Containment Rhetoric and the Redefinition of Third-Parties in the Equal Time Debates of 1959

Abstract

This article suggests that the shortcomings of third-party presidential campaigns stem partially from a culture of rhetorical containment tracing back to a redefinition of third-parties during the 1959 congressional hearings over the equal time provision. After proposing a four-part framework for rhetorical containment, the article examines the case study of oddball perennial presidential candidate Lar Daly and his clash with the Federal Communications Commission, and an effort by the two major parties and media elite to exploit fears of his influence to portray third-parties as an invading horde of crackpots posing violence to democracy in the United States.

Keywords:

• equal time
• lar daly
• presidential rhetoric
• rhetorical containment
• third-parties

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Pam Lannutti and the reviewers for their feedback on the article, and Meredith Neville-Shepard and Robert C. Rowland for their comments regarding earlier drafts.

Notes

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13. See Karrin Vasby Anderson, “‘Rhymes with Rich’: ‘Bitch’ as a Tool of Containment in Contemporary American Politics,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2 (1999): 599–623, doi:10.1353/rap.2010.0082; Christopher Duerringer, “The ‘War on Christianity’: Counterpublicity or Hegemonic Containment? Southern Communication Journal 78 (2013): 311–25, doi:10.1080/1041794X.2013.792866; Tasha N. Dubriwny and Vandhana Ramadurai, “Framing Birth: Postfeminism in the Delivery Room,” Women’s Studies in Communication 36 (2013): 243–66, doi:10.1080/07491409.2013.830168; Jennifer Malkowski, “Beyond Prevention: Containment Rhetoric in the Case of Bug Chasing,” Journal of Medical Humanities 35 (2014): 211–28, doi:10.1007/s10912-014–9280-x; John M. Murphy, “Domesticating Dissent: The Kennedys and the Freedom Rides,” Communication Monographs 59 (1992): 61–78, doi:10.1080/03637759209376249; Kristan Poirot, “Domesticating the Liberated Woman: Containment Rhetorics of Second Wave Radical Lesbian Feminism,” Women’s Studies in Communication 32 (2009): 263–92, doi:10.1080/07491409.2009.10162391; Michelle Smith, “Containment Rhetoric and the Public Sphere: Imagining Amana, Inscribing America,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 40 (2010): 128–45, doi:10.1080/02773940903413423.

14. Michael William Pfau, “Conventions of Deliberation? Convention Addresses and Deliberative Containment in the Second Party System,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9 (2006): 638, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41940105.

15. Poirot, “Domesticating the Liberated Woman,” 266.

16. Smith, “Containment Rhetoric and the Public Sphere,” 129.

17. X (George F. Kennan), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Foreign Affairs, July 1, 1947, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct.

18. Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 3.

19. Jane Sherron De Hart, “Recreating Founding Paradigms: The Cold War and America’s National Identity,” in The Unfolding of America’s National Identity, edited by Roland Hagenbuchle and Josef Rabb (Tubingen: Stauffenburg, 1999), 348.

20. De Hart, “Recreating Founding Paradigms,” 350.

21. De Hart, “Recreating Founding Paradigms,” 352.

22. Anderson, “Rhymes with Rich,” 601.

23. Anderson, “Rhymes with Rich,” 616.

24. Smith, “Containment Rhetoric and the Public Sphere,” 130.

25. Ross Singer, “Framing of Elite Corruption and Rhetorical Containment of Reform in the Boeing-Air Force Tanker Controversy,” Southern Communication Journal 76 (2011): 98, doi:10.1080/10417940903180167.

26. James Arnt Aune, “Democratic Style and Ideological Containment,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 11 (2008): 482, doi:10.1353/rap.0.0058.

27. Malkowski, “Beyond Prevention,” 214.

28. Aune, “Democratic Style and Ideological Containment,” 482.

29. Aune, “Democratic Style and Ideological Containment,” 482.

30. Murphy, “Domesticating Dissent,” 67.

31. Smith, “Containment Rhetoric and the Public Sphere,” 131.

32. Malkowski, “Beyond Prevention,” 212.

33. Smith, “Containment Rhetoric and the Public Sphere,” 133.

34. Poirot, “Domesticating the Liberated Woman,” 267.

35. Malkowski, “Beyond Prevention,” 214.

36. Duerringer, “The ‘War on Christianity,’” 323.

37. Jonathan Gil Harris, “Stephen Greenblatt’s ‘X’-Files: The Rhetoric of Containment and Invasive Disease in ‘Invisible Bullets’ and ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct,’” in Historicizing Theory, edited by Peter C. Herman (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 140.

