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The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency Author(S): James W The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency Author(s): James W. Ceaser, Glen E. Thurow, Jeffrey Tulis and Joseph M. Bessette Source: Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2, Presidential Power and Democratic Constraints: A Prospective and Retrospective Analysis (Spring, 1981), pp. 158-171 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27547683 Accessed: 28-02-2019 15:46 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Presidential Studies Quarterly This content downloaded from 129.174.182.62 on Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:46:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE RISE OF THE RHETORICAL PRESIDENCY* by JAMES W. CEASER Associate Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs University of Virginia GLEN E. THUROW Professor of Political Science University of Dallas JEFFREY TULIS Instructor in Government and International Studies University of Notre Dame and JOSEPH M. BESSETTE Assistant Professor of Politics The Catholic University of America The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency economic challenges at hand. Yet difficult as this problem of malaise was, the Presi One of the most revealing periods of dent believed it could be tackled ?and by President Carter's tenure in office ?and the very same means that would correct perhaps of the modern presidency itself? his own failures of leadership. By engag occurred during the summer of 1979. Fall ing in a rhetorical campaign to "wake up" ing to a new low in the public's approval the American people, the President hoped ratings and facing criticism from all quar both to save his presidency and begin the ters for his leadership, the President dra long process of national moral revival. As matically cancelled a scheduled televised a Washington Post front page headline speech on energy and gathered his advi proclaimed on the day preceding his new sors together for a so-called domestic ly scheduled national address: CARTER summit. Discussions moved beyond ener SEEKING ORATORY TO MOVE AN gy and economics to a reappraisal of the ENTIRE NATION.1 nature of presidential leadership and to an Looking back today at these unusual analysis of what, for want of a better events, one must surely be surprised that term, can only be called the state of the all of this self-analysis and deep introspec national consciousness. Having served tion was so quickly forgotten. True, the already more than half of his term, the July 15th speech was no classic of Ameri President came to the conclusion that he can oratory; but it did receive an extra had been mistaken in his understanding of ordinary amount of attention at the time the presidential office; he had, as he told and was commonly thought to mark a David Broder, fallen into the trap of be "turning point" in the Carter presidency, ing "head of the government" rather than at least as measured by the President's "leader of the people." As for the state of own intentions. Yet just three months the national consciousness, the President afterwards, no one in the administration concluded that the nation was experienc was mentioning the crisis of malaise, and ing a crisis of spirit or "malaise" that went the President, after the Iranian hostage deeper and was more ominous than the crisis, returned to the White House and began deliberately acting "presidential," * The authors wish to thank the National Endow which is to say more like "the head of the ment for the Humanities for its support in conduct government" than the "leader of the peo ing this research. ple." 158 This content downloaded from 129.174.182.62 on Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:46:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RISE OF THE RHETORICAL PRESIDENCY | 159 Were these events merely a peculiar addressed to the people became common "story" of the Carter presidency? Per place and presidents began to think that haps. On the other hand, it might be they were not effective leaders unless they argued that they are revealing in an exag constantly exhorted the public.3 gerated form of a major institutional de Today, a president has an assembly-line velopment in this century ?the rise of the of speechwriters efficiently producing rhetorical presidency? and of some of the words that enable him to say something problems inherent in that development. on every conceivable occasion. Unless a Popular or mass rhetoric, which Presi president is deliberately "hiding" in the dents once employed only rarely, now White House, a week scarcely goes by serves as one of their principal tools in at without at least one major news story de tempting to govern the nation. What ever voted to coverage of a radio or TV doubts Americans may now entertain speech, an address to Congress, a speech about the limitations of presidential to a convention, a press conference, a leadership, they do not consider it unfit news release, or some other presidential ting or inappropriate for presidents to at utterance. But more important even than tempt to "move" the public by program the quantity of popular rhetoric is the fact matic speeches that exhort and set forth that presidential speech and action in grand and ennobling views. creasingly reflect the opinion that speak It was not always so. Prior to this cen ing is governing. Speeches are written to tury, popular leadership through rhetoric become the events to which people react was suspect. Presidents rarely spoke di no less than "real" events themselves. rectly to the people, preferring communi The use of rhetoric by some of our re cations between the branches of the gov cent presidents is revealing of this devel ernment. Washington seldom delivered opment. During his campaign and through more than one major speech per year of out the first few months of his presidency, his administration, and that one?the An President Kennedy spoke continually of nual Address ?was almost mandated by the existence of a national crisis and of the the Constitution and was addressed to need for sacrifice and commitment, only Congress. Jefferson even ceased deliver to find it difficult at times to explain just ing the address in person, a precedent that what the crisis was and where the sacrifice continued until Woodrow Wilson's ap and commitment were actually needed. pearance before Congress in 1913. The Today, seen in perspective, much of Ken spirit of these early presidents' examples nedy's talk about our "hour of national was followed throughout the nineteenth peril" has a nice ring but a hollow sound, century. The relatively few popular as if it were fashioned to meet the impera speeches that were made differed in char tives of a certain rhetorical style and not acter from today's addresses. Most were those of the concrete situation he faced.4 patriotic orations, some raised Constitu It seems to reflect the view expressed by a tional issues, and several spoke to the con former Kennedy White House aide: "It duct of war. Very few were domestic will be less important in years to come for "policy speeches" of the sort so common presidents to work out programs and today, and attempts to move the nation serve as administrators than it will be for by means of an exalted picture of a per presidents through the means of television fect ideal were almost unknown. Indeed, to serve as educational and psychic in the conspicuous case where a president leaders."5 did "go to the people" in a "modern" President Johnson followed with a sense?Andrew Johnson's speaking tour steady stream of oratory that swelled pop in the summer before the 1866 Congres ular expectations of governmental capaci sional elections ?the campaign not only ty to a level that even his apologists now failed, but was considered highly ir concede far exceeded what government regular.2 It was not until well into the could possibly achieve. What Harry Mac present century that presidential speeches pherson, one of Johnson's chief aides and This content downloaded from 129.174.182.62 on Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:46:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 160 I PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY speechwriters, said of the goals of the advisor, Gerald Rafshoon, the President Johnson administration characterizes per began to look for more opportunities to fectly the tone of its rhetoric: display rhetorical forcefulness. And by the time of his July oratorical campaign People were [seen to be] suffering from he emerged with an assertive tone and a sense of alienation from one another, vigorous body movement, his theme being of anomie, of powerlessness. This af the decline and revitalization of America: fected the well-to-do as much as it did the poor. Middle-class women, bored [We face] a crisis that strikes at the very and friendless in the suburban after heart and soul and spirit of our national noons; fathers, working at "meaning will. We can see this crisis in the grow less" jobs, or slumped before the televi ing doubt about the meaning of our sion set; sons and daughters desperate own lives and in the loss of unity of for "relevance" ?all were in need of purpose for our nation.
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