Presidential “Going Bipartisan” and the Consequences for Institutional Approval
Brandon Rottinghaus
Senator Don Henderson Endowed Chair
Associate Professor
bjrottinghaus@uh.edu
Kent L. Tedin
Professor
ktedin@uh.edu
University of Houston
Department of Political Science
447 Philip G. Hoffman Hall
Houston, Texas
Abstract
Although scholars have described how legislative efforts to spur bipartisanship fare, we have
little knowledge about how bipartisanship can affect political opinions with their rhetoric or the
most impactful message for opponents to respond. Using President Obama’s bipartisan speech to
the GOP House Issues Conference in 2010, we look at the effect of the one-sided message on
President Obama’s favorability rating. We then pair this message with three competing
messages of varying partisanship to determine the degree of change (if any). The results show
that the President’s one-sided message is effective, but if met with a competitive bipartisan
message from the opposition party, approval of the President by all partisan groups increases
even more. However, if the President’s bipartisan message frame is met using a partisan
message from the opposition party, the President’s approval declines among all partisans, and
approval of the Republicans in Congress increases but only for Republican identifiers.
Keywords: presidential leadership; bipartisanship; presidential approval
As candidate and chief executive, Barack Obama promised the American public that his
interaction with Congress would be one of accommodation and bipartisanship. Mr. Obama
sought to “build a cordial relationship with Republicans by seeking guidance on policy
proposals, asking for advice on appointments and hoping to avoid perceptions of political
arrogance given the wide margins of his victory” (Zeleny 2008). Lamenting that “in the nation’s
political debate, something is broken,” the President sought to foster an image that he and his
Administration would be willing to listen to and work with Republicans in Congress (Fletcher
2010). His approach is not altogether surprising. First, the American public was tired of the
partisan bickering and disappointed with the half-hearted efforts at bipartisanship (Nagourney
and Thee-Brenan 2010). Second, “bipartisanship” is an “electoral strategy that some politicians
believe will broaden their appeal, and secure the support of middle-of-the-road or swing voters”
(Tubowitz and Mellow 2005, 433), a vote getting strategy for President Obama. Third,
bipartisanship may help the president get his agenda passed into law, as was the case in the 2010
lame-duck session of Congress (Newton-Small 2010).
How presidents and Members of Congress deal with partisan conflict matters a great deal
for political and policy reasons. Scholars have also found that perceptions of bipartisanship
matter for how the public perceives government and the individuals who run it. Simply put, the
actions of the individuals involved matters for the public’s support of the actors and the
institutions. For instance, Morris and Witting (2008) found that citizen exposure to
Congressional partisan speeches increased perceptions of partisanship and lowered support for
Congress, while exposure to bipartisan speeches accomplished the reverse. Harbridge and
Malhotra (2009) similarly found that those exposed to bipartisan messages increased their
approval of Congress. Related to this, Ramirez (2009) found perceptions of partisan conflict
2
decreased approval for Congress. Newman and Siegle (2010, 342) argue that the “depth and
breadth of polarization may hold dire implications for presidential governance.” Among these
implications are consistently negative approval ratings for government (Mutz and Reeves 2005),
an inability to negotiate across the political divide (and thus pass legislation), policy obstruction
and gridlock.
Of course, there are two key actors on this stage: President Obama and the Republicans
in Congress. Each has their own decisions to make about the most effective rhetoric to
accomplish their goals. Yet, there is debate about how to accomplish this rhetorical bargaining.
Among those advocating the President take a partisan position is Nobel Prize winning economist
Paul Krugman (2010). He argues that Ronald Reagan consistently gave ground on policy issues
(like tax increases) but never varied from his hard right political rhetoric, giving little cover to
Democrats wanting an expansion of government services. Obama, in “going bipartisan,”
according Krugman, has helped the Republicans by giving legitimacy to some of their ideas,
such as the need to curb government spending and the symbolic freezes on federal wages.
Alternatively, others suggest the need for bipartisan tactics. Matt Bai (2010), in another New
York Times editorial, suggested that “President Obama and the newly empowered Republicans
may actually find more to talk about in the next Congress than they did in the last” because the
public demands action and the only way to accomplish legislative action is to build cross-party
coalitions.
Addressing this debate and the efficacy of these tactics, our questions in this paper are
simple and direct: (1) does a one-sided “need for bipartisanship” message (which will serve as
our baseline) from President Obama affect his favorability with the public, (2) what is the effect
of competitive messages varying in degree of partisan messages, and (3) what is the interaction
3
between message framing and individual partisan predispositions? Employing a large scale
experimental survey design, we expose respondents to one or more bipartisan and or partisan
messages and examine the effect of each message on respondents’ views toward President
Obama and the Republican Party. The contribution of this article is three fold. First, we can
extend the literature on political polarization from Congress (where much of the work has taken
place) to the presidency. This is important because the president often sets the tone for the interbranch relationship. Second, we can decipher whether or not President Obama’s general
bipartisan overture to the Republican Party can be successful and whether or not specific
Republican responses of varying partisan tones undermined, or failed to undermine, the
favorability evaluation of the President. We can do the same for the Republicans in Congress:
how does the partisan tone of the opposition’s message responding to the President affect their
own favorability rating? Third, using an experimental design and real world treatments, we can
add new insights into the effect of framing.
