Abstract
The county superintendent of schools and the school district superintendent are very different in one particular way. Most county superintendents must face an election to receive their positions while district superintendents are selected by their governing boards. How do county superintendents get elected? There is very little literature available on the management of political campaigns. Therefore, this study will assist county superintendents, and those aspiring to become county superintendents, to better understand political campaigns. Purpose. (1) To develop a model, a conceptual schema, which provides the essential strategies and elements of a political campaign and how those elements fit together. (2) To analyze the campaigns of the county superintendents who were involved in political campaigns in the 1990 elections and determine to what degree the political strategies and elements they used were congruent with the developed model. The organization of this dissertation was reflective of both the development of the model and the testing of the model. Methodology. The research design of this study involved two phases. Phase one was the use of literature research to develop the model. Material was gathered from primary and secondary sources who had either observed or been involved in political campaigns. Phase two involved testing the model. The population of the fifty-three elected county superintendents was reviewed. Of the fifty-three elected county superintendents, twenty-two participated in a political campaign during the 1990 elections. Structured telephone interviews with those twenty-two county superintendents were conducted using interview questions based on sections of the developed model. The data was recorded by code and by variable on matrixes and presented in tabular and narrative format. The analysis of the congruence of the data collected with the model developed was presented. Findings. (1) A coherent model or conceptual schema was developed from the political science literature. The three major tasks depicted in the model which confront all political candidates are: an analysis of the political situation, the development of the campaign strategy, and the running of the campaign. (2) The strategies and elements that were used by the county superintendents in the campaigns in 1990 were congruent with the developed model.