The presidency occupies a special status within American society. The office has clearly defined powers and limitations. However, the constitutional powers fail to capture the true nature of the evolving power of the executive. It is the only branch of the American government headed by a solitary person. Though not a monarch, this individual is simultaneously a person, position, and branch of government. The presidency exists as a multilayered entity that cannot easily be teased apart into compartmentalized notions. The person functions both as the head of state and the chief executive. Ceremonial and administrative duties fall squarely upon their shoulders. They are ideally supposed to represent our nation in various social functions while managing the entire executive branch bureaucracy. The American presidency balances the pageantry of our nation with the responsibility of bureaucratic management. Both are interlinked and critical to the successful functioning of our government. When one is favored over the other, presidents appear to either be out of touch with either the people or the system. Our presidents attempt to manage the branch while simultaneously attending to the needs of the population.
As conceived in Article I of the USA Constitution, the legislative branch wields a tremendous amount of power. Many scholars consider this branch as the most powerful of the three. Our founding fathers were deeply concerned about the emergence of a monarch. As a result, they vested the majority of authority into the legislative branch with the idea of power diffused among the electorate. All systems, however, need leaders to organize and guide ideas into actualizations. Within the Congress, formal and informal leadership structure developed, and over time, institutionalized into a set hierarchy governing member interaction and activity. The legislative branch has long been involved in power struggles with the executive branch. While our founders were apprehensive about a powerful executive, they understood a single president was psychologically important for the country. Voters demand accountability, and an elected president provides a figurehead for the public to galvanize around, and look toward as the ultimate voice for the people. Over the years, the American presidency has grown in power disproportionate to its original constitutional provisions. The development of the bureaucracy allowed for the executive branch to exert a large amount of influence upon the federal government. As presidents have transitioned away from their role as “chief clerk,” 1 they challenged the legislative branch’s historical dominance of government. The public looks to the president for guidance and leadership as the country’s primary elected official. This fluidity of executive responsibility lends itself toward a flexible model of leadership. Presidents throughout history mold the branch and office to suit their current administration’s needs. Because of the diverse responsibilities held by the executive, the sitting president regularly sees to the obligations of the office through personal appearances, speeches, meetings, executive orders, messages, or other means to communicate his opinions and preferences. It is difficult to distill all presidential actions into uniform categories. Each executive has brought their own distinctive style to the office along with personal proclivities toward specific methods of public interaction. Some, like Eisenhower and Nixon, preferred a more formal White House while Carter and Clinton gravitated toward a more collegial one. Within all the uniqueness and idiosyncratic behavior of administrations, are there patterns across time we can observe? Can we compare presidencies to see certain aspects are stable across administrations and if changes have occurred over the years? Is it feasible to treat presidential administrations as units of comparison rather than exceptional events without counterparts?
When presidents choose to speak in public, they do so for a variety of reasons. Many explanations exist, but they often include announcing policy, recognizing individuals, informing the country, and building support. Location of a public speech often indicates the motivation and rationale for the activity. If we assume presidents have the ability to give as well as refrain from speechmaking, the act itself has implications of intentional activity. Presidents speak because they have grounds for doing it. Sometimes, it can be as innocent as presenting an award, but other times, it may involve building support for national programs or authorizing international military action.
Presidents are only as powerful as their ability to align support for their policies. Though presidents have dramatically increased the total volume of speeches over the past seventy years, do they solely rely upon large cities and media markets to convey the messages or do they utilize smaller, less national media outlets and regional addresses to connect with the citizenry? Presidential speeches give us tools to better explore choices made by administrations in terms of priorities. When presidents speak, people listen. The topics they address, the words they choose can help guide and direct the public in specific ways. Jason Barabas asserts “citizens learn from the presidential rhetoric in SOTU addresses, especially policy proposals highlighted in the mass media.” 2 People listen to what a president says, and how he says it. Tone 3 can affect perceptions and when “public opinion moves in favor of the president’s advocated policy, an effect that is strongest among the attentive audience.” 4 Competing ideologies over the role of the president has seesawed the balance of power back and forth between the congressional and executive branches. In the twentieth century, presidential dominance emerged and has never been subjugated. American president acts as the lead policy maker within the hearts and minds of most citizens. This research explores several basic questions about modern presidential speechmaking. First, has the basic nature of presidential speechmaking changed over time? Through examining the volume of speeches on a yearly basis, it is possible to see that new patterns of yearly speechmaking that emerged especially after the Nixon administration continuing through today. In particular, this research suggests almost much modern presidential speechmaking is cyclical in nature, both during governing and election periods. Can we determine if any consistent patterns within speech location exist across presidencies? In particular, the usage of media markets helps us better understand where presidents choose to speak throughout the USA. If presidents do prefer certain media market sizes to others, what types of speeches occur there? Do they use certain sized markets primarily for campaigning, policy announcements, or consensus building publicity stops? Through media markets and use of speech types (i.e., election speech), clear profiles emerge with how and when presidents choose to talk in different parts of the USA. Some presidents prefer to reinforce base support while others engage in more outreach activities. By comparing and contrasting speeches organized by more conventional Census areas and the less traditional media markets, this project unearths some striking and surprising results. Unquestionably, the volume of presidential speeches over the past fifty years has exploded. Chief executives give public speeches almost constantly, talking on a variety of topics ranging from mundane to vital issues impacting life in America. However, do presidents give preferential treatment to specific areas of the USA? Furthermore, over the past thirty years, a body of literature has emerged around the continuous or permanent campaign of presidential administrations. In the world of the continuous campaign, presidents theoretically never cease the campaigning process. Richard Nixon in March 1971 said to Haldeman “[t]he staff doesn’t understand that we are in a continuous campaign.” 5 Polling public opinion becomes paramount, and every speech has some sort of audience. In short, administrations never disengage from campaigning. This situation implies presidents must maintain the same level of speechmaking during nonelection years as they do within periods of reelection or risk erosion. My belief is this premise may be flawed. These findings suggest Nixon indeed engaged in permanent campaigning during his entire time in office. Much of the early research on continuous campaigning emerged during or soon after his presidency. However, his administration appears to be the exception rather than the norm for most subsequent chief executives. Nixon was, in retrospect, less of a model and more of an outlier for generalized behavior in office. Because the volume of speeches exploded following the Nixon presidency, an assumption was made that others were behaving in a similar matter, but the rapid growth in quantity clouded their true behavior. In reality, every presidency post-Nixon until Obama has engaged primarily in cyclical speechmaking, seriously altering pattern during election seasons, particularly during their own reelection periods. The sheer number of speeches often swamps these ...