The Psychology of Opinion Change
Our theoretical approach is grounded in the research on message framing. Beyond the
empirical and political implications of a partisan / bipartisan message exchange, our design
allows us to test aspects of framing theory in a fashion that is more nuanced than the typical
design. The literature on framing is now voluminous, and we will just touch briefly on the
underlying theory. Framing is about the weight people give to considerations (Chong 1996;
Druckman 2004). In a framing effect, attitudes (in theory) change not because underlying
considerations change, but because the underlying weights given to considerations change
(Zaller 1992, 83). Frames are defined only in relation to specific issues, events or actors. In an
oft cited example, the willingness of people to support a rally permit for an unpopular group like
4
the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) differs significantly if their behavior is framed as free speech or
framed as the need for public safety (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley 1997; Sniderman and Theriault
2004). But most real world frames are not so simple or describe the issue with such starkly
divergent frames with no counter-frame (and often no control group). The key predictors of a
framing effect are the strength of the frame and the motivation of the message recipient. Thus,
for the KKK example, a safety frame that focused on possible violence would be stronger than
one that focused on traffic hazards. Similarly, a credible source is more effective than one of
less creditability (Druckman 2001). From the message recipient aspect, there exist mediating
predispositions. For instance, those holding well defined core values may respond differentially
to competing frames (Sniderman and Theriault 2004) or may resist certain message despite a
strong frame.
The literature on framing has been the source of considerable critical analysis, much
having to do with empirical testing. As stated above, a major goal of our research is to test
subject responses to a partisan versus bipartisan approach to politics. We have integrated these
tests within the message framing literature. The early work on message framing focused on
one-sided messages. In the research on the KKK cited above, one group only got the free speech
frame, while the other group got only the public safety frame. It is now generally appreciated
that one-sided messages usually change people’s preferences (Chong and Druckman, 2010).
However, this approach has serious problems with external generalizability. In the real word,
there is competition among messages. It is very unlikely that in the case of a petition for a KKK
rally, citizens would hear only one issue frame. Rather, in reality, most interested parties would
be exposed to competitive frames. Indeed, Chong and Druckman (2007, 113) argue:
5
. . .little is known about the dynamics of framing in competitive contexts. We need to
study further whether competing frames cancel one another and reinforce existing values,
push people in conflicting directions, or motivate a more careful evaluation of the
applicability of competing alternatives.
Framing and Partisan Resistance Expectations
For this study we use four substantive treatment groups and a control group ― the design
is summarized in Figure 1. We refer to the four treatments that are not the control treatment as
“frames,” meaning they vary in the text, emotion, images, and the style of presentation.1 We
test first for the effect of the one-sided Obama bipartisan speech (“presidential bipartisanship”
treatment). This treatment will serve as our baseline. Once the baseline is established (the effect
of the Obama speech calling for bipartisanship), our major theoretical interest is in the effect of
the varying Republican competing messages on the original baseline treatment. For the baseline
treatment, we expect a “mainstreaming” effect. These individuals watch only the single
bipartisan treatment and are exposed to a single message (Zaller 1992). Simply stated, approval
of the President should increase if the respondents see just the president’s bipartisan message..
The three remaining treatment groups see the same bipartisan Obama speech followed by
varying video recordings of Republican Leader John Boehner responding to President Obama’s
call for bipartisanship (again, see Figure 1). These three differing responses vary greatly in their
partisan content, or their “loudness,” as described in Table 1 (and below).2 What is being framed
We are using what is generally referred to as a “media frame” meaning the frames vary style
and emotion. Media frames can be contrasted to a “frame of thought” or the subjects
understanding of a message (Chong and Druckman 2007, 101).
1
2
Loudness is sometimes defined as how often a message is repeated, but it can also be conceived
as a message frame most likely to change consideration weights. We assume a consistent, biting
partisan message frame is more likely to change consideration weights is a message frame that is
blander, less partisan and less consistent (Druckman and Chong 2007, 102-105).
6
is the response tone of the Republican counter message to the Obama proposal for bipartisan
cooperation. Our general theory is that in the aggregate, ceteris paribus, the “louder” (more
consistently partisan) the response to the initial bipartisan message, the stronger the Republican
competing frame and the greater the chance that the response will undercut Obama’s appeal for
bipartisanship in the minds of the respondents. This should manifest in reduced favorability
ratings for the President but higher the favorability ratings for the Congressional Republicans for
all respondents. The explanation is straightforward ― consistent partisan frames will strengthen
partisan considerations. So, partisan responses to bipartisan overtures should increase an
individual’s partisan considerations. As the message of the counter frames becomes more mixed
(for instance as bipartisan messages from the president are met with bipartisan messages from
the opposition), the ability of the message to alter the weight given to partisan considerations
weakens.
[Figure 1 Here]
Of course, in the real world, all things are not equal, and we would expect an interaction
between the frames and individual predispositions. Resistance or acceptance by loyal partisans
may limit or enhance the effect of the “loudness” of partisan frames. Given this, we should see
differences across partisan attachments after viewing partisan or bipartisan messages. For
instance, Democrats and Republicans are likely to react differently to the same messages. In
effect, as suggested in the preceding paragraph, particular frames strengthen partisan preferences
by highlighting the partisan position of the speaker (President Obama or John Boehner) which
then cues the respondent of the same party to follow that opinion. In the context of our
experiment, we assume that in-party identifiers (Democrats) will react favorably to an
uncontested message from their party’s president. Independents will also react favorably as they
7
hear a one sided message. Republicans will be pulled in one direction by the one-sided message
and in another by their own partisan predisposition. 3 In treatments 2, 3 and 4 competing
messages are introduced that vary in their “loudness.” We expect that increasingly “loud”
partisan frames (progressively more partisan) will increase the strength of partisan considerations
for members of each party. Further, our expectation is that once conflict is introduced, as inparty identifiers (Democrats) view progressively more partisan responses to the President’s
bipartisan message, the favorability of the President will increase but the favorability of
Republicans in Congress will decrease. Simply put, competing strong partisan frames will raise
the importance of partisanship and increase approval for the in-group (because of the partisan
challenge) while decreasing approval of the out-group (the purveyors of the partisan challenge).
