Competitive Positioning, Deracialization, and Attack ... - SAGE Journals

Competitive Positioning, Deracialization, and Attack Speech

American Politics Research Volume 35 Number 1 January 2007 123-149 © 2007 Sage Publications 10.1177/1532673X06292320 http://apr.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

A Study of Negative Campaigning in the 2001 Los Angeles Mayoral Election Timothy B. Krebs University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

David B. Holian University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Previous research on negative campaigning has focused on the influence of competitive circumstances and the timing of attacks. Here, we focus on whether campaign issues or character are more likely to be the focus of attacks and whether, as part of a deracialized campaign, minority candidates attack less than do nonminorities. Data are derived from content analyses of newspaper coverage and candidates’ TV ads in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral election. Contrary to expectations, one’s position in the horse race is not a significant predictor of attacks in the primary campaign. More important are conditions in the campaign environment that maximize the benefits of attack speech. When candidates attack, they are likely to do so on salient issues and character. We also find that minority candidates attack significantly less than do nonminorities, in support of our expectations regarding deracialized campaigns. In a concluding section, we discuss the implications of our findings. Keywords: mayoral elections; negative advertising; Los Angeles; James K. Hahn; Antonio R. Villaraigosa; negative campaigning

C

andidates for public office employ numerous speech-related strategies to improve their chances of being elected. One is to “go negative” against one’s opponents through the use of attack speech. Despite the controversy surrounding attack speech, conventional wisdom is that it works; thus, its use is a mainstay in campaigns. However, in contrast to efforts to understand the effects of attack speech on voter turnout and candidate evaluations, relatively little scholarly effort has been expended to understand candidates’ decisions to attack (but see Damore, 2002; Haynes & Rhine, 1998; Sigelman & Buell, 2003; Theilmann & Wilhite, 1998). Given the intensity of the debate over the 123

124

American Politics Research

consequences of negative campaigning (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1995; Freedman & Goldstein, 1999), it is important to explore the conditions that produce negativity in the first place. Here we examine negative campaigning in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral election. We chose to focus on a local race for three reasons. First, the sequencing of primary and runoff elections in local politics creates different incentives for attack speech than we find in other electoral contexts. Most important is the requirement that a candidate win a majority on the first ballot to win the election outright. In a competitive election, this is unlikely, thus the battle lines shift to second place as only the top two candidates advance to the runoff. Second, the multiracial nature of big-city politics presents an opportunity to test whether attack behavior is related to a candidate’s race. Although the sensitivity of interracial criticism has been shown to be an important constraint to improving urban education (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 1999, p. 212), we have little understanding of how race affects patterns of criticism or attack in urban political campaigns. These differences with national elections present a unique opportunity to determine if existing explanations of negative campaigning generalize to urban politics and to test new hypotheses regarding this type of campaign speech. Third, we are interested in studying the entire electoral process—primary and general election—to determine if and how attack behavior changes depending on the phase of the election. Previous research has focused on either primary or general elections but not both in a single election cycle.

The Decision to Attack The first thing to note about negative speech is that it is not risk free; thus, candidates exercise caution when using it. Negative campaigning may backfire, provoking a countermobilization for the target of an attack and a loss of support for the attacker (Garramone, 1984). On the plus side, however, evidence suggests that voters remember negative information more readily than positive information (Brians & Wattenberg, 1996). In addition, the combination of media attention to negativity (Goidel & Langley, 1996; Hetherington, 1996; Patterson, 1996) and the horse race of political campaigns (Mutz, Authors’ Note: This research was funded by a Summer Excellence Research Grant from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Research Allocation Committee Grant from the University of New Mexico. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their many helpful suggestions and the Institute for Public Policy at the University of New Mexico for its support. This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 2004 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.

Krebs, Holian / Negative Campaigning

125

1995) lead candidates to attack to get media coverage. Conventional wisdom and some empirical work also suggest that negative campaigning works (for a review, see Lau, Sigelman, Heldman, & Babbitt, 1999). Competitive pressure is a key factor in the decision to go negative (Peterson & Djupe, 2005). Leading candidates, for example, often choose to stay positive rather than risk a backlash from negative appeals (Damore, 2002; Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995; Theilmann & Wilhite, 1998; but see Haynes & Rhine, 1998). By contrast, strong challengers use negative campaigning to reduce support for the frontrunner (Hale, Fox, & Farmer, 1996; Haynes & Rhine, 1998; Sigelman & Buell, 2003; Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995; Theilmann & Wilhite, 1998). Because the election is not being framed as a choice between them and an opponent, candidates who trail far behind the pack are unlikely to go negative; for these candidates, there is little to be gained in attempting to use negativity as a means of contrast (Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995). When these divisions within the horse race are blurred, the competitive environment may fail to produce significant differences among candidates in terms of negativity (Sigelman & Buell, 2003). Once a decision has been made to employ negative speech, candidates have a choice to make regarding whether the focus will be on substantive issues, questions of character, or both. In his study of presidential general elections, Damore (2002, p. 678) found that candidates are significantly more likely to attack on prominent campaign issues. In primary elections involving candidates with similar policy views, however, character attacks may prove to be more advantageous. When to deliver an attack is another issue. Not wanting to risk the chance that negative information will stick in the minds of voters, candidates will respond to attacks with negative speech of their own (Damore, 2002; Haynes & Rhine, 1998). Because voters are paying more attention as election day nears, and because candidates have more to gain and less to lose from attack speech, candidates also are more likely to increase negativity as election day approaches (Damore, 2002; Haynes & Rhine, 1998). High-profile campaign events also offer candidates a good opportunity to criticize an opponent. In presidential primaries, research indicates that attacks increase in advance of delegate-rich contests and important events (Haynes & Rhine, 1998). To date, no one has examined attack speech in local elections. Cities with nonpartisan ballots, about three fourths of all places, use open primaries and runoff elections to choose their mayor and city councilors. A progressive era reform, nonpartisan primaries and runoffs between the top two primary finishers (assuming no one wins a majority on the first ballot) have important implications for the use of attack speech.1 Unlike elections at other levels where coming in second is meaningless, coming in second in

126


local elections is quite often a goal of candidates, especially those who trail in the campaign.2 Therefore, those who trail may choose to ignore the frontrunner and instead target attacks on candidates most likely to deny them second place. The 2005 New York City Democratic mayoral primary illustrates this dynamic. In that election, Fernando Ferrer was largely expected to come in first, although it was unclear whether he enjoyed enough support to avoid a runoff primary. As the focus of the race shifted away from the frontrunner, attacks between the two strongest challengers for second increased in intensity (Healy, 2005).

