Michael Platt, James S. Riepe University Professor, says that having a celebrity endorsement in politics can backfire. “Maybe it’s a celebrity that you don’t like or is not aligned with you politically.” Plus, he adds, there’s the “vampire effect,” where a celebrity who is too famous shifts the attention away from the candidate he or she is endorsing. 

Josef Wegner, Egyptologist and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures, comments on the technology used to build the Great Sphinx of Giza. “The Egyptians were masters of limestone masonry, and their sculptors would have easily been able to carve at this scale,” he says.

“We have a lot of good research and political communications that suggest that the types of people who would be most exposed to conventions are the most politically engaged people, the types of people who would probably be the most certain to vote and the most certain to vote for specific candidates,” says Marc Meredith, a professor in the Department of Political Science. 

Loren Goldman, Associate Professor of Political Science, has studied the use of hope as a political tool through history. He says that Democrats “embracing the language of hope” allows them to “claim the mantle of the future,” adding that it positions Harris as someone inheriting the legacy of President Barack Obama and contrasts her with her opponent, Donald Trump.