Study- Fear of terrorism helps Kerry, not Bush

Source

Faculty conduct terrorism study

By EVAN RONDEAU

The State News

Perceptions of terrorism threats run counter to the popular belief that presidential approval rises as threat levels rise, according to a recent study conducted by two MSU professors.

Political science professors Darren Davis and Brian Silver studied whether fear makes a difference in how people vote by analyzing a series of national and state surveys conducted between November 2001 and June 2004.

The surveys analyzed came from a variety of polling firms and news agencies, such as CBS News, the Pew Research Center and Michigan's State of the State Survey.

People who think President Bush is winning the war on terrorism strongly support him, while those who are most fearful of a terrorist attack are more supportive of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, the study found.

The two began by analyzing how fear affected Bush's approval shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Once it became clear Kerry would be his competitor, they turned their focus to finding out how fear affects the approval of candidates.

"We wanted to know what's been the path of the level of concern about terrorism and does it bear any relationship with Bush's approval over time?" Silver said.

Recently, the professors presented the findings of their study to the American Political Science Association's annual meeting. Davis said the study was well-received and wasn't criticized by the other professors.

"We hope we've convinced people we've done the analysis correctly," Silver said. "We didn't have an opinion about how fear would play into the election."

The professors broke the study down into three separate sections.

In the first, they examined the correlation between terror threat levels and the public's perception of a terrorist threat. They then studied the supposed link between perceptions of threat and the president's approval rating. And in the final section, they looked at whether perceptions of threat worked to the advantage of Kerry or Bush.

"The public is quite responsive to a terror alert," Davis said. "Every time it was raised to orange, the public responded by increasing their level of concern."

There's a lot of talk about what the purpose of these alerts are and what makes them go up or down, Silver said.

"If the purpose of the alert was to make people more on guard, then they worked," Silver said, adding that concern spiked in the period immediately following the alerts.

But Bush hasn't benefited from the terrorism threat level system, he said. In fact, the study found that as fear of a terrorist attack dwindled, so did Bush's approval ratings.

This finding makes sense because terror threat level has nothing to do with politics, said Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Sharon Castillo.

"If you're watching TV and a government official says the warnings have been raised, you're going to be more concerned," Castillo said. "It's logical."

Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a rise in the terror alert level helped Bush's approval ratings, Silver said, but has had the opposite effects in recent months.

"Questions about Bush's leadership have been raised by the fact that weapons of mass destruction haven't been found and the results of the 9-11 commission's report about intelligence failures," Davis said.

The people who were most fearful of terrorism were most likely to approve of the president shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, which was apparent both in the national and Michigan surveys, Silver said. But by spring 2004, that relationship changed, he said.

In Michigan, people who are most concerned about terrorism were least approving of Bush, Silver said.

"Kerry benefits from people being more fearful," Silver said. "The more fearful they are, the less they are supportive of Bush."

And Kerry campaign representatives said they agree.

Campaign spokesman Rodell Mollineau said although some people approve of Bush's progress in fighting terrorism, Kerry can do an even better job by bringing the global community together rather than waging a unilateral war.

"President Bush took his eye off the ball with the war on terrorism, and he now spends his time saying the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism are the same thing, when they're not," Mollineau said.

But Castillo rejected that notion, saying Kerry has had so many positions on the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq that he's shown he has no clear plan to counter terrorism.

"Kerry has proposed reacting once we've been attacked, whereas the president believes in a pre-emptive approach to terrorism," she said. "We need someone in the White House who can connect the dots, and President Bush is the clear choice."

Aside from some of the political spin support in this:

This finding makes sense because terror threat level has nothing to do with politics, said Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Sharon Castillo.

I do find the actual study pretty interesting, though I'd like to know if this reported "fear favors Kerry" finding is completely vetted from non-Terror contributing factors.

Unlikely since the data is sourced from several unrelated studies and it would be impossible to run the necessary correlative driver analyses to determine where the self reported "fear" came from. It could be that Kerry supporters are just more fearful in general as in economic issues like unemployment, outsourcing, paying for college, prescription medicines, healthcare, etc....making them self report a certain fearfulness on all issues including Terrorism. Similarly I'd imagine all challengers fair better from voter uncertainties. Being "better off" and "safer" is supposed to be what incumbents run on. Anyway...

Even if you trust the self reported fear of Terrorism and cite the trend of those voters toward Kerry, that does not necessarily drive the vote for Kerry, as many, many, many previous studies cite economic uncertainty as the pimary driver for Kerry supporters.

They don't call us "girle men" for nothing. I think that's the RNC message on this. Don't be uncertain. Be macho like Bush. It's a wedge based on challenging "masculinity" (which is a fear appeal unto itself).

I didn't even think of one of the largest contributing factors to Kerry support: fear of Bush.

As many do argue Bush breeds terror, this make more sense than the prima facia explanation that it's simply fear of terrorism. So could be.

But again, a driver analyses is warranted to say definitively.