American Behavioral Scientist

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2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Debates: Keyes Versus Obama

David Airne and William L. Benoit
American Behavioral Scientist 2005; 49; 343
DOI: 10.1177/0002764205279721

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American
ARTICLE
10.1177/0002764205279721
Airne, Benoit
Behavioral
/ 2004 Illinois
Scientist
Senate Debates

American Behavioral Scientist

Volume 49 Number 2
October 2005 343-352
© 2005 Sage Publications

2004 Illinois U.S. 10.1177/0002764205279721

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Senate Debates hosted at

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Keyes Versus Obama

David Airne
William L. Benoit
University of Missouri

This study content analyzed the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate debates between Alan Keyes
and Barak Obama. As is the case in presidential debates, acclaims (positive statements)
were more common than attacks, which in turn were employed more frequently than
defenses. Also consistent with presidential debates, these candidates discussed policy
more than character. Both general goals and ideals were employed more often to acclaim
than to attack. When they discussed policy, the candidates discussed past deeds and gen-
eral goals more frequently than future plans. Keyes’s and Obama’s character comments
discussed personal qualities more than leadership ability or ideals.

Keywords: Illinois Senate debates; functional theory; Obama; Keyes

M uch research has investigated both the nature (e.g., Benoit, Blaney, & Pier,
1998; Benoit & Brazeal, 2002; Benoit & Harthcock, 1999; Benoit, McHale,
Hansen, Pier, & McGuire, 2003; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Bishop, Meadow, & Jackson-
Beeck, 1978; Bitzer & Rueter, 1980; Carlin & McKinney, 1994; Coleman, 2000;
Friedenberg, 1994, 1997; Hellweg, Pfau, & Brydon, 1992; Hinck, 1993; Jamieson &
Birdsell, 1988; Kraus, 1962, 1979, 2000; Lanoue & Schrott, 1991; Schroeder, 2000)
and effects of presidential debates (see, e.g., Benoit & Hansen, 2004; Benoit, Hansen,
& Verser, 2003; McKinney & Carlin, 2004; Racine Group, 2002). Several studies have
investigated presidential primary debates as well (e.g., Benoit, McKinney, &
Stephenson, 2002; Benoit, Pier, et al., 2002; Best & Hubbard, 1999; Pfau, 1988).
However, debates for other offices have not received as much scholarly attention (e.g.,
Bystrom, Roper, Gobetz, Massey, & Beall, 1991; Lichtenstein, 1982; Ornstein, 1987;
Pfau, 1983). It is unfortunate that debates for other elected offices have been so
neglected.
The most famous nonpresidential debates occurred in 1858 and featured Abraham
Lincoln and William Douglas, who were contesting a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois
(see, e.g., Jaffa, 1999, or Zarefsky, 1993; these same candidates would face off 2 years
later in a presidential campaign that did not include debates). Another famous set of
early debates was a series of five encounters in 1946 between Richard Nixon and Jerry

343

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344 American Behavioral Scientist

