announcer: election 1976, a case study. your host is political analyst richard scanlon. richard: with me here in washington today, mr. stephen hess of the brookings institution and professor howard penniman of georgetown university. this is the first of a series of programs that are going to extend over the full period of the campaign until beyond the election in november in our bicentennial political year. what we want to do is to bring a picture of the american electoral process. we will have special programs dealing with parties and the media, campaign technique and polling and the rest. what we are really aiming to do is to give you a picture of the way in which we select our american president. and how 215 million or 220 million americans can provide every four years a process by which leadership can be developed and transferred over these 200 years of american history. what we hope to do is to bring you discussions of these various aspects of the electoral campaign an