By Akeem Mellis
Students, faculty and visitors from around the local community were treated to a revealing look at various aspects of the current presidential race including why presidential debates matter, how the use of the Internet can make or break a campaign and why being on-message is important to the success of presidents.
These were the issues discussed at the second panel of the first major symposium of the Educate ’08 program, “From Votes to Victory: Winning and Governing the White House in the 21st Century.” Sponsored by the Cultural Center and the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, this panel, which was chaired by Rosanna Perotti, a political science professor and the director of academic programming for Educate ’08, and the panel included experts on the history of the presidential debates, the media and the framing of race and gender in politics.
David Greenberg, a professor of both journalism and history at Rutgers University, said that despite the general yearning for debates to go back to the style of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, those debates were filled with ad hominem attacks, which appealed to the prejudices and emotions of the people of the time.
Greenberg contested the idea that President John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election based on visuals since polls showed that those who listened to the debate were almost split in their support for him and for Vice President Richard Nixon. He then criticized on today’s debates, ranging from the events being “press conferences rather than real debates” to being a “show business nature.”
But Greenberg reassured the audience about the viability of the debates. “I don’t think we should be too cynical about the debates,” he said. He wrapped up by stating how simply watching them helps our society. “These discussions engage people to vote…the experience of watching the debate serves admirable to thicken our commitments to public life.”
St. John’s College Professor of Government and Politics Diane Heith spoke about the impact of the Internet in this year’s presidential election, compared to its effects four years ago, during the last election cycle.
“The story of this campaign is how candidates are using the Internet to spread their message,” she said.
With the transmission of information becoming more diverse, candidates have made Web presence a requirement, Heith concluded. The candidates’ Web site, the biggest tool they have, gives them the best chance of reaching out to younger voters, said Heith. She noted that while all major candidates have the “basic requirements” on their pages, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) have been able to garner the biggest online attention.
“If you think about the individuals who support [the candidates], I think we can credit the Internet for their support,” Heith said.
The framing of race, gender and ethnicity was the focus of the speech given by Lori Han, the next lecturer on the panel, who is the chair of the political science department at Chapman University. She conducted a study of every 2008 presidential campaign story completed by the New York Times done in a one year period from January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2008.
The results of her study showed that coverage on former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) focused mostly on religion, while Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) failed to get a lot of coverage compared to Democratic frontrunners Obama and Clinton, whose coverage consisted of “the horse race” aspect of campaign coverage.
Han still said that there was a bit of a gender bias when it came to coverage on Clinton. “It’s tough to separate the gender factor from the Clinton factor,” she said.
Martha Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University, commented on the papers presented during the panel. She noted the dramatic increase in public exposure to the president that Americans have.
“We didn’t see the president the way we do now,” Kumar said.
Kumar also examined how a president still has control over the national agenda, though he must talk about issues he’d rather not discuss. Kumar singled out President George Bush.
“They, too, have to learn the facts on stuff they don’t want to talk about, but need to,” she said. “He can control what he talks about, but [presidential] candidates can’t do that.”