Copyright by Colene Jean Lind
2013
The Dissertation Committee for Colene Jean Lind Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:
THE COMMON STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF ORDINARY, EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP
Committee:
Roderick P. Hart, Supervisor
Barry Brummett
Sharon J. Hardesty
Patricia Roberts-Miller
Natalie J. Stroud
THE COMMON STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF ORDINARY, EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP
by
Colene Jean Lind, B.A.; M.A.
Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin August 2013
Acknowledgements
In acknowledging the people who have helped me execute and complete this dissertation, I necessarily take the risk of leaving someone out. In fact, so many individuals have aided me that it is impossible to list them all. But to mention no one would be a greater failure. For the record, I can only provide here a partial list of those whom I should acknowledge. That said, my deepest thanks and gratitude go to Dean Roderick P. Hart, the best adviser and mentor any student might have. Generous with his time but incisive and careful with his criticisms, Dean Hart convinced me that I, too, could be creative and bold in my thinking, and that one’s writing is only as good as the last sentence one composes. I hope to never write again without his editing in my head, and I aspire to become half the educator that he is. Whether or not I achieve either, I look forward to trying. The communication studies faculty the University of Texas at Austin also inspires me, and I am especially thankful to have experienced the respective classrooms of Drs. Sharon Jarvis and Talia Stroud, researchers and teachers of the highest caliber. Their mentorship, too, has benefited me handsomely. All of my fellow UT graduate students challenged and sustained me as well. In particular my thanks go to Josh Scacco, Maegan Stephens, Cynthia Peacock, Mary Anne
Taylor, and Connie Johnson for their willingness to think out loud with me about my research. Now-professors Soo-Hye Han and Emily Hanks gave me advice that kept me on sound footing, and for that I am deeply appreciative. At least half of my UT education happened at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life. Strauss mainstays Melissa Huebsch, Debbie Wise, and Chuck Courtney make the State of Texas proud, and I am grateful to have worked with them and many others at
iv the institute. To my great fortune, I also found a second professional home, the Dean’s office, while studying at UT. It would have been a loss if I had left Texas without knowing Anne Reed and Kat Yerger as well as I now do, and I am glad that they made me one of their own on the fifth floor of Belo. On a personal level, this research was possible only because of the love and sacrifice of my parents, Lyle and Lois Lind. A Nebraska farm might seem very far away from the study of political rhetoric in Austin, Texas, but I always feel my parents are with me nonetheless. I owe them everything. I also have a cheering section in Lindsborg,
Kansas, and I especially thank John and Judy Murphy, Mark McDonald, and Lee and Susie Ruggels for encouraging me to pursue a doctorate in spite of the hardships, which frankly have been very few.
Why have the rainy days been so rare? As anyone who knows him will attest, Rex Fowles, the love of my life, keeps gray skies away. His enthusiasm, fun nature, openness to new experiences, and never-ending curiosity encourage me in all things. I might have completed a doctoral degree without him, but it is very hard for me to imagine doing so. I dedicate this dissertation to him.
v The Common Style in American Politics:
A Rhetorical Analysis of Ordinary, Exceptional Leadership
Colene Jean Lind, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2013
Supervisor: Roderick P. Hart
U.S. political leaders must be meritorious to warrant elected office but they also should be average so that they may demonstrate empathy and win the trust of citizens.
Rhetoric makes this contradiction work, but no scholarship yet describes it satisfactorily. Worse yet, public opinion now holds politicians in historically low regard. But without a systematic understanding of how elected officials discursively bind themselves to the people, it is impossible to say if or why the rhetorical model of exceptional-ordinary leadership is failing. In this study I describe this rhetoric, which I identify as the Common Style. By listening to politicians’ language choices across four speaking situations, I discovered that the Common Styles consists of distinct registers, each appealing to a conventional value, thereby indicating that politicians share something in common with everyday Americans. When speaking to a national audience under expectations of relative formality, as did presidents when delivering a weekly address, chief executives mostly appealed to the
American work ethic through a language of production, and in this way presented themselves as honorable laborers. When answering a special-interest group’s invitation
vi to speak at one their meetings, governors and mayors relied on a language of progress to show themselves to be concerned with improvement, as were the citizens who joined these voluntary associations. On the nationally broadcast television talk show, leaders shared stories of their uncommon experiences and thereby satisfied the universal need to know what others go through and subtly implied that they, like everyone else, were mortal. When leaders were expected to think on their feet in the presence of local constituents—as they must at town-hall meetings—they turned to a conventional language of deference to indicate their esteem for voters and a mutual desire for respect.
