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Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: The Use of Private Polls in Kennedy's 1960 Presidential Campaign

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  • Jacobs, Lawrence R.
  • Shapiro, Robert Y.

Abstract

Interpretations of electoral campaigns have pointed to two mutually exclusive strategies: candidates are expected to focus either on policy issues or on personal image. We argue, however, that social psychologists' notion of priming offers an empirically grounded and theoretically plausible campaign strategy for treating image and issues as interconnected strategic concerns. Based on both quantitative and historical analysis of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, we find that the candidate's policy positions were related to results from his private public opinion polls. Archival and interview evidence suggests that Kennedy deliberately used these popular issues to shape the electorate's standards for evaluating his personal attributes (rather than to win over utility-maximizing voters). We conclude that the study of priming offers one important approach to reintegrating research on candidate strategy and voter behavior.

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  • Jacobs, Lawrence R. & Shapiro, Robert Y., 1994. "Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: The Use of Private Polls in Kennedy's 1960 Presidential Campaign," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 527-540, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:88:y:1994:i:03:p:527-540_09
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    Cited by:

    1. Denter, Philipp & Sisak, Dana, 2015. "Do polls create momentum in political competition?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Brian Fogarty & David Kimball & Lea Kosnik, 2016. "The Media, Voter Fraud, and the 2012 Elections," Working Papers 1012, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Department of Economics.
    3. Denter, Philipp & Sisak, Dana, 2013. "Do Polls Create Momentum in Political Campaigns?," Economics Working Paper Series 1326, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    4. Stefanie Haeffele & Virgil Henry Storr, 2021. "Rhetoric as a Way of Limiting the Range of Acceptable Policy Positions," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 36(Spring 20), pages 1-16.
    5. Lawrence R. Jacobs, 2010. "Democracy and Capitalism: Structure, Agency, and Organized Combat," Politics & Society, , vol. 38(2), pages 243-254, June.

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