Sandy Maisel

Biography and cause of death of Sandy Maisel

Louis Sandy Maisel (October 23, 1945 – December 9, 2024) was an American political scientist. A longtime professor at Colby College, his work focused on U.S. elections and political parties, particularly candidate emergence, or why potential candidates do or do not run for office.

Sandy Maisel Background

Sandy Maisel was born in Buffalo, New York, on October 23, 1945, and was named for his grandfather, Louis Maisel. The son of Sidney Beck and Ruth (née Spero) Maisel, he was born into a prominent Jewish family in Buffalo. While his father graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, he took over the family’s furniture business. One uncle, Sherman J. Maisel, was an economist who served as a governor of the Federal Reserve, while another, David H. Popper, was a diplomat who served as American ambassador to Cyprus and to Chile.

Graduating from the Nichols School in Buffalo, Maisel followed his father and uncles to Harvard, graduating magna cum laude in 1967. He then attended Columbia University, earning a doctorate in political science in 1971. While in school, Maisel served as a deputy campaign coordinator for Buffalo-area U.S. representative Richard D. McCarthy in 1966, worked on McCarthy’s 1970 U.S. Senate campaign, and taught political science at Barnard College.

Sandy Maisel married Mary Lou Michael in 1967, and they raised two children. He would later marry Patrice Franko, an economics professor at Colby College, in 1994.

Sandy Maisel Career

In 1971, Maisel was hired as an assistant professor by Colby College’s department of government, and he would teach there for most of the following fifty years. While there, he was made a full professor in 1983, chaired his department for a collective 18 years, chaired the social science division from 1984 to 1987, was named the CASE Maine professor of the year in 1989, and held named professorships from 1989 until his death.

Positions he held at other institutions included visiting professorships at the University of Melbourne and Monash University in 1975, Harvard University in 1987–1988, Stanford University in 1993–1994 and 2013, and the University of London in 2002; Fulbright fellowships in the Philippines in 1998 and Brazil in 2012; and a guest scholar position with the Brookings Institution in 1999.

Continuing his political activism in his new home state, Sandy Maisel served as a delegate to the 1972 and 1976 Democratic National Conventions. He also worked on the 1972 senate campaign of William Hathaway, in which he defeated longterm incumbent Margaret Chase Smith.

In the 1978 elections, he ran for Maine’s 1st congressional district, seeking the Democratic nomination. In December 1977, the Maine Secretary of State ruled that he would be listed on the ballot as ‘Louis Maisel’, his legal name. Maisel, who had been known as ‘Sandy’ since childhood, had his legal name changed to Louis Sandy Maisel to alter how his name would appear on the ballot, deciding that was easier than challenging the secretary’s decision in court.

While he lost the primary, in 1982, he would detail the campaign, in which he visited 156 communities and drove over 20,000 miles, in a book, titled From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary. The book, for which Maisel surveyed over 250 other candidates who ran in contested 1978 congressional primaries, received generally positive reviews and was one of the first works to examine the candidate recruitment process.

After editing a series of electoral studies books for SAGE Publications, Maisel held numerous editorial positions, including sitting on the editorial boards of American Politics Quarterly, Polity, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Political Research Quarterly. He would also serve as president of the New England Political Science Association in 1994–1995, and on the council of the American Political Science Association in 1989–1991 and 2000–2002.

Authoring and editing numerous works on candidate emergence as well as U.S. elections, campaigns, and political parties, he became a noted expert in the field as well as a political commentator.

Sandy Maisel Retirement and death

Sandy Maisel retired from teaching in 2021, and in 2024, he led a $3.7 million capital campaign for the Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville. He died from intestinal cancer at his home in Rome, Maine, on December 9, 2024, at the age of 79.

Sandy Maisel Books

Sandy Maisel Author

Sandy Maisel (1982). From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary. University of Tennessee Press.
Maisel Sandy (1987). Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process. McGraw-Hill.
Bibby, John F.; Maisel, L. Sandy (1998). Two Parties—Or More?: The American Party System. Westview Press.

Sandy Maisel (2007). American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Maisel Sandy; West, Darrell M.; Clifton, Brett M. (2007). Evaluating Campaign Quality: Can the Electoral Process be Improved?. Cambridge University Press.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Yoder, Jennifer A. (2024). Elections: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Sandy Maisel Editor

Louis; Sacks, Paul M., eds. (1975). The Future of Political Parties. SAGE Publications.
Maisel, Louis, ed. (1976). Changing Campaign Techniques: Elections and Values in Contemporary Democracies. SAGE Publications.
Maisel, Louis; Cooper, Joseph, eds. (1977). The Impact of the Electoral Process. SAGE Publications.
Maisel ; Cooper, Joseph, eds. (1978). Political Parties: Development and Decay. SAGE Publications.