We expect the same for out-party identifiers (Republicans), except the approval valences will be
reversed.
Contrasting this, in terms of bipartisanship, consistent frames are most effective in
overcoming core value resistance (e.g., Republicans seeing consistently bipartisan messages
from the opposition party and their party will approve of bipartisanship more). When the frames
are consistent (e.g. endorsing bipartisanship) we should see approval of both President Obama
and the Republicans in Congress increase for both Democratic and Republican respondents
because all the cues are in the same direction. But, as the competing partisan frame grows louder
(the challenge from John Boehner becomes stronger), the partisan identifiers will split: for
Republicans the approval of the President should decrease while approval for the Republicans in
3
Keep in mind we are analyzing the effect of the message and change between Wave 1 (pretreatment) and Wave 2 (post-treatment).
8
Congress should increase while for Democrats the approval of the President should increase
while approval for the Republicans in Congress should decrease.
Independents who view only the one-sided bipartisan message from President Obama
should increase their favorability of the President since this is the only message to which they are
exposed.4 The same is true for the “dual bipartisanship” frame, since the two frames are
consistently bipartisan. Importantly, Independents lack the most important of recipient
predispositions—party identification―which would allow them to reject (or embrace) a
consistently framed message. We expect Independents will grow less favorable towards the
Republicans in Congress as the counter message grows increasingly loud (partisan). First, we
expect that Independents are more inclined to favor bipartisanship over partisan conflict
(Tubowitz and Mellow 2005; Shear 2011). Second, it may be that independents are offended by
what they this perceive as uncivil language, and perceived lack of comity is why they chose to
avoid party labels in the first place (Mutz and Reeves 2005; Mutz 2009). As Mutz (2007, 623)
notes, “clearly there is something about incivility that rubs Americans the wrong way,” and
Independents may be more off put by uncivil language than partisans. Therefore, we should
expect Independents’ favorability of the President to increase and the favorability of the
Republicans in Congress to decrease as the treatments become louder, or, put another way, as the
frames become increasingly partisan. Unfortunately, the number of possible predispositions that
might change consideration weighting among Independents is very large, making it difficult to
predict theoretically.
The Treatments and Research Design
The President’s own partisans already have high favorability ratings; the Republicans have
partisan resistance. The reverse would hold for the favorability of Republicans in Congress.
4
9
In order to validate our perceptions of the “partisan” or “bipartisan” nature of each
speech, we counted individual sentences that included particular valence statements as either
partisan or bipartisan. These data for each of the four speeches are summarized in Table 1
(again, the research design is identified in Figure 1). If an individual sentence had elements of
both partisanship and bipartisanship, the most prominent direction was coded. In practice,
though, this tended to not be a problem because the statements were generally either partisan or
bipartisan as defined by our coding rubric. Partisan statements were statements (by either party)
that offered criticisms of current or past programs, personalities, personal references to
individuals or the other party, statements that expressed disbelief, incredulity or criticism of
statements by the opposition and statements explaining the advantages of the speaker’s approach
to a policy or a situation. Bipartisan statements included those where the speaker indicated they
would work with the opposition by looking for “common ground,” identifying political or
structural (Constitutional) advantages to working together, noting any agreement on specific
issues or estimates and the use of “bipartisan” as a word in the appropriate context. It may be
that it is the ratio of partisan to bipartisan statements, rather than the absolute number of
statements, that is driving the respondents’ reactions, but, since the respondents view the full
speech, the effect is equivalent.
[Table 1 Here]
The first randomly assigned treatment group saw the “one side only” frame (the
“presidential bipartisanship” frame). In this frame, subjects were exposed only to a video
recording of President Obama’s speech to the GOP House Issues Conference. They did not see a
10
Republican response. 5 As explained above, we expect a significant overall increase in Obama’s
favorability rating among all groups. Many studies have shown the efficacy of one-sided
messages, and we expect the same for the “one side only” frame when compared to a control
group.6 Obama’s speech was the President’s bipartisan effort to show voters that the White
House would “engage Republicans rather than govern in a partisan manner” (Hulse and Zeleny
2010). To open the speech, President Obama claimed the importance of “bipartisanship, not for
its own sake, but to solve problems, that’s what our constituents, the American people, need
from us right now.”7 Stressing the need for vigorous debate in a democracy, the President noted,
“I hope that the conversation we begin here doesn’t end here; that we can continue our dialogue
in the days ahead. It’s important to me that we do so.”8 The New York Times (Baker and Hulse
2010) reported the day after the speech:
At a moment when the country is as polarized as ever, Mr. Obama traveled to a House
Republican retreat on Friday to try to break through the partisan logjam that has helped
stall his legislative agenda. What ensued was a lively, robust debate between a president
and the opposition party that rarely happens in the scripted world of American politics.
The Washington Post also noted that the meeting, while often tense, produced “bipartisan comity
over the stark policy differences that separate the two sides” (Kane and Bacon 2010). The data
from Table 1 bear these observations out. The President’s speech captured 88 total “bipartisan”
statements to 13 “partisan” statements according to our coding rubric.
5
To preserve the more purely bipartisan nature of the speech, respondents only viewed the
President’s speech, not the question and answer session that originally followed.
6
The control group watched a 20 minute video on the Founding Fathers.
Barack Obama, 2010, “Remarks by the President at the GOP House Issues Conference,”
Baltimore, Maryland, January 29.
7
8
Ibid.
11
As identified in Figure 1, the subjects not assigned to the one-sided “presidential
bipartisanship” treatment were randomly assigned to one of three other treatment groups. Each
group viewed the Obama speech and one of three speeches by Republican Leader John Boehner.