38. Harris, “Stephen Greenblatt’s ‘X’-Files,” 140.

39. Quoted in Roscoe L. Barrow, “The Equal Opportunities and Fairness Doctrines in Broadcasting: Should They Be Retained?” (Comm/Ent), A Journal of Communications and Entertainment Law 1 (1977): 65–66.

40. David Kies, “Equal Time for Political Candidates,” Intramural Law Review of New York University 23 (1968): 267.

41. Quoted in Regina C. McGranery, “Exemptions from the Section 315 Equal Time Standard: A Proposal for Presidential Elections,” Federal Communications Bar Journal 24 (1970): 177.

42. M. Shannon Underwood, “Mandatory Television Access for Minor Party Presidential Candidates: Revamping Section 315 of the Equal Opportunities Doctrine,” Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent) 12 (1989): 265.

43. Marcus R. Hayes, “The Influence of Lar Daly in the Congressional Amendments to and the FCC Interpretations of The Communications Act of 1938” (Doctoral diss., University of Mississippi, 1986), 34.

44. Hayes, “The Influence of Lar Daly,” 33.

45. Hayes, “The Influence of Lar Daly,” 30.

46. “(Mr.) General McArthur Files in Wisconsin Race,” New York Times, March 1, 1953, 7.

47. Hal Higdon, Bobby Kennedy and the Politics of the Sixties, Kindle ed. (Roadrunner Press, 2012), chap. 6.

48. “Lar Daly, 66, Dead; Sought Office for 40 Years But Never Won Race,” New York Times, April 19, 1978, B10.

49. Higdon, Bobby Kennedy and the Politics, chap. 6.

50. Higdon, Bobby Kennedy and the Politics, chap. 6.

51. Val Adams, “Stanton Scores Equal Time Rule,” New York Times, March 15, 1959, 66.

52. Felix Belair, “Eisenhower Asks Equal-Time Curb,” New York Times, March 19, 1959, 1.

53. Barrow, “The Equal Opportunities,” 79–80.

54. Kies, “Equal Time for Political Candidates,” 371.

55. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time: Hearings on H.R. 5389, H.R. 75675, H. R. 6326, H.R. 7122, H.R. 7180, R.R. 7206, H.R., 7602, and H.R. 7985, Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives, June 29, 1930, and July 1, 1959, Eighty Sixth Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1959), 19.

56. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 178–179.

57. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 69.

58. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 129.

59. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 70.

60. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 138.

61. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 124.

62. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 196.

63. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 145.

64. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 213.

65. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 244.

66. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 147.

67. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 23.

68. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 249.

69. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 269.

70. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 187.

71. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 124.

72. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 268.

73. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 232.

74. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 17.

75. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 131.

76. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 17–18.

77. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 21.

78. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 158.

79. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 22.

80. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 248.

81. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 134.

82. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 240.

83. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 256.

84. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 18.

85. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 55.

86. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 78.

87. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 87.

88. Political Broadcasts—Equal Time, 134.

89. For more on the general rhetorical style of third party agitation, see: Ryan Neville-Shepard, “Presidential Campaign Announcements: A Third-Party Variant,” Southern Communication Journal 79 (2014): 130–46, doi:10.1080/1041794X.2013.866157; Ryan Neville-Shepard, “Triumph in Defeat: The Genre of Third Party Presidential Concessions,” Communication Quarterly 62 (2014): 214–32, doi:10.1080/01463373.2014.890119; Ryan Neville-Shepard, “Unconventional: The Variant of Third-Party Nomination Acceptance Addresses,” Western Journal of Communication 80 (2016): 121–39, doi:10.1080/10570314.2015.1128560.

90. Rosenstone, Behr, and Lazarus, Third-Parties in America, 37.

91. “Boo Lar Daly on Paar Show; Gets Unwelcome Time to Answer Kennedy,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 8, 1960, 1.

92. Hayes, “The Influence of Lar Daly,” 90.

93. Hayes, “The Influence of Lar Daly,” 2–3.

94. Barrow, “The Equal Opportunities,” 83–84.

95. Harrop Freeman and Stewart Edelstein, “Political Campaigning and the Airwaves,” Pepperdine Law Review 1 (1974): 197.

96. Underwood, “Mandatory Television Access,” 282.

97. Kies, “Equal Time for Political Candidates,” 285.

98. Alan Raphael, “Keeping Third-Parties Minor: Political Party Access to Broadcasting,” Indiana Law Review 12 (1979): 740.

99. Barrow, “The Equal Opportunities,” 86–87.

100. J. David Gillespie, Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in Two-Party Politics (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2012), 31.