Candidate Orientation, Vote Choice, & the Quality of the American Electorate

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Abstract
Scholarly explanations of voting behavior have largely ignored candidate orientation. Analyses which do take voters' concerns into account generally fail to separate these sufficiently from evaluations based on party or issues or content themselves with references to a broad range of general and irrelevant personality traits. In emphasizing the importance of candidate orientation in voting, David Lawrence here proposes a definition limiting candidate orientation to perceptions of personal qualifications for the task of president. The approach will be useful not only in establishing realistic criteria for the rationality of voting behavior but it will also provide a more profound insight into the way voters make their choice.

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