I conclude that U.S. politicians seek to build relations with citizens based on the presumption of shared values, but the resonance of these ideals in a fractured society remains uncertain. Future studies must therefore investigate the effectiveness of the
Common Style with different swaths of ever-changing Americans.
vii Table of Contents
List of Tables ...... xi
List of Figures ...... xii
Chapter One: The Dilemma of U.S. Political Leadership ...... 1 The Paradox of Meritorious Leadership ...... 6 The Promise of Merit ...... 7 The Problem of Merit...... 10 The Cultural Paradox of Merit ...... 13 Rhetorical Leadership, American Style ...... 14 The Crisis of U.S. Leadership: Evidence of a Failing Model? ...... 17 The Common Style: Evidence of an Unclear Construct? ...... 19 Leadership Theories of Charisma ...... 22 Conclusion ...... 25
Chapter Two: Studying the Common Style ...... 27 Operationalizing the Common Style ...... 27 Language and Social Relations ...... 30 Texts for Analysis ...... 32 Audience Reach: Distance, Difference, and Influence ...... 32 Speaker Spontaneity: Authenticity vs. Authority ...... 35 The Interaction of Audience Reach and Speaker Spontaneity ...... 37 Critical Probes ...... 40 Conclusion ...... 44
Chapter Three: The Language of Production and the Weekend Address ...... 45 An American Work Ethic: Shared Duty and Dignity in Production ...... 47 The Early American Work Ethic ...... 48 The Changing American Work Ethic ...... 52 Common Calling to Work: The Language of Production ...... 56 Political Production and the Labor of Governance ...... 56 viii Citizen Workers and Their Private Duty to Produce ...... 60 Leaders and Citizens: Same Role, Different Responsibilities ...... 64 Questions Raised ...... 67 Whose job? For what purpose? ...... 67 Take this job and shove it?...... 68 Conclusion ...... 72
Chapter Four: The Language of Progress and State-Based Politics ...... 74 Doing Better: the American Ethos of Improvement ...... 77 Melding the Moral and Material ...... 79 The Egalitarianism of Improvement ...... 83 Moving Forward via the Language of Progress ...... 84 Leaders as Strivers ...... 84 Citizens as Leaders ...... 88 Leaders and Citizens: Partners in Progress; Camaraderie in Competition ...... 91 Discussion ...... 94 Utility vs. Duty...... 95 Shifting Attitudes toward Progress ...... 97 Conclusion ...... 99
Chapter Five: The Language of Experience and Television Talk Shows ...... 102 Speaking of Experiences ...... 103 Stories of Experience ...... 107 The Entertainment Talk Show and the Common Need to Know ...... 109 Speaking of the Human Condition ...... 111 The Subtlety of the Language of Experience ...... 117 Who Speaks the Language, How, and When ...... 119 The Implications of Being Human ...... 123 An American Longing for Openness ...... 123 Liking Instead of Trusting; Knowing Instead of Questioning ...... 125 Media-and-Politician Collusion ...... 128 ix Chapter Six: The Language of Deference in Town Hall Meetings ...... 130 Deference Defined ...... 132 The Democratic Demeanor and Deference ...... 135 The Deference Dilemma ...... 138 The Language of Democratic Deference ...... 141 Appreciation ...... 141 Accommodation ...... 145 Obligation ...... 149 The Costs and Benefits of Deference ...... 151 Mutual vs. Asymmetric Deference ...... 151 Leaders of Good Conscience; Citizens Who Know Their Limits .....155 The Responsibilities of Leadership ...... 156
Chapter Seven: The Logic of the Common Style ...... 158 Describing the Common Style ...... 160 Addressing American Mysteries ...... 164 Do Americans share a common culture? ...... 164 Is the United States a democracy or a republic? ...... 169 What does it mean to be a leader and a citizen? ...... 173 What now for the Common Style?...... 177 Cozier in the digital age? ...... 177 Inclusivity and the Common Style ...... 179 Do citizens still need leaders? Can citizens still believe in them? ....181 The Limits of Leadership Rhetoric ...... 184
Appendix A ...... 187
Appendix B ...... 195
Appendix C ...... 202
Appendix D ...... 213
References ...... 218
x List of Tables
Table 1: Percent relative frequency of the “work” lexicon in Brown Corpus as
compared to weekly presidential addresses ...... 57
Table 2: Frequency of words regarding social roles in 105 weekly U.S.
