The influence of format and questions on candidates' strategic argument choices in the 2000 presidential debates

Building on past content analyses of presidential debates to determine how format affects the levels of clash and candidates 'strategies, this study a nswers three questions about the 2000 presidential debates: (a) Do candidat es differ in their use of clash and nonclash argument strategies? (b) Does format affect candidates 'strategic choices? and (c) Does the structure of questions explain strategic choices ? Results of the content analysis sugge st that format and question content affect candidates' strategic choices: h owever. other factors including the larger campaign strategy, polling data. and performance in previous debates also influence strategies.