Candidate Advertisements,Media Coverage,and Citizen Attitudes: The Agendas and Roles of Senators and Governors in a Federal System

Abstract

We argue that the policy divisions created by a federalist structure provide a frame, helping political leaders identify or prioritize executive and legislative agendas and helping citizens in assigning political responsibility. Relying upon Peterson's (1995) theory of functional federalism, we hypothesize that U.S. senators, as national-level political actors, will emphasize redistributive and international issues, while governors, as state-level political actors, will emphasize developmental policies in their work and communication with citizens and the media. Using candidate campaign advertisements, newspaper articles, and individual-level (survey) data, we demonstrate that “issue-sorting” takes place according to the functional responsibilities of the national and state governments. In particular, developmental concerns such as economics, education, the environment, and transportation are the responsibility of governors (as state elected officials), while foreign policy and redistributive issues such as Social Security and agricultural policy are the responsibility of U.S. senators (as national officials). These results demonstrate that federalism serves as a powerful frame for policy focus and responsibility