Data presented in Table 2 suggest Democratic rebuttals are delivered by larger groups of rebutters: four on average compared to three for Republicans.
(4) Measured on a scale that ranges from -1 (most liberal) to +1 (most conservative), I average the ideology of all representatives in the group of rebutters to determine an overall estimate of the out-party response group.
Table 3 indicates that groups of Democratic rebuttals tend to be more ideologically extreme than Republican rebutters are over the period of this study.
The evidence reveals the total number of rebutters is greater in presidential election years (five rebutters on average, compared to three in nonpresidential election years).
I may also expect that out-parties will attempt to project ideological moderation more so during presidential election cycles than in other years by designating groups of rebutters that are ideologically more moderate.
In this section, I analyze developments over time with respect to out-party selections of State of the Union rebutters. In theory, parties can incorporate information about the effectiveness of decisions about the composition of rebuttal groups in order to be strategic and to maximize impact.
Analysis of the data suggests much of this erosion is fueled by developments in the Democratic Party, which historically designated larger groups of rebutters. In the most recent responses, both parties designate no more than two representatives to deliver rebuttals.
Democrats increasingly overlook senators in designating rebutters to the annual message.
Analysis of my data reveals both parties' rebutters have become growingly ideologically polarized over time.
I begin my analysis to examine this question by comparing the average change in presidential approval by isolating groups of rebutters comprised exclusively of senators, governors, or members of the U.S.
In their comments, the rebutters describe comparison of local sales data to other local sales data with adjustments to the local sales data for size, location, topography, etc.
Finally, the rebutters repeatedly make reference to the corridor market or sales of corridors.
