UF professor to study protesters, delegates at national conventions

August 25, 2008

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Michael Heaney, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Florida, is in Denver this week to study the protesters and the delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

Heaney and professors from the University of Denver and the University of Minnesota will also be present at the Republican National Convention in September for comparative research.

The researchers are examining the differences between delegates for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and between those for John McCain and his primary opponents. They will further study the differences between the delegates to both parties.

“We are interested in understanding what shapes the political attitudes of these people and how they participate in and around the conventions,” Heaney said. “We are also very interested in the degree to which the supporters of competing candidates in the primary are able to reconcile their differences by the convention.”

Heaney has a media pass with access to the convention center in Denver.

Heaney earned a doctoral degree in political science and public policy from the University of Chicago in 2004 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University in 2004-2005. He has been a UF faculty member since 2005. He was on leave in 2007-2008 while working as a Congressional Fellow for the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce under Chairman John Dingell.