Analyzing Televised Political Debates in the 2004 Election Cycle

Pre-election autumn of 2004 was an exciting season for those interested in televised political debates. The presidential face-offs featured candidates with starkly different views, personalities, leadership strengths, and policies. This contest would not be Tweedledum and Tweedledee dueling over means, but a clash over the fundamental direction of the nation. Further, Democratic challenger John Kerry's campaign team was determined to make the debates about policy, and not just personality or leadership character, although they also would have to take on those issues to keep Senator Kerry in the race (see Gibson, 2004). The 2000 presidential race had made clear how much difference just a few votes could make to an election's outcome. Our University of Missouri colleague, William Benoit reminded people via the popular media of how few minds the debates would need to change to make an electoral difference: I will say up front that many times what debates do is to reinforce the existing attitudes of those who are strong partisans already. But debates do sometimes change vote preferences and as we learned in 2000 you don't have to change the votes of millions to change the outcome of elections. It turned out that with 537 additional votes in Florida Al Gore would have won. (quoted in Sawyer, 2004, p. 1) The New York Times noted that, since 1976, when incumbent President Gerald Ford challenged contender Jimmy Carter and televised presidential debates became de rigueur, three incumbents (Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, and George H. W. Bush in 1992) had been turned out of office; by comparison, in the 80 years prior to Ford's challenge to Carter, only two incumbent presidents (William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover), both with extraordinary extenuating circumstances, had lost their bids for re-election (Beschloss, 2004). The Times claimed that Carter later said that, were it not for televised debates, he never could have defeated an incumbent president (Beschloss, 2004). Furthermore, reporters were likening the President George W. Bush-Kerry debate matchup most closely to Carter Reagan in 1980, when that campaign's single debate helped the challenger upset an incumbent president with trouble in the economy and Middle East (Harwood & Cummings, 2004). The stakes were high. And this time not only political reporters paid attention. Viewership remained strong throughout the Bush-Kerry debate series, eclipsing estimates for both the 1996 and 2000 presidential debates (Harwood & Cummings, 2004). In fact, the debates were viewed by a larger portion of the electorate than any debates since 1992, with more viewers watching the third debate than the second in spite of the fact that it competed with Yankees-Red Sox and Cardinals-Astros playoff games (Bennet & Rutenberg, 2004; Hartlaub, 2004; Harwood & Cummings, 2004). Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, called the presidential debates by far the most successful new television show of the fall season. If nothing else, it really kind of yanked the American populace, the citizens of the country, to attention on this stuff: even if you weren't watching the debates, you were hearing about them, and the high drama gave these things a buzz they haven't had since at least '92. (quoted in Bennet & Rutenberg, 2004, p. A20) A strong performance in the debates was billed as Kerry's last major chance to change the race's dynamic and win (Polman, 2004). The plot thickened after Bush performed poorly in the first debate, while Kerry was strong on both command of policy detail and "acting presidential" (see Ignatius, 2004). Polls and pundits called Kerry the clear winner, and his approval ratings jumped (see Lorente & Gibson, 2004). "'We didn't have to tell [Bush] he screwed up,' one longtime confidant told the Daily News yesterday, describing Bush as privately chagrined and mad at himself for his snarky performance. …