Issues and Democratic Primaries 2004

What Influences the News Coverage that Candidates Receive on Issues?
A look at Education Coverage in the 2004 Presidential Election

Expectations

This research project examines the theory of issue ownership during the presidential primaries of 2004. While the project as a whole addresses several issues, this paper examines only coverage and press releases concerning education. I anticipate that candidates will not be able to affect their coverage on education by issuing press releases. This is due to several factors. First, previous research demonstrates that candidates have little influence over their coverage. Structural factors, such as the news cycle or the Congressional workweek, will have a greater influence. Second, while education is an important topic of debate between the presidential candidates and the President, the Democratic candidates’ positions do not differ significantly. Thus, they have less incentive to address it during the primary season. Third, the U.S. economy is still in recovery, which will cause the coverage to focus more on the economy and jobs and than on education.

The main empirical pattern I will investigate will be the number of articles mentioning both education and a candidate’s name per day in the New York Times and the Washington Post from September 1, 2003 to March 3, 2004. This time period corresponds roughly from the beginning of the primary season through Super Tuesday, when the democratic nominee was effectively decided. The candidates we will investigate are Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman. We selected these candidates because they were the most viable at the beginning of the primary season. The unit of observation is one day.
The independent variables I will study are the candidates’ press releases, the number of candidates in the race, a dummy variable capturing whether the candidate was in the race, dummy variables reflecting the days of the week, dummy variables reflecting whether there was a debate on a particular day, the day before, the day of and the day after the State of the Union address, and time variables. One time variable runs from the beginning of our observation period to the end. The other time variables center on the South Carolina primary, one counts days until the primary, the other counts the days after.

As mentioned above, I do not expect a candidate to affect his coverage on education by issuing a press release. I do expect the number of candidates in the race to affect a candidate’s coverage. Specifically, the front-runners should gain more coverage as other candidates drop out. Accordingly, I expect coverage of specific candidate to be larger during the time which the candidate contested the race than over the entire race. I expect Monday and/or Friday to increase coverage as the candidates try to either set the tone for the week or influence the news over the weekend. I do not expect a debate to have a significant effect on coverage, since the candidates do not choose the topics themselves for the debates, and education may or may not be discussed. I expect the day before and the day of the State of the Union address to have no effect, while the day after the address could, since President Bush devoted several minutes to defending the No Child Left Behind Act. As time passes, I expect coverage to increase because the actual voting days draw near. When the division between before and after South Carolina is introduced, I expect the candidates who were in the race after South Carolina to have more coverage after the primary.

By: Beth Daniel '04

© Davidson College, 2004, Department of Political Science, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments, questions, and suggestions to Patrick Sellers
Created: 4/27/2004. Last updated: 5/2/2004.