COMMUNICATION PATTERNS in PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES 1912-2000: Knowing the Rules of the Game By
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COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES 1912-2000: Knowing the Rules of the Game by Kathleen E. Kendall The Joan Shorenstein Center I PRESS POLITICS Research Paper R-19 June 1998 IIPUBLIC POLICY Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES 1912-2000: Knowing the Rules of the Game by Kathleen E. Kendall Research Paper R-19 June 1998 Copyright © 1998, President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES 1912-2000: KNOWING THE RULES OF THE GAME by Kathleen E. Kendall On opponents to the presidential primaries: nomination process, and selected the nominee at the national nominating conventions. As colum- “[Their] feeling is that politics is a game, that the nist Jules Witcover said, it was “rare when [the people should simply sit on the bleachers as spec- primaries] were critical” (Forum, Dec. 9, 1997); tators, and that no appeal lies to the people from Asher (1992) mentions the primaries of 1960 and the men who, for their own profit, are playing the 1964 as two such rare occasions. “Importance” game.” in this reasoning has meant attaining the requi- Theodore Roosevelt, March 8, 1912 site number of delegates to achieve nomination at the convention. (2) Primaries first became Instituted as a sweeping reform in American important in 1972, when the rule reforms of the politics, the presidential primaries were con- McGovern-Fraser Commission adopted by the ceived in passionate democratic debate. Arguing Democratic Party shifted power away from the that “the power to nominate is more important party leaders and to the candidates and voters than the power to elect” (Eaton, 1912, pp. 109- (Bartels, 1988).1 (3) Media coverage of the pri- 112), reformers led by Wisconsin Senator Robert maries changed with the advent of television, M. LaFollette, Sr. attempted to take power away leading to a new focus on the campaign as a from the party bosses and return it to the voters. drama (Aldrich,1980; Gronbeck, 1989; Bennett, The presidential primaries are a twentieth cen- 1996). (4) Another big change produced by televi- tury phenomenon which grew out of the late sion was that the candidates’ personal traits nineteenth century tradition of party primaries rather than their ideas became the focus of on the local level. They are distinctly different media attention (Bennett, 1996; Gronbeck, 1989). from general elections because they are multi- This paper will argue that prior research on ple, serial, and intraparty, with many candidates the primaries underplays the power of language competing rather than just two. to create perceptions. Throughout the 1912-1992 This study examines the distinctive patterns period, the candidates and the media construct- of communication in presidential primaries, ed a verbal context in which the primaries were focussing especially on 1912, the first year of of great importance. Those who ignore the pub- numerous primaries, and then primaries at lic environment in which these events took twenty-year intervals after 1912: 1932, 1952, place, the active efforts of candidates to inform 1972 and 1992. Part I reports on the consistent and persuade through speeches and debates and patterns of communication found in primaries political advertisements, and the media cover- from their earliest days through 1992. Part II age of the primaries miss a major part of the turns to communication in the 1996 primaries story. An examination of candidate messages and the future, examining (a) the extent to and news coverage of the primaries gives a new which the communication patterns or rules perspective. used by candidates and the media in the past It is certainly true that the rule changes which illuminate the 1996 primaries and those of the took effect in 1972 increased the power of the future, and (b) proposals for change. primaries particularly because there were so many primaries, because the results bound the Part I: delegates rather than being advisory, and because Consistent Communication Patterns most states now listed the names of the candi- dates on the ballot. The sheer number of pri- The conventional wisdom about the presiden- maries (23 in 1972, 31 in 1976, etc.) stimulated tial primaries contains the following premises. the development of a “professional consulting (1) Before 1972, the primaries were not routinely cadre,” because with so many more primaries, important, as the political parties controlled the “the candidates needed more help” (Witcover, Forum, Dec. 9, 1997). However, this paper will Kathleen E. Kendall was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center in the Fall of 1997. She is Associate Professor of argue Communication at the University at Albany, State • that there is evidence of the primaries’ University of New York, BA119, Albany, NY 12222. She importance at many points in the 1912-1972 