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Presidential Rhetoric, Candidate Evaluations, and Party Identification

Can Parties "Own" Values?

University of Colorado - Boulder

By embedding value cues in their rhetoric, presidential candidates hope to present themselves and their parties as stewards of those values. This article examines the effects of this rhetoric by testing two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that this rhetoric educates the public about the values of the candidates and their parties. The second suggests that this rhetoric primes existing perceptions of party "ownership" of values. The author's findings suggest that candidates are successful at using value rhetoric to modify public perceptions of their values as individuals. However, this rhetoric does not affect perceptions of party labels and individual candidates identically.

Key Words: rhetoric • values • campaigns • priming • issue ownership

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This version was published on September 1, 2008

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3, 419-433 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1065912907308095


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Doherty, D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?