Maisel, Louis Sandy; Cooper, Joseph, eds. (1981). Congressional Elections. SAGE Publications.
Sandy Maisel ed. (1990). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System. Westview Press.
Maisel Sandy, ed. (1991). Political Parties & Elections in the United States: An Encyclopedia. Garland Publishing.
Sandy Maisel Shade, William G., eds. (1994). Parties and Politics in American History: A Reader. Garland Publishing.

Maisel Sandy; Forman, Ira N., eds. (2001). Jews in American Politics. Rowman & Littlefield.
Maisel, L. Sandy; West, Darrell M., eds. (2004). Running on Empty?: Political Discourse in Congressional Elections. Rowman & Littlefield.
Maisel Sandy; Berry, Jeffrey M., eds. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups. Oxford University Press.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Dineen, Hannah E., eds. (2018). Trumping Ethical Norms: Teachers, Preachers, Pollsters, and the Media Respond to Donald Trump. Routledge.

Sandy Maisel Articles

Sandy Maisel (1976). “The Sixth American Party System: Two Plus N Parties?”. Melbourne Journal of Politics. 7.
Helmer, John; Maisel, Louis (Winter 1978). “Analytical Problems in the Study of Presidential Advice: The Domestic Council Staff in Flux”. Presidential Studies Quarterly. 8 (1): 45–67.
Maisel Sandy (January 1981). “Congressional Elections in 1978: The Road to the Nomination, the Road to the Election”. American Politics Quarterly. 9 (1): 23–47.

Sandy Maisel (Fall 1983). “Teaching the Congress and Legislative Process Courses”. News for Teachers of Political Science. 39: 9–11.
Brady, David W.; Bullock III, Charles S.; Maisel, L. Sandy (January 1988). “The Electoral Antecedents of Policy Innovations: A Comparative Analysis”. Comparative Political Studies. 20 (4): 395–422.
Maisel Sandy (Winter 1993–1994). “The Platform-Writing Process: Candidate-Centered Platforms in 1992”. Political Science Quarterly. 108 (4): 671–698.

Maisel, L. Sandy (September 1995). “On the Inadequacy and Inappropriateness of the Replication Standard”. PS: Political Science & Politics. 28 (3): 467–470.
Maisel Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (February 1997). “Determinants of Candidate Emergence in U. S. House Elections: An Exploratory Study”. Legislative Studies Quarterly. 22 (1): 79–96.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Ivry, Elizabeth J. (Fall 1997). “If You Don’t Like Our Politics, Wait a Minute: Party Politics in Maine at the Century’s End”. Polity supplement. 30 (1): 15–35.

Maisel Sandy; Falkenstein, Kara E.; Quigley, Alexander M. (September 1997). “Senate Retirements and Progressive Ambition among House Members in 1996”. Congress & the Presidency. 24 (2): 31–48.
Sandy Maisel Ivry, Elizabeth J. (Winter 1997). “Rethinking Conventional Wisdom on Ticket Splitting and Fall Off”. Party Development.
Maisel Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (December 1998). “The Politics of Government-Funded Research: Notes from the Experience of the Candidate Emergence Study”. PS: Political Science & Politics. 31 (4): 811–817.
Maisel, L. Sandy (May 2003). “Pick a Name. Any Name”. The Forum. 1 (3).

Stone, Walter J.; Maisel, L. Sandy (November 2003). “The Not-So-Simple Calculus of Winning: Potential U.S. House Candidates’ Nomination and General Election Prospects”. The Journal of Politics. 65 (4): 951–977.
Stone, Walter J.; Maisel Sandy; Maestas, Cherie D. (July 2004). “Quality Counts: Extending the Strategic Politician Model of Incumbent Deterrence”. American Journal of Political Science. 48 (3): 479–495.
Maestas, Cherie D.; Maisel, L. Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (May 2005). “National Party Efforts to Recruit State Legislators to Run for the U.S. House”. Legislative Studies Quarterly. 30 (2): 277–300.
West, Darrell M.; Maisel Sandy; Clifton, Brett M. (Winter 2005–2006). “The Impact of Campaign Reform on Political Discourse”. Political Science Quarterly. 120 (4): 637–651.

