Pros And Cons Of Governor Kasich

After coding all the candidates of the Republican National Debate, Governor Kasich stood out because his number of acclaims varied greatly from the number of times he attacked and defended himself during the debates. This is most likely due to the fact that his standing was last amongst all the candidates taking part in the debate. Because he held the lowest standing amongst all the candidates, many of the candidates did not bother to attack him so he did not need to defend himself as often as the others. He did not attack his opponents because his focus needed to be in bringing himself up in the ranks as opposed to just bringing the others down. According to Benoit's Functional Theory, this is because attacks can often times create an undesirable impression that the candidate is reactive rather than proactive (Glantz, 277, 2013). In order for Kasich to move up in the polls, he needs to present himself in the most desirable way possible. By sticking to mostly acclaims, Kasich highlights all his positive attributes while the other candidates display
Rather than taking the opportunity to outwardly attack Senator Cruz Kasich highlights his own achievements by stating,
“there is a way to get to cutting off the funding for Planned Parenthood. I was in the Congress for 18 years, balanced the budget, cut taxes, got it done. Changed welfare, went around the president to get welfare reform done.”.
By doing this he directs the audience's attention to the fact that he experienced situations like this before and managed to successfully find a solution to a similar issue without the need to shut the government down. This simultaneously displays his superiority over Cruz and demonstrates the value of his past experience in dealing with such issues without the need to outwardly attack