Bill Benoit analyzes first debates of the 2008 campaign

Republicans likely to focus on policy, character issues during their first televised debate

The 2008 Republican presidential contenders squared off at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in the first nationally televised debate of the campaign season on May 3, 2007. A University of Missouri-Columbia researcher, who analyzed the debate, said GOP candidates focused on policy and character issues.

"Past research finds that candidates from both major political parties tend to emphasize policy over character, but Democrats are likely to stress policy more and character less than Republicans," said William Benoit, professor, Department of Communication, and one of the nation's leading experts on political campaigns. "We should look to see how much the Republicans address these two topics in their first debate."

He also observed the tone of the forum and whether the GOP candidates are positive or negative in their remarks. Benoit wanted to see if the Republican hopefuls are critical of the current administration.

"Given President Bush's low popularity, it will be interesting to see how much fellow Republicans distance themselves or even criticize him," he said.

The Democrats held their first debate on April 26, 2007, and according to Benoit, discussed policy 72% of the time; 28% of the discussion was devoted to character issues.

Benoit said that 21% of the statements by Democrats were attacks and that most were targeted toward Bush.

The Republicans, like the Democrats, were mostly positive (80% positive, 17% attacks, 14% defenses). Comparing just positive and negative statements, the Democrats did attack more than the Republicans (21% to 17%).

Like the Democrats, these Republicans mostly focused on policy, 66% to 34% character. However, as often is the case, the Republicans emphasized character more (34% to 28%) and policy less (66% to 72%) than Democrats.

Covering a 56-year period (1948 through 2004), Benoit has analyzed the statements of presidential hopefuls during broadcast debates. There are several common qualities, he said. Among them:

• Most feature positive statements (64% of the time), less attacks (31%) and fewer defenses (4%).
• Primary debates are traditionally more positive than general election debates (57% are positive).
• Contenders tend to attack the front-runner more than other candidates. "This could explain why Ronald Reagan in 1980 proposed the 'golden rule,' which was: thou shalt not attack your fellow-Republicans," Benoit said. "As the front-runner, the other Republican candidates tended to constantly attack Reagan."
• Candidates are more likely to attack others from the same party. For example, Democrats will attack Democrats, and Republicans will criticize Republicans. "After all, they have to defeat members of their own political party to win the nomination," Benoit said. "However, 2004 was an exception as Democrats in their primary campaign attacked President Bush more than they attacked each another."
• Presidential primary debates stress policy more than character (68 to 32%). The emphasis on policy is even higher in general debates (75 to 25%).
• News coverage of presidential primary debates focuses on the negative. Newspaper stories mention attacks more often than candidates make attacks in debates; when candidates make positive statements, reporters are less likely to mention such statements in their stories.

Benoit has been a MU faculty member since 1984. He is one of the 10 most published scholars of all time in the field of communication studies. He is the author of several books on political campaigns, including Communication in Political Campaigns (2007). He also coordinates the website Political Campaigns.

Links:

Bill Benoit
Department of Communication
PoliticalCampaigns.missouri.edu