presidential addresses, 1992-2012 ...... 61
xi List of Figures
Figure 1: Invitations to be common and the character of such encounters between
politicians and citizens ...... 38
xii Chapter One: The Dilemma of U.S. Political Leadership
The United States political class distinguishes itself in many ways. Nearly half of the members of the 112th Congress, for example, hold at least $1 million in assets, with only 5 percent of the country’s population overall possessing the same amount of wealth
(Bingham 2011). The U.S. Congress also claims distinctive demographics, with Senators and Representatives being significantly older and more educated than most citizens (Petersen 2012). Stephen Ansolabehere (2011) found these trends at all levels of government, with the 6 million Americans who have ever run for office being more educated, richer, and older than their neighbors. Voters also lean toward high-status, white-collar professions when choosing their leaders, as evidenced by the many elected officials who are lawyers, bankers, educators, or other business professionals in their private lives (Petersen 2012). As a group, politicians display a remarkable commitment to military service, with a member of Congress being 14 times more likely than other Americans to have been in the armed forces (Petersen 2012). In addition, the increasing size, scope, and role of the public sector has driven political professionalization, making leaders more distant from citizens in terms of knowledge and specialty (Schier and
Eberly 2012). Socially, U.S. politicians generally are well-connected, with many previously serving on Fortune 500 boards and calling the most prestigious schools their alma maters (Riddlesperger and King 1989). Oddly, however, the words “political class” or “ruling elite” register only faintly in U.S. public discourse. While political scientists regularly probe the relationship between elite and mass opinion, they rarely focus on the causes and consequences of a distinct governing class in American politics.1 Instead, the United States seems mostly
1 See Riddlesperger and King (1989) and Jackman (1972) for exceptions. 1 comfortable with the mythology that anyone with sufficient moral fortitude can be an effective political leader, as evidenced by popular movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Dave. Historical narratives feed this cultural bias, too, from stories of Abe Lincoln as a country lawyer to Barack Obama as a biracial son of Kansas stock. As Edward Pessen (1984, 170) documented in his history of U.S. presidents, “the evidence contradicts a number of enduring and widespread myths,” for “poor boys have rarely risen to the top of the heap in this country.” Why is the United States blind to the exceptionalism of its political leaders?
Odder still, serious observers routinely express concern that the quality of political leadership has fallen, despite evidence that the political class has become more meritorious since 1945 (Petersen 2012). Commentators from the left (e.g., Nader 2013) and right (e.g., Codevilla 2010) bemoan an arrogant leadership that has lost touch with real-life Americans and their concerns. They alternately suggest that political elites do not live up to their obligations (Lind 2005) or are overly obligated to narrow bands of similarly privileged citizens (Moyers and Winship 2012). Based on these sometimes conflicting critiques, it is hard to know where the problem lies: Are U.S. political leaders too different and distant to care, or are they too plebian to perform properly?
