The invention of ‘quantifiably safe Rhetoric’: Richard Wirthlin and Ronald Reagan's instrumental use of public opinion research in presidential discourse

“Reflections of Yesterday”: George H. W. Bush's Instrumental Use of Public Opinion Research in Presidential Discourse

“…Often, Teeter played the role of personal adviser or interpreter of media polls. Bush's friendship with Teeter more than likely influenced Bush's thinking on various issues, but Curt Smith all but validated the fact that Teeter's private opinion research never influenced the lexical or syntactical structure of the president's ~peeches.~' This is a significant departure from the practices of Wirthlin, who, under Reagan, employed PulseLines (also known as dial groups) on almost all major speeches during the president's second term to locate "power phrases" that could be rhetorically recycled in future addresses (Hall 2002).…”

“…also http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/papers/l990/90032200.htmL me curious whether (1) any data had been collected prior to the South Lawn speech that was to be used in crafting the speech and (2) whether it was common practice for Demarest to use public opinion data instrumentally by giving the speechwriters data or pretested lines or words to insert into the president's messages as, for example, &chard Wirthlin frequently did for Reagan (Hall 2002). Learning the answers to these questions reveals two things.…”

“…But in this long sweep ofprivate presidential polling, scholars such as Jacobs, Shapiro, and Hall have recognized the pivotal role that Ronald Reagan played in shaping the future uses of private polling for rhetorical 3. Ibid purposes to create crafted talk, or "quantifiably safe rhetoric" (Jacobs and Shapiro 2001;Hall 2002).4 Likewise, these authors and others have shown the ways in which Bill Clinton's presidency seemed to pick up where Reagan left off by maintaining a well-funded polling apparatus committed to poll-tested rhetoric while in office. However, no scholar to date has studied the role polls played for the man in the middle: George H. W. Bush.…”

“…That presidents and polls enjoy an inextricable relationship should come as no surprise (Geer 1996;Herbst 1993;Hogan and Smith 1991;Jacobs and Shapiro 1994, 1995,1999,2000,2001Lavrakas, Taugott, and Miller 1995;Ratzan 1989). In 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt requested that Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Posr, ask George Gallup to conduct a poll to reveal Americans' views toward U.S. involvement in the war in Europe and report his findings back to the White House (Steele 1974;Sussman 1988).…”

“…Jimmy Carter personally parceled out polling information to his advisers who frequently misread public opinion findings and thus often misused data in decision making (Heith 1998). I have shown how presidential pollster kchard Wirthlin, working on behalf of Ronald Reagan, created a complex computer system called the Political Information System as well as used "PulseLines" (also known as dial groups) extensively to pinpoint the most favorable lexical constructions in the president's rhetoric and then "recycled" them in subsequent speeches throughout his presidency (Hall 2002). George H. W. Bush was thought not to use polls nearly as much as his predecessor, while Jacobs and Shapiro have shown how Bill Clinton created "crafted talk"-a strategy whereby decision makers "use research on public opinion to pinpoint the most alluring words, symbols, and arguments in an attempt to move public opinion to support their desired policies" (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000, xv)-using his pollsters' private research (Hall and EOng 2002).…”