This article examines the 1996 press releases issued by Republican presidential nominee candidates during the invisible primary and the subsequent stories generated by these press releases in newspapers. We systematically examine how campaigns structure their messages, which messages are transmitted by the press to the voting public, and what factors influence the transmission of the campaign's message. We find that campaign organizations disseminate a variety of messages to the media. Our analysis demonstrates that national media organizations are most receptive to informative (logistical) messages disseminated by candidates who are at the head of the field and most hostile to substantive (issue-oriented) messages regardless of their campaign of origin. By contrast, the state press is most open to substantive messages issued by lower-tier candidates. It appears from our results that the media, more than the campaign, bear the responsibility for the emphasis on the horse race.We focus our analysis on the role of both media norms and routines and the campaign process itself in shaping the campaign information environment. Determining which campaign messages are more likely to reach the public through the news media provides insight into the effect each of these institutions has on the election process; specifically we should arrive at a better understanding of how campaigns and news organizations interact to structure the campaign agenda. In the next section we discuss the theoretical underpinnings and research pertaining to the nature of campaign messages, media norms and routines, and the interplay between them.
Theory and Evidence
The Invisible PrimaryThe collapse of the primary season has made the invisible primary 2 an increasingly critical period for campaigns. It
This article explores the negative campaign messages made by presidential nomination candidates on their opponents. Using a compilation of national and state media accounts of candidate attack activity from the 1992 Democratic nomination race, we seek to answer the questions --are the intermediated attacks made by presidential nomination candidates random events or are they predictable consequences of measurable variables ? Moreover, when candidates attack, who is their likely target? We find that intermediated candidate attacks can be predicted based on a number of conditions. Among these conditions are competitive positioning, reward factors and media-related conditions. Moreover, the general foci of attacks appear to be limited to attacking those who are competitively in the top tier. Attacks vary both in their frequency and in their nature depending on the competitive stage of the campaign. The systematic evaluation of these opponent-focused negative messages and their role in candidate strategy and voter evaluation is important for understanding presidential nomination politics and strategic communication in elections in general.
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