Issue ownership in primary and general presidential debates.

• Author: Benoit, William L.

Televised presidential debates have become a fixture in presidential campaigns (Friedenberg, 1994). General campaign de bates have been held in 8 general campaigns (1960, 1976-2000) and primary debates have occurred in 13 presidential elections, beginning in 1948 when Republicans Thomas Dewey and Harold Stassen debated on-radio in Oregon (Benoit, Pier, Brazeal, McHale, Klyukovski, & Airne, 2002). Presidential de bates have also been held in other countries (see, e.g., Coleman, 2000).

There are several reasons political debates are important campaign events. First, debates present the leading candidates together, discussing the same topics. This facilitates comparison of candidates by voters. A second reason debates matter is their length: 90 minutes for general election debates (after the four 60 minute debates of 1960). This provides voters with an extended opportunity to hear the candidates. Although there are more television spots than debates, each debate is far longer than any individual ad (which are mostly 30 seconds in recent campaigns). Third, although the number who watch debates varies, millions of voters watch general debates. The number of primary debates (22 in 2000) helps make up for the smaller audiences for those events. The size of the audience for presidential debates means they have a capacity for influence. Furthermore, the face-to-face nature of debates provides candidates a chance to reply to opponents (refuting allegedly false attacks, puncturing unreasonable claims); such clash could be beneficial for voters. Finally, although candidates prepare extensively for debates, questions or statements from opponents that have not been anticipated can offer voters a more spontaneous (and possibly less contrived) impression of the candidates than they can obtain from other messages. The Racine Group (2002) concluded that "while journalists and scholars display varying degrees of cynicism about the debates, few deny that viewers find them useful and almost no one doubts that they play an important role in national campaigns" (p. 901). Metaanalysis confirms that debates can instill issue knowledge, influence perceptions of the candidates' character, and influence vote preference (Benoit, Hansen, & Verser, 2003). Clearly, political debates merit scholarly attention.

We have begun to accumulate a store of knowledge about presidential debates (see, e.g., Benoit & Wells, 1996; Bishop, Meadow, & Jackson-Beeck, 1979; Carlin & McKinney, 1994; Coleman, 2000; Friedenberg, 1994; Hellweg, Pfau, & Brydon, 1992; Hinck, 1993; Jamieson & Birdsell, 1988; Kraus, 1962, 1979, 2000; Lemert et al., 1991; Martel, 1983; Racine Group, 2002; Swerdlow, 1984, 1987). We know, for example, that presidential debates focus more on policy or issues than on character or image. General debates (1960, 1976-2000), on average, discuss policy in 75% of statements and character in the remaining 25%; primary debates (1948, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1980-2000) stress character more than general debates, but still policy accounts for 63% of utterances and character 37% in primary debates (Benoit et al., 2002). However, we do not have a clear understanding of which specific issues are addressed in these messages.

Understanding the issues discussed in debates is important because evidence indicates that issues are important to voters. Benoit (2003) reported public opinion poll data from 1976-2000 (every year from which data were available) reveals that more voters report that the most important determinant of their vote for president is issues rather than character. Content analysis of presidential primary and general debate messages found that candidates who discussed policy more than their opponents were significantly more likely to win the election (Benoit, 2003). Furthermore, Holbert, Benoit, and McKinney (2002) found that the most important variable which distinguished supporters of Bush and Gore before watching a presidential debate in 2000 was ideology; after watching the debate, the most important discriminator was how close of Bush's and Gore's positions on the issues were to the viewer's own issue position. Thus, issues generally, and issues in debates in particular, merit scholarly attention. Of course, causality is difficult to establish, but these data on voter preferences and election outcome show that issues discussed in debates merit scholarly inquiry.

ISSUE OWNERSHIP THEORY

Petrocik's (1996) issue ownership theory is potentially very useful because it makes predictions about the content (policy or issue topics) that are likely to be emphasized in political campaign messages like debates. He posits that the two major political parties "own" different sets of issues. This means that over time, the Democratic and Republican parties have come to be associated with a set of issues and voters tend to believe that one party or the other is better at dealing with a given issue. Opinions are divided on every issue (there is no issue on which all voters believe that one party can best handle), but, for example, the Democratic Party "owns" such issues as education, health care, and Social Security; the Republican Party, on the other hand, "owns" such issues as national defense, crime, and foreign policy. Petrocik explains that party ownership tends to be a "long term" phenomenon (p. 827), that "issue handling reputations emerge from ... history" and are "regularly tested and reinforced" (p. 828). He provides an example of this process:

When ... President George Bush opposed the 1991 Civil Rights Restoration Act as an inappropriate complication of business decisions, he expressed a judgment that the concerns of blacks were less weighty than those of businessmen. It was a trade-off that might have come out differently if both blacks and businessmen were equally important GOP constituencies, or, with the existing constituencies, if the President had been a Democrat. The global result of such choices is that the parties confirm their reputations for particular concerns. In this case, the GOP "proved" that it would not "handle" racial discrimination. (p. 828)

Politicians, as they enact their political party's ideology, tend to reinforce issue handling reputations.

Petrocik also explains that there is a relationship between the characteristics of a political party's adherents and issue handling reputation: The "linkage between a party's issue agenda and the social characteristics of its supporters is quite strong" (p. 828) and recursive: Groups (e.g., business, labor, or minorities) are likely to affiliate with a particular party because it tends to promote their interests and in turn that party promotes those interests in order to attract and maintain these supporters. So, issue handling reputations reflect the nature of a party's constituency and constitute relatively...