This paper examines the direct, short-term effect of presidential communications on policy preferences. Using panel studies and post-speech surveys, I demonstrate that following a speech, public opinion changes in the direction of the president. This effect is strongest among people who watch the president. While the number of people who tune to the president may be small, indeed getting smaller over time, it is composed of people who participate in the political process, are more likely to affect it, and therefore are of interest to opinion leaders. The findings reveal that presidents are effective leaders of public opinion.
This article builds on the satisficing and attribution theories to propose a model of presidential approval where issue priorities moderate the association between presidents' policy performance evaluations and overall approval. The data include aggregate time-series and cross-sectional individual-level data of presidential approval, presidential performance evaluations, and issue priorities from Reagan to Obama. The results demonstrate that people give more weight to the issues they prioritize, and therefore their evaluation of the president's performance on those issues matters more in their overall assessment of the president. The impact of issue priorities on approval varies by topic but is not further moderated by party affiliation. The results advance our understanding of the individual determinants of presidential approval and the role that issue priorities play in public opinion.
By bringing together two bodies of literature - the presidency and political parties - this book makes two important contributions. First, it addresses the gap between presidential public actions and the perceived limited effect they have on public opinion. By examining the short-term effect of speeches of presidents on the entire public, the long-term effect of the speeches on their partisans, and on the reputations of their parties for handling policy, the book shows that presidents are effective leaders of public opinion. Second, the book adds to the scholarly interest in how political parties are viewed by the electorate in terms of policy substance. It suggests that Americans possess coherent reputations of the parties for handling policy challenges, and that these reputations contribute to the party identifications of Americans. The effect of presidents on the reputations and, in turn, party attachments position them as leaders of the party system.
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