Urban Campaigns, Deracialization, and Attack Speech Further complicating the decision to attack in mayoral campaigns is the racial context of urban politics. Although a candidate’s race or ethnicity is not the only factor influencing vote choice in urban elections (Bullock, 1984; Carsey, 1995; DeLorenzo, Kohfeld, & Stein, 1997; Kaufmann, 2004), its importance should not be understated (Browning, Marshall, & Tabb, 2003; Bullock & Campbell, 1984; Herring & Forbes, 1994; Vanderleeuw, 1990). As a strategic matter, candidates whose racial or ethnic status places them in a minority of the electorate must reach beyond their base of support to be competitive, often constructing biracial or even multiracial coalitions involving White crossover support. The tactic often employed to accomplish this is a deracialized campaign, one that deemphasizes controversial racial issues such as affirmative action, minority set-asides, and police–community relations and that focuses instead on issues that transcend race, such as government management, public safety, and economic growth (Austin & Middleton, 2004; Hamilton, 1977; Liu, 2003; McCormick & Jones, 1993; Metz & Tate, 1995; Perry, 1991; Underwood, 1997). The literature has focused mainly on the success or failure of such campaigns. Deracialized campaigns are common in large, racially diverse cities and apply in both White-dominant and minority-dominant contexts (Metz & Tate, 1995). To clarify, assume a two-person, biracial contest in a city where a national minority group constitutes a majority of the local population. In this case, the minority candidate is likely to reach out for White crossover support to enhance his or her chance of winning. Numerous examples exist of African American mayors successfully employing deracialization in this context: Tom Bradley in Los Angeles (Sonenshein, 1993), Norm Rice in Seattle (Winn & Palmer, 1996), and David Dinkins in New York City (Thompson, 1996) are three of the more significant ones.


127

Next, assume a two-person contest involving minority candidates in a city where a national minority group constitutes a majority of the population. In this case, the minority vote will often split, leaving Whites as the swing constituency. As in cities with majority White electorates, however, the candidate who successfully deracializes his or her appeal may have an advantage. In the 1989 Atlanta mayoral election, incumbent Maynard Jackson’s deracialized appeal stressing residential and quality-of-life issues proved highly successful against Hosea Williams, an African American candidate who appealed mainly to low-income Blacks alienated from the political regime (Pierannunzi & Hutcheson, 1991). Similarly, in Black-dominant cities such as New Orleans and Memphis, deracialized campaigns designed to attract White crossover support have proven to be highly effective in mayoral contests (Liu, 2003; Vanderleeuw, Liu, & Marsh, 2004). Although most research on deracialization has focused on African American candidates, a deracialized strategy can also apply to Latinos. Henry Cisneros in San Antonio and Federico Pena in Denver are perhaps the most prominent examples of Latino candidates who successfully employed deracialized campaigns in their contests for mayor in racially competitive cities. Cisneros presented himself as a consensus builder and as probusiness, in an effort to reach out to White crossover voters and to counter his opponent’s attempt to label him a tool of minority concerns (Munoz & Henry, 1986, p. 604; Rosales, 2000, pp. 144-147). In Denver, Pena’s campaign was “non-divisive” insofar as it stressed economic development, improved government management, and intergovernmental relationships (Hero, 1987, p. 96). In Los Angeles, Latino city council candidates also have used deracialization to win in districts with majority White electorates (Underwood, 1997). Of course, deracialized campaigns are not always successful, as was the case in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral campaign of Latino candidate Antonio Villaraigosa because of a failure to mobilize one’s core supporters alienated by the moderate tone of the campaign (Austin & Middleton, 2004). More important for our focus on attack behavior is the link between deracialization and candidates’ political style. At the heart of a deracialized political style is “projecting a non-threatening image” (McCormick & Jones, 1993, p. 76). This may manifest itself in many ways. For example, in Underwood’s (1997, pp. 8-9) study of deracialized campaigning in Los Angeles City Council elections, Latino candidates touted their experience and knowledge, personal connection to the voters, problem-solving ability, and endorsements to bolster their image among White voters as competent and dependable. Candidates employing deracialization may also project a nonthreatening image by avoiding confrontation. Given a low

128


margin for error, minority candidates employing deracialization may seek to project a more positive image, thereby lowering the chance that attacks on candidates of another race are perceived as attacks on entire groups. Another motivation has to do with how one governs following a divisive and negative campaign. To govern successfully requires the support of powerful private sector actors, especially White business elites (Stone, 1989). If these relationships are tarnished as a result of an overly negative, racially charged campaign, governing successfully may be difficult. None of this is to suggest that minority candidates employing deracialization will not level criticism at their opponents, but it is to suggest that they will be relatively less negative as part of their overall strategy.

Research Setting: The 2001 Los Angeles Mayoral Election For a number of reasons, the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral election offers a unique opportunity to test our expectations about candidates’ attack speech in local elections. First, it was highly competitive, the result, in part, of an open seat that attracted six strong candidates: City Attorney James Hahn, California State Controller Kathleen Connell, Los Angeles City Councilor Joel Wachs, former Speaker of the California State Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Congressman Xavier Becerra, and local real estate developer and protégé of outgoing Mayor Richard Riordan, Steve Soboroff. The competitive context virtually ensured a runoff.3 According to Los Angeles election rules, if no candidate wins a majority in the primary, a runoff is held between the top two finishers. A poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times one week before the primary showed Hahn at 24%, followed by Villaraigosa at 20% and Soboroff at 18%. Villaraigosa and Soboroff covered the most ground in the campaign, gaining 19 and 20 percentage points, respectively, from the date of the first poll in April 2000 to primary election day while Hahn gained only 9 percentage points. Nevertheless, the frontrunner throughout the primary campaign was Hahn. Wachs, Connell, and Becerra all lost ground throughout the campaign, but of these three only Wachs stayed in double digits at 11%. In a surprise, Villaraigosa finished first in the primary with 30%, followed by Hahn (25%), Soboroff (21%), Wachs (11%), Becerra (6%), and Connell (5%). Hahn, however, beat Villaraigosa in the runoff by a margin of 54% to 46%. Under these conditions, although the frontrunner should bear most of the attacks, the focus of attacks should shift to those vying for the number two spot. We also should expect candidates vying for the same voters to attack


129

each other. Although officially nonpartisan, in this election there were four Democrats (Hahn, Villaraigosa, Becerra, and Connell), one Independent (Wachs), and one Republican (Soboroff). All things equal, given the similarity of their core supporters, the Democrats should target each other for attacks. Likewise, the two non-Democrats should attack each other. Second, the race was noteworthy for its negativity, especially in the runoff. In that contest, Hahn touted his own anticrime record and attacked Villaraigosa, a former president of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, on the same issue. Particularly effective was Hahn’s portrayal of Villaraigosa as soft on crime, something he did with a negative television spot depicting a person smoking crack cocaine and a voice-over reminding viewers that Villaraigosa had supported a federal pardon for a convicted cocaine trafficker, the son of a campaign contributor. A third reason this election is a good case is that it allows us to test our hypothesis that minority candidates who employ a deracialized campaign will attack less than White candidates. The election involved two Latino candidates (Becerra and Villaraigosa) in a field dominated by Anglo candidates (Hahn, Wachs, Soboroff, and Connell). Furthermore, in Los Angeles, the political math requires candidates, especially minorities, to reach beyond their core base of support to succeed. Latinos and Asians are underrepresented among voters. This is especially so for Latinos, who, at 46.5% of the city’s population, were only 20% of the voters in the 2001 primary. By contrast, both Whites and African Americans are overrepresented: Whites are only 30% of the city’s population but 52% of the city’s voters, whereas African Americans are 11% of the population but 14% of the voters.4 For minority candidates, reaching out to White voters through the use of deracialized campaigns is a reasonable strategy, one that has been highly successful in Los Angeles (Sonenshein, 1993). Moreover, previous research suggests that Villaraigosa employed a deracialized campaign (Austin & Middleton, 2004). Given an electoral environment in which minority candidates deracialize their campaigns, we also expect White candidates to attack each other in their efforts to make the runoff.