First, the least “partisan” (or most “bipartisan”) of the messages from John Boehner was his
interview on CNN (we label this the “dual bipartisanship” treatment). The data in Table 1 show
this interview was the most bipartisan of the three Boehner speeches (22 partisan statements, 22
bipartisan statements). For instance, Minority Leader Boehner noted he would “never, ever give
up on trying to find common ground with the President” on a range of issues. Similarly, the tone
of Leader Boehner’s message was polite, measured and reasonable as he answered questions
from CNN host Anderson Cooper. Although we offer this interview as an example of a
“bipartisan” message, the interview did contain 22 partisan statements. Thus, the message was
not uniformly bipartisan, but, of those messages available, this was the most accommodating and
“bipartisan” presentation. While not as bipartisan as President Obama’s speech, this message is
most bipartisan message among the three Republican response frames.
In the moderately partisan speech, a four minute video “Weekly Republican Address,”
Leader Boehner stressed his desire to work with President Obama and Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi, but he also noted that “where there are differences, it was our obligation as a party
to explain to the American people how we [the Republicans] would do things better.” We label
this treatment “conflicting ideology.” Leader Boehner indicated that his and the Republican
Caucus’ ideas for governing and on specific public policies (the stimulus package, health care,
tort reform, the budget) were better than those offered by the Obama White House and that in a
bipartisan meeting with the President, Leader Boehner provided these ideas to the President in
writing. In contrast to Leader Boehner’s CNN interview which was primarily bipartisan, Table 1
12
shows that this Weekly Republican Address is slightly more partisan than bipartisan (26 partisan
statements to 22 bipartisan statements). Likewise, although his tone and approach to his
statement was mild and direct, the language used was more partisan and confrontational than in
the CNN interview, differentiating the two speeches. Also, as noted below, this speech was
more personal (with respect to President Obama) than the “bipartisan” Boehner speech.
The third speech by Leader Boehner was the most partisan of the three speeches, and this
is the speech watched by the respondents in the “partisan attack” treatment group. This speech
was given on the House floor on March 21, 2010 in the month before the health care reform
legislation was debated and a month after the President delivered his bipartisan speech to the
House GOP Issues Conference. In contrast to the other two speeches, in this speech Leader
Boehner aggressively challenged the President and his agenda. In this speech, he loudly and
angrily shouted “Hell no, you can’t” (which became a hit on YouTube) to a litany of criticisms of
the Obama Administration and several policies (to the point where the parliamentary leader had
to admonish those in attendance to calm down). Leader Boehner argued that the President has
failed to listen to the voters, and that the White House’s legislative agenda does not “reflect the
will of our constituents.” Table 1 clearly demonstrates that this speech is the most partisan of the
three used in the experiment. Leader Boehner made 47 partisan statements to 1 bipartisan
statement. This is the strongest (and loudest) partisan frame and is the most inconsistent with the
original Obama bipartisan speech.
The speeches are also distinguished from each other by the number of political and
personal statements. Policy statements were statements that were substantially related to a
policy, where the reference or point was about a policy or issue. For instance, John Boehner
noted in the CNN interview (the moderate position) “In order to put their government-run health
13
care plan together, they have got to raise taxes in their budget. Already $634 billion over the next
10 years, and that’s only about half of what it is expected to cost.” Personal statements were
statements where an individual was the reference and where no policy was mentioned. For
instance, John Boehner (speaking of then Speaker Nancy Pelosi) said, “Lying to the Congress of
the United States is a crime. And if the Speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence
officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she (Pelosi) should come forward with
evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted.” The results
show that the more partisan the response, the more likely the speech is to have more personal
statements and less likely to have policy statements. Aggregating the statements, Boehner’s
response speech in the “dual bipartisan” treatment has 3 personal statements, “conflicting
ideology” has 14 and “partisan attack” has 23. Likewise, the percent of policy issues is lower for
those speeches that are more partisan: 52% of the statements in “partisan attack” were policybased, compared to 68% for “conflicting ideology” and 86% for “dual bipartisanship.” While we
are unable to completely isolate to which effect the respondents are reacting, this additional level
of analysis helps us to clarify the tone and substance of the individual treatments and establish
that partisan speeches tend to be more conflictual.
The Experiment and Respondents
In order to experimentally manipulate the effects of exposure to individual matched
speech formats, we conducted a panel survey of undergraduate students at a major university in a
large state in the southwest. Three weeks into the spring semester of 2010, student subjects in
multiple Introduction to American Government classes9 were surveyed on a range of factual,
9
Introduction to American Government is a required course at the institution making selfselection not an issue. Because all students are required to take these introductory classes, we are
14
policy, ideological, political issues and standard demographics. The second wave was conducted
two months later, when the subjects randomly received one of four treatments or a control
treatment. The surveys were designed using Qualtrics and conducted over the Internet. A total
of 869 subjects completed both waves of the panel.10 The sample was highly diverse, with a
significant representation of African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Whites.11 The sample
was also very diverse politically.12 For the post-test portion of the experiment, the students were
randomly assigned to one of five experimental treatment groups, again as shown in Figure 1
above.
As with any experiment, there are advantages and disadvantages. The first advantage is
that random assignment allows us to test competing hypotheses with a high degree of internal
validity. We can investigate presidential leadership and the effects of varying from opposition
response with confidence concerning cause and effect. The usual confounding factors in crosssectional designs are removed. On the other hand, the most important limitation to our approach
is external validity. First, our survey participants were asked to watch all of a particular
presentation, where in reality they might only watch part or highlights from the speeches or not
watch at all. Second, the subjects watched the videos on the Internet in their homes or dorms
instead of on television during the real time of the addresses. This method has some advantages
not biasing the sample in favor of political science majors who may be attentive to or otherwise
involved in politics. The students were given minor course credit for participating in the project.
