General Elections

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>General elections are the final stage in the presidential election process. General elections are held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. By the time of the general election, presidential candidates have campaigned for approximately one year and have raised huge sums of money. In the election of 2000, the Bush-Cheney campaign raised approximately $200 million compared to the $6.61 million spent by President Eisenhower in 1952. Most elections have an incumbent president facing a non-incumbent challenger. Both candidates have unique advantages and disadvantages in the campaign.</P> </p> <p> <P>Incumbent presidents enjoy free press coverage, or <b>publicity</b>. Speeches, appearances, and press releases by the president are extensively reported by the media, which essentially amounts to free advertising. Acting presidential is another key advantage of incumbent presidents. They have the opportunity to attend national and international summits, conferences, and meetings and present themselves as confident and authoritative. Presidents can also improve their image through crisis management, which allows a president to confront a problem directly and publicly resolve it. As an extension, <b>credit claiming</b> allows presidents to take credit for positive events or actions they may or may not have influenced throughout their previous term.</P> </p> <p> <P>Incumbent presidents also face a unique set of challenges. The economy is cyclical in nature, but presidents usually share in the success or failure of the economy. An economic downturn prior to a general election can be disastrous for an incumbent president. Another significant disadvantage faced by sitting presidents is policy criticism. The policies of a president and his administration receive a great deal of scrutiny, and critics are quick to attack the president based on real or perceived failures. The presidential approval rating usually decreases the longer a president is in office. Due to the unique advantages and disadvantages of incumbent presidents, timing of events is very important to the success of an incumbent’s campaign.</P> </p> <p> <P>Challengers can attack the president’s policy decisions. Much of the voting public is aware of the president’s actions and may agree with criticism of his policies. A politically savvy challenger can twist a president’s record and use it to serve his needs. Challengers can also heavily promote their own political record. Usually a challenger is a congressman or a state governor, so his own record is not as well known as the president’s. They can easily highlight their successes, while minimizing or completely ignoring their failures and shortcomings.<br></P> <P>Challengers can also take advantage of momentum from primaries and caucuses. Usually a sitting president runs unopposed in his party’s primary, so there is very little media coverage of his campaign, but the challenger has recently emerged from a high-profile primary season and has had extensive media exposure. </P> </p> <p> <P>Another advantage used by many challengers is their status as a “Washington outsider.” Challengers claim to be “outsiders” in order to appeal to the distrust many Americans have for the federal government. This strategy worked well for the relatively unknown former governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, during the election of 1992. Clinton patterned his “outsider” attack on that of Jimmy Carter, another southern governor.<br></P> <P>While challengers have some advantages, they also face three large challenges: money, lack of presidential material, and regionalism. Raising sufficient money is often the biggest obstacle presidential contenders must overcome. It is relatively easy for the president to raise money because many people like to support a proven winner. The president can also rely extensively on his cabinet members and congressional backers to raise money. Challengers are less well known than the president, and many potential donors are reluctant to give to an uncertain campaign.</P> </p> <p> <P>Challengers are often unable to convince the American public that they have the presidential material required to be president. Contenders usually have had limited opportunity to show that they can succeed on a national or international stage, and so they have to overcome voters’ skepticism that they will be able to succeed at the highest level. Challengers often target the ideological extremes of their party in order to win the primary and may find it difficult to appeal to mainstream voters in the general election.<br></P> <P><b>Regionalism</b> is also a concern to challengers, since they are often closely defined with the state or region they come from. Many voters from a different region may be unwilling to vote for a candidate they cannot identify with. Most presidential candidates select a vice presidential candidate from a different region of the country in order to appeal to a diverse group of voters.</P> </p> <p> <P>The presence of a popular third-party candidate is a major concern to both incumbents and challengers. Although a third-party candidate has never won the presidency, they have swayed enough single-issue voters to jeopardize the mainstream candidate’s victory in key states. Examples of important third-party candidates include John Anderson in 1980, Ross Perot in 1992, and Ralph Nader in 2000. Despite not posing a serious threat to win the elections, many people believe these candidates took enough votes from one of the major party candidates to influence the outcomes of the elections.</P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>