Measuring Attacks To test our expectations regarding attack behavior, we analyze data collected over time and across the six experienced candidates vying to be mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. Our findings are based on two content analyses, one of Los Angeles Times coverage of the campaign and one of the political advertisements created on behalf of each candidate. (The appendix includes

130


the complete list of all issues coded for the content analyses of free and paid media.) The content analysis of Times coverage is based on a Lexis-Nexis search for all stories that mentioned at least one of the major candidates. We define the primary campaign as beginning when the Times published its first horse-race poll, April 13, 2000, and lasting through primary election day, April 10, 2001. The runoff campaign lasted from April 11 to June 5, 2001. During the course of both campaigns, our search produced 332 stories, most of which included mentions of more than one candidate.5 To understand the nature of the election coverage in the Times, we coded each story that mentioned at least one of the six candidates for mayor for whether candidates engaged in advocacy or attack speech. We define advocacy as any reported speech from the candidates themselves or their surrogates that in some way promotes the interests of the speaker’s campaign. We define attacks as candidate or surrogate speech that criticizes another campaign. All Times stories on any given day in the analysis can include multiple instances of advocacy or attack on various issues. We consider a story that reports an attack by one candidate on another, either alone or among other instances of advocacy or attack, to be one attack. We examine campaign advertisements by content analyzing the story boards for each ad run by each candidate during the mayoral campaign in the same way that we coded Times coverage, by noting attacks and advocacy.6 We measure a paid attack such that an ad that includes at least one attack is counted for each day the ad is aired. Therefore, the same ad that includes an attack aired on 9 days represents 9 separate attacks. The six candidates created a total of 49 separate ads, 17 of which were aired by the Hahn and Villaraigosa campaigns during the runoff.7 The Soboroff campaign aired the first ad on January 29, 2001. From that point until primary election day on April 10, ads produced by at least one campaign ran every day, with the exception of the first three Sundays in February. As for the runoff, after a 3-week respite following the primary election, the Hahn and/or Villaraigosa campaigns ran at least one ad every day from May 5 through June 5, the date of the runoff election. Our principal interest in collecting this information is to understand both intercandidate patterns of attack and the timing of attacks in this election.

The Primary Campaign Figure 1 displays the total amount of mediated attacks by day during the course of the primary campaign. The first thing to note is that unlike


131

Figure 1 Attacks Reported in Los Angeles Times, All Candidates (April 13, 2000–April 10, 2001)

Peterson and Djupe’s (2005) finding that the distribution of attacks among U.S. Senate candidates over time is bimodal, extensive early and late in a campaign with a lull in the middle, the pattern of attacks among these mayoral candidates trends upward over time. Such attacks came in fits and starts until the final 6 weeks of the campaign, during which they steadily increased. In this regard, our findings are consistent with Haynes and Rhine (1998, p. 715) and Damore (2002, p. 678), who found that attacks increase steadily as election day approaches. Table 1a displays the mediated attack focus among the six mayoral candidates. As the Hahn column and row indicate in the table, the consistent frontrunner throughout the primary was both the target of the most attacks (51) and the candidate who leveled the most attacks at others (44). The vast majority of attacks against Hahn (29) came from Soboroff, who ultimately finished third in the primary. Hahn, reasonably, attacked the candidates who became his closest pursuers, Villaraigosa and Soboroff, the most (18 times

132


Table 1a Attack Focus by Candidate, Primary Election, Attacks by Los Angeles Times Coverage (April 13, 2000–April 10, 2001) Attacked Candidate Attacking Candidate

Hahn Villaraigosa

Hahn Villaraigosa Soboroff Wachs Becerra Connell Total attacked

— 12 29 7 0 3 51

18 — 2 3 4 5 32

Soboroff

Wachs

18 6 — 19 1 3 47

6 4 12 — 1 2 25

Becerra Connell 0 1 0 0 — 0 1

Total Attacks

2 0 0 1 0 — 3

44 23 43 30 6 13 159

Table 1b Attack Focus by Candidate, Primary Election, Attacks by Paid Media (January 29–April 10, 2001)

Hahn Villaraigosa Soboroff Wachs Becerra Connell Total attacks

Against Field

Against Soboroff

0 0 26 17 7 29 79

0 0 — 4 0 0 4

Note: Mediated attacks represent attacks by issue and story. Thus, if a story contains two attacks by one candidate on another on crime fighting, this represents one attack. If a story contains one attack on crime fighting and one attack on character, this represents two separate attacks. Paid attacks are measured in the same way. We also include a category for attacks against the field, which were prevalent in the candidates’ paid advertising, but not in the Times’s coverage of the race. Attacks against the field are those that a candidate levels generically, without naming a specific opponent.

each) while largely ignoring his more distant rivals. As expected, Soboroff and Wachs also engaged in numerous attacks on each other. Wachs leveled nearly two thirds of his 30 reported attacks on Soboroff, whereas Soboroff responded by attacking Wachs more than any other candidate, save Hahn. The amount of attacks within the Soboroff–Wachs dyad makes sense given


133

the more conservative nature of these two candidates’ constituencies. The diversity of attack strategies shown in these data are indicative of the ambiguity surrounding the election outcome. Interestingly, Villaraigosa, who ultimately won the most votes in the primary, recorded only the fourth most reported attacks, just more than half of which targeted Hahn. Unlike the Soboroff–Wachs pairing, Villaraigosa almost completely ignored the candidate who shared his constituency to an even greater degree than Soboroff and Wachs shared each other’s. The Times reported just one attack by Villaraigosa on Becerra and only four in the other direction. Thus, the two Hispanic candidates attacked each other at very low levels, whereas the two non-Democrats in the field attacked each other aggressively. Becerra and Connell lagged far behind the others in the number of attacks leveled both by and at them. Of course, these candidates were never very serious threats to make the runoff, finishing the primary fifth and sixth, respectively. Thus, they were largely and understandably ignored by the more competitive campaigns.8 Table 1b displays paid media attacks during the primary election. Despite the amount of ads produced by the campaigns, the six candidates refrained almost completely from attacking other candidates in the field individually. The single exception to this pattern was a Wachs ad, run on the 4 days before the primary election, that attacked Soboroff’s work during the Riordan administration on education-related issues. Other than this example, candidates who attacked did so against all their opponents as a group, without naming a specific candidate. Such attacks against the field include a Soboroff ad that attacked his opponents as do-nothing career politicians and a Connell ad that made a general accusation against the field of underhanded campaign tactics. Of the six candidates, only the Hahn and Villaraigosa campaigns refrained from airing any negative messages against the field, each other, or another candidate during the primary. These findings tell us little about the dynamic nature of attack speech within the campaign. To explore this, we turn to a pooled analysis of mediated attacks by candidates during the course of the primary campaign. The dearth of paid attacks on individual candidates during the primary, although providing interesting insights into a multicandidate, multiracial campaign, did not allow us to include paid attacks in this part of the analysis. Thus, we focus just on mediated candidate attacks. The dependent variable for this analysis is whether or not a candidate attacked on a given day during the primary. Because the dependent variable is dichotomous and our data are pooled by candidate, we estimate a binary time-series cross-sectional (BTSCS) model of attack behavior during the