10
Non-citizens were deleted as were those who expressed a party preference other than
Democratic, Independent or Republican, yielding a total of 859 respondents who completed both
waves of the study.
11
There were 173 blacks, 159 Asians, 184 Hispanics, 272 non-Hispanic whites and 71 “other.”
12
The question on partisanship asked them: Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a
Democrat, a Republican, an Independent or what?” The sample was 49% Democratic, 22%
Independent, and 31% Republican.
15
in terms of reality that would not be achieved in a conventional laboratory setting. The subjects
were not under supervision and they could watch the videos at their convenience over a two
week period. As a precaution against inattentive respondents, we gave each respondent a five
item test on the video they had just watched. The results showed the mean number correct was
3.78, suggesting most respondents paid attention to the presentations.13 Third, using real world
messages costs us a bit in terms of experimental control. It may be that some factor other than
our proposed treatment (partisan/bipartisan messages) is affecting the results.14 Finally, although
the sample was very diverse and the randomization worked well, care needs to taken with
generalizations (Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997; Scott, Matland, Michelbach, and Bornstein
2003; Chong and Druckman 2010).15
13
We found no statistically significant differences by treatment group for the attention to the
treatment questions (using a χ2 test). Specifically, the correct right for control was 3.70; for
Obama’s speech 3.75, for Boehner’s partisan attack 3.66; for the conflicting ideologies 4.06, and
for the dual partisanship 3.66.
14
Order effects of the speeches may also be playing a part in the findings (showing the same
speech first each time). In this article we are specifically interested in the president’s efforts to
initiate bipartisanship (and the concurrent levels of challenge) rather than the changes in
bipartisanship more broadly, making the current design the most appropriate.
We found no statistically significant differences between any of the treatment groups using χ2
tests. Eyeballing the differences between the groups for partisanship or ideology, the percentages
are all similar across the randomly distributed treatment groups. For instance, for partisanship,
Democrats made up 49% of the control, 45% of the “presidential bipartisanship” treatment, 54%
of the “partisan attack” treatment, 53% of the “conflicting ideology” treatment and 45% of the
“dual bipartisanship” treatment. Republicans made up 21% of the control, 23% of the
“presidential bipartisanship” treatment, 19% of the “partisan attack” treatment, 20% of the
“conflicting ideology” treatment and 22% of the “dual bipartisanship” treatment. Independents
made up 29% of the control, 31% of the “presidential bipartisanship” treatment, 27% of the
“partisan attack” treatment, 27% of the “conflicting ideology” treatment and 32% of the “dual
bipartisanship” treatment. For instance, for ideology, liberals made up 37% of the control, 40%
of the “presidential bipartisanship” treatment, 35% of the “partisan attack” treatment, 35% of the
“conflicting ideology” treatment and 32% of the “dual bipartisanship” treatment. Conservatives
made up 20% of the control, 19% of the “presidential bipartisanship” treatment, 18% of the
“partisan attack” treatment, 14% of the “conflicting ideology” treatment and 20% of the “dual
15
16
The Effects of Going Bipartisan and Opposition Messages
The dependent variables for this analysis are changes in favorability. For instance, we
asked respondents to indicate favorable or unfavorable opinions of President Barack Obama on a
one-to-seven scale. We focus on changes in favorability because this is likely the most
immediate and prominent effect of watching and interpreting political events. Wave 2 is then
subtracted from Wave 1. The difference was contrasted to the control group difference and tested
for statistical significance with a difference of means test. This design is stronger than a standard
cross-sectional experiment. First, by using a control group we can account for the events
(history) that occurred between waves. Second, we minimize order and priming effects.
Partisanship and key demographics are measured at Wave 1.16 Since the substantive items on the
two waves are identical, if there are priming or order effects, they are equal in each wave. The
result is that they do not contaminate the measurement of the dependent variables.
Looking first at Obama’s favorability change among all subjects between Wave 1 and
Wave 2 (shown in Table 2) for the one side only treatment, we see the expected pattern. The
question asked: “On a one to seven scale do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of
President Barack Obama?”17 Positive numbers reflect increases in favorability. Change in the
control group is virtually zero. Seeing only President Obama’s (one-sided) bipartisan
bipartisanship” treatment. Moderates made up 42% of the control, 40% of the “presidential
bipartisanship” treatment, 47% of the “partisan attack” treatment, 50% of the “conflicting
ideology” treatment and 47% of the “dual bipartisanship” treatment. Similar (non-significant)
effects were found for race and gender. Further details are available from the authors.
The question querying partisan attachments was: “Generally speaking, do you consider
yourself a Democrat, a Republican, and Independent or what?” The choices were: strong
Democrat, Democrat, but not strong, Independent, Republican, but not strong, Strong
Republican, other or none. Strong and weak partisans were grouped together.
16
17
One is marked “unfavorable,” four is marked “neutral” and seven is marked “favorable.”
17
presentation modestly increases his approval by .25 among all subjects when compared to
change in the control group (p. < .05). However, seeing the Obama presentation followed by the
John Boehner “partisan attack” speech decreases Obama’s change in approval essentially back to
zero (.03; n.s.) when contrasted to the control. Next, for John Boehner’s moderate response
(“conflicting ideology”) to the Obama presentation, we see a positive change in Obama’s
approval of .22 points, similar to where it was for the one-sided Obama treatment (“presidential
bipartisanship”) (p. <.10). Finally, in the Obama bipartisan presentation followed by the
Boehner bipartisan interview (“dual bipartisanship”), we see an increase of .49 compared to the
control group (p. < .001), the greatest increase in Obama’s favorability rating of any of the
treatments. In fact, this improvement in Obama’s favorability exceeds the one sided frame.
