Todd Belt

Disability Identity and Attitudes Toward Cure in a Sample of Disabled Activists.

This study investigates the assumption that disabled people want improvements in their functional abilities, or complete cures. Contrary to this assumption, many disabled activists are found to have attitudes in which they refuse treatment that promises a cure. In order to explain this attitude, different sources of disability identity are isolated as potential predictor variables. A multivariate model reveals that self-identity related to a personal affirmation of disability is a significant predictor of refusal of treatment, as is the age of onset of disability. Implications for interactions with medical professionals and utility-based modeling of medical treatment seeking are discussed.

The Three Faces of Negative Campaigning: The Democratic Implications of Attack Ads, Cynical News, and Fear-Arousing Messages

“Negative campaigning” is widely deplored by journalists and the public. Commonly, the term negative campaigning refers to critical statements or visuals of political candidates, institutions, processes, or policy issues that may occur during an election campaign. These negative messages are ubiquitous in campaigns. They are found not only in political advertisements, but also in the news, talk shows, Internet Web pages, and late-night TV comedians’ monologues. Negative campaigning ranges from personal attacks among candidates to cynical statements regarding the motives of candidates and the self-serving intentions of actors in the policy-making process.

The Local News Story: Is Quality a Choice?

The conventional wisdom about local TV news is that quality journalism does not sell and that only by focusing on crime, disasters, and other “soft news” can newscasts get good ratings. Political scientists have decried the poor quality of TV news as a betrayal of the presss mandate to inform citizens of the important policy issues of the day so that they can hold government officials accountable. This study tests the proposition that audiences prefer low effort, tabloid journalism by looking at external measures of commercial success—the Nielsen ratings data. Utilizing data from a 5‐year study matching the content quality of 33,911 local news stories from 154 TV stations in 50 TV markets nationwide to corresponding ratings success, we show that solid reporting and a focus on significant issues actually produce better ratings than slapdash or superficial tabloid journalism. Additionally, we find that strategy-oriented coverage of political campaigns that focuses on the horserace does not build an audience. These surprising results have practical implications for democratic practice and local TV news production.

The 2008 Media Primary Handicapping the Candidates in Newspapers, on TV, Cable, and the Internet

The press plays a crucial role early in the preprimary presidential campaign, determining which candidates appear viable to voters, contributors, and other media. This process necessarily benefits some candidates over others. We analyze how the press winnowed the candidate fields of both parties in the early 2008 preprimary campaign. We find coverage remarkably similar across a wide range of traditional and new media, including newspaper, radio, television, cable, legacy and web-native Internet news, and talk shows. The media ignored most candidates to concentrate on the Democratic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama while paying less attention to the Republican race. Tone towards candidates was uniform except on partisan talk shows. The tone of Internet news was slightly more balanced than traditional outlets. Similar coverage across media results from journalistic preference for dramatic story lines, staffing constraints, and widespread speculation about candidate viability, which we describe as “handicapping the candidates.”

New Leadership for Hawai‘i and Prospects for Policy Change in 2017

Author(s): Belt, Todd L; Moore, Colin D | Abstract: In 2014, Hawai‘i’s incumbent governor, Neil Abercrombie, failed to win his party’s nomination for reelection. Because incoming governor, David Ige, took his oath of office a mere two weeks before the biennial budget was due, the budget request prepared by the Abercrombie administration was sent to the legislature. The new governor and his staff rushed to put together proposed changes, and the adjusted request was received more than a month after the legislature began work on the budget. Some of the governor’s adjustments were accommodated, but many were not funded to the extent requested. The budget package that emerged left little wiggle room for the governor to finance new pet projects and policy proposals.

Righting the Canoe: the Slow Recovery and FY 2013 in Hawai'i

DOI 10.1515/cjpp-2013-0023 Calif. J. Politics Policy 2013; 5(3): 415–431 Todd Belt* Righting the Canoe: the Slow Recovery and FY 2013 in Hawai‘i Abstract: Gov. Abercrombie’s promise to “right the canoe” is progressing slowly. The institutional impediment of working with former Gov. Lingle’s biennial budget is one reason for this. Another is the painstakingly slow economic recov- ery. This budget report covers those topics and the budget passed by the legis- lature for FY 13. That operating budget of

Nixon, Watergate, and the Attempt to Sway Public Opinion

11.2 billion was slightly more than the governor requested. But, the big budget story for FY 2013 involves the CIP budget, which swelled to

Learning to Do Less with Less: The Hawai'i State Budget for Fiscal Year 2011

3.2 billion, more than a billion more than the gover- nor’s request. The additions to the CIP budget involved a good deal of borrowing in order to stimulate Hawai‘i’s economy and improve its infrastructure in order to prod along the sluggish economic recovery. Keywords: budget; FY 12–13; governor; Hawai‘i; legislature. *Corresponding author: Todd Belt, Department of Political Science, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, Hilo, HI 96720-4091, e-mail: tbelt@hawaii.edu 1 Introduction Neil Abercrombie took over the governorship of Hawai‘i on December 5, 2010, giving Democrats both the state house and the governor’s mansion. But shortly after his inauguration, he was forced to introduce a budget prepared by his Republican predecessor, Linda Lingle. Abercrombie, who campaigned on a set of programs called a “New Day for Hawai‘i,” quickly scrambled to muster a package of adjustments to the 2011–2013 biennial budget. The governor could only do so much, and many of his controversial revenue proposals to fund new programs were shot down by the 2011 legislature. The 2012 legislature worked on the second year of the biennial budget, and anticipated revenue increases allowed the legislature to fill in many of the cuts budgeted the prior year. This allowed for passage of 11 of the governor’s 14 priority initiatives. A major achievement celebrated by the legislature and governor was the set- tlement to resolve a ceded lands dispute. Senate Bill 2783 conveyed parcels of land in Honolulu to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The total value of the land was estimated at

Don't Give Up Hope: Emotions, Candidate Appraisals, and Votes

200 million.

We Interrupt This Newscast: The Myths That Dominate Local TV News: The X-Structure and the Fallacy of the Hook-and-Hold Method of TV News

Richard Nixon never had a particularly good relationship with the press during his long political career. Upon parting the electoral scene after his 1962 California gubernatorial defeat by Pat Brown, he famously admonished the press that they would not “have Nixon to kick around anymore.” But his subsequent comment about the coverage he received during the campaign is very telling: “[the press] have a right and a responsibility, and if they’re against a candidate, give him the shaft, but also recognize if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then.”1 These comments were supposed to be his last press conference in a career marked by a particularly con- flictual relationship with the press. But Nixon resumed his battles with the press as he reentered the political fray to campaign for the presidency in 1968. His five and a half years in office were marked by a continuance of the combative relationship, culminating in his all out war with the press over the Watergate affair.