134


primary. Our pooled analysis is limited to the primary because only the top two vote getters advance to the runoff. The BTSCS approach accounts for the spatial and temporal heterogeneity endemic to this type of analysis (Beck, Katz, & Tucker, 1997). Robust standard errors help correct for heterogeneity across candidates. To account for time-based variation, we use a fractional polynomial to estimate the effect of time on attacks.9 As explained by Royston and Altman (1994) and implemented by Peterson and Djupe (2005), fractional polynomial estimation accurately models curvilinear relationships.10 This method iteratively tests possible functions of time; the function or functions that best fit the data are then entered into the model of attack behavior as independent variables describing time’s effect, controlling for the other independent variables in the analysis. Among other estimation strategies, BTSCS with a fractional polynomial represents the most appropriate way to approach the impact of time given that what we model is not simply a nuisance parameter but a strategic choice all campaigns must make regarding the points in the campaign at which to go negative (Peterson & Djupe, 2005). The independent variable or variables entered into the model representing time correspond to a hazard rate in a duration model; in other words, the variables represent the odds of a candidate attacking on a particular day in the campaign. The results of the fractional polynomial regression suggest that two polynomials fit our data best. These are entered into the model presented below as time polynomials 1 and 2. Other independent variables in the analysis include measures of the relative position among the six candidates during the course of the campaign. We base these measures on the series of horse-race polls undertaken by the Times at various points in the primary. The frontrunner variable is the equivalent of including a dummy variable for the Hahn campaign, which led in each poll. The serious candidate variable is coded 1 for each day on which the most recent horse-race poll registered a candidate in double digits without, of course, leading the race. Any candidate polling in single digits is considered in the third tier of challengers. Our expectations are that serious candidates are more likely to attack than either the frontrunner or the also-rans (Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995). Because we include in the model dummy variables for the frontrunner and serious challengers, the estimated coefficients for these variables can be compared to the excluded category, the alsorans. Therefore, we expect that the frontrunner variable will not achieve statistical significance, whereas the variable for serious challenger will be positive and significant, controlling for the other variables in the analysis. We include a variable for whether or not the candidate is Hispanic, coded 1 for Villaraigosa and Becerra and 0 otherwise. We control for race because


135

of its important role in urban elections. As discussed above, the urban literature emphasizes that the strategic options of minority candidates can be different from those of their White counterparts. Minority candidates who face White majority electorates may deracialize their campaigns by focusing on issues designed to appeal to potential White supporters rather than issues aimed at their own racial groups. Given that the implicit goal of deracialization is to project a nonthreatening image to White voters, we suggest that another manifestation of this strategy is a greater hesitance to attack other candidates. Evidence for this can be found in Tables 1a and 1b with regard to the attack strategies of Villaraigosa and Becerra. Thus, we expect the Hispanic candidate variable to be related negatively to the likelihood of attacking.11 We also include a counter tallying the total amount of times a candidate has been attacked by other campaigns leading up to the relevant day in the analysis. We expect that as candidates come under attack, they will respond in kind (Damore, 2002; Haynes & Rhine, 1998; Skaperdas & Grofman, 1995). We hypothesize that the previous opponent attack variable will be positively related to the likelihood of an attack, holding the other variables in the model constant. Next, we include two variables for content, whether the attack or advocacy concerns a salient issue or the character of an opposing candidate. Previous research has considered how the salience of issues influences candidate attacks (Damore, 2002) but not the role of candidates’ character. Because negative, but relevant, campaign information is more beneficial than negative, but irrelevant, campaign information (Fridkin & Kenney, 2004), candidates may believe that the reward for attacking on salient issues is greater than the reward for attacking on issues that are not salient to the campaign. When issue differences are unclear, as is often the case in primary elections, criticism of candidates’ character may also have a larger pay-off. We determined the most salient issues by referring to the Times’s mostimportant-issue question included in the three polls taken over the course of the campaign. Four issues stood out as consistently important to the public: crime fighting, reform of the criminal justice system, education, and transportation. The character variable includes any discussion of candidates’ personal qualities, such as leadership abilities, courage, or moral rectitude.12 Our expectations are that all things equal, these content variables will be positively related to days on which attacks occur, first, because strategic candidates should be more likely to attack on issues salient to the public and, second, because in the modern candidate-centered campaign, especially one among six quality, well-financed competitors of mostly similar ideological outlooks, we expect character to be an inviting target.

136


Finally, we also include variables for the release of each candidate’s finance report as measures of the campaign’s “game within the game.” The prereport variable is coded 1 for the 7 days leading up to a fundraising report deadline; the postreport variable is coded 1 for the 7 days following these deadlines.13 Because the press and campaigns view the relative success or failure of raising funds as an indication of the health of a candidacy, we test whether attack behavior incorporates this structural component of the campaign. Prior to a deadline, candidates may attempt to depress their opponents’ fundraising by going on the attack. On the other hand, the immediate aftermath of a report may be marked by a sharp decrease in attacks, particularly in relation to the upswing before the report. Or the postreport period may generate increased attacks, particularly in reaction to the one or more candidates who perform particularly well in the fundraising aspect of the campaign. In addition, candidates may be more negative around campaign finance deadlines because opportunities for media coverage are greater (see Haynes & Rhine, 1998, p. 700). Although we have no specific expectations regarding the postreport variable, we expect the variable for the prereport period to be positive and significant, all things equal. Table 2 displays the results of the BTSCS estimation of attack behavior reported in the Times. Contrary to our expectation, the coefficient for the serious candidate variable does not approach statistical significance. We expected serious candidates to attack at higher levels than also-rans. This, we argue, reflects the complicated nature of attack in a competitive multicandidate field where a second-place finish is valuable. The coefficient for previous opponent attack is positive and significantly related to a current attack, as expected, indicating that part of the attack calculus is defensive. The variables for salient- and character-based issues are also positive and significant. All things equal, for days on which the Times reported attacks, coverage of character and salient issues was significantly higher than on days without attacks. The approach of a campaign finance deadline leads to more reported attacks, all things equal, whereas the immediate aftermath of such a deadline has no influence on attack behavior. Interesting, the variable for Hispanic candidates is significant and negative, suggesting that Villaraigosa and Becerra attacked less than did their White opponents. This cannot be a function of the relative strength of either Villaraigosa or Becerra as candidates because this factor is controlled in the model. We explore this further via the use of predicted probabilities. Figure 2 plots the probability of an attack on a given day before the election holding


137

Table 2 Binary Time-Series Cross-Sectional Estimation of the Probability of a Mediated Attack Variable Previous opponent attack Salient issue Character issue Frontrunner Serious challenger Hispanic candidate Before campaign finance report After campaign finance report Time polynomial 1 Time polynomial 2 Constant N Log likelihood