When it comes to President Obama’s favorability rating, the lesson for Republicans is clear:
going bipartisan has the potential downside of boosting the President’s approval rate beyond
what would exist if the Republicans simply did nothing.
[Table 2 Here]
We also asked respondents at Wave 1 and Wave 2 to indicate their favorable or
unfavorable rating of the Republicans in Congress.18 The question asked: “On a one to seven
scale do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Republicans in Congress?”19
Positive numbers reflect an increase in favorability. Following the 2008 election, John Boehner
was the face of the Republican Party. While the question was generic to the Republicans in
Congress, the specific referent was House Minority Leader John Boehner since he was the
18
For both survey waves the order of these Obama-House Republicans favorability items were
randomly rotated.
19
One is marked “unfavorable,” four is marked “neutral” and seven is marked “favorable.”
18
featured Republican in the treatments. As can be seen in Table 2, the treatments had no effect in
either increasing or decreasing the favorability of Congressional Republicans. The change for
each treatment differs little from the control. When it comes to evaluating the Republicans in
Congress, the bipartisan Obama speech at the Republican Conference (“presidential
bipartisanship”) had no mean effect. In fact, all of the treatments resulted in an aggregate
movement of essentially zero among all respondents. These results need to be put in context. At
a minimum it important to note in the aggregate sample that Democrats outnumber Republicans
by a margin of 1.6 to 1.0. Thus, we need to disaggregate by partisan predisposition.
The Effect of Going Bipartisan Considering Partisan Predispositions
The significant findings for the changes in approval in Table 2 could be masking
important subgroup changes. For instance, in the case of the approval of the Republicans, if the
Democrats move toward less favorability, the Republicans toward more favorability and the
Independents split about evenly, that would account for the null results in Table 2. To examine
this possibility, we next turn to the motivation of the message recipient. As we argued above,
Democrats and Republicans are not likely to react in the same way to the message frames.
Independents (who are largely without such predispositions) also react differently to different
and competing partisan frames. For public, high-level political battles, almost everything is
filtered through the lens of partisan predispositions providing a possible resistance agent to the
power of the frame. To account for this possibility, the analysis from Table 2 is repeated for
Democrats, Independents and Republicans in Figures 2 and 3 allowing us to more closely
examine the interaction of each frame and partisans predispositions.
19
Figure 2 shows the change in Obama’s favorability by treatment multiplied by party
using the same favorability question as above.20 Positive numbers reflect increases in favorability
on the seven point scale. Generally, Democrats experienced meaningful treatment effects. When
contrasted to the control, those exposed to the one sided “presidential bipartisanship” treatment
give Obama a favorability boost of .25 (p. < .05). As expected, a one-sided message among ingroup partisans is effective. Yet, among Democrats, when Obama’s speech is followed by
Boehner’s partisan speech on the House floor (“partisan conflict”), the favorability of President
Obama decreases by .08 from the first wave and actually falls slightly below the control group.
Boehner’s more balanced Republican video address (“conflicting ideology”) yields a .14
(p. < .10). increase in Obama’s favorability, while those exposed to the “dual bipartisanship”
treatment raised Obama’s favorability by .40 units contrasted to control among Democrats
(p. < .01).21 This latter effect is the largest point change in Obama’s favorability movement
among Democratic respondents. The joint “frame” of bipartisanship is effective as respondents
are more likely to follow the “mainstreamed” bipartisan approach, as expected, but louder
competing frames tends to decrease approval of the President among even Democrats.
[Figure 2 Here]
The data for Republican identifiers reveal somewhat similar findings to the Democratic
identifiers. The first point of consequence is that the one-side only treatment (“presidential
bipartisanship”) does not move Republicans to more favorably rate Obama (as it does Democrats
and Independents). The recipient predispositions outweigh the Obama one-sided frame, even
20
The total respondents for each were as follows: presidential bipartisanship (154), dual
bipartisanship (178), conflicting ideology (188) and partisan attack (149). Both the treatment
and party affiliation variables were statistically significant at .p. >.01.
21
Significance tests contrast treatment to control group.
20
when he is proposing cooperation with Republicans. For students of public opinion this is
somewhat reassuring. Not all citizens are blown around by current information, rather these
Republicans encounter internal partisan resistance (Zaller 1992). Interestingly, the Boehner
partisan address (“partisan attack”) has essentially no effect. However, as hypothesized, when
Boehner’s addresses become increasingly conciliatory (bipartisan), the favorability ratings of
Obama among Republicans increase significantly. The “conflicting ideology” treatment moves
Obama’s favorability by .50 (p < .05) and the “dual bipartisanship” treatment moves it by .84
units (p <.001), both significant differences from the control group. The pattern we saw among
the Democrats is essentially the same among Republicans but with greater movement. In
practical terms, if Republicans want to undermine a Democratic president’s favorability rating
among their own partisans, it seems best to engage in conflicting partisanship in order to alter
the effect of the one- sided frame.
Finally, we examined Independents and the effect of each treatment on approval of
Obama. We anticipated the one-sided argument to have its greatest effect on Independents
(since they have no modifying predisposition), and we find that this hypothesis is supported.
Self-identified Independents register positive movement (.38) in response to the solo Obama
bipartisan speech (“presidential bipartisanship”) (p. <.05), a difference of .57 units when
contrasted to the control. This result supports much previous work on framing—no recipient
predispositions and a one-sided frame are very effective in moving public opinion. The “dual
bipartisanship” frame showed remarkably similar results, also registering a .38 point movement
in approval. The loudness hypothesis is supported in that the mainstream effect of the singlesided frame (“presidential bipartisanship”) and the two-sided consistent bipartisan frame (“dual
bipartisanship”) are both equally successful in increasing approval of the president. However,
21
the Boehner challenge treatments showed fewer significant effects. Compared to the control
group, the “conflicting ideology” treatment yielded a .26 unit movement and “partisan attack”
yielded a .24 unit movement. For the Presidential favorability ratings, the message seems
reasonably clear ― Independents’ approval of the President are slightly lower when counter
messages have a partisan bite.
