This research investigation explores the relevant attitudes and campaign activities of delegates to the 1992 Republican and Democratic party presidential nominating conventions. The delegates are important because they are not only involved in the process of selecting the presidential nominees, they also mobilize and provide the resources that sustain presidential election campaigns. They not only help elect the president, they provide the context within which a new president shapes his administration. They also help define the political parties and structure the political images and the institutional bases of partisan activities for the party's rank and file as well as for the larger electorate. The activity of these partisans is usually not limited to attendance at the national nominating conventions. They are also occupied with local, county or state political affairs. The delegates include elected public officials and party officers at every level, as well as many who have no aspiration for a political career. They by no means include all of the active participants in presidential electoral politics, but they do represent virtually all types and categories of presidential campaign activists. The study employs a mail questionnaire sent to all delegates from both parties attending the nominating conventions in 1992. It is a multi-purpose study organized around three sets of objectives. The first objective is an analysis of the level of agreement between the goals of the political elite and those of the mass electorate. Second, the investigators expand previous studies of the communication networks among the individuals located at all levels of presidential political activity. Finally, they place these two objectives within the context of the transitions taking place in and around both parties. The Democrats have opted for a new generation of leadership, while the GOP is facing turnover in its leadership. The comparisons of the 1992 elites with their counterparts in the post-Carter and post-Reagan eras will be an invaluable documentation of change in contemporary politics. The data collection will be timely because the immediate baseline for monitoring changes within the parties has been established with comparable data collections in 1980, 1984 and 1988.