Voorhis for a U.S. House seat from California. Ornstein (1987) notes that “debates are
the norm, not the exception, in congressional, mayoral, and gubernatorial politics”
(p. 58). He added that “the impact of debates is heightened because they are frequently
televised on both commercial and public channels” (p. 58). However, there has been
relatively little analysis of the content of these messages.
Debates are important for several reasons in addition to the potential television
audience. They also feature an opportunity to learn about the leading candidates for a
race as they meet face-to-face discussing the same issues. What better way to decide
how to vote than to watch the leading candidates today discussing the same issues?
Third, debates offer voters a longer message than the other major alternate, 30-second
TV spots. Fourth, research reveals that watching presidential debates is associated
with having more issue knowledge, altered preferences for candidates’ issue posi-
tions, agenda-setting effects, changed character impressions, and changed vote pref-
erences (Benoit, Hansen, & Verser, 2003). There is no reason to believe that watching
nonpresidential debates would not have similar effects on viewers. Hullett and Louden
(1998) report that a congressional debate influenced learning of issue positions and
perceptions of the candidates. Philport and Balon (1975) found that a 1974 Senate pri-
mary debate influenced perceptions of one candidate (John Glenn). Furthermore,
Lichtenstein (1982) conducted a survey of those who had watched both a presidential
debate and a debate for a lower level office. He concluded, “The local debates were
perceived as considerably more informative and influential to the viewers than the
presidential debates” (p. 294). This could be because less information is available to
voters about nonpresidential races and candidates: “Coverage of presidential cam-
paigns . . . is far more intensive than that of state and local campaigns” (Stempel, 1994,
p. 40). Thus, nonpresidential debates clearly warrant scholarly attention.
The 2004 Illinois Senate race featured two African American men vying to be the
only African American in the U.S. Senate. The three debates between Keyes and
Obama are important and merit scholarly attention. This article reports the results of
an investigation of these important campaign messages. Keyes had achieved some
notoriety as an ambassador and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination
in 1996 and 2000. Obama had been selected to present the keynote speech at the 2004
Democratic Nominating Convention, an auspicious occasion. They met for three
debates (one radio, two television) on October 12, 21, and 26 of 2004. First, we discuss
the theoretical underpinning of this analysis, the functional theory of political commu-
nication. Then we propose hypotheses (based on the available research, on presiden-
tial debates). Next we explain the method employed to analyze these debates. This is
followed by a presentation of results and a discussion of the implications of our find-
ings. This study will extend our understanding of political debates from presidential to
Senate debates.

Functional Theory of Political Communication

Benoit (1999, 2005) argues that political campaign discourse is functional, a means
to an end. The end in mind for serious contenders (i.e., not those who campaign merely

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 Airne, Benoit / 2004 Illinois Senate Debates 345

to espouse a point of view) is winning the election by convincing enough citizens to

cast votes for him or her. Only three functions of discourse help to achieve this goal:
acclaims, which praise the candidate who utters them; attacks, which criticize an
opponent; and defenses, which respond to (refute) attacks against the candidate who
defends. Benoit explains that these three functions work together as an informal cost-
benefit analysis: Acclaims increase a candidate’s benefits, attacks increase an oppo-
nent’s costs, and defenses reject alleged costs. He also argues that these three functions
are unlikely to occur with equal frequency. Acclaims have no drawbacks and should
be the most common function. Attacks may alienate voters, many of whom profess to
dislike mudslinging (Merritt, 1984; Stewart, 1975). This drawback probably discour-
ages most candidates from attacking too frequently. Finally, defenses have three draw-
backs. First, they place the candidate in a reactive posture; candidates probably prefer
to appear proactive. Second, the only way to refute an attack is to identify it; this could
remind or inform voters of a potential drawback. Finally, attacks are likely to occur
where a candidate is weakest. Hence, defense usually takes a candidate off-message.
Accordingly, defenses are expected to be the least common function.
Content analysis of 23 general presidential debates from 1960 and 1976 to 2004
(featuring 13 different candidates) confirms the distribution of functions predicted by
functional theory (see Benoit & Brazeal, 2002; Benoit et al., 1998; Benoit &
Harthcock, 1999; Benoit, McHale, et al., 2003; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Wells, 1999).
Benoit (2005) reports that in presidential general campaign debates, acclaims are the
most frequent function, followed by attacks and then defenses.
Accordingly, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 1: Acclaims will be the most common function in the 2004 Illinois Senate
debates, followed by attacks and then defenses.