Coefficient

Robust SE

0.038** 2.027*** 3.669*** 0.155 –0.258 –1.333** 1.060*** 0.428 –0.064*** 0.057*** –4.994*** 2,172 –252.98

0.016 0.392 0.636 0.378 0.354 0.562 0.338 0.398 0.014 0.010 0.319

Note: One-tailed tests for all variables except frontrunner, after campaign finance report, and time. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

all the variables in the model constant, with the exception of the variable for Hispanic candidates. Thus, as the note associated with Figure 2 describes, each line represents the probability of an attack by a serious candidate, on a given day before the election, on a salient issue, given the average level of previous opponent attacks. The only difference in generating these probabilities is that we set the variable for Hispanic candidate to 1 and 0, respectively. As Figure 2 demonstrates, the probability that a non-Hispanic candidate will attack is greater than that for a Hispanic candidate throughout the analysis’s time frame. The probabilities of attack for all candidates remain relatively flat until about 160 days before the campaign in the case of White candidates and 80 days before the campaign for Hispanic candidates. At these points in the campaign, the probabilities of attack grow. Moreover, the difference in attack probabilities among Hispanic and non-Hispanic candidates widens with the passage of time. On Day 360, the probability of an attack is .052 for a White candidate and .014 for a Hispanic candidate, a difference of .038. On Day 0, the probabilities are .396 and .147, respectively, a difference of .249.

138


Figure 2 Probability of Coverage of an Attack by Time and Race

Note: Results represent predicted probabilities generated from the model presented in Table 2. Each simulation presented in the figure represents the probability of an attack on a given day for a serious candidate attacking on a salient issue, given the average level of previous opponent attacks (0.04). The only difference between the two simulations is that the variable for Hispanic candidate is set to 0 and 1, respectively.

The Runoff Campaign Our evidence regarding the runoff, although solely descriptive in nature, sheds light on the nature of attacks in a two-person campaign between one White and one Hispanic candidate. Tables 3a and 3b display attacks between Hahn and Villaraigosa. Table 3a displays mediated attacks during the course of the runoff election (see Figure 3). Hahn was the more aggressive attacker during this 2-month span. The Times reported 106 Hahn attacks on Villaraigosa versus 82 attacks in the other direction. Moreover, attacks by each campaign against the other tended to increase as the general election drew nearer. Not only were Hahn’s attacks more numerous, but he also


139

Table 3a Attack Focus by Candidate, Runoff Election (April 11–June 5, 2001), Attacks by Los Angeles Times Coverage Attacking Candidate

Total Attacks

Character Attacks

Salient Attacks

106 82

25 10

39 21

Hahn Villaraigosa

Table 3b Attack Focus by Candidate, Runoff Election (April 11–June 5, 2001), Attacks by Paid Media Attacking Candidate Hahn Villaraigosa

Total Attacks

Including Character Attacks

Including Salient Attacks

Number of Times Attacks Ran

6 3

6 1

4 1

41 28

Note: Mediated attacks are measured as attacks per story on different issues. Thus, five character attacks by Hahn on Villaraigosa in one story counts as one attack. An attack on crime fighting and character in one story counts as two attacks. Attack ads are counted once for each day a campaign puts them on the air. Thus, during the course of the 57-day runoff, a Hahn attack ad ran 41 times.

focused more on character-based and salient-issue attacks. As a proportion of total attacks, Hahn was nearly twice as likely to launch a character attack. Of his salient-issue attacks, the vast majority concerned Villaraigosa’s ability to fight crime effectively, an issue that is frequently used by White candidates against minority candidates in their efforts to appeal to more conservative voters (Hero, 1987; Mendelberg, 2001; Metz & Tate, 1995). Hahn’s position as the aggressor is to be expected on two levels. First, as evidence from the primary made clear, White candidates were significantly more likely to launch mediated attacks than Hispanic candidates. Second, consistent with previous literature and given the winner-take-all nature of the runoff, trailing candidates have a greater incentive to attack than do frontrunners. We would expect Hahn, as the second-place finisher in the primary election, to attack more aggressively, to put Villaraigosa on the defensive and reclaim the advantage.

140


Figure 3 Attacks Reported in Los Angeles Times, Runoff Election

The difference between Hahn’s and Villaraigosa’s total mediated attacks is significant. In a separate analysis, we found that during the course of the runoff, the Times reported 309 instances of communication from the Hahn campaign. Of these instances, 34% were attacks on Villaraigosa; the rest were campaign or issue advocacy. The Times reported 312 instances of communication from the Villaraigosa campaign, 26% of which were attacks on Hahn. Two-sample t tests on these mean levels of attack demonstrate that the null hypothesis of equal means can be rejected at the p < .05 level. Table 3b shows the amount of paid attacks, measured in the same way as paid attacks in Table 1b. In contrast to the primary election, during which neither the Hahn nor the Villaraigosa campaigns made any attacks, the runoff prompted a dramatic shift in strategy toward attacks from both sides. Consistent with the findings for mediated attacks in Table 3a, the Hahn campaign launched more television attacks during more days than did the Villaraigosa campaign. Hahn aired six attack ads during 41 days to


141

Villaraigosa’s 3 ads during 28 days. Also consistent with the findings for mediated attacks, each of Hahn’s 6 ads included character attacks on Villaraigosa; 4 of these ads included attacks on Villaraigosa’s ability to fight crime or manage the criminal justice system. Finally, unlike mediated attacks among the two candidates, which steadily increased over time with Hahn at a slightly higher level, the difference in the amount of paid attacks can be explained by the fact that from 17 to 6 days before the election (May 19 to May 30), the Villaraigosa campaign did not run a single attack ad. Although Hahn continued to air his attacks, Villaraigosa broadcast only positive messages. With the exception of this 12-day stretch, the two campaigns attacked each other at roughly equal levels. In fact, although each campaign broadcast three purely positive advocacy ads during the course of the runoff, Villaraigosa’s positive ads ran on 24 days, and Hahn’s aired on only 14 days. This method of comparing the number of paid attacks by the two candidates actually understates the difference. The ads developed by each campaign contained a mix of positive advocacy and negative attacks. Of the total number of appeals in Hahn’s campaign commercials, nearly 52% were negative attacks on Villaraigosa. Of Villaraigosa’s appeals, 30% were attacks on Hahn. Two-sample t tests on these mean levels of paid attacks demonstrate that the null hypothesis of equal means can be rejected at the p < .001 level. Not only did the Hahn campaign broadcast more ads during more days that contained at least one attack (41 days to 28 days for Villaraigosa), but the intensity of attacks within Hahn’s ads was significantly higher than that of Villaraigosa’s ads. Was Villaraigosa more positive than Hahn because he was the frontrunner or because of deracialization? Our data do not allow us to answer that question definitively. However, we would argue that it was probably the latter and not the former. First, at 5 points, Villaraigosa’s victory margin in the primary was slim. Moreover, he had to realize that the focus of the campaign would shift to attracting moderate and conservative White voters who had supported other candidates, notably Soboroff, in the primary. In other words, his electoral position did not warrant a strategy of staying above the fray. News reporting on the runoff election clarifies the strategic dilemma facing the Villaraigosa campaign. In a postelection review, Meyerson (2001) writes about Hahn’s attacks on Villaraigosa regarding the Carlos Vignali affair, in which Villaraigosa supported a federal pardon for a convicted drug trafficker who was the son of a Villaraigosa supporter: Part of the problem was that the campaign had pre-tested the tactic of firing back, of going on the offensive itself, and concluded that it only made matters worse. A series of focus groups with swing Valley voters had yielded a

