Rationality and Campaigning: A Content Analysis of the 1960 Presidential Campaign Debates

RITING before the 1960 campaign, Stanley Kelley, Jr., maintained that radio and television debate was one way to increase the probability of rational choice on the part of the electorate.' Applying his criteria for determining when campaign discourse promotes rationality, he held that debates were likely to produce more rational discussion on the part of candidates and hence promote the rationality of the voters. He maintained that debates were likely to (1) expose voters to the arguments of both sides; (2) provide clearly identified sources of information; (3) encourage candidates to delineate their diffierences; (4) facilitate the identification of distortions and false statements; (5) promote more clear statements of candidates' positions; and (6) encourage the offering of evidence and reasons to support their positions.2 Professor Kelley's advocacy of debates in political campaigning was based on the argument that by changing the campaign situation, the quality of discourse would also be affected. That the debates exposed those who watched them to arguments from both sides, and that the sources of information were clearly identified in the debates is true on the face of it. That they encouraged the candidates to delineate their differences, and that false and distorted statements were more easily identified is not so patently true, but is nonetheless reasonably obvious given the chance which each candidate had to comment upon and to challenge the statements of the other. Clarity of position, the encouragement of reason and the offering of evidence by the candidates, are not so obviously produced by the debate situation, even though Professor Kelley does offer good reasons for expecting it to further these goals as well. Assuming that rationality is encouraged by the six likely consequences listed by Professor Kelley, and accepting the prima facie case for the first four, the question remains as to whether or not the debates produced the effects listed as 5 and 6 above. This question may be worded as an hypothesis: In the 1960 Presidential Television Debates, the protagonists made clearer statements of their positions and offered more reasoning and evidence to support their positions, than they did in other campaign situations. I