Functional theory posits that campaign discourses can occur on only two topics:
policy and character. Policy utterances concern such issues such as taxes, jobs, infla-
tion, foreign policy, health care, crime, or Social Security. Character statements
address such qualities as honesty, courage, compassion, leadership ability, or strength.
Functional theory argues that policy utterances should be more common in presiden-
tial discourse because most voters report that policy, rather than character, is the most
important determinant of their vote for president (Benoit, 2003). Brazeal and Benoit
(2001) report similar poll data for votes for Congress, so it is possible that the same
emphasis of policy over character might occur in congressional debates. Analysis of
the presidential debates mentioned above (Benoit, 2005) reveals that candidates do
devote more utterances to policy than character (Benoit, 2005).
Based on this research, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 2: Policy will be more common than character in the 2004 Illinois Senate
debates.

Functional theory divides policy utterances into three subforms: past deeds, future
plans, and general goals. It also splits character utterances into three variants: personal

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346 American Behavioral Scientist

qualities, leadership abilities, and ideals. Functional theory has several predictions for
the forms of policy and character. For example, it predicts that incumbents are likely to
acclaim more and attack less on past deeds than challengers (because incumbents have
a record in office, which serves as evidence for both acclaims by the incumbent and
attacks by the challenger). Unfortunately, the 2004 Illinois Senate race was an open
seat contest, so we cannot test this prediction. However, functional theory also predicts
that acclaims will be more common than attacks on both general goals and ideals. It is
easier to praise a goal (stronger economy, safer defense) or an ideal (everyone has a
right to education, self-determination is desirable) than to criticize. Benoit (2005)
reports that in fact, 85% of general goals in general election debates are acclaims rather
than attacks. Similarly, 82% of ideals in general presidential debates are acclaims
rather than attacks. Therefore, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 3: General goals will be used to acclaim more than attack in the 2004 Illinois
Senate debates.
Hypothesis 4: Ideals will be used to acclaim more than attack in the 2004 Illinois Senate
debates.

We also posit two research questions:

Research Question 1: What is the relative proportion of past deeds, future plans, and general
goals in the 2004 Illinois Senate debates?
Research Question 2: What is the relative proportion of personal qualities, leadership ability,
and ideals in the 2004 Illinois Senate debates?

Method

Texts of the three debates between Keyes and Obama were obtained, and each was
content analyzed using the procedures developed by previous research into the nature
of presidential debates (e.g., Benoit & Brazeal, 2002; Benoit & Harthcock, 1999).
First, the candidates’ utterances were unitized into themes. Berelson (1952) defined a
theme as “an assertion about a subject-matter” (p. 138). Holsti (1969) indicated that a
theme is “a single assertion about some subject” (p. 116). Second, the function of each
theme was identified according to these definitions:

Themes that portray the candidate in a favorable light are acclaims.

Themes that portray the opposing candidate in an unfavorable light are attacks.
Themes that attempt to repair the candidate’s reputation (from attacks by the opposition) are
defenses.

Third, the topic of each theme was identified using these definitions:

Themes that concern governmental action (past, current, or future) and problems amenable
to governmental action were considered policy utterances.

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 Airne, Benoit / 2004 Illinois Senate Debates 347

Themes that address characteristics, traits, abilities, or attributes of the candidates (or par-
ties) were considered character utterances.

Finally, policy utterances were coded according to the three forms of policy; character
utterances were coded into the three forms of character.
Reliability was assessed using Cohen’s (1960) kappa, which corrects for agree-
ment by chance. Kappa was 1.0 for functions, .94 for topics, 1.0 for forms of policy,
and .78 for forms of character. Landis and Koch (1977) explain that values of kappa
from .61 to .80 reflect “substantial” agreement, and values above .81 represent
“almost perfect” agreement (p. 165).

Results

Together, these candidates acclaimed in 59% of their debate utterances, attacked in

37% of their statements, and defended in 4% of their comments. For example, Obama
offered an example of an acclaim when he said in the October 21 debate, “For the last
eight years, I’ve worked as a state senator, focused on the issues that are . . . affecting
working families all across the state of Illinois.” He reminds voters of his experience in
legislative office and indicates that he wants to help working families. In contrast,
Obama attacked Keyes’s tax proposals in this passage from the same debate:

I had a University of Chicago economist, Mr. Goldsby, who’s here today, figure out, after
you had all the exemptions in place, in fact what the sales tax would be. It’d be around
fifty cents to seventy cents on the dollar, on every purchase, if you made some of the
exemptions that you suggest.