142


particularly fearful asymmetry: Those voters were predisposed to accept a Hahn attack on Villaraigosa, but their latent mistrust of Villaraigosa was only exacerbated when he mixed it up with Hahn. Part of the “problem” was Villaraigosa himself, who was determined to wage a “high road” campaign. (p. 16)

Why was he determined to run a “high road” campaign? Meyerson continues: Its initial hesitation to go the jujitsu route when the Vignali ad first appeared, however, is testimony to the difficulties this campaign always encountered in striking the right balance. If Villaraigosa devoted a lot of attention to mobilizing Latino voters, his consultants feared, wouldn’t that scare away too many White centrists who were already ambivalent (at best) about the demographic transformation of L.A. over the past 15 years? If Villaraigosa fought back too aggressively on the ad, wouldn’t that reinforce the image of the angry kid from the streets of Boyle Heights? (p. 16)

Thus, Villaraigosa’s low favorability among swing voters was a function, in part, of his race. This may also explain the campaign’s seeming lack of focus in its attack strategy. Not only was Villaraigosa less negative overall, he was also less strategic in his use of attack: thirty-eight percent of his attacks were on salient issues or character, compared to 60% of Hahn’s mediated attacks. The most salient issue, crime, favored Hahn. Given the closeness of the runoff and the changed political environment, one might have expected a more negative campaign by Villaraigosa, or at least one as negative as that waged by Hahn. One might argue that his campaign erred in not being aggressive enough, but this was not the result of incompetence or lack of resources.14 Villaraigosa employed the top political consultants in California—one of whom had worked for Soboroff in the primary—and raised more money than Hahn. Villaraigosa’s lack of negativity in the runoff also is part of a pattern throughout the campaign. In sum, Villaraigosa faced a common problem for minority candidates in a White-dominant context: how to craft a political style to appeal to, or at least not energize, voters least likely to support a minority candidate, voters for whom a candidate’s race matters (Citrin, Green, & Sears, 1990).

Discussion and Conclusion Our results highlight the complexity of the attack calculus in a multicandidate election where the rules potentially reward a second-place finish. Although our horse-race variables did not achieve statistical significance, we


143

do not argue that competitive circumstances are unimportant in decisions to attack in local elections. As a substantive matter, the competitive position of each candidate in this race was key. However, because the race was so competitive, it weakened considerably the effects of our horse-race variables. What you had, in effect, were candidates attacking more than one opponent in their effort to make the runoff. Previous research, especially Sigelman and Buell’s (2003) work on presidential elections, shows as much. What we do not know at this stage is the point at which the frontrunner’s lead becomes so important that strong challengers ignore each other and focus exclusively on the leader. We also found that candidates are highly strategic with regard to the timing of attacks. By responding to attacks with attacks of their own, they attempt to limit damage; by launching attacks nearer to election day or in conjunction with campaign events, they seek to inflict damage (Haynes & Rhine, 1998). We extend previous research in two respects. First, we found that although candidates attacked more frequently on salient than nonsalient issues, they were more likely to attack on character. This may reflect the nature of primary elections involving candidates with relatively similar issue positions; in this environment, character attacks may be more useful than issue attacks. In the runoff, attacks in the press were more likely to be about salient issues, whereas attacks in TV spots tended to be about character. Previous research has not considered how both issues and character factor into attack behavior (Damore, 2002, p. 678; Sigelman & Buell, 2003, p. 529). Second, we extend existing research by focusing on the nature of attack in a biracial election. We argued that the Latino candidates would be relatively less negative than White candidates as part of their overall effort to deracialize their appeals. Previous work on deracialization has not focused on minority candidates’ use of negative speech, which, in addition to positive issue advocacy, is a critical component of most political campaigns. Nor has the literature on negative campaigning endeavored to explore how candidates’ race affects attack behavior. That Villaraigosa deracialized his campaign is fairly well accepted (Austin & Middleton, 2004); however, that he and Becerra attacked significantly less than their White counterparts is a new finding. Our theory regarding the targeting of attacks, the subject matter of attacks, and the timing of attacks can and should be applied across cities, regardless of a city’s demographic composition and/or the diversity of candidate pools. An important question is how it might apply in elections with an incumbent or a much stronger frontrunner (these are not mutually exclusive categories, of course) on the ballot. In this situation, challengers would have a more powerful incentive to gang up on the leader. An incumbent on

144


the ballot also means that the salient concerns of the campaign, be they issues or character, are likely to be clearer than in an open-seat contest. Although a case study restricts our ability to generalize, we provide a framework for looking at other races. The applicability of our hypothesis regarding deracialization is less straightforward. By definition, it does not apply to those who choose to racialize their campaigns and who will use negative speech to mobilize supporters in a polarized context. But it might be tested in minority-dominant contexts, cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, Memphis, and Miami, where you have more than one minority candidate and a potential split in the minority vote. In this context, Whites are often crucial swing voters. For the sake of argument, assume a two-person contest among candidates of the same minority group. Further assume that one of these candidates chooses deracialization and the other chooses an insurgent campaign designed to rally minority voters. In this scenario, the racially moderate candidate who runs a highly negative campaign against a fellow minority may engender White crossover support but at the risk of an in-group countermobilization and/or demobilization. This occurred in Atlanta when Michael Lomax tried to run to the right of Maynard Jackson on the issue of crime. The attack strategy backfired when Black voters perceived it as reinforcing racial stereotypes (Pierannunzi & Hutcheson, 1991). In this environment, as in the Whitedominant context, minority candidates may have an incentive to be less negative than their opponents. Although attack speech has been used quite effectively by Whites against minorities, it can backfire as well. Its potential explosiveness in an interracial election was on display, albeit in a different direction than what has been discussed here, in the 2001 New York City mayoral election. In the Democratic primary runoff, White candidate Mark Green launched a negative advertisement questioning the competence and leadership abilities of his opponent, Puerto Rican candidate Fernando Ferrer. This was followed by the circulation of a racially insensitive mailer targeted at Ferrer, although Green denied any involvement. Although it may have helped Green win the Democratic nomination, his loss of support among Black and Hispanic voters may have caused his defeat in the general election to Republican Michael Bloomberg (Kaufmann, 2004, pp. 187-189). Given demographic trends toward greater racial and ethnic diversity, especially in the nation’s older, inner-ring suburbs, the incidence of elections at all levels (local, state, and federal) involving candidates of different races, especially Latinos, is likely to increase. How race affects negative campaigning is thus an important question.