Strangest of all, members of the political class will deny their membership in the club at seemingly any cost. On the Jay Leno show, presidential candidate and former CEO Mitt Romney (December 1, 2010, Appendix C) shared a photograph of himself doing Thanksgiving dishes. Rick Perry (2011) ate pie at the Blue Strawberry Coffee Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And no matter where they land, politicians try to find the right words to fit in with the crowd. Here are just a few examples of the pedestrian tone that U.S. leaders evince on a daily basis:
2 President George H. W. Bush (1989) to space-shuttle astronauts: “Gentlemen, your mission is accomplished. Your nation says, well done! Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you, fellas.” (para. 7)
President Bill Clinton (1998) in Baltimore: “I don't know about you, but I thought that Larry Simns did a terrific job. Can we give him a hand? I've been in public life long enough to know when a guy throws a sucker punch. When he got up there and said, ‘Oh, I'm just this lowly president of’—I thought this guy is fixing to give us a heck of a good talk. And sure enough, he did.” (para. 1)
President George W. Bush (2008) introducing a foreign dignitary: “Mr. Prime Minister, we're really thrilled you're here. Laura and I love having you and Anne- Mette with us. Pretty good guests when you can have a meaningful mountain bike ride at sunset and then at sunrise, and the man not even break into a sweat. You’re in incredible condition, and I really have enjoyed my time with you—my time when we talked and my time when we rode. I also appreciate the fact that you’re a good personal friend and a strong leader.” (para. 2)
President Barack Obama (2010) at a town-hall event: “Those are smart investments. That’s like buying the new boiler; if it’s busted, you got to get a new boiler. If the roof’s leaking, you got to fix the roof. There’s some things you’ve got to do. But you can put off buying the new curtains, even if it’d be nice to have.” (para. 32)
U.S. Representative and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (2011): “I was born in Waterloo, Iowa. I am 55 years old, and I’m so thrilled for the opportunities that my parents gave to me. I grew up in a fairly middle-class home. My mother was a homemaker. My dad was an engineer. I had three brothers. And by the way, for any women here, that is the best preparation for politics you can ever have: three brothers and no sisters.” (para. 6)
Notice that the patrician George H. W. Bush resorts to the colloquial “fellas,” as if the specialized engineers who had just returned to earth were so many men in a tavern. Oxford scholar and renowned policy wonk Bill Clinton channels Cousin Bubba with talk of sucker punches. Despite his stereotype as an intellectual lightweight, the younger Bush showed great political savvy in his ascendency to the presidency. And yet he chose to speak publically of a distinguished international guest’s bodily functions. Even
Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama, political leaders of cosmically different styles, ideologies, and social backgrounds, thought it important to invoke domesticity when 3 speaking of the people’s public business. Who do these political leaders think they are? More to the point, who do they think they are fooling? Questions concerning political leadership and its proper relationship with the governed have haunted the American republic since the founding. While there are no definitive answers, every representative democracy must address these issues, and a country’s unique political culture is its way of doing so. In political culture one finds “the interplay between subjective orientations of citizens, i.e., the ideas and value codes that regulate political action” (Pfetsch 2004, 347) and the structural conditions of political systems. Because political culture “encompasses both the political ideals and operating norms of a polity” (Pye 1968, 218), it holds in tension the inescapable contradictions of human experience with little apparent irony. For example, in the United States, the formula is this: Citizens have come to expect political leaders to be exceptional even while being ordinary. In American political thought, there has been a long and close connection between excellence and leadership. A large, representative democracy where everyone has an equal claim to political sovereignty must have a rational and just way to designate who should lead. Merit has been this rationalizing device since the nation’s founding.
Rejecting traditional arrangements of hereditary aristocracy, elites in colonial and revolutionary America proclaimed wealth to be a marker of one’s excellence (Richard 2004). They argued that material success made them better qualified to lead than did the blood lines of Old World aristocrats (Carson 2007). Since those early justifications for an expanded but still exclusionary leadership, society has come to see excellence in more classes and categories of people. U.S. history can be read as an ongoing controversy over who merits leaderly distinction and how that merit is best demonstrated. At the same time, however, the goal of meritorious leadership has never been questioned. 4 But for a country founded on suspicion of distant elites and centralized power (Huntington 1974), excellence in leadership was not enough. To the contrary, material success can also be a handicap. When Ann Romney ("Mitt Romney Iowa" 2012) says of her husband in a campaign commercial, “everything he does he does well,” she speaks a widely accepted truth but one that makes many citizens uncomfortable. In contrast, Rick
Santorum ("Pop Up" 2011) makes a better case when his television advertisements show him to be clumsy at backyard football but also a Little League Coach. To the American way of thinking, Tim Tebow and ballet are haunted by the same ghosts: They celebrate an elitism and skill that “seem to us exclusionary and divisive” (Gross and Miller 2011, para. 91). To be fully embraced, leaders in the United States must heed a “democratic nation’s itch to level people” (Banner 2012, 10) to show themselves to be similar to fellow citizens. At the level of cultural truth, it seems so simple: To meet the contradictory demands of the country’s history and ideals, U.S. political leadership must be both excellent and average. But in practice how can this be true? How can citizens imagine politicians to be worthy, to be capable of real leadership, but also unthreateningly unremarkable? Do citizens lie to themselves in this regard or do they really believe that excellence and everyday virtue can be comingled? The magic underlying such a belief is rhetorical in nature. The following study examines the cultural dilemma posed above and the discourse that facilitates it— something which I identify as the Common Style. Such an analysis is needed, I argue, to better understand the nature of leader-citizen relations in the United States. At a time when American politicians are said to be as disconnected from the masses as never before, there is an acute need to understand leaders’ attempts to establish what is common about themselves and what they share with the citizens they govern. 5 By explicating the Common Style in the discourse of U.S. political leaders, I address a series of research questions. I first ask, how do national and local politicians, when speaking in various situations, use language to endear themselves to everyday citizens? Second, I consider the relational messages sent by the Common Style, inquiring as to the kind of leadership and citizenship projected by its registers. Third and finally, I reflect on the implications of elite discourse for U.S. political culture. Put differently, I ask, what does the Common Style say about the United States as a polity and as a people? In answering these questions, I provide an over-arching and parsimonious description of the language behaviors of elected officials who wish to consort with Americans. The project also strengthens what has been until now an under-developed research agenda spread across several disciplines. Just as significantly, this study proposes that elite discourse has important, sometimes troubling, repercussions for the way that leadership and, by extension, citizenship is understood and experienced. The remainder of this chapter will a) deepen the mystery of U.S. political culture, b) explore the inherent tensions between leaders and followers held therein, and c) justify study of the rhetoric that binds the two together.
