Leading the Public

For Wednesday, Edwards, ch. 7.

Questions on assignment? 

Iran

• Iran attack, politics, CNN poll and war powers
• Problem with writing about Iran is that the situation is changing quickly.

Wag the Dog.  Called it!

State of the Union Nielsen ratings (% of TV households watching)

Problems facing a president (Edwards 154-157):

• Multiple cable alternatives
• Cutting the cord in favor of streaming
• Preaching to the converted.  The biggest share viewed it on Fox.

Speeches directly to the TV audience (Edwards, pp. 159).

Why do presidents make such speeches?

Modes of persuasion

• Logos
• Pathos
• Ethos

Bush 1991 on Desert Storm:

Note similarities & differences with Trump 2026 on Epic Fury:

Message from President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/Xhk3ibylSQ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 1, 2026

Framing (Edwards 162-166).

• What does the term mean?
• The war metaphor:  examples?  Why>
• Labeling proposals and the framing war
• Cambodia "incursion" v. invasion
• Economic Recovery Act v. "trickle-down"
• Affordable Care Act v. Obamacare
• One Big Beautiful Bill v. tax cut for the Wealty

Modes of communication

Events

• Why? Local media, coverage on national media
• Logistical challenges are formidable
• Motorcade (start around 2:00)
• Advance teams

Photographs good and bad (Edwards 169-171) 

• Why Trump hates the wind.
• Mrs. Carter's unfortunate photo

The in-party national committee and outside spending groups.

The presidency online

• White House website
• Social media
• Disappearing data

Speech, Speech!

For next time, Edwards ch. 6

For writeup: what presidential event from 2025 sticks in your mind?  Why?

QUESTIONS ON THE ASSIGNMENT?

STATE OF THE UNION REACTION?

Presidents gave relatively few speeches in the 18th and 19th centuries. Washington delivered his Farewell Address in writing.

Norms were different.

Households with Radio Sets:

1922	60,000
1927	6,750,000
1932	18,450,000
1937	24,500,000
1942	30,600,000

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, 796.

FDR and the radio:  Day of Infamy (skip to 4:05).

.....

"A speech is a fondue pot." -- Peggy Noonan, p. 72

On March 8, 1983, President Reagan spoke to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, He expressed his views on the Soviet Union, famously calling it an "evil empire." He defended the Judeo-Christian traditions against the Soviet Union's totalitarian leadership and lack of religious faith, saying that these differences were at the heart of the conflict between the two nations.

Click here to see the typescript of the speech.  

This document makes clear that Reagan did not simply read the words before him:  he played a very active part in writing the speech itself.  One amusing sidelight:  speechwriter Tony Dolan included a spurious quotation from Alexis deTocqueville -- which Reagan changed:

Here is the official text.

And here is video:

 Reagan, religion, and the spurious Tocqueville line.

And of course, the "evil empire."

Trends and Events

• Bread and butter/War and peace
• Rally events (Edwards 144-146)
• Disasters and scandals

Bush 41

Clinton

Obama

Opinion and the Presidency

For Wednesday,

• Assignment?
• Reagan, 1983 "Evil Empire" speech in Orlando: both the manuscript (see link here) and the video/transcript
• Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (New York: Random House, 1990), ch. 5. (on Canvas).
• Watch the State of the Union tomorrow night.  
• A brief history: prime time in 1965, out-party response in 1966
• See the 2020 version
• Wag the Dog

Polling (Edwards 123-124)

• How can 1000 people represent the whole country?
• Random samples
• Response rates

What is public opinion?

• Cognitive (Thinking/Beliefs): Represents knowledge, intellectual capacity, and beliefs about a subject.
• Affective (Feeling/Emotions): Relates to emotional responses, attitudes, and moods toward the subject, such as liking or disliking something.
• Evaluative (Judgment): Assessment of value, good/bad, or success/failure.
• Conative (Action/Intent): Refers to t behavioral intention to act, such as the intention to vote

All dimensions are connected.  Think about implications for presidential communication.

