What has been the most rewarding aspect or moment in your career?
The answer to this has changed a lot over the years. I’m sure I would’ve given a different response a decade or more ago. But lately my most rewarding career moments have been watching my students take on challenges. From undergraduates pursuing honors theses and their first jobs to graduate students publishing research and completing dissertations, I have been surprised to find so much pleasure in their success. I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised, given that mentorship has been invaluable to me throughout my life. It’s easy to look back and think about how much I’ve benefited from my high school mentors, John Knight and Dan Mulhern, my college mentor, Chris Achen, and, still to this day, my graduate mentors, Janet Box-Steffensmeier and Herb Weisberg --- not to mention a bunch of other terrific folks at OSU and elsewhere. And now I feel extremely fortunate that I get to advise others. I just hope that I’m doing half as good a job as my mentors did for me.
In the position you hold now, what are the responsibilities you currently take on?
I am an academic. I am a professor of political science at Washington University in St Louis. As your readers probably know, we divide our time between teaching courses and conducting research. I enjoy both of these aspects of my job. Of course, we also take on a number of other service roles in the university and beyond. For example, I oversee the Environmental Policy major at WashU and sit on committees for teaching and learning as well as scholarships. I also serve in our professional associations and review works for journals. It keeps you busy.
What was it like working as a campaign advisor for Barack Obama's US Senate race?
Oh gosh, it’s been a while since I thought about that. It was a great experience. He’s an amazing person --- brilliant and kind. I recall the first time I heard him speak at the University of Chicago. I was so taken by his speech that I went up to him immediately afterwards and said I wanted to help out on his campaign “in any way.” Fortunately, it was just the beginning of the primary and he seemed to have little chance of winning at that time, which meant that there was a relatively small number of us on the campaign. As a result, I got to do some fun stuff like write policy briefs and discuss issues with stakeholders. Years later when I was taking my time through graduate school he ran for president and won, of course. My 90 year old nonna called me on election night; she asked: “Dino, I wonder where you would be now if you would’ve stuck with that Obama fella?” We laughed --- and cried a bit…
I also had the chance about a year before then to work on Jennifer Granholm’s gubernatorial campaign and transition in my home state of Michigan. Another brilliant and kind person --- and somebody who is continuing her public service work as the current Secretary of Energy. Those experiences were quite formative for me, and have provided me with endless questions to pursue as a political scientist. Indeed, I highly recommend that my students work on a campaign, especially at the state and local levels. It gives you perspective on our democracy and the challenges of governance.
What is some advice you'd give to students who want to pursue a career similar to yours?
Don’t! Kidding. Being an academic is terrific. It’s challenging, it’s creative, you are surrounded by smart colleagues and students. However, it is not for the faint of heart. Academia --- at least my experience in it --- is chock-full of criticism and rejection. Thus, my advice to prospective graduate students is to take this on only if you have a thick skin or can develop one. You have to be able to handle --- scratch that --- you have to thrive on rejection. Being smart is necessary but not sufficient. You also need persistence.
The second bit of advice I give is to take a little time off before committing to graduate school. Work a real job. Experience life out of school for at least a year or two. You can jump right in to graduate school, and many do, but having real life experiences can provide some focus in graduate school and help one to mature generally that pays dividends throughout your career and life.
While looking back at your career, what is something you'd want to say to your younger self?
First, I’d say, you waste a lot of time worrying about things you cannot control. Second, there will be a right hook coming at you when you’re putting on your jacket at Skully’s---duck!
What does your current research look like?
I have two major avenues of research at the moment. The first concerns campaigns and elections. Much of my work here has looked at presidential primary campaigns with a former OSU graduate student colleague, and now professor at Michigan State, Corwin Smidt. We have continually showed how early state factors like fundraising and media coverage contribute to the longrun success of primary candidates, pushing back against some findings in the literature on nomination success being rooted primarily in elite party support. Other work in this line has emphasized that candidate traits, like integrity, leadership and empathy, still contribute to vote choice even in the face of growing partisan polarization. And a recent project with some former Boston University colleagues in computer science and engineering is using internet web browsing data to map political opinions.
My other avenue of research concerns interest groups, aka lobbyists and organized interests in pursuit of political ends. Stemming from a project begun as a graduate student under Jan, we have been collecting data to explore the frequently secretive relationships among interest groups, and the effects of those relationships on their political success. We’ve found that organized interests who are particularly well connected in their political networks have outsized influence on judicial decision-making, grow the number of cosponsors on bills in Congress, and even hasten the success of presidential appointments.
In your work regarding voting behavior, how do you see it applying to our upcoming election?
That’s a tough one! To be sure, my forte is not election prediction. I spend most of my time explaining what happened after it has happened. Still challenging, but a very different ballgame. However, if I were to try to extend from my work on presidential elections --- a lot of it with Herb and some with another former OSU faculty member, Dean Lacy --- I’d say a couple of things about the 2024 presidential election.
The first is not to read much into the polls at this stage in the election. I have close to zero confidence in the matchup results this far out. We have a long spring, summer and fall of campaigning left to go --- not to mention a few trials for the presumable republican candidate. Anyways, you can safely ignore the media’s obsession with the horserace until at least after the conventions this summer.
Second, and relatedly, elections are about choosing the candidate you believe will benefit you in some way. It is a comparison between the major candidates and what you see as the future under each scenario. To the extent that the past matters, its influence is largely in how we believe the candidates will act in the future. This year we are likely to have the unusual experience of a choice between two candidates who have both held the highest office before. The election is not merely a reflection on Biden’s four years, but also on Trump’s four years, which we will be reminded of in the campaign. And it is this comparison that will be in the minds of the voters as they head to the polls in November.
One thing’s for sure, it will be exciting.
During your time here at Ohio State, which faculty member do you think had the most impact on you/which class had the most impact on you?
That’s the great thing about my time at OSU, the list here is too long to whittle down to one course or faculty member. I’d basically have to list the whole Department of Political Science while I was there, as well as some great folks in the Department of Statistics too, where I also took a bunch of courses and grabbed a certificate.
Let me see… I already mentioned my generous dissertation co-chairs, Jan and Herb. They, along with my other dissertation member, Kathleen McGraw, taught courses that changed my career and modeled for me what it means to be a teacher, mentor and researcher. Herb and especially Jan have continued to work on research projects with me and provide advice on virtually every aspect of my career. I’d be lost without them. In terms of courses, I have such great memories of voting behavior and survey research with Herb, time series and event history with Jan, public opinion and political psychology with Kathleen, as well as interest groups and a set of terrific methods and formal theory courses. I also greatly benefited from my time working in the political research lab with Herb and Marcus Kurtz, being a teaching assistant for Herb Asher, or being able to knock on Larry Baum’s door for judicial and teaching questions. Such great memories! It was just a fantastic experience top to bottom, and I owe everybody over there thanks for the guidance --- and patience too!