THE PARADOX OF MERITORIOUS LEADERSHIP
Every large, representative democracy has a dilemma: There are too many people for all to be directly involved in decision-making, but how to pick a few leaders over those of equal political standing? Robert Dahl (2006) includes this “dilemma of size” as one of the basic barriers to full political equality, for “the larger the unit. . .the greater the need for citizens to delegate decisions to representatives” (p. 59). According to democratic logic, choosing delegates should be simple. By definition, democracy is the rule of political equals, all of whom are capable of making decisions about public policy.
6 Ancient Athenians accepted this logic and selected by lot the 500 citizens who were to set the assembly’s agenda (Dahl 2006). But common sense is often a better guide to human behavior than is traditional logic, and common sense indicates that some individuals are more suited to leadership than are others. Even the ancient Athenians, as committed as they were to democracy, were obsessed with arête (Engen 2010). Furthermore, the Athenian assembly included only male citizens, making it a de facto ruling class distinct from slaves, women, and foreigners (Sacks 2005). Perhaps because the founders so admired the ancients, contemporary American political culture is now saddled with many of these same inconsistencies. An historical review of U.S. thinking about leadership is necessary to understand this paradox of merit.
The Promise of Merit
When America’s 18th-century thinkers contemplated rejection of the European aristocracy, they were confronted with at least two problems: First, who will lead? Second, how can their leadership be justified? When the founders looked to the ancients for guidance, they saw republics, not democracies. In fact, democracy was soundly rejected as an option and even declared unworkable. As Engels (2008, 471) notes, “There was little question in elite circles that there would be no post [Revolutionary] war democracy, a synonym at the time for popular anarchy and political suicide.” Instead, the founders conceived of a natural aristocracy. Carl Richard (2004) explains that the natural aristocracy was said to be composed of those individuals with the skills, talents, and fortitude needed for leadership. In contrast, the “artificial” aristocrats of Europe had nothing that made them talented leaders−only the genes of past aristocrats. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams, “There is a natural aristocracy
7 among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent. . . . There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents. . . . The natural aristocracy I consider the most precious gift of nature” (quoted by Carson, 2007, 11). But with no IQ tests, SAT scores, or civil-service exams, how would those naturally endowed for leadership be distinguished from those less endowed? As Richard further explains, wealth was presumed to be the manifestation of merit. “Americans had decided that since education and talent often accompanied wealth, and since wealth (unlike either talent or virtue) could be easily quantified, property was the most appropriate criterion for identifying the ‘natural aristocracy’” (Richard 2004, 126). So in establishing an American republic, the founders replaced one type of hierarchy with another. Even Jefferson, champion of the common farmer as a moralizing agent in America, could not have conceived of the commoner as political leader (Hofstadter 1963, 155). This is not to say, however, that there was no democratic sentiment in the early United States. From its founding there was “a basic tension at the heart of life in the United States,” thanks to the clash between popular sentiment and the “antidemocratic bent of the power elite” (Engel, 2008, 471). Even so, the triumph of Jacksonian democracy was surprisingly swift. Just 40 years after the revolutionary war, Andrew Jackson won the presidency by promising to promote the farmer and the mechanic over the rich and well-born. By 1840, the competing Whig Party had adopted the rhetoric of populism, too. For Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, “a common touch was supplied in 1840 by the log-cabin and hard-cider theme, although Harrison lived in a rather substantial mansion on the banks of the Ohio” (Hofstadter 1963, 164). Historians agree that “after the triumph of