Clearly, voters would not want to pay such high sales taxes. Finally, Keyes responded
to the charge that he would permit citizens to carry machine guns on the street, illus-
trating a succinct defense: “Well, actually, as you know, Andy, I never said that” (Octo-
ber 21). So, these examples illustrate the candidates’ use of the three functions.
A one-way chi-square reveals that these differences are statistically significant;
χ2(df = 2) = 506.73, p < .0001. This outcome supports the first hypothesis. The indi-
2
vidual totals for Keyes and Obama, however, were not significantly discrepant; χ (df =
2) = 1.62, ns. These data are displayed in Table 1.
These candidates discussed policy (65%) almost twice as much as character (35%).
The example above of an attack on sales tax proposals clearly illustrates policy utter-
ance. On the other hand, when Obama mentioned his experience in office, that state-
ment discussed his character (leadership ability). The frequencies for discussion of
policy and character are significantly different; χ2(df = 1) = 94.92, p < .0001. This sup-
ports the second hypothesis. Once again, there was no difference in the topic emphasis
2
between Keyes and Obama; χ (df = 1) = 0.71, ns. See Table 2 for these data.
The third hypothesis concerned the use of general goals. As predicted, general
goals were used more frequently to acclaim than attack (259 to 50 instances). This dif-

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348 American Behavioral Scientist

Table 1
Functions of 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Debates
Acclaims Attacks Defenses
n % n % n %

Keyes 330 61 190 35 20 4

Obama 305 58 206 39 18 3
Total 635 59 396 37 38 4
Presidential 1960, 1976-2004 4050 57 2,501 35 604 8

Table 2
Topics of 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Debates
Policy Character
n % n %

Keyes 332 64 188 36

Obama 340 66 171 33
Total 672 65 359 35
Presidential 4,885 75 1,666 25

2
ference was statistically significant; χ (df = 2) = 140.02, p < .0001. These data are
reported in Table 3.
Hypothesis 4 predicted that ideals would be used more often to acclaim than attack.
This hypothesis was supported in these data (57 acclaims on ideals vs. 24 attacks).
This difference was statistically significant; χ2(df = 1) = 12.64, p < .0005.
Turning to the first research question on forms of policy, these candidates empha-
sized past deeds (48%) and general goals (46%) with infrequent use of specific future
plans (6%). These differences were significant; χ2(df = 2) = 227.15, p < .0001. Here,
differences emerged between the two candidates: Obama emphasized past deeds more
2
and general goals less than Keyes; χ (df = 2) = 9.95, p < .001.
The data also provide an answer to the second research question. When discussing
character in these debates, these candidates stressed personal qualities (46%) over
leadership ability (31%) or ideals (23%). This distribution was significantly different
2
from what would be expected by chance; χ (df = 2) = 30.04, p < .0001. However, there
was no significant difference between Keyes and Obama in their emphasis of the three
2
forms of character; χ (df = 2) = 1.01, ns.

Discussion

This analysis provides us with insights into nonpresidential political debates. In

this case, we analyzed the three debates between Keyes and Obama in the race for the

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 Table 3
Forms of Policy and Character in 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Debates
Policy Character

Past Deeds Future Plans General Goals Personal Qualities Leadership Ideals

Acclaims Attacks Total % Acclaims Attacks Total % Acclaims Attacks Total % Acclaims Attacks Total % Acclaims Attacks Total % Acclaims Attacks Total %

Keyes 36 106 142 43 14 3 17 5 154 19 173 52 63 25 88 47 34 21 55 29 29 16 45 24

Obama 70 111 181 53 10 13 23 7 105 31 136 40 52 25 77 45 40 18 58 34 28 8 36 21
Total 106 217 323 48 24 16 40 6 259 50 309 46 115 50 165 46 74 39 113 31 57 24 81 23
Presidential 962 1,330 2,292 47 722 292 1,014 21 1,349 230 1,579 32 321 393 714 43 283 165 448 27 413 91 504 30

