Polls and Politics: The Dilemmas of Democracy

3. Presidential Leadership and the Threat to Popular Sovereignty

3 Presidential Leadership and the Threat to Popular Sovereignty Lawrence R. Jacobs and Melinda S. Jackson The issues a candidate chooses to talk about . . . give people insight into just what kind of a person that candidate is. —Robert Teeter, President Bush’s 1992 campaign manager and pollster for Richard Nixon [Governor Bush’s] proposals may seem small, but aides say Mr. Bush is using the ideas to shape his image. [A] Bush adviser said, “Issues are important as reflections of values and keys into a candidate’s leadership.” He said independent swing voters “are not taking their stands on individual issues, but their feelings about what values the candidate reflects.” —New York Times, 17 July 2000. Competitive elections are a defining characteristic of representative democracies. Competitive and inclusive elections have long been heralded as establishing an institutional avenue for holding government officials accountable to the citizenry and, specifically, for exerting pressure on politicians to be responsive to the hard, substantive policy preferences of citizens.According to enduring political science theories, 29 We acknowledge the superior research assistance of Eric Ostermeier, Melanie Burns, and Brandon Thompson. the inclination of voters to choose candidates with policy positions closest to their own generates powerful incentives for candidates to adopt positions that are favored by majorities or large groups of voters.1 When majorities favor abortion under certain circumstances, extending health insurance to women and children, or ending military engagements , candidates are expected to elbow each other out of the way to be the first to embrace these positions as their own. Hand-to-hand combat to win elections is expected to give life to the revered principle of popular sovereignty; the result is that the policy preferences of the majority drive the behavior of candidates as well as presidents and legislators who are intent on winning elections for themselves and their political party. Candidates and officeholders seeking election are not, however, simply auctioneers raffling off their policy positions to the largest number of voters. The hope that competitive elections will hold politicians accountable and transform them into eager followers of the policy preferences of citizens has crumbled as we have learned more about elections.Voters lack the time and don’t make the effort to gather information about which government policies they most prefer or to sort out candidates and government officials who come closest to their views. Put simply, there is more to life today than politics.2 In addition, candidates and officeholders are beholden to activists within political parties as their “core” group of supporters; candidates rely on activists’ time, money, and votes in the primaries and general election.3 This critical group of party activists often holds policy preferences far different from those of a majority of voters—think of the strong views of core Republicans about prohibiting abortion or those of die-hard Democrats about government health insurance for the entire population. The bottom line is that politicians are under heavy pressure to adopt policy positions preferred by party activists and, if necessary, to discount or dodge the policy positions preferred by the majority of voters.4 The policy stands of candidates and elected officials are often driven by party activists and are beyond the concern of most voters. How, you wonder, do voters reach decisions about which politicians to elect? The answer is that most voters handle the complex tasks of acquiring and processing information on policy issues by falling back on less taxing cognitive strategies—namely, by summarizing specific information about the candidates in general judgments about their personality attributes or, put most simply, image. Instead of policy issues driving voters, research now suggests that the electorate relies on personality, character, and personal image.5 30 Lawrence R. Jacobs and Melinda S. Jackson There is a critical missing link in this story: the calculated strategy of politicians. It makes logical and practical sense that ambitious politicians would appeal to voters on the basis of their personal image rather than by hard, substantive policies: projecting an appealing image offers a way to hold the loyalty of the party activists (who could revolt against compromises of intensely supported policies) while attracting wavering voters who are swayed by an appealing personality. We know very little, though, about the strategies of campaigns to manipulate candidate image. How have politicians crafted their public statements, messages, and presentations as part of calculated efforts to influence voters’ evaluations? This chapter focuses on...