Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation

Abstract

The story of a presidential election year is in many ways the story of the actions and interactions of those considered as possible candidates for their nation's highest office. If this is true in the abstract, it certainly was true in the election of 1968. The political headlines of 1968 were captured by those who ran for the nominations of their parties, those who pondered over whether or not to run, those who chose to pull out of the race or were struck down during the campaign, those who raised a third party banner, and those who resisted suggestions to run outside the two-party structure. While 1968 may have been unusual in the extent to which many prospective candidates dominated the political scene, every presidential election is, in its own way, highlighted by those considered for the office of President.The political scientist has shown scholarly interest in the candidates. His interest, however, has been selective in its focus—mainly concentrating on the two actual party nominees and not the larger set of possible presidential candidates. Research in electoral behavior has detailed the popular image of the nominees in terms of the public's reactions to their record and experience, personal qualities, and party affiliation. Furthermore, attitudes toward the nominees have been shown to constitute a major short-term influence on the vote. Yet attitudes toward other candidates have been surveyed only to ascertain the behavior of those people who favored someone other than the ultimate nominees.

Inoculation in Political Campaign Communication

“…This offers further confirmation for the position that strong 72 party affiliates are less susceptible to political persuasion in all circumstances (Atkin, 1971;Blumler & McQuail, 1969;Chaffee & Choe, 19BO;King, 1977;Sherrod, 1971;Shively, 1980;Weisberg & Rusk, 1970). The results of this study simply indicate that inoculation pretreatments strengthen resistance levels among all receivers, regardless of political orientation, but leaving strong party identifiers as the most resistant overall.…”

“…McGuire (1962) and Pryor and Steinfatt (1978) It is true that recent studies document a general weakening of party identification during the last two decades (Axelrod, 1972(Axelrod, , 1974(Axelrod, , 1978(Axelrod, , 1982(Axelrod, , 1986Boyd, 1972;Brody & Page, 1972;Goldberg, 1966;Miller & Levitan, 1976;Nie, Verba & Petrocik, 1976;Petrocik, 1980;Pomper, 1972aPomper, , 1972bPomper, , 1975Pomper & Lederman, 1980;Repass, 1971;Shapiro, 1969;Stanley, Bianco & Niemi, 1986;Weisberg & Rusk, 1970). This weakening of party identification has swelled the nonaffiliated ranks (a combination of politically apathetic and independent) to more than one-third of the electorate (Public Opinion, 1984, p. 21) and increased the extent of crossover voting (Republican identifiers who vote for Democratic candidates and vice-versa) to more than one-seventh of the electorate (Mann & Wolfinger, 1984, p. 273).…”

A Reference Group Theory of Partisan Coalitions

“…The NES studies have asked respondents over the years to rate numerous social groups, as well as the two parties on the 0-100 thermometer scale. That the thermometer measures global evaluations of the parties is not only obvious on the surface but has been established by previous research (Wiesberg and Rusk 1970;Rabinowitz 1972). Similarly, ratings of social groups using the thermometer have been used in earlier research both as a component of group consciousness and as a cognitive heuristic that helped people "figure out the issue positions of strategic groups" (Brady andSniderman 1985, 1062).…”

Affective components of electoral behavior: design and validity of visual association test of attitude

“…Это давно известный в профессиональном сообществе инструмент, имеющий как сторонников, так и критиков [Alwin, 1997;Green, 1988;Jacoby, 1994;1999;LaCour, Green, 2014, Weisberg, Rusk, 1970Wilcox et al, 1989;Lupton, Jacoby, 2016]. Из общих соображений можно предположить, что результаты тестирования при помощи «термометра ощущений», как в значи тельно большей степени находящиеся под контролем сознания, будут отличаться от результатов ассоциативного теста, отклоняясь от последнего в силу действия фактора «социально одобряемых ответов» и под влиянием недостатка интроспекции.…”