114 WHAT THE VOTERS WERE TOLD
emphasis of the reporting function as against the partisan function, in this situation.
The particular slant taken by the magazines tells a story of its own. The magazines alone were strongly pro-Willkie; the emphasis on the Republican side both in radio and newspaper was almost as strongly anti-Roosevelt. This pro-Willkie material consisted largely of biographies and sketches of the candidate and was hence a "natural" for the American mass magazine. Such life stories and character delineations constitute one standard ingredient in the make-up of American magazines. The careers and personalities of "interesting" people of the day are always being described in such magazines, and Willkie's story fitted this formula perfectly. It was a typical American success story of the man suddenly placed in the center of the public stage, and the magazines played their specialty heavily. (Roosevelt was too familiar a figure for such treatment, and he got little of it.) Of course, at the same time the editors felt that they were both satisfying their readers' expectations and fulfilling the need to acquaint them with this relatively unknown politician. Whatever the motivation— whether inspired by public or private reasons—the fact remains that the magazines, relatively free from the compulsions to reflect the news, were strongly Republican and within that were strongly pro-Willkie rather than anti-Roosevelt.
All of this documents the commonplace notion that the essence of a presidential campaign is partisanship, but just how partisan is it? An answer can be found by ascertaining the amount of neutral statements and of admissions in stories and speeches which clearly supported one or the other candidate. Only those items are included here which openly favored one side, e.g., partisan speeches and statements, flattering character sketches, partisan argumentation by columnists, etc. If an item as a whole was neutral or balanced, it was omitted from consideration here. Of all the material in such clearly partisan items, nearly 80% favored the candidate supported by the item as a whole. Another 15% were neutral, and only about 5% con-
WHAT THE VOTERS WERE TOLD I 15
ceded some virtue to the other side. Whether the American public, or that part of it not itself strongly partisan, sees in such extreme one-sidedness a distortion of reality is problematic. More likely, such partisanship is either attributed to the usual behavior of "politicians" or interpreted within the framework of American sport where the main objective is to win. For better or for worse, the presidential campaign is depicted almost exclusively in black or white.
Subject-Matter: Main Emphases and Themes
Within this most general framework of partisanship, what topics did campaign propaganda deal with? What subjects were the people told most about?
The most talked-about subject matter during the campaign was the campaign itself. Over a third of all discussion centered on the progress of the campaign, on the campaign methods of the two parties, and particularly on speculations about the candidates' chances. Next came the Roosevelt record, with another one-fourth of the campaign material devoted to it. These topics were followed by the future policies of Willkie and Roosevelt and by discussions of the candidates themselves.
The appearance of the election as a contest in which opponents struggle for the advantage derives in part from the emphasis on prognoses dealing with the campaign. On the one hand, the protagonists and their supporters sought to create the illusion of victory-already-won; and on the other hand, the independent commentators sought to establish themselves as shrewd analysts of the progress of the campaign. As a result, the outcome of the election received considerable attention. The developing campaign was discussed and predicted at every stage, just as sports writers speculate about the outcome of the World Series or next Saturday's football game. To some extent, this is a clue to the strong feelings on the part of the constant partisans: they wanted their team to win.
In the 1940 campaign, in the nature of the case, the Presi-