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349
350 American Behavioral Scientist

U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004. The functions of their utterances were consis-
tent with the functions of U.S. presidential debates: Acclaims are more common than
attacks, and attacks outnumber defenses. This distribution of functions makes sense.
Although each function can contribute to the overarching goal of helping the candi-
date appear preferable (to the opponent), the three functions have different drawbacks.
There are no disadvantages to acclaims. However, voters report that they dislike mud-
slinging (Merritt, 1984; Stewart, 1975), which could give candidates a reason to mod-
erate their level of attacks. Defenses have three drawbacks. First, they may create the
impression that the candidate is reactive instead of proactive. Second, one must iden-
tify an attack to refute it; this means that defending against an attack runs the risk or
reminding or informing voters of a potential weakness. Finally, most attacks concern a
candidate’s weaker areas, so discussing an attack usually means taking a candidate
off-message. Thus, acclaims (with no drawbacks) should be most common, followed
by attacks (with one disadvantage) and, last, defenses, which have three drawbacks.
Second, these candidates discussed policy more than character, as is the case of
presidential debates. Although about two thirds of their comments addressed policy,
Keyes and Obama did discuss character more than presidential candidates (35% to
25%). This somewhat greater emphasis on character in the 2004 Illinois Senate
debates is probably a reflection of the fact that this was an open-seat election (i.e., nei-
ther candidate was an incumbent Senator running for reelection). Both candidates had
achieved some level of notoriety, but they still needed to tell voters something about
themselves, something about their character.
As in previous research, Keyes and Obama used both general goals and ideals more
as the basis for acclaims than attacks. It is easier to endorse a goal or an ideal than to
attack it, and both candidates illustrated this tendency.
We can also detect a difference in use of past deeds. The presidential elections in
recent years have featured either an incumbent president or an incumbent vice presi-
dent in the campaign. Not since 1952 have we had a truly “open-seat” presidential
election (and if Vice President Cheney does not run in 2008, we will see another open-
seat presidential campaign). Neither Keyes nor Obama had a record in the office
sought (U.S. Senate) to acclaim. As a result, in the 2004 Illinois Senate debates, only
33% of past deeds were acclaims. In contrast, in presidential debates, 42% of past
deeds have been acclaims; χ2(df = 1) = 9.44, p < .005.
The two Senate candidates discussed future plans infrequently, 6% to 21% in presi-
dential debates. This may reflect less experience or less sophisticated campaign orga-
nizations compared with presidential campaigns.
Of course, we must be careful not to overgeneralize these results. Our understand-
ing of presidential debates is based on analysis of 23 general and 59 primary debates
featuring multiple campaigns (1948, 1960, 1968, 1972-2004) and numerous candi-
dates (13 different candidates in general election debates, 55 primary debate candi-
dates). The study reported here is limited to three debates in a single campaign featur-
ing two candidates, Alan Keyes and Barak Obama. Accordingly, we must be cautious
not to automatically assume that the results of this investigation will necessarily apply
to other candidates in other races or other campaigns. Nevertheless, the fact that some

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 Airne, Benoit / 2004 Illinois Senate Debates 351

of the results are consistent with findings from studies of presidential debates gives
some measure of confidence that the results are not anomalous.

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David Airne (M.A., North Dakota State University) is a doctoral candidate from the University of Missouri
and an instructor at the University of Alabama. He has published political communication research in Criti-
cal Studies in Media Communication and Communication Quarterly, in addition to coauthoring a book on
presidential primary debates. He has published gender research in the Free Speech Yearbook.

William L. Benoit is a professor of communication at the University of Missouri. He edited the Journal of
Communication from 2003 to 2005. He has published several books (including Seeing Spots) and articles on
political communication.

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