Study shows both parties critical of Bush
Sept. 28, 2007
President George Bush is having an unprecedented effect on the 2008 Presidential primaries. An MU researcher found both Republicans and Democrats are criticizing Bush in presidential debates.
"Clearly, Democrats in primaries will attack the president if he is of the other party," said Bill Benoit, the researcher and a professor in the department of communication. "What hasn't been seen before, and we've looked at primary debates from 1948 up through the present, is a group attacking the president when he's part of the same party."
In an MU news release, Benoit said he found that Republican candidates have attacked Bush 60 times, and they have attacked Democrats 75 times. He also said the war in Iraq is contributing to the trend.
"Thinking about it, it's easy to understand because of Bush's popularity," Benoit said. "He still has more popularity among Republicans, but he has problems even there, so I think the Republican candidates have problems trying to distance themselves from President Bush, but it would be a challenge for Republicans to distance themselves from a fairly unpopular president without appearing disloyal to their party."
The study also looked at how critical the candidates were being of members of the opposing party.
"Democrats criticized Republicans about 10 percent more often than they criticized fellow Democrats," the release stated. "In contrast, Republicans criticized one another about 15 percent more than they criticized Democrats."
The study also found that the candidates are focused on policy and issues more often than attacking character. The Republicans attacked character 32 percent of the time, and the Democrats attacked character 28 percent of the time.
The release also stated that Benoit found this election is more positive than previous elections.
This year, there have been about 75 percent positive comments and only 65 percent positive statements in the debates between 1948 and 2004.
Benoit has written books on the last three presidential elections and is planning to write a book on the 2008 election, which is where the results of this study will be published.
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