With pundits claiming that conventions are an anachronism, Sheckels' book disproves that claim. By placing convention speeches within the larger political context and viewing the conventions as a unified message to address the context, this study clearly makes the case for the importance of conventions to shape the fall campaign. This book's unique approach also provides a new direction for political communication research.

Sheckels aptly situates each quadrennial political convention in its own social and political context, examining not only convention speeches, but the confluence of factors conditioning convention messaging in all its myriad forms. He gives equal time to the discourses of competing political parties and their agents, recognizing the changing functions of conventions across decades and probing the diverse influences of television coverage, external events, and candidate foibles. By treating each political party convention as is own unique text, replete with dominant tropes and styles, Sheckels celebrates the rhetorical dynamism and fluidity of American political party conventions throughout the years. This book will make an excellent and informative reader for classes in political communication, media and politics, contemporary American public address, and campaign communication.