What kinds of appeals does it rely on?
Candidates often rely on certain appeals to help them or hurt their opponents during campaigns. Emotions, character, and reason are several appeals that are critical to campaigns.
Emotional appeals are key parts of campaigns. It is common for the voting public to vote on what they feel, rather than what would be best policy wise. A key example of this occurred in the election of 1960 when then Vice President Nixon and Senator Kennedy participated in the first nationally televised debate. Many listening to the debate over the radio believed that Nixon had won the debate because of his knowledgeable insight and question responses. However, virtually everyone who watched the debate on the television believed Kennedy won because of his cool, composed behavior. This was in contrast to a frantic looking Nixon. The 1960 election was one of the first that played heavily on emotional appeals. Kennedy then went on to defeat Nixon in the election by a very narrow margin. Emotional appeals were a critical part of the campaign in 1960 as well as 2000.(DeGregorio 552)
Click here for another English 1101 student's research on the Nixon vs. Kennedy election.
Character is an issue that many politicians struggle with whenever they run for office. Being associated with the morally absent Clinton Administration, Al Gore spent a great deal of time on his campaign trying to distance himself from his former boss. Appointing a very religious running mate and not campaigning with Clinton worked to give Gore a perception of strong character. Former President Carter even endorsed Gore based on his character.(“Carter”) This endorsement was key to Gore’s pitch that he was a moral man. However, many saw Gore’s distancing from Clinton as what actually caused him to be defeated in the end. Character appeal is critical during an election and often is the most difficult to have.(Rothenberg)
Fact and reason often fails to play as critical of a role in a campaign as would be expected. People often look for emotional or character appeal and leave out the critical portion of knowing what the candidate stands for. The candidates in the 2000 election supported a variety of proposals and ideas. These facts and reasons attracted many potential voters.(“Where”)
Emotional, character, and reason appeals were all keys to the election. During campaign 2000, Gore was viewed by many as current his policies and facts whereas Bush was said to have a great deal of emotional and character appeal. The candidates in the 2000 election were each sold based on those appeals.