Cognitive

• Limitations of institutional knowledge
• Young voters' knowledge
• International politics
• "From the River to the Sea"
• Locating Ukraine on a map
• Polarization of Knowledge and news sources
• Watch out for nonattitudes

Approval of individuals:  mix of affective and evaluative

• Presidential approval: 
• Decay curve
• 21st century trend toward lower approval (Edwards 135-136, 139-140).  Connect to last Wednesday's discussion of close elections.

Why?

What influences attitudes toward the president and national conditions?

• Partisanship
• Events

So what can a president do?

Bill Clinton explains "crafted speech":

So what do I use polls for on the issues? What I primarily use polls for is to tell me how to make the argument that's most likely to persuade you that I'm right about what I'm trying to do. ... Okay. I'll give you an example where, according to the polls I have the unpopular position, okay? The Congress passes a repeal of the estate tax, an outright repeal. Now, I can--and I'm going to veto it if it comes to my desk, okay? Now, I can say the following. I can say, "I'm going to veto this because it only helps less than 2 percent of the people and half of the relief goes to one-tenth of one percent of the people, and it's an average $10 million." That is a populist explanation.

I can say, "I'm going to veto it because we only have so much money for tax cuts, and I think it's wrong to do this and say this is our highest priority, when we have done nothing to lower the income taxes of low-income working people with three kids or more or to help people pay for child care or long-term care for their elderly or disabled relatives or to get a tax deduction for college tuition."

Or I could say, "I think there should be estate tax relief." I do, by the way. "I don't care if it does help primarily upper income people. The way so many people have made so much money in the stock markets in the last 8 years, there are a lot of family-owned businesses that people would like to pass down to their family members, that would be burdened by the way the estate tax works, plus which the maximum rate is too high. When it was set, income tax rates were higher, but there was a lot of ways to get out of it. Now the rates are lower, but you have less ways to get out of it. You have to pretty much pay what you owe more." So I could say that.

So it's not fair to totally repeal it. Like even Bill Gates has said, "Why are you going to give me a $40 billion tax break." And he's going to give away his money, and I applaud him and honor him for it.

So I could make either of those three arguments. It's helpful to me to know what you're thinking. I know what I think is right. I'm not going to change what I think is right. But in order to continue to be effective, you have to believe I'm right. So that's kind of what I use polls for.

 

Nixon memo

• Knowledge of predecessors
• Third person discussion of self: "I speak first of the simple idea of warmth. I don't mean by that that we want to get away from the fact that the President is reserved, dignified, etc., but there are numerous incidents of warmth that have not come through. Now here, I want to emphasize a point that will go against what Sa fir e would like everybody wants me to sit down and talk to members of the staff in a puffing way about how "nicey nice" I have been to them. That is not the way to do it. If warmth is to be believable, it must be discovered, and at this stage there are many examples.

Second Assignment, Spring 2026

Pick one:

Option 1

Track a major policy proposal from President Trump's February 24, 2026 State of the Union. Explain the message war: how Republicans sell it, how Democrats counter, and who "wins" the first five days (including the Sunday talk shows). Use public opinion data, message pickup, elite cues, media stories, and any movement you can document. Define what “win” means in your analysis. Poll results are available at major media outlets and these sites:

• RealClearPolitics
• Pew Research
• Polling Report

Option 2

Compare Vice President Vance to any vice president since Nixon's time as Eisenhower's veep. Has the vice presidency grown more powerful, specialized, political, or presidential? Consider whether differences come from personalities or institutional changes. Look at each veep’s policy portfolio (if any), political role, and relationship with the president. Use at least one presidential or vice presidential memoir, one scholarly book or article, and reputable news sources.

Option 3

Choose one office from the White House internship list and explain why you would want to be an intern there. Go beyond the official description: what does the office really do, and how much influence does it really have? Use primary sources such as executive orders, press releases, speeches, internal memos, news coverage, and interviews with former staff. Also look at books and articles about White House staff. Explain what the office truly produces and its role in presidential governance. Finally, explain why it fits you.