145

Appendix Coding Categories for Content Analysis of Los Angeles Times’s Campaign Coverage and Paid Advertisements Issue

Key Terms or Concepts

Campaign health or conduct

Direction of campaign, momentum, fundraising, campaign advertising, independent expenditures by groups seeking to influence the campaign, and polling results Enhancing neighborhood quality, neighborhood councils, condition and affordability of housing stock Moral rectitude, personal leadership qualities, courage, scandal Proposals designed to reduce crime or enhance safety Police administration, attitude toward chief of police, issues related to Rampart investigation and consequences, police work schedule Major development projects, recruitment or retention of business Education quality, test scores, Los Angeles Unified School District Issues related to California’s energy crisis Water and air quality Fiscal management, executive leadership, contracts, privatization Affordability or provision of health care services Bridges, roads, freeways Labor or management relations in the private sector Park bond effort, proposals for more green space City workforce, public unions Inclusiveness, advocate for the people or specific constituency, ideology Valley, harbor, or Hollywood secession proposals Equality, civil rights, affirmative action, abortion Plans to ease traffic congestion, LAX, public transportation (bus, subway, light rail) Water supply

Community development and housing Character Crime fighting Criminal justice

Economic development Education Energy Environment Governmental management Health care Infrastructure Labor Parks Personnel Representation Secession Social Transportation Water

Notes 1. The threshold for avoiding the runoff may vary somewhat by city. For example, in the 2005 Albuquerque, New Mexico, mayoral election, the threshold was 40%. The threshold for avoiding a runoff primary in New York City mayoral elections also is 40%. In Los Angeles, the threshold is 50%.

146


2. One might argue that coming in second in presidential nomination contests is an important goal of candidates. We do not disagree. However, the difference is that in presidential nominations, the candidates choose when to leave the field, which is not the case elsewhere. 3. See Los Angeles Times Polls 440, 454, and 456, respectively, at http://www.latimes.com/ news/custom/timespoll/. From this page, link to the Stat Sheets Archive (accessed September 21, 2005). 4. These data are taken from Sonenshein (1993, pp. 70-71). The discussion of voter registration is for the 2001 primary only. The figures for the general election are only slightly different. 5. To ensure intercoder reliability, we randomly selected just more than 10% of the universe of stories selected for the analysis. We then applied our coding criteria to content analyze this sample and compared our results. Using the paragraph as the unit, our intercoder reliability was 83.9%. Content with this level of agreement, we then divided the remaining stories and coded them separately. 6. We obtained story boards for all the television advertisements run by each candidate from the Campaign Media Analysis Group. 7. Hahn created the most individual advertisements (20), followed by Villaraigosa (9), Wachs (7), Soboroff (6), Connell (4), and Becerra (3). 8. Although Becerra and Connell each meet the definition of a quality challenger, neither was much of a factor in the 2001 mayoral contest beyond their respectable showings in the Times’s initial polling of the race. Therefore, to ensure that the inclusion of their candidacies in our discussion did not skew the results of our model of mediated-attack behavior, we estimated an identical model without the Becerra and Connell campaigns. The results of this estimation are largely the same as those displayed in Tables 3a and 3b. Substantive conclusions are identical; the only statistical difference between these estimations is that although the previous opponent attack variable is significant at the p < .01 level in Table 2, it is significant at the p < .05 level when Becerra and Connell are eliminated from the analysis (data not shown). 9. Beck, Katz, and Tucker (1997) recommend a series of dummy variables to account for times when sufficient degrees of freedom are available. This is untenable in our case given that we have 362 time points. In such cases, Beck, Katz, and Tucker suggest estimating a cubic spline as an appropriate substitute. However, we choose to estimate a fractional polynomial as the more parsimonious and flexible approach (see Royston & Altman, 1994, p. 430). 10. Following Peterson and Djupe (2005), we focus on the presence or absence of an attack on a given day of the campaign as the unit of analysis. However, attack behavior could be measured in terms of intensity. Therefore, for each day of the primary campaign for each candidate in the analysis, we measured attacks as a percentage of all reported attacks and advocacy. For example, in cases where this variable, operationalized as attack percentage, equals 1, all reported information about a candidate on a given day was attacks on other candidates. Formulating the dependent variable in this way and applying time-series, cross-sectional generalized least squares results in the same statistical and substantive conclusions as those presented in Tables 3a and 3b (data not shown). 11. Although Becerra began the primary, according to the Times’s polling, as a serious challenger on par with Villaraigosa, Becerra’s support crumbled during the course of the campaign. Conversely, Villaraigosa’s support more than doubled from the first polling results through the results of the primary. Therefore, focusing on Becerra and Villaraigosa as mounting deracialized campaigns may be misleading. Becerra’s lack of attacks against his opponents may be more a function of his being a trailing campaign without the resources and wherewithal to attract media coverage. We therefore also estimated our model by including a dummy variable for Villaraigosa only, instead of the combination of the two Hispanic candidates. The results of such a model are nearly identical, statistically and substantively, to those reported in


147

Tables 3a and 3b; the variable for Villaraigosa remains negative and significant at the p < .01 level, holding the other variables in the model constant (data not shown). 12. Because our over-time unit of analysis is the day of the campaign, measuring advocacy and attack content is not a straightforward matter of including dummy variables for various types of content. Because there may be multiple instances of attack and/or advocacy on a given day, to simply generate a variable coded 1 for any day on which any advocacy or attack concerns a salient or character-based issue would overstate the prevalence of the issue by obscuring instances of nonsalient or non-character-based content. Therefore, the salient and character variables are entered as proportions. The salient variable represents the instances of advocacy and attack on salient issues as a proportion of all instances of advocacy and attack on a given day. The character variable is constructed in the same way. Although these variables are not direct measures of a salient or character-based attack, they allow us a test of whether, over time, days on which attacks occur tend to be days on which the content of interest is higher (or lower). This decision represents a compromise among imperfect options. Pooling candidate campaigns over time and applying the binary time-series cross-sectional method allows us to account for time in a methodologically rigorous way. However, this comes at the cost of measuring content in a less intuitive fashion. Were we to ignore the time element in this analysis and simply estimate a logit wherein the unit of analysis was the advocacy or attack, we could create salientand character-based dummy variables where 1 would amount to the existence of such content. However, the analysis would then be subject to the types of shortcomings that Beck, Katz, & Tucker (1997) warn of, such as inflated t-values, when analysts ignore temporal dependence in their data. 13. Reporting deadlines were June 30 and December 31, 2000, and February 24, March 24, and April 4, 2001. The postreport variable is coded 0 for the 7 days after the March 24 deadline because of the overlap with the April 4 deadline. 14. Hahn and Villaraigosa raised approximately $6 million each. See campaign finance information for each campaign at http://ethics.lacity.org//efs/public_election.cfm?election_id=2#S9 (accessed June 4, 2006).