Figure 3 identifies respondent attitudes towards the Republicans in Congress on the same
seven point scale described above. Again, positive numbers reflect increases in approval.22 As
expected, Democrats and Republicans have different favorability ratings for the Republicans in
Congress. Among Democratic identifiers in the sample, they become more favorable to the
Republicans in Congress following Obama’s bipartisan gesture (“presidential bipartisanship”)
(.38 change), as predicted. Similarly, the Democrats were more likely to favor the Republicans
in response to Boehner’s more moderate address, where the “conflicting ideology” treatment
produces a .17 increase and the “dual bipartisanship” treatment produces a .37 increase (equal to
the one-sided surge in “presidential bipartisanship”). However, Boehner’s aggressive speech
(the “partisan attack” treatment) undermined the favorability of the Republicans in Congress
among Democrats and fell below the control group (-.05). For the Democrats evaluating the
Republicans in Congress, partisan message loudness is overwhelmed by partisan predisposition
resistance.
[Figure 3 Here]
Interestingly, Republicans, after viewing the one-sided Obama message, became less
favorable to the Republicans in Congress (-.52) between Wave 1 and Wave 2. Presidents do, it
22
The total respondents for each were as follows: presidential bipartisanship (169), dual
bipartisanship (179), conflicting ideology (188) and partisan attack (151).
22
seems, find success in moving partisans (Tedin, Rottinghaus and Rodgers 2011). However, given
some “red meat” (in the form of the Boehner partisan attack in the “partisan attack” treatment),
Republican respondent’s favorability of Republicans in Congress jumped significantly between
the two waves (.40 points contrasted to control). However, as the Boehner message frame
moderated, Republican favorability of the Republicans in Congress declined, falling below the
changes in approval held by the control group for the “dual bipartisanship” frame (-.23). In this
political battle, Republican identifiers clearly desired some degree of challenge to the ideas of
the opposition party, although bipartisanship produced less displeasure with the Republicans in
Congress than the solo Obama message. The conflictual framing works to the advantage of the
Republicans here, but the “mainstreaming” effect (of multiple bipartisan statements) did not
work as expected to produce consistent positive approval change for the Republicans in
Congress. The implication is that predispositions matter in limiting framing effects.
Finally, for Independents’ approval of the Republicans in Congress, there was virtually
no movement for the “presidential bipartisanship” or “dual bipartisanship” frames ― the effects
of each were approximately the same (just under zero change) although we expected to see
positive change. However, there was a significant negative reaction to John Boehner’s stridently
partisan address (the “partisan conflict” treatment). Independents viewing the “partisan attack”
treatment moved to a more negative approval of the Republicans in Congress
(-.40), significantly below their approval changes for any of the other treatments. As suggested
above, being primarily nonpartisan, perhaps they dislike uncivil discourse or perhaps they are
more likely to favor bipartisan solution (consistent with national polling findings). Whatever the
reason, we find that Independents are not likely to move their opinions on the Republican Party
23
very much positively or negatively, except when the partisan rancor increases wherein they are
much less likely to approve of the Republicans in Congress.
Conclusions
Commentators suggest that the future of President Obama’s presidency may depend on
how much he is able to foster bipartisan cooperation with the Republicans, especially after the
2010 midterm elections provided major gains for the opposition party and control of the House
of Representatives (Stolberg 2010). Indeed, presidents facing an opposition Congress are often
encouraged to reach out to the other side of the aisle. In many ways, this is a classic framing
issue. The President and Congress must engage each other. But, what is the best strategy in
terms of tone of the message? While we know a great deal about presidential efforts to bargain
with Congress (Edwards 1989; Beckmann 2010), we know less about how presidential rhetoric
stands up to message competition from the opposing party in a way that enhances our
understanding of how the rhetoric over bipartisanship is best handled. This article has given us
some insight into this topical question and an interesting approach to analyzing political framing.
Although we explore the framing debate in a topical setting, there are some limitations to
our experimental research design that limits our ability to capture the president’s effectiveness at
going bipartisan. First, the politics of the situation changed since the experiment was conducted:
Minority Leader Boehner in 2011 became Speaker Boehner. While we captured a range of
reactions to the President’s speech, from accommodation to hostility, it may be the case that the
public alters their opinions of the situation when the group challenging the President’s message
control a branch of government and are therefore more relevant as political actors. Notably, does
the strength the counter message interact with holding majority control of the House of
Representatives? One might expect an even stronger reaction to partisan attack message if
24
Republicans are responsible for managing the House. Or, people may expect more civility from
the House leader. Second, although we identify the relative number of partisan, policy, political
and personal statements for each speech, we are unable to know concretely which precise
condition caused the respondents to act. The tone of the speeches could have been the key
characteristic rather than the bipartisan effect that we posit. This is an inherent disadvantage in
using real life speeches where we cannot control precisely the content.
Despite these limitations, the implications from our findings suggest that the study of
bipartisanship is not an empty exercise. President Obama improved his own approval for all
respondents when the message they saw was one sided, but that is hardly a surprise given the
research on framing. Importantly, our data show that competing messages can sometimes
undermine the one-sided message and in other instances enhance the effect of one-sided
messages. Specifically, for all partisan groups, a consistent partisan frame actually seems to
work against the Republicans by increasing support for the President and decreasing support the
Republicans in Congress. But, for Republicans, the “mainstreaming” message from the
bipartisanship frame does not have the same registered effect on approval of Republicans in
Congress. The take away from this analysis is that bipartisan framing can break through partisan
predispositions for all groups of partisan identifiers (such as when the bipartisan message is
consistent across parties), even among groups who would otherwise disapprove of the bipartisan
message by itself. Differences in ideology and their role in resistance to framing is an important
question to address in the future.
