Why All This Political Cynicism?

Maybe politicians follow through on promises more than expected.

ByABC News
November 4, 2008, 7:03 PM

Nov. 5, 2008— -- So the election is over and you did your duty. Now, will your favorite candidate follow through on those campaign promises?

Surprisingly, yes, according to a three-year study of the results of three Congressional campaigns by a political scientist at the University of Illinois-Champaign.

"The idea that campaigns are just cheap talk, and people will say what it takes to win but aren't actually interested in keeping their promises, just seems to be wrong," said Tracy Sulkin, who conducted the exhaustive study with the help of an army of assistants.

She said the widespread belief that politicians routinely ignore their promises once they are elected "seems rooted more in voters' cynicism about politics than in reality."

Not convinced? You've got a lot of company. A 1988 ABC/Washington Post poll found that 71 percent agreed that "most members of Congress make campaign promises that they have no intention of fulfilling," and several other polls during the years have reported similar findings.

The researchers studied campaign advertisements for 391 winning candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and 84 winning candidates for the U.S. Senate from elections in 1998, 2000 and 2002. The ads were collected earlier by other institutions, including the University of Wisconsin and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Sulkin and her team sorted through the scripts, or "story boards," for more than 1,400 ads that aired in 43 states to see what the candidates promised on any of 18 different issues. Then they looked at the congressional records of the winning candidates to see if they kept those promises. Promises by presidential candidates were not included in the study.

Words Really Do Lead to Action

"Basically, we found that when candidates talk about an issue in their campaigns, it's sincere," Sulkin said. "If they talk about an issue, we're probably correct in assuming that the issue is a priority for them."

Common sense, perhaps. Why would a politician spend money and time raising an issue that wasn't of personal interest? But how do you measure the level of their activity after the election?