Jacksonianism, it was difficult for any politician of the second generation to admit publicly that they feared the rule of the people” (Mercieca 2008, 447). 8 This was a consequential moment, but one should not conclude that after 1840 American citizens cared nothing about exceptional leadership. A more nuanced view recognizes that 19th-century America rejected traditional hierarchies (Cmiel 1990) and embraced a consumer culture that made the symbols of social excellence available to many (Ewen 1988). For citizens, it was increasingly difficult to tell who was excellent and who was not. “The stylistic bricolage made it maddeningly hard to divide the world into the few and the many, impossibly difficult to see which men were ‘truly’ gentlemen, which women ‘really’ ladies” (Cmiel 1990, 15). Rather than being guided by the traditional signifiers of status and distinction, Americans were forced to seek new indicators of excellence, such as grandiose political oratory (Hofstadter 1963) and the civil-service exam (Carson 2007). Traditional marks of excellence were no longer thought to be valid, but excellence itself remained highly desirable. Take, for instance, the nation’s extended debate over what should qualify one for the presidency. Some of the questions that have been asked of presidential candidates demonstrate that excellence, in its many manifestations, is of central concern when choosing a leader: Excellence in birth and education: Of Harry Truman, “Could a plain, provincial son of the Midwest fulfill the dramatic role of leader and heroic world figure? No one knew, and many doubted” (Underhill 1981, 114). Excellence in virility: Of Teddy Roosevelt, could an effeminate intellectual be man enough to be president? (Goodale 2010). Excellence in health and physique: Could a woman who ovulates be president? (Atkins-Sayre 2009). Could a woman with migraines be president? (Rucker and
Somashekhar 2011). Could a fat man be president? (Groer 2012) Could a cancer survivor be president? (Lomazow and Whitman 2008). 9 Excellence in personal independence: Could Al Smith or John Kennedy say no to the Pope? Could George or Mitt Romney contradict their church leaders? (Dionne 2007). Excellence in political skill: How could Ross Perot, who made billions but never held public office, truly appreciate the art of politics? ("The People" 1992). Excellence in character: Might the ambition of Steve Forbes, a person willing to spend his own fortune to be president, disqualify him from high office? (Frankel 1996). Did serial adultery indicate a weakness in Bill Clinton’s character that would hinder true presidential leadership? (Quindlen 1992).
Excellence in experience: Did being a village mayor and then governor of a sparsely populated state give Sarah Palin the right kind of political experience? Did being a U.S. senator for 15 months give Barack Obama what he needed to serve as president? In the United States these are fair questions, even if they sometimes reveal underlying prejudices. In the American context, talent and experience are currencies that inevitably buy a measure of legitimacy. Thanks to the long-standing need for leaders to justify their elevated status, being average has never been enough in U.S. politics.
The Problem of Merit
Merit has proven to be an effective way of establishing leadership among equals, but such a prescription also has side-effects. As political theorists Nadia Urbinati and Mark Warren (2008, 393-394) argue, “representative government is inevitably an elected form of aristocracy because it discriminates among citizens and excludes some from the decision-making process.” To this way of thinking, a leadership of merit produces a particular kind of aristocracy−a meritocracy.
10 First coined by novelist Michael Young (1958), meritocracy refers to a ruling class distinguished by aptitude or achievement. Young’s dystopian fantasy constitutes a warning against empowering capable and aloof elites, but today meritocracy is regarded as a laudable goal in education and governance (Liu 2011; Napier and Jost 2008). Indeed, the American mythos is at its core merit-based (Kaplan and Kaplan 2004). As one British source observes, Americans tolerate income inequality unrivaled in other established democracies because Americans believe that everyone has a chance to get ahead ("Meritocracy in America" 2004).
