The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event, Third Edition

1. The Media and American Politics: An Overview

Chapter 1 The Media and American Politics: In Ule"iel BE FOR E THE 1970s, studies ofelections and voting behaviorbypolitical scientists paid relatively little attention to the role of the media in elections in the United States. The landmark study of electoral behavior , The American Voter (1960), devoted few pages to the mass media or their impact on election outcomes. Most of the early studies concluded that the media's effects were not of primary importance and focused on party loyalty and attitudes about the issues to explain electoral choice (Patterson 1980, vii). The growth of television news coverage in the 1960s and increased media interest in the presidential nominating process, particularly in direct primary elections, stimulated research on the role of the media in electoral politics. Although Florida established the direct primary for the selection of national convention delegates in 1904, followed closely by Wisconsin in 1905 (Ranney 1977, 4), the presidential nominating processwas dominated bypartyleaders until recently. The existence of a relatively short primary campaign in less than half of the states did not promote the democratic nature of the process to the extent that early-twentieth-century progressives had hoped. Rather, party leaders, although periodically inconvenienced by primary elections , continued to dominate the nomination of presidential candidates through the caucus and convention system utilized in most states (Crotty andJackson 1985, 13-18). In the 1960s the direct primary assumed a more prominent role in the nomination of presidential candidates and began to pose a challenge to the control exercised byparty leaders through the caucus and convention system. Severalfactors contributed to the democratization of the nominating process. Presidential candidates, particularly those who lacked the support of party chieftains in important states, increasingly attempted to demonstrate their voter appeal in primary 4 Chapter 1 The Media and American Politics elections. Although early attempts by Harold Stassen in 1948 and Estes Kefauver in 1952 to gain their parties' nomination via primary elections proved unsuccessful, the increased emphasis on the primaries by presidential candidates contributed to their becoming the dominant component of the nominating process. It was not long before presidential candidates had first to demonstrate their voter appeal in primary elections (Davis 1967, 3-5). The growth of media coverage, particularly television, was largely responsible for turning presidential primaries into a uniquely American political Olympic contest. Although common now, comprehensive television coverage of the presidential primaries dates only to the 1960s. Television provides a viable, cost-effective alternative to the face-to-face contact between candidates and voters previously considered so important in American political campaigns. Moreover, by providing presidential hopefuls with a means of bypassing the party leadership and appealing directly to ordinary citizens, television focused the nominating process on the candidates themselves rather than on the activities ofpolitical party leaders (Davis 1967, 5-9). Austin Ranney concludes that "the advent of television as the principal source of political reality for most Americans has altered the political game profoundly, perhaps more profoundly than all the parties' rules changes and new state and federal laws put together." Furthermore, "it has had an enormous impact on the kinds of persons who become successful politicians and on how they conduct their business" (Ranney 1983,89). An additional democratizing factor in the presidential nominating process was the series of party rules changes undertaken by the national Democratic partybeginning in 1968 and continuing into the 1980s (Crotty andJackson 1985, chap. 2). The new rules were designed to increase the impact of citizen participation and to limit the role of party leaders at all levels of the delegate selection process. The new party rules succeeded in further diminishing the role of party leaders and centering attention on the primary elections. During the period from 1968 to 1980 the presidential primary was very much in vogue, and the number of states selecting national convention delegates by primary elections grew dramatically. (Democratic party primaries increased in number from seventeen to An Overview 5 thirty-five and selected 72 percent of the 1980 convention delegates. Republican primaries grew in number from sixteen to thirty-four and selected 76 percent of the 1980 convention delegates [Crotty and Jackson 1985, 63].) But not everyone viewed the primary movement as a positive development . By 1980 party leaders and elected officials were being excluded in increasing numbers from the national conventions, which now did little more than ratify the results of the primary elections. Dissatisfaction increased to the point that...