How Important is Communication Rhetoric in a Presidential Campaign?

Political campaigns are one of the hardest fought battles in America today. Each campaign brings about new ideas and strategies for each candidate. The office that people are seeking also marks changes in topics and strategies. Presidential campaigns are now starting two years before the general election, sometimes earlier. In today's world of mass-media coverage we are sometimes overrun with political news. However, presidential campaigns still hold a great deal of importance here in America. American's want to see prospective candidates and be able to vote for whom they believe is the best candidate. Communication is very important! Without effective communication, a candidate will not get their message across. This can create problems within their campaign. Effective communication can sometimes be a turning point in campaigns. There are numerous communication strategies that candidates could use, and it would be futile for this paper to try and cover every aspect of a campaign. We will however look at a few different strategies that are used most often.

One aspect of communication we will look at today is post-primary rhetoric, and the implications arriving from it. Does the campaign strategy change after a primary? What changes, if any, occur for different parts of the country? We will first take a look at some earlier research that looked at different campaigns and the communication strategies that were used, and then we will take a look at the 2000 presidential primaries.

Previous Campaign/Communication Strategies

Political campaigns have been a part of American history. With the advent of Mass Media, the campaigns continue to become larger each year. While there has been little research done on the content of candidate speeches after each primary, there has been adequate research on communication strategies overall. I will look at a few key strategies that have been used by candidates and who used them.