Presidential Candidate Images.

• Author: Morris, Eric
• Position: Book Review

Presidential Candidate Images. Edited by Kenneth L. Hacker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004; pp. vi + 249. $80.00 cloth; $32.95 paper.

Kenneth Hacker's collection of essays and research about the formation, stability, content, and impact of presidential candidate images provides vibrant insights, and some clear conclusions, about how candidate images function. In following up Hacker's (1995) compendium, Candidate Images in Presidential Elections, it seeks to address criticisms related to the clarity of the image construct, the modification of image over time, the lack of empirical data, and the unity of the work. While several chapters are rewritten from the earlier book, new authors, new perspectives, and new data abound. This offering thus succeeds, in varying degrees, to address each of the above, resulting in an interesting, if unresolved, discussion of image from a variety of perspectives. This collection's balance between creative insight and research methodology makes it a valuable read for anyone interested in studying political communication, and most chapters would be accessible and engaging for practitioners as well.

Several chapters explore the boundary, or lack thereof, between the image construct and its foil, the issue construct. Allan Louden and Kristen McCauliff discuss candidate authenticity, emphasizing the impact of issue positions on candidate image. They argue that authenticity is the degree to which candidates are perceived to be true to themselves, using this concept to explain President William Clinton's success despite low trust ratings. Timothy Stephen, Teresa Harrison, William Husson and David Albert present a longitudinal factor analysis of images for winning and losing candidates, providing strong evidence for the importance of perceived attentiveness in interpersonal style. The factor analysis facilitates a multiple regression analysis that suggests the relative importance of interpersonal image factors to issue factors in predicting outcomes. One of Hacker's own chapters argues for a "dual processing model" of image and issue perceptions. He positions this model as closer to lay epistemic theory (LET) than the elaboration likelihood or heuristic-systematic models. The case for continual, mutual influence between image and issue is well established; the nine propositions concluding this chapter are well supported and intuitive.

In a sense, however, such claims of mutual influence provide support to...