In this interview with Piers Morgan from October, Herman Cain outlines his stance on the issue of abortion. According to his answers in the video, he does not believe that abortion is okay under any circumstances, but he also believes that it is not up to the government: that the decision lies with the individual or family involved, and it should not be legislated.
This is an example of informative campaigning, in which candidates clarify their positions on the issues, as opposed to persuasive campaigning, in which candidates attempt to convince voters that their positions are the best and try to get voters to identify with them. This is interesting because basically all campaigning is usually persuasive, so as not to risk alienating voters. If informative campaigning were to dominate, someone near the median would win, but according to Mueller, persuasive campaigning generally dominates, and the two run together to become a single factor affecting the vote percentage gained by a candidate. In the case of the Republican Primary campaign, there has been slightly more informative campaigning than in a usual campaign in order for the candidates to differentiate themselves from each other, and when candidates have revealed positions that may alienate voters their opponents have latched on and brought them to the forefront in order to draw a larger percentage of the vote.
2 comments:
It seems that it is kind of a waiting game to see if another candidate makes a mistake, and from their, the opposing candidate could use that mistake in the form of persuasive campaigning. At first though, it makes the most sense for the candidates to timidly only engage in informative campaigning, so as to not risk losing possible votes.
Perhaps the median voter theory still applies here though. During the Republican primary, the candidates will want to appeal to the median of the Republican voter population. Since it is a smaller and more focused population than the entire country, the candidates don't want to risk losing votes with persuasive campaigning.
Then, as discussed by Downs, the party's ultimate goal is to win, and will possibly move depending on where the median vote stands. So once a Republican candidate is nominated and is then facing the Democratic candidate, they can engage in more persuasive campaigning, as Mueller said they should.
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