Jacob and Dara. This time, I’ll let the three of you do more celebrating when the book is done. ...