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Candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin, although they did not run against each other, have been compared on many levels. This essay analyzes the storytelling process by the media, by their respective campaigns, by their supporters and opponents and argues that, in its complexity and polysemy, such process engenders mutually contradictory stories. Suggested here is the idea that stories act as fundamental meaning-making resources. Both candidates, although in the public eye at different times, encountered parallel yet contradictory story constructions; both engaged the story-making process guided by different resources and experienced different results. The following essay outlines a proposal for a taxonomy of stories that is then used to analyze the stories privileged in constructing the public image of both candidates.

Political theory literature has become increasingly interested in the concept of community, focusing particularly on the variable of civic virtue. Social constructionist theory suggests how civic virtue can be enacted and made symbolic for an audience. This article synthesizes communitarian political theory and social constructionist theory to help characterize how Bill Clinton and Bob Dole articulated a concept of the “good citizen” in their second presidential debate.

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