This page is an undergraduate assignment at Davidson College

Salazar's Message Strategy

Overall Theme:

• Presents himself as the representative for the common man
• Sense of community - "Salazar is one of us"
  • Encourage people to come together, despite party identification, and do what is best for Colorado

Supportive Claims:

• Goal: appeal to voters in a GOP-leaning state
• Focuses on “traditional values, faith and his rural Hispanic heritage” (Kohler).
• Can appeal to both Republicans (traditional values) and Democrats
• Morals and background make Salazar the better candidate.
• Experience
• Popular Attorney General
• reelected for two terms
• Focus on topics that further his message:
• Education: more public funding & improvements
• Healthcare: more affordable for all classes
• Tax cuts: not just for millionaires
• Advertisements – primarily a “comparative appeals” tone (Maisel).
• “Agree”- economics: lists newspaper endorsements supporting Salazar over Coors.
• “Cone”- positive and personal: Salazar as “the Champion for People”
  • mentions healthcare and education
• “Unbelievable”- Negative attack on Coors and his homeland security stances
• “That's experience money just can't buy” – personal attack

Evaluation:

Strategic Perspective:

• The essence of political strategy is to concentrate your greatest strength against the point of your opponents greatest weakness" (Faucheux)
• Did Salazar do what he needed to do to win the election?
• Appealing to the common citizen is a good way to attract voters from both parties
• Uses ethnicity to his advantage - Hispanics make up 17.1% of population in Colorado Colorado 2000 Census
• Limited public appearances with Kerry broadened his independent appeal.
• Advertisements put Coors in a negative light
• Coors not in touch with the needs of the people
  • no experience
  • big business, wealthy, what about the middle class?

Normative Perspective:

• “Campaigns must be open and honest about what a candidate stands for and what the opponent stands for – and then the voters can decide.” (Maisel).
• Based on ethic, Salazar presented himself well.
• Salazar’s two terms as Attorney General show that his past record is similar to his promises
• Salazar is not changing his beliefs to get elected.
• Advertisements with comparative appeals can seem negative, but they are not unethical.
• Salazar did not mislead voters with false information about Coors
• Negative attacks were present but had initially wanted a clean campaign:
• “The Salazar campaign issued a press release slamming Coors for breaking a promise to avoid negative ads ‘less than 96 hours after he re-committed to run a clean campaign’ at a Sept. 11 debate” (Kohler).

Tension with Perspectives?

• Salazar’s combination of strategy and ethics are balanced.
• Salazar’s negative campaigning has potential for conflict, but Coors changed the tactics of the campaign
• Salazar not ethically at fault

*Discussed this paper topic with Grayson Moore

Works Cited

Honor Code

Part of an Assignment for:
POL 318

© Davidson College, 2004, Department of Political Science, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Created by Laura E. Noyes (lanoyes@davidson.edu)

Created: 9/10/04. Last updated: 11/16/04.