can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. period, long before the McGovern-Fraser Kathleen E. Kendall 1 Commission reforms took effect in 1972 in these outcomes, it is clear that the enthusi- • that the tendencies of the media to cover the asm and commitment to one candidate devel- primaries as a dramatic conflict or horse race, oped in the primary period does not automatical- and to focus on the personal traits of the candi- ly transfer to a rival candidate. date were present throughout the period studied; The first year of numerous primaries was they were not new in the Age of Television 1912; there were between 13 and 21 primaries • that a “powerful candidate” model based on that year, depending upon how “primary” was candidate innovations often supplanted a “pow- defined.3 Candidates and media approached them erful media” model in the primaries. much like the fall elections, with the assump- tion that they would be decisive. Republican Importance of the Primaries, 1912-1972 candidates President William Howard Taft, for- mer President Theodore Roosevelt, and Senator The presidential primaries were very “impor- Robert LaFollette, and Democrats Governor tant” nationally in four of the five periods stud- Woodrow Wilson and Speaker Champ Clark ied (1912, 1952, 1972, and 1992), and of regional clashed in most of the primaries, travelling from importance in 1932. Primaries mattered to the state to state giving speeches or having their sur- candidates and the media in all of these years, rogates speak for them, followed by an avid press and, by extension, to the voters, in ways not contingent. Front page stories were the rule. found in delegate counts alone. Candidates used When Roosevelt, in spite of winning all but two the primaries to differentiate themselves from of the 1912 Republican primaries (North Dakota their opponents, to prove their vote-getting and a divided vote in Massachusetts), was shunt- power to the party leaders, to build popular sup- ed aside by the Taft-ruled party convention, port, and to shape the way the media construct- reformers saw that the primary system did not ed the news agenda. Some candidates disap- work as they had intended: the party leaders still peared in the primaries, knocked out by an early chose the candidate, ignoring the primaries. As defeat. Others were so bruised by the process head of the Republican Party, Taft knew the that though nominated, they entered the fall rules, and changed the rules: Taft-controlled election season at a distinct disadvantage. state party chairmen simply replaced the Patterson (1980) and others have found that Roosevelt delegates who had been elected in the among people who pay attention to the pri- primaries with slates of Taft delegates. Roosevelt maries, the views formed at that time remain railed in vain at this theft of his delegates, and consistent in the fall. after the convention he founded the Bull Moose When primaries were contested, the media Party. The resulting split in the Republican Party found them well-suited to their need for stories led to the election of a Democrat, Woodrow about famous people and conflict, and covered Wilson, in the fall. After an increase in the num- them heavily. The way the media portrayed the ber of primaries to 23 in 1916, the reform candidates, parties, and issues during the long impulse faded, and the primaries declined in primary period influenced the way the public importance and number; from 1924 through viewed these matters in the fall. A party’s image 1968, only approximately one-third of the states might be harmed, for example, if the primary had primaries (Busch, 1997). coverage revealed its “serious rifts and associa- The next year examined was 1932. While the tions with extremism” (Ceaser and Busch, 1997, 1932 primaries were of diminished national p. 83). importance, they were of clear regional impor- The voters were told from the start that the tance to candidates, media, and voters. Unlike primaries were a chance for “the voice of the 1912, the candidates did not actively campaign. people” to be heard. When parties ignored the Their planning for the primaries, while rigorous primary outcomes, another power of the pri- (particularly in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s case) was maries became evident: they aroused and built a piece of their overall strategy to win party dele- expectations in the voters which, if ignored, gates in state conventions, primaries, and at the might cause problems in party unity. In 1912 and national convention. There were only a few 1952, for example, the primary winners and states in which the main Democratic candidates, frontrunners Theodore Roosevelt and Estes former Governor Al Smith and Governor Kefauver2 were cast aside by the party conven- Franklin D. Roosevelt, competed on the same tions, and other nominees were selected instead. primary ballot (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, In both cases, the parties lost resoundingly in the Massachusetts, and California), and only one fall elections.