Published: October 07, 2008 01:59 pm      

Lichtman to discuss ‘Keys to The White House’ in Lou Watkins Lecture Wednesday at ECU

Ada — Allan J. Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., will discuss “The Keys to the White House” Wednesday night [OCT. 8] during the annual Lou Watkins Endowed Lectureship at East Central University.

He will talk about his “keys” or questions for explaining and predicting presidential election results at 6:30 p.m. in the Estep Multimedia Center on the first floor of the University Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Lichtman also delivered the 2004 Watkins Lecture.

The lectureship honors Lou Watkins, former chair of ECU’s political science department, and brings recognized authorities to ECU to address subjects of public interest at the local, state or national level.

Lichtman’s areas of scholarship include the American presidency, conservative politics, quantitative methodology and voting rights and redistricting. His books include “Prejudice and Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928,” “Your Family History,” “Ecological Inference” and “The 13 Keys to the Presidency.” His most recent books are “The Keys to the White House: 2008 Edition” and “White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement.”

He was named the 1992-93 Scholar-Teacher of the Year, American University’s highest faculty honor, and has provided commentary for all major U.S. broadcasting networks and cable companies, the Voice of America and many foreign broadcast companies, including BBC and CBC. He worked with Dan Rather as a CBS consultant during the impeachment of President Clinton, was the 2004 election-night analyst for BBC Worldwide and the political analyst for CNN Headline News.

His more than 100 scholarly and popular articles have appeared in The American Historical Review, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is a columnist for the Montgomery Gazette and has been an expert witness in more than 75 voting rights and redistricting cases.

As an expert for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, he discovered the vast disparity in ballot rejection rates for blacks and whites in Florida’s 2000 presidential election.

Watkins taught at ECU from 1980 until she and her husband, former U.S. Rep. Wes Watkins, moved from Ada in 1991. She became chair of ECU’s political science department in 1985. She is president of World Expert Services Inc. and is a member of the Board of Regents for the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges.

The lecture is made possible with funds from the Lou Watkins Endowed Lectureship and with the support of the East Central University Foundation Inc.