Maestas, Cherie D.; Fulton, Sarah A.; Maisel, L. Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (May 2006). “When to Risk It? Institutions, Ambitions, and the Decision to Run for the U.S. House”. American Political Science Review. 100 (2): 195–208.
Fulton, Sarah A.; Maestas, Cherie D.; Maisel, L. Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (June 2006). “The Sense of a Woman: Gender, Ambition, and the Decision to Run for Congress”. Political Research Quarterly. 59 (2): 235–248.
Stone, Walter J.; Fulton, Sarah A.; Maestas, Cherie D.; Maisel, L. Sandy (January 2010). “Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Retirement, and Incumbent Quality in U.S. House Elections”. The Journal of Politics. 72 (1): 178–190.

Sandy Maisel Rouse, Justin; Wilson, Russell (2011). “Uncoventional Wisdom: The Future of Presidential Nominating Conventions”. New England Journal of Political Science. 5 (2): 230–264.
Maisel Sandy (July 2012). “The Negative Consequences of Uncivil Political Discourse”. PS: Political Science & Politics. 45 (3): 405–411.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (Fall 2014). “Candidate Emergence Revisited: The Lingering Effects of Recruitment, Ambition, and Successful Prospects among House Candidates”. Political Science Quarterly. 129 (3): 429–447.
Sandy Maisel (2016). “Why Did No One See this Coming? How Did It Happen?: The 2016 Presidential Election”. Maine Policy Review. 25 (2): 63–65.

Sandy Maisel Chapters

Sandy Maisel (1975). “Party Reform and Political Participation: The Democrats in Maine”. In Maisel, Louis; Sacks, Paul M. (eds.). The Future of Political Parties. SAGE Publications. p. 193–220.
Maisel, Louis (1976). “Public Financing and the Two-Party System: A Commentary”. In Maisel, Louis (ed.). Changing Campaign Techniques: Elections and Values in Contemporary Democracies. SAGE Publications. pp. 79–92.

Maisel, Louis; Lieberman, Gerald J. (1977). “The Impact of Electoral Rules on Primary Elections: The Democratic Presidential Primaries in 1976”. In Maisel, Louis; Cooper, Joseph (eds.). The Impact of the Electoral Process. SAGE Publications. pp. 39–80.
Cooper, Joseph; Maisel, Louis (1978). “Problems and Trends in Party Research: An Overview”. In Maisel, Louis; Cooper, Joseph (eds.). Political Parties: Development and Decay. SAGE Publications. pp. 7–30.

Maisel, Louis Sandy (1981). “Congressional Information Sources”. In Cooper, Joseph; Mackenzie, G. Calvin (eds.). The House at Work. University of Texas Press. pp. 247–274.
Maisel Sandy (1986). “Between Light and Shadow: The Political Context”. In Rapoport, Ronald B.; Abramowitz, Alan I.; McGlennon, John (eds.). The Life of the Parties: Activists in Presidential Politics. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 29–43.

Hauss, Charles S.; Maisel, L. Sandy (1986). “Extremist Delegates: Myth and Reality”. In Rapoport, Ronald B.; Abramowitz, Alan I.; McGlennon, John (eds.). The Life of the Parties: Activists in Presidential Politics. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 215–226.
Maisel, L. Sandy (1990). “The Evolution of Political Parties: Toward the 21st Century”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (1st ed.). Westview Press. pp. 307–323.
Maisel Sandy (1990). “The Incumbency Advantage”. In Nugent, Margaret Latus; Johannes, John R. (eds.). Money, Elections, and Democracy: Reforming Congressional Campaign Finance. Westview Press. pp. 119–141.

Sandy Maisel Fowler, Linda L.; Jones, Ruth S.; Stone, Walter J. (1990). “The Naming of Candidates: Recruitment or Emergence?”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (1st ed.). Westview Press. pp. 137–159.
Maisel Sandy (1992). “Quality Candidates in House and Senate Elections, from 1982 to 1990”. In Hertzke, Allen D.; Peters Jr., Ronald M. (eds.). The Atomistic Congress: An Interpretation of Congressional Change. M. E. Sharpe. pp. 141–174.
Maisel, L. Sandy (1992). “挑戦することなしに相手を倒すことはできない–分割政府1992年とその後” [You Can’t Defeat Your Opponent Without Trying: Divided Government 1992 and Beyond]. In Abe, Hitoshi (ed.). アメリカ現代政治 [Contemporary American Politics]. University of Tokyo Press.