The specifications:

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not Google docs or pdfs.
• Read Strunk & White and my stylesheet (with links to model papers). Watch my writing lecture.
• Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of the Chicago Manual of Style. Endnotes do not count against the page limit. Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space.
• Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism and will result in severe consequences
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Return essays to the Canvas dropbox for this class by 11:59 PM, Friday, March 13. (If you have trouble with Canvas, simply email it to me as an attached file.) I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

See this page for Internet resources on the presidency.

Presidential Elections

For Monday, Edwards ch. 5 and Nixon memo to Haldeman.

Questions on the assignment?  Be sure to link anecdotes to national patterns and trends.  Document what you say.

For your writeup, answer one of the discussion questions at the end of chapter 5. Alternatively, you may offer a guess as to the winner of the 2028 election, but provide reasons based on this week's material.

Keep an eye on the Iran situation.  We will later discuss war powers.

What are conventions for anymore?

Sometimes they backfire, big time

And 2024, not your grandfather's convention:

What do presidential candidates look for in running mates?

Running mates 1948-2020

Why Walz?  Why Vance?

Why did Congress change campaign finance law?

SUPER PACS!  (start at 3:00)

Why the electoral college?

How does it work?

Illustrates change in the political landscape:

Maps and strategy

What really matters?

Events:  what happened in 2024?

Demographics

Partisan trends:

 

Presidential Nominations

For Wednesday, read Edwards, ch. 4.

Questions on the assignment?  Stylistic tips

• Please, no "the purpose of this paper is..."
• In US English, periods and commas go inside quotation marks. Superscripts follow punctuation.
• Do not dangle your modifiers or split your infinitives!
• Avoid dropped quotations.
• Cut down on -ize words and management-speak.
• Avoid the passive.
• Use endnotes with Arabic numerals.

How did the old system work?

Why did the system change?

The 1968 Democratic convention (Edwards 56)

New system relies on primaries and caucuses.  What are they?

New system more open to outsiders:

• Carter
• Reagan
• Obama -- HRC ahead at first
• Trump -- GOP pols slow to endorse in 2016

Why do primary debates make more of a difference than general-election debates?

Example from Edwards, p. 70.

The Shadows Stretch to the Present Day

For Monday, read Edwards ch. 3.

Questions on the paper?

For your writeup, take another look at Ike's Farewell Address.  In 1961, he foresaw problems that would beset his successors and the country as a whole. Other than "the military-industrial complex," briefly discuss one of those problems.

Why did Kennedy go by his initials?

Why did Kennedy conceal his health problems?

Then came Dallas

Kennedy:

LBJ 

With FDR and TX Governor James Allred, 1937

Early Senate campaign button:

LBJ's program was The Great Society.  Medicare was its key achievement.  Signing the Medicare bill, LBJ said:

In 1935 when the man that both of us loved so much, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, signed the Social Security Act, he said it was, and I quote him, "a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but it is by no means complete."

Well, perhaps no single act in the entire administration of the beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt really did more to win him the illustrious place in history that he has as did the laying of that cornerstone. And I am so happy that his oldest son Jimmy could be here to share with us the joy that is ours today. And those who share this day will also be remembered for making the most important addition to that structure, and you are making it in this bill, the most important addition that has been made in three decades.

Nixon:

Schoen: How could a political moderate be so polarizing? 

Impact on the presidency

• OMB and WH staff
• Communications

Nixon and his successors

Ford:  the veep

Carter: the anti-Nixon

Reagan: the frenemy

Bush:  the appointee

Clinton: Kennedy fanboy and Nixon doppelganger

Roger Stone:

"So what did you think of him?" I asked Richard Nixon after his first meeting with Bill Clinton.

"You know," Mr. Nixon replied, "he came from dirt and I came from dirt. He lost a gubernatorial race and came back to win the Presidency, and I lost a gubernatorial race and came back to win the Presidency. He overcame a scandal in his first campaign for national office and I overcame a scandal in my first national campaign. We both just gutted it out. He was an outsider from the South and I was an outsider from the West."

Bush 43, then Obama

Franklin Delano Obama?

Similarities between 2008 and 1932?

Differences in the political and institutional setting?