Primary Campaign - PresidentialCampaign2004 -The Messages and Their Analysis - William Benoit

University of Missouri-Columbia
Studies Democratic Candidate Webpages

In the 1990's, political candidates discovered new ways of using the Internet to assist their campaigns, and presidential candidates used their websites to boost their campaigns. The 2000 presidential election marked a turning point in which candidates used this new technology in new and innovative ways to provide citizens with information. The Democratic Candidates in the 2004 primary campaign have continued to use the Internet to inform voters. CNN exit polls from six states (AZ, DE, MO, OK, SC, TN) found that 8% of primary voters visited candidate webpages frequently, 21% occasionally, and 12% rarely. Only 58% of voters reported that they had never visited a candidate webpage. Thus, this medium is being used by a surprising number of voters to learn about the candidates. The Missouri study examined each candidate's official website as available on January 21, 2004 .

Candidates are most frequently positive: 88% of the webpage statements were self-praise, 12% were attacks. The most positive webpages were from Edwards (only 4% attacks) and Lieberman (6% attacks). The most negative webpages were from Gephardt (22% attacks) and Dean (21%) attacks. Moseley-Braun was the only candidate who defended against attacks on these campaign webpages (3% of here statements). This was an increase in attacks compared with the 2000 primary, when Democrats were positive in 99% of their statements on their campaign web pages. In 2000, Republican primary webpages were closer to the Democrats of 2004: 92% of Republican webpage statements were positive, 8% were negative.

Who is the target of attack when the candidates are negative? President Bush was the primary target of attack with candidates devoting 84% of their statements to him. When candidates did attack a fellow-Democratic opponent, they most often attacked Dean, who received 80% of all the attacks directed at other Democrats. In 2000, the Democratic webpages were more likely to attack fellow-Democrats than Republicans. The Republican primary candidates that year attacked Democrats (mainly Vice President Al Gore) more than other Republicans on their webpages.

The candidates discussed both policy (issues) and character, with a strong emphasis on policy (72% policy, 28% character). Two candidates focused noticeably more on policy than the others, Dean (80% policy, 20% character) and Lieberman (78% policy, 22% character). At the other extreme were Mosely-Braun (66% policy and 34% character) and Edwards (67% policy, 33% character). In 2000, Democrats mentioned policy 90% of the time. This campaign season shows a dramatic increase in statements about character. Again, the Democratic webpages of 2004 have more in common with the Republican primary webpages from 2000: Republicans in 2000 discussed policy in 69% of their statements, character in 31%.

Contact:
Rebecca M. Verser ( rmtnp6@mizzou.edu ; 573-882-6486) or
William L. Benoit ( benoitw@missouri.edu ; 573-882-0545)

Other information about the 2004 presidential campaign (and historic contextual information) can be found at this site (reference the University of Missouri-Columbia's Presidential Campaign 2004 site: http://presidentialcampaign2004.coas.missouri.edu/)

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