Maisel Sandy (1994). “Competition in Congressional Elections: Why More Qualified Candidates Do Not Seek Office”. Rethinking Political Reform: Beyond Spending and Term Limits. Progressive Foundation. pp. 21–32.
Maisel Sandy (1994). “Legislative Work Load”. In Silbey, Joel H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System. Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 1143–1153.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Fowler, Linda L.; Jones, Ruth S.; Stone, Walter J. (1994). “Nomination Politics: The Roles of Institutional, Contextual, and Personal Variables”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (2nd ed.). Westview Press. pp. 145–168.
Maisel, L. Sandy (1994). “Political Parties at the Century’s End”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (2nd ed.). Westview Press. pp. 379–395.

Maisel Sandy (1994). “Political Parties in a Nonparty Era: Adapting to a New Role”. In Maisel, L. Sandy; Shade, William G. (eds.). Parties and Politics in American History: A Reader. Garland Publishing. pp. 259–269.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Ivry, Elizabeth J.; Ling, Benjamin D.; Pennix, Stephanie G. (1996). “Re-exploring the Weak-Challenger Hypothesis: The 1994 Candidate Pools”. In Klinkner, Philip A. (ed.). Midterm: The Elections of 1994 in Context. Routledge.
Maisel Sandy; Gibson, Cary T.; Ivry, Elizabeth J. (1998). “The Continuing Importance of the Rules of the Game: Subpresidential Nominations in 1994 and 1996”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (3rd ed.). Westview Press. pp. 147–169.

Maisel Sandy (1998). “Political Parties on the Eve of the Millennium”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (3rd ed.). Westview Press. pp. 356–371.
Maisel, L. Sandy (2001). “American Political Parties: Still Central to a Functioning Democracy?”. In Cohen, Jeffrey E.; Fleisher, Richard; Kantor, Paul (eds.). American Political Parties: Decline or Resurgence. CQ Press. pp. 103–121.
Maisel Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (2001). “Primary Elections as a Deterrence to Candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives”. In Galderisi, Peter F.; Ezra, Marni; Lyons, Michael (eds.). Congressional Primaries and the Politics of Representation. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 29–47.

Maisel Sandy; Stone, Walter J.; Maestas, Cherie (2001). “Quality Challengers to Congressional Incumbents: Can Better Candidates Be Found”. In Herrnson, Paul S. (ed.). Playing Hardball: Campaigning for the U.S. Congress. Prentice Hall. pp. 12–40.
Maisel, L. Sandy; Bibby, John F. (2002). “Election Laws, Court Rulings, Party Rules and Practices: Steps Toward and Away from a Stronger Party Role”. In Green, John C.; Herrnson, Paul S. (eds.). Responsible Partisanship?: The Evolution of American Political Parties Since 1950. University Press of Kansas. pp. 61–81.
Maisel Sandy; Maestas, Cherie; Stone, Walter J. (2002). “The Party Role in Congressional Competition”. In Maisel, L. Sandy (ed.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (4th ed.). Westview Press. pp. 121–138.
Maisel Sandy (2002). “Promises and Persuasion”. In Nelson, Candice J.; Dulio, David A.; Medvic, Stephen K. (eds.). Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaign Ethics. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 39–60.

Maisel, L. Sandy; Maestas, Cherie D.; Stone, Walter J. (2005). “The Impact of Redistricting on Candidate Emergence”. In Mann, Thomas E.; Cain, Bruce E. (eds.). Party Lines: Competition, Partisanship, and Congressional Redistricting. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 31–50.
Maisel Sandy; Berry, Jeffrey M. (2010). “The State of Research on Political Parties and Interest Groups”. In Maisel, L. Sandy; Berry, Jeffrey M. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–18.
Stone, Walter J.; Maisel, L. Sandy; Lowman, Trevor C. (2012). “Boehner’s Dilemma: A Tempest in a Tea Party?”. In Brewer, Mark D.; Maisel, L. Sandy (eds.). The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (5th ed.). Westview Press. pp. 213–236.
Maisel, L. Sandy (2012). “Political Parties, American”. In Coates, David (ed.). The Oxford Companion to American Politics. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. pp. 209–217.

Sandy Maisel Other works

Maisel, Louis (1972). Process and Policy in the House of Representatives: Congressional Housing Politics, 1961–1968 (PhD thesis). Columbia University.
Maestas, Cherie; Maisel, L. Sandy; Stone, Walter J. (April 1999). “Stepping Up or Stopping?: Candidate Emergence Among State Legislators” (Document). Southwest Political Science Association.
Stone, Walter J.; Hadley, Nathan J.; Peterson, Rolfe D.; Maestas, Cherie D.; Maisel, L. Sandy (September 2006). “Candidate Quality and Voter Response in U.S. House Elections” (Document). Colby College Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, Working Papers in Economics.

Source: Wikipedia