Despite its mythic status in the United States, critics denounce meritocracy for its unfairness in application and outcome. Long-simmering public feuds over affirmative action, busing, and school choice turn on whether some citizens are being systematically denied advancement opportunities. More recently, the debate over economic inequality has been particularly sharp (see e.g. Krugman 2012), but most damning of all is evidence of class stagnation in the United States (Stepan and Linz 2011). Although some argue that meritocracy is a myth (McNamee and Miller Jr. 2004), others say it is very real and socially corrosive because a highly mobile, self-entitled ruling elite has no allegiance to place, class, or country (Lasch 1995). These are troubling and important critiques, but meritocracy creates two additional strains in U.S. political life. First, regardless of whether meritocracy is just, it is an irritant to a political body already hypersensitive to concentrated forms of power. U.S. citizens have been taught to be mistrustful of political institutions and their leaders (Hart 1978; Hetherington 2005), thanks in large part to the nation’s heritage of resisting distant, unchecked power. Possessing a relatively narrow “radius of trust” with regard to politics, (Welch et al.
2005, 468), American citizens must rely on social similarity to establish trustworthiness. As Fenno (1978) found, how members of Congress presented themselves depended on 11 what voters thought to be trustworthy. To build and maintain trust in relatively homogeneous districts, political leaders display higher levels of social affinity with constituents. For better or worse, pedestrian forms of leadership have become a way to deal with the lack of trust between citizens and elites. Secondly, meritocracy creates a sense of abandonment for those left behind. As early as 1790, Justin Moser, then the highest official in the bishopric of Westphalia, argued that a merit-based system would foster resentment among those who fail to advance in society. A system of birth and social rank was preferable, he argued, because it allowed the less fortunate to console themselves. But if one’s station in life is determined by merit, “this so necessary comfort would completely disappear, and the cobbler who…can flatter himself that he would be doing something entirely different from mending the Lady Mayor’s slippers if merit were respected in the world could not possible be happy” (quoted by Beer 2007, 220). Moser seems prescient in light of Robert Lane’s (1962) interviews with working- class Americans. The men of Eastport, Lane found, needed to explain their relatively low status, but they did so by blaming themselves for their poor choices and unfilled potential rather than attacking the system. As one of Lane’s interviewees observed, “I could have been a lot better off but through my own foolishness. . . Believe me, had I used my head right, I could have had a house. I don’t feel sorry for myself” (69). As Moser predicted, working-class Americans cannot escape the uncomfortable truth of their failure, but they can reassure themselves that they could have gotten ahead—and still might. Any issue of People magazine makes this point graphically. Americans crave stories about the extravagant lifestyles of the stars, but every good tale of fame is obliged to make reference to the star’s everyday qualities as well. It is not coincidental that stories of Warren Buffet’s modest home in Omaha travel far and wide. Despised are 12 those who have lost touch with ordinary people, and most noble are those whose fame has not changed them. Kinship with elites not only reduces the pain of inequality but keeps alive the hope that anyone can advance their station in life. The rationale of American political culture hangs together only if elites, at their core, are average folks.
The Cultural Paradox of Merit
The promise of merit is that it lets citizens distinguish among political equals, thereby creating a stable governing hierarchy. At the same time, merit-based leadership concentrates power in the hands of a few, throwing salt in the wound of an already mistrustful polity and alienating those who remain on society’s lower rungs. Thus the United States needs leaders who are as common as they are distinguished. Such a paradox cannot be avoided: The democratic impulse demands that no one stands-out, until, of course, we need them to stand-out. But life is full of such contradictions, even though people rarely think about them. Why give such matters further consideration? I assert that the conundrum of exceptional, everyday leadership deserves close examination for two reasons. First, the paradox is a staple in U.S. culture as well as in media commentary. Whether it comes up as a question of candidate authenticity (Parker 2012), or via remarks about the presidential beer test (Begala 2012), concern that politicians are too aloof or too pedestrian is a chronic anxiety. Second, this paradox of leadership has profound consequences. A leadership too exceptional distorts the very meaning of democracy and puts citizen opinion at risk of being drowned out by sources of overweening power.2 In contrast, a too-ordinary leadership risks illegitimacy and raises the possibility of incompetence. History has
2 See, for example, John Dewey’s (1988) response to Walter Lippmann’s call for a government of experts. 13 demonstrated that in either case the polity might be victimized by a demagogue, be it someone like Adolph Hitler (too excessive) or Jean-Bertrand Aristide (too banal). To be sure, this dilemma is not unique to the United States. Edelman (1988) observes that “for followers leadership. . .entails fear of hostility from the powerful and anxiety about their competence, related emotions that have always been conspicuous in the chronicle of human history” (p. 40, emphasis added). The problem is particularly poignant in the United States, however, thanks to the strong statement of political equality enshrined in revolutionary-era documents (Carson 2007; Mercieca and Aune
2005) juxtaposed against an equally strong distrust of political institutions (Huntington 1974) and enduring commitment to the myth of equal opportunity (Stepan & Linz, 2011). Such a political culture must produce leaders who are exceptional enough to convey legitimacy, but similar enough to its citizens to gain their trust and acquiescence. How can this be done?