References Ansolabehere, S., & Iyengar, S. (1995). Going negative. New York: Free Press. Austin, S. D. W., & Middleton, R. T., IV. (2004). The limitations of the deracialization concept in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral election. Political Research Quarterly, 57, 283-293. Beck, N., Katz, J. N., & Tucker, R. (1997). Taking time seriously: Time-series cross-section analysis with a binary dependent variable. American Journal of Political Science, 42, 1260-1288. Brians, C. L., & Wattenberg, M. P. (1996). Campaign issue knowledge and salience: Comparing reception from TV commercials, TV news, & newspapers. American Journal of Political Science, 40, 172-193. Browning, R. P., Marshall, D. R., & Tabb, D. H. (Eds.). (2003). Racial politics in American cities. New York: Longman. Bullock, C. S., III. (1984). Racial crossover voting and the election of Black officials. Journal of Politics, 46, 238-251. Bullock, C. S., III, & Campbell, B. A. (1984). Racist or racial voting in the 1981 Atlanta municipal elections. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 20, 149-164. Carsey, T. M. (1995). The contextual effects of race on White voter behavior: The 1989 New York City mayoral election. Journal of Politics, 57, 221-228.

148


Citrin, J., Green, D. P., & Sears, D. O. (1990). White reactions to Black candidates: When does race matter? Public Opinion Quarterly, 54, 74-96. Damore, D. F. (2002). Candidate strategy and the decision to go negative. Political Research Quarterly, 55, 669-685. DeLorenzo, L. C., Kohfeld, C., & Stein, L. (1997). The impact of cross-racial voting on St. Louis primary election results. Urban Affairs Review, 33, 120-133. Freedman, P., & Goldstein, K. (1999). Measuring media exposure and the effects of negative campaign ads. American Journal of Political Science, 43, 1189-1208. Fridkin, K. L., & Kenney, P. J. (2004). Do negative messages work? The impact of negativity on citizens’ evaluations of candidates. American Politics Research, 32, 570-605. Garramone, G. M. (1984). Voter response to negative political ads. Journalism Quarterly, 61, 250-259. Goidel, R. K., & Langley, R. E. (1996). Media coverage of the economy and aggregate economic evaluations: Uncovering evidence of indirect media effects. Political Research Quarterly, 48, 313-328. Hale, J. F., Fox, J. C., & Farmer, R. (1996). Negative advertisements in U.S. Senate campaigns: The influence of campaign context. Social Science Quarterly, 77, 329-343. Hamilton, C. V. (1977). Deracialization: Examination of a political strategy. First World, 1, 3-5. Haynes, A. A., & Rhine, S. L. (1998). Attack politics in presidential nomination campaigns: An examination of the frequency and determinants of intermediated negative messages against opponents. Political Research Quarterly, 51, 691-721. Healy, P. D. (2005, August 22). Rivals’ attacks get hotter in 4-way mayoral debate. The New York Times, p. A15. Henig, J., Hula, R., Orr, M., & Pedescleaux, D. (1999). The color of school reform: Race, politics, & the challenge of urban education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hero, R. (1987). The election of Hispanics in city government: An examination of the election of Federico Pena as mayor of Denver. Western Political Quarterly, 40, 93-105. Herring, M., & Forbes, J. (1994). The overrepresentation of a White minority: Detroit’s atlarge city council, 1961-1989. Social Science Quarterly, 75, 431-445. Hetherington, M. J. (1996). The media’s role in forming voters’ national economic evaluations in 1992. American Journal of Political Science, 40, 372-395. Kaufmann, K. M. (2004). The urban voter: Group conflict and mayoral voting behavior in American cities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lau, R. R., Sigelman, L., Heldman, C., & Babbitt, P. (1999). The effects of negative political advertisements: A meta analytic assessment. American Political Science Review, 93, 851-876. Liu, B. (2003). Deracialization and urban racial contexts. Urban Affairs Review, 38, 572-591. McCormick, J., II, & Jones, C. E. (1993). The conceptualization of deracialization. In G. A. Persons (Ed.), Dilemmas of Black politics: Issues of leadership and strategy (pp. 66-84). New York: HarperCollins. Mendelberg, T. (2001). The race card: Campaign strategy, implicit messages, & the norm of equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Metz, D. H., & Tate, K. (1995). The color of urban campaigns. In P. E. Peterson (Ed.), Classifying by race (pp. 262-277). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Meyerson, H. (2001, June 8). The era of bad feelings. LA Weekly, p. 16. Munoz, C., Jr., & Henry, C. (1986). Rainbow coalitions in four big cities: San Antonio, Denver, Chicago, & Philadelphia. PS: Political Science and Politics, 19, 598-609. Mutz, D. (1995). Effects of horse-race coverage on campaign coffers: Strategic contributing in presidential primaries. Journal of Politics, 57, 1015-1042.


149

Patterson, T. E. (1996). Bad news, period. PS: Political Science and Politics, 29, 17-20. Perry, H. L. (1991). Deracialization as an analtyical construct in American urban politics. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 27, 181-191. Peterson, D. A., & Djupe, P. A. (2005). When primary campaigns go negative: The determinants of campaign negativity. Political Research Quarterly, 58, 45-54. Pierannunzi, C. A., & Hutcheson, J. D., Jr. (1991). Deracialization in the deep south: Mayoral politics in Atlanta. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 27, 192-201. Rosales, R. (2000). The illusion of inclusion: The untold political story of San Antonio. Austin: University of Texas Press. Royston, P., & Altman, D. G. (1994). Regression using fractional polynomials of continuous covariates: Parsimonious parametric modeling. Applied Statistics, 43, 429-467. Sigelman, L., & Buell, E. H., Jr. (2003). You take the high road and I’ll take the low road? The interplay of attack strategies and tactics in presidential campaigns. Journal of Politics, 65, 518-531. Skaperdas, S., & Grofman, B. (1995). Modeling negative campaigning. American Political Science Review, 89, 49-61. Sonenshein, R. J. (1993). Politics in Black and White: Race and power in Los Angeles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stone, C. (1989). Regime politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Theilmann, J., & Wilhite, A. (1998). Campaign tactics and the decision to attack. Journal of Politics, 60, 1050-1062. Thompson, J. P. (1996). The election and governance of David Dinkins as mayor of New York. In H. L. Perry (Ed.), Race, politics, and governance in the United States (pp. 65-81). Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Underwood, K. (1997). Ethnicity is not enough: Latino-led multiracial coalitions in Los Angeles. Urban Affairs Review, 33, 3-27. Vanderleeuw, J. M. (1990). A city in transition: The impact of changing racial composition on voting behavior. Social Science Quarterly, 71, 326-338. Vanderleeuw, J. M., Liu, B., & Marsh, G. (2004). Applying Black threat theory, urban regime theory, & deracialization: The Memphis mayoral elections of 1991, 1995, and 1999. Journal of Urban Affairs, 26, 505-519. Winn, M., & Palmer, E. G. (1996). The election of Norman B. Rice as mayor of Seattle. In H. L. Perry (Ed.), Race, politics, and governance in the United States (pp. 82-95). Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

Timothy B. Krebs is an associate professor of political science at the University of New Mexico. His research interests include urban elections and local political institutions. His work has appeared in American Journal of Political Science, Social Science Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and Journal of Urban Affairs. David B. Holian is an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research interests include presidential approval, elite communication, and media effects. His work has appeared in Political Behavior, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, and Urban Affairs Review.