Mayer, Jeremy D. 1968-

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MAYER, Jeremy D. 1968-

PERSONAL: Born 1968, to James (a retired intelligence analyst for the CIA and NSA) and Marjorie Mayer. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Attended University of Michigan; Brown University, B.S., 1990; graduate studies at Oxford University; Georgetown University, Ph.D., 1996. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Ultimate frisbee, scrabble, creative writing.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—School of Public Policy, George Mason University 3401 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington VA 22203. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and author. Georgetown University, Washington DC, assistant professor of government, 1997—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rowman Littlefield Award, 2002, for innovation in teaching; Best Books on Politics citation, Washington Monthly, 2002.

WRITINGS:

Running on Race: Racial Politics in PresidentialCampaigns, 1960-2000, Random House (New York, NY), 2002.

9-11: The Giant Awakens, Thomson/Wadsworth (Belmont, CA), 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Wired Politics, a textbook on the media for McGraw-Hill.

SIDELIGHTS: An assistant professor of government at Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University, Jeremy D. Mayer is also the author of two books that focus on contemporary America. In Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960-2000, Mayer presents his analysis of the presidential campaigns from the civil rights era onward, beginning with John F. Kennedy's successful run for office in 1960 through the controversial election of George W. Bush in 2000, and shows how the black vote was viewed and how it influenced each election.

Kennedy's eleventh-hour phone call to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wife near the end of his election campaign marked one of the first instances Mayer cites of an overt effort to court the black vote. According to Mayer, Republican politicians from Reagan on sidestepped methods to court an African-American electorate, instead focusing their effort on a traditional southern-based white coalition. Democrats, on the other hand, used fear tactics to retain black party loyalty in the elections of 1980, 1996, and 2000, and seemingly for good reason: following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Democrat wins were rarely if ever achieved with a white majority vote. Noting that Mayer balances his study of race with the effects of economic and other factors, Library Journal contributor Karl Helicher praised Running on Race for "skillfully investigating the impact of race on presidential politics." Citing such things as the successful television ad featuring black felon Willie Horton that was used to derail the campaign of Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis in 1988 to the role of Jesse Jackson in quashing the presidential aspirations of Walter Mondale in 1984, Mayer "does an excellent job of plumbing the elections' content for racial themes and anecdotes," according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. Dubbing Running on Race "arguably the most important political story" of the second half of the twentieth century, Alexandra Starr commented in her review for Business Week that Mayer "offers a workmanlike account of African Americans' move into the Democratic fold and the subsequent 'white flight' to the GOP."

Mayer is also the author of 9-11: The Giant Awakens, which discusses the political ramifications of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.