In practical terms, the findings show that the opposition party can hurt the approval of the
sitting president if they reject bipartisan advances with a partisan response. In fact, Democrats
and Independents who see the President making overtures and being rejected in a bitterly
25
partisan way are more likely to disapprove of President Obama. The response from the
opposition matters as well. As the response messages from the House Minority Leader grow
more partisan, ratings by Democratic and Independent respondents of the Republicans in
Congress go from very small to negative, not a surprise given the predispositions of the message
recipients. On the other hand, as the message frame from Representative Boehner grew more
conflictual (more partisan but a less consistent bipartisan frame), Republicans became more
likely to favor the Republican Party. Finally, although Independents are not especially
persuaded by bipartisan messages from either or both parties, the strong partisan frame offered
by John Boehner reduced their approval of all institutional actors.
26
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29
FIGURE 1
Experimental Design for Treatment Groups
Control Group
“Founding
Fathers” Video
Group 1: “ PRESIDENTIAL BIPARTISANSHIP”
BIPARTISAN Message from President, no response from opposition
Obama’s speech
to GOP
Conference

Survey
Group 2: “DUAL BIPARTISANSHIP”
BIPARTISAN message from President and from Republican Leader
Obama’s speech
to GOP
Conference

Boehner’s
Bipartisan
Interview (CNN)

Survey
Group 3: “CONFLICTING IDEOLOGY”
BIPARTISAN message from President and PARTISAN message from Republican Leader
Obama’s speech
to GOP
Conference

Boehner’s Weekly
Republican Video
Address

Survey
Group 4: “PARTISAN ATTACK”
BIPARTISAN message from President and VERY PARTISAN message from Republican Leader
Obama’s speech
to GOP
Conference

Boehner’s Speech
on House floor
30

Survey
TABLE 1
Partisan and Bipartisan Statements in Sample Speeches
“Presidential
Bipartisanship”
“Partisan
Attack”
“Dual
Bipartisanship”
“Conflicting
Ideology”
PARTISAN STATEMENTS (both parties)
Criticism of programs
3
25
9
6
Criticism of personalities
Criticism of past programs
Criticisms of other party
0
0
4
19
0
3
9
0
0
8
0
0
Statements critical of their claims or
statements
2
0
0
3
Explains advantages of their party’s
approach (over the other party)
4
0
8
5
SUBTOTAL
13
47
26
22
Cooperative statements – implications
the parties will together
Statements about “looking for common
ground”
11
0
9
0
17
0
2
12
Explains obligation to work together
(because the public wants it or the
Constitution demands it)
Agreement on issues (the importance of
issues or on the substance of issues)
27
0
1
0
20
0
1
1
Agreement on numbers or estimates for
budgets
1
0
4
0
“Bipartisan” (as a word)
3
1
3
0
Acknowledging the other
party/side/person is working hard or
has a tough job.
4
0
0
5
Statements of friendship or camaraderie
5
0
0
4
SUBTOTAL
88
1
20
22
BIPARTISAN STATEMENTS (both parties)
NOTE: Data compiled by the authors.
31
TABLE 2
Change in Favorability for Obama, Republicans and Perceptions of Likely Bipartisan
Success
WAVE 1-WAVE 2
Treatment
Sig.*
increase in Obama’s
favorability
Control
-.01
n.s.
Presidential Bipartisanship
.25
.05
Dual Bipartisanship
.49
.001
Conflicting Ideology
.22
.10
Partisan Attack
.03
.n.s.
ANOVA
.002
WAVE 1-WAVE 2
Sig.
Treatment
increase Republican’s
favorability
Control
.00
n.s.
Presidential Bipartisanship
-.03
n.s.
Dual Bipartisanship
.04
n.s
Conflicting Ideology
.07
n.s
Partisan Attack
-.05
n.s
ANOVA
n.s.
NOTE: *Contrast to the control for statistical tests for entire sample.
32
Figure 2: Change in President Obama's Favorability by Treatment
Effect
Mean Change Pretest - Posttest
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
Democrat
0.3
Independent
0.2
Republican
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
Control
Presidential
Bipartisanship
Dual
Bipartisan
Conflicting Partisan Attack
Ideology
NOTE: The question asked: “One a one-to-seven scale (and you can use any number in between), do you have a
favorable or unfavorable opinion of President Barack Obama?” Positive numbers note increases in approval.
Control refers to the control group. Going from left to right, the standard errors for the Democrats are: .12, .15, .15,
.14, .15 For the Independents they are: .18, .20, .21, .19, .19. For the Republicans they are: .14, .16, .20, .16 .20.
33
Figure 3: Change in Republicans in Congress Favorability by
Treatment Effect
Mean Change Pretest - Posttest
0.4
0.2
-1E-15
Democrat
Independent
-0.2
Republican
-0.4
-0.6
Control
Presidential
Dual
Bipartisanship Bipartisanship
Conflicting
Ideology
Partisan Attack
NOTE: The question asked: “One a one-to-seven scale (and you can use any number in between), do you have a
favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Republicans in Congress?” Positive numbers note increases in approval.
Control refers to the control group. Going from left to right, the standard errors for the Democrats are: .13, .16, .15,
.12,.16. For the Independents they are: .18, .19, .21..20,.27. For the Republicans they are: .16, .17, .17. .15, 22.
34