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Paternal Presidentialism Gendered Rhetorical Strategies in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections Stine Helena Svendsen Thesis in Partial Fulfilment of the M.A. Degree in European and American Area Studies Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF OSLO 8 May, 2007 2 Content CONTENT............................................................................................................................................ 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................................. 5 1. INTRODUCTION: ANALYZING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN RHETORIC WITH GENDER AS THE FRAME OF UNDERSTANDING ....................................................................................... 6 1.1 QUESTIONS AND THEME .......................................................................................................... 6 1.2 SOURCES AND MATERIAL ......................................................................................................... 8 1.2.1 Selection....................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.2 Material...................................................................................................................... 10 1.2.3 Commentary and Secondary Sources......................................................................... 12 1.3 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH .............................................................................................. 12 1.3.1 Text Analysis in American Studies ............................................................................. 12 1.3.2 Text and discourse analysis........................................................................................ 14 1.3.3 Gender as a Frame of Understanding........................................................................ 16 1.3.4 Practical approach..................................................................................................... 18 1.4 PRESENTATION AND STRUCTURE ........................................................................................... 21 2. MANHOOD AND THE PRESIDENCY. THEORY AND BACKGROUND ..................... 23 2.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 23 2.2 GENDER , ELECTIONS , AND LEADERSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA ................................ 24 2.2.1 Masculinism as an Analytical Tool ............................................................................ 26 2.2.2 Men and Masculinities ............................................................................................... 27 2.3 MANHOOD IN AMERICAN POLITICAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY ............................................. 32 2.3.1 George Washington and Presidential Manhood ........................................................ 32 3 2.3.2 Presidential Democracy and Images of Manhood......................................................35 2.3.3 The Modern Presidency ..............................................................................................37 2.4 PATERNAL PRESIDENTIALISM .................................................................................................43 2.5 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................47 3. MORAL MANHOOD IN THE WHITE HOUSE..................................................................50 AL GORE AND GEORGE W. BUSH ’S 2000 CAMPAIGN RHETORIC . ...............................................50 3.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................50 3.2 ”A L GORE : MARRIED 33 YEARS . FATHER OF FOUR . FIGHTING FOR US.”................................51 3.3 GEORGE W. BUSH : SUCCESSFUL TEXAN LEADER ..................................................................53 3.4 THE ELECTION OF FAMILY VALUES ........................................................................................57 3.5 AL GORE ’S STRATEGY OF DISASSOCIATION FROM BILL CLINTON ..........................................60 3.6 HONOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE ................................................................................................61 3.7 CAMPAIGNING FIRST LADIES ..................................................................................................64 3.8 DEBATING PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER ..................................................................................65 3.8.1 Presidential Manhood in the Political Setting............................................................65 3.8.2 Expertise and Sound Principles ..................................................................................69 3.9 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................72 4. THE HEROIC WAR ON TERROR MASCULINIST PROTECTION AND HEROIC MASCULINITY IN THE 2004 ELECTION .......................................................................................74 4.1 THE WAR ON TERROR ELECTION ...........................................................................................75 4.2 GEORGE W. BUSH : THE 9/11 PRESIDENT ...............................................................................77 4.2.1 Protection in Precarious Times ..................................................................................78 4.2.2 The Rhetoric of Saviorism...........................................................................................81 4.3 JOHN KERRY REPORTS FOR DUTY ..........................................................................................83 4 4.3.1 Vietnam Veteran for President................................................................................... 84 4.3.2 Negotiating Patriotism ............................................................................................... 86 4.4 THE RETURN OF HEROIC MASCULINITY ................................................................................ 88 4.4.1 “Flip –flop” ............................................................................................................... 91 4.4.2 Strength and Smartness at War.................................................................................. 93 4.4.3 Unilateral Performance and the Global Test............................................................. 94 4.4.4 War and the Presidential “I”..................................................................................... 96 4.5 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 97 5. GENDER AND PATERNAL PRESIDENTIALISM.......................................................... 100 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 105 5 Acknowledgements Thanks to the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at the University of Oslo for providing an inspiring place to write this thesis, and to everyone at the Center for input, feedback, and enlightening discussions that have improved this text. Thanks to my advisor, David Mauk, for exciting discussions, ideas and support. Hilde Løvdal, Kyrre L. Kausrud, Helle Linnè Eriksen, Vigdis Isachsen, and Siri Hall Arnøy have all been generous with their time, and helped make this text better. 6 1. Introduction: Analyzing Presidential Campaign Rhetoric with Gender as the Frame of Understanding 1.1 Questions and Theme In a memo to his staff during the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon wrote that “potential presidents are measured against an ideal that’s a combination of leading man, God, father, hero, pope, king, with maybe just a touch of the avenging Furies thrown in.”1 In Nixon’s notion of presidential image six out of seven examples are male leaders with supreme, individual authority. The Furies are female, and three, but “just a touch” of them is needed. Do presidential hopefuls have a similar ideal today? If so, how do these ideals of an autonomous masculine leader figure influence the presidential contest? This thesis is about how gender comes into play in the rhetorical strategies that candidates for the presidency use to present themselves to win approval among voters. Any person running for president has to negotiate symbols and images linked to the notions Commander in Chief and Ceremonial Head of State. This thesis attempts to identify gender in presidential campaign rhetoric and asks what their function is in the campaign setting. The empirical basis of the research is campaign messages from the last months of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Anyone interested in gender and politics in the 2004 American presidential election was probably struck by the not so subtle attacks on John Kerry’s masculinity and autonomy staged by Bush supporters and underscored by Bush himself in his comments about his opponent, as well as the Bush campaign’s careful stagecraft of the president as a masculine leader. The objective of this thesis is not only to investigate and describe such rhetoric, but also to describe its symbolic origins and its function in the political system. My studies in the history of the American presidency and the history of masculinities in American society made me question to what degree notions of ideal manhood influenced the presidency as an institution. The rhetoric of masculine