Political Communication, Presidential Character

Q&A starts around 8:39


Skowronek and Political Time (Pika 148-149)

President’s Political  Identity

                                                Opposed                                             Affiliated

Prev.                      Vulnerable            Reconstruction (FDR, Reagan)                         Disjunction (Carter)

Est.                                                        

Commitment       Resilient                Preemption (Nixon, Clinton)                             Articulation (Bush 41)

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Barber and presidential character (Pika 164-199)

Affect Toward Activity

Positive                                     Negative

Active                    Adaptive   (FDR)                        Compulsive   (RN, LBJ)

Energy

Passive                   Compliant (Taft, Reagan)         Withdrawn (Coolidge, Ike)

Political Communication II

Data:

• Public Appearances 
• Major Speeches 
• Press Conferences

Presidential approval and the limits of the bully pulpit.

The D-Day Speech

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.

The Evil Empire Speech

The Press

• The Nixon memo
• The Clinton memo

Fireside Chats 2.0?

President Obama's use of new technology and social media differentiates him from other presidents and sets an interesting precedent for those to follow. Google Hangouts with BO - a modern day version of FDR's Fireside Chats?

http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/obama-the-first-social-media-president-132563011874

Presidential Communication I

(Latin translation)



Before the rhetorical presidency

Gettysburg:





FDR Fireside Chats

The Map Speech

FDR also made speeches for newsreels:

• Public Appearances 
• Major Speeches 
• Press Conferences

Clinton and scandal

Presidential Elections IV

Electoral College chess

Alternative allocation methods

Race and the Vote

• 1952-1968
• 1972-2012

The 2012 exit poll

Turnout rates

Romney redux?

Foreign policy

Second Assignment, Fall 2014

Pick one of the following:

1. Write a Saturday radio address for President Obama.  (You may find past addresses here.)  The address itself should take two pages.   Then write a two-page essay explaining what you are trying to do in the address.  What message are you sending to what audience for what intended effect?

2. Look at various schemes for rating presidents (e.g., Pika 152-153). Identify a president about whom at least two of the ratings disagree strongly. Explain why this president’s performance gets such divergent grades. That is, what did this president do to trigger such different reactions from different raters?

3. As we have discussed in class, voters tend to pay much more attention to economics than to foreign policy and national security.  But the latter can have some impact on elections.  Identify a specific specific event in foreign policy and national security that purportedly affected a presidential election (e.g., the 10/31/68 announcement of a bombing halt in Vietnam).  Evaluate the claims about its effect.

4.  Write an essay on any relevant topic of your choice, subject to my approval.

• Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. 
• Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page. 
• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Wednesday, October 29. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

Presidential Elections and the Fundamentals

Mitt

• Supercut of Gingrich Super PAC attack ads
• But in spite of problems, he had advantages all along.
• Apple-knockers still pervade the GOP

Campaign Finance

Romney and Obama:  The Polls

The Vice Presidential Candidate?

• Little general effect
• Little home-state effect

Ads?  47%? Debates?  Sandy?

Fundamentals I:  The Economy



Fundamentals II: Job Approval

Fundamentals III:  Partisanship and Polarization

Nomination Politics

Discovery, Scrutiny, Decline

Factions of the Republican Party

Perry

• Money
• High on fatigue
• Oops

Cain and Libya

Gingrich

• Applause v. Juan Williams
• Applause v. John King
• Romney and why oppo is important

Santorum and Kennedy

Mitt

• Supercut of Gingrich Super PAC attack ads

Presidential Selection Process

From Federalist 39:

The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. The immediate election of the President is to be made by the States in their political characters. The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society. The eventual election, again, is to be made by that branch of the legislature which consists of the national representatives; but in this particular act they are to be thrown into the form of individual delegations, from so many distinct and coequal bodies politic. From this aspect of the government it appears to be of a mixed character, presenting at least as many federal as national features.

More in Federalist 68 

• National Archives site on the electoral college
• History of the process
• An example: Rhode Island 2012
• Bush v. Gore. "The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college."
• Faithless electors
• Seeking flippers
• National popular vote?

Convention moments:

• "Extremism in the defense of liberty" 1964
• Riots 1968
• Kennedy upstages Carter 1980
• Pat Buchanan 1992

George Will: President Obama vs. Congress

"In his address about the Islamic State (which did not mention Khorasan, the asserted imminent threat that supposedly justified acting without Congress), Obama spoke to the public, not to the public’s institutional embodiment, Congress, whose support he said would be 'welcome,' implying that it is unnecessary... Obama is demonstrating in foreign policy what he has redundantly demonstrated in domestic policy—a supine Congress is superfluous to governance."

Are Congressional term limits the answer? Here is the link to the full article.

Reagan, Clinton, and the Bushes

Reagan

• Carter v. Reagan, 1980
• Economic fundamentals of the era
• 1981 Inaugural.
• INS v. Chadha
• "Tear Down This Wall"
• Iran-Contra and 1990 deposition

Deficits

Debt

Bush 41

• "Read my lips" and the 1992 reverb
• Bush and the prime minister

Clinton

Clinton, alas, will go down for an unfortunate phrase.




Bush 43