RHETORICAL LEADERSHIP, AMERICAN STYLE
A bit more reflection demonstrates that rhetoric makes the impossible possible. Unlike the harsh and final judgments of strong meritocracy, rhetoric allows for the peaceful existence of paradox without deception or compromise. Weak meritocracy responds with raw power when challenged, but rhetoric allows for competition and cooperation among free actors and promotes difference and commonality as well. Without rhetoric, culture becomes a random collection of beliefs, values, objects and behaviors; rhetoric orders the chaotic, allowing members of a culture to interact based on shared meanings. Most critically, rhetoric has “long been depended upon to make certain societal values come to life even though those values are not substantiated. . .by empirical
14 reality” (Hart 1984a, 760). For these reasons, rhetoric is a vital resource for U.S. political leadership. Some scholars view rhetoric as, at best, a necessary but unfortunate evil of leadership. Writing specifically of the presidency, James Ceaser and colleagues (1981, 161) warn of relying too heavily on a grandiose “rhetorical performances” that puff up with “false expectations,” bearing “little relationship to the practical tasks of governing” and ultimately undermining public confidence. Others question whether political leaders’ rhetorical overtures make any difference, since researchers can produce almost no empirical evidence that their persuasion moves public opinion (Edwards III 2006, e.g.). These scholars forget that rhetoric makes leadership possible. David Zarefsky (2000, 6) makes a three-part argument for rhetorical leadership, first contending that it requires an “ability to control the meaning or interpretation people give to events.” Second, leaders must “teach” their “audiences to accept a particular perspective on the situation they confront.” Third, because leadership “is a matter of discerning what is appropriate in a given case,” it is “called into being by a specific exigence and is the art of discovering and selecting the means of influence in a given case.” For these reasons, “scholars who are comfortable including rhetoric within the orbit of political leadership” bring “richer and more diverse perspectives” to its study (Dorsey 2002, 7). But what if rhetoric is not simply the means of leadership, but the substance of leadership itself? Murry Edelman (1988) complains that “leadership is dramaturgy,” (40). but Robert Hariman (1995) is untroubled. He contends that cultures of power cohere around political styles, which are “repertoire of rhetorical conventions depending on aesthetic reactions for political effect” (4). According to Hariman, the operation of a political style defines the relationship between leader and citizen and determines what constitutes political power, be it realist, courtly, republican, or bureaucratic. Brummett 15 (2008) agrees that style has substantial political consequences because it “is the major site on which claims of identity are made and contested” (87). Style is not simply a means of expression, but how one “situates oneself in relationship to others” (Brummett, 2008, 87). This view of leadership as rhetorical style presumes that headship entails a set of social relations. Too often, leadership is reduced to the qualities of mere leaders (Edelman 1985/1964), but true leadership involves a dynamic relationship between leaders and followers. As Burns (1978) explains, leadership is “inseparable from followers’ needs and goals. The essence of the leader-follower relation is the interaction of persons” (19). Because leaders and followers use rhetoric to negotiate social roles (Burke, Goffman), rhetorical analysis can reveal the dimensionality of a functioning leadership. When rhetoric succeeds in connecting politician to citizen, it makes possible a unique, American style of leadership. Mercieca (2008) characterizes the U.S. democratic style as inherently ironic because “people know themselves not to be in power, yet the people want to believe that they are in power” (447-448). Kane and Patapan (2010) suggest that all democracies, not just the United States, deny their rhetorical character and thereby make “a concession to the authority of the sovereign people” (372).3 No less a personage than Ben Franklin recognized the advantages of such a sociable democratic leadership, and he recommended it to anyone who would lead effectively (Forde 1992). Through it “the vanity of followers is assuaged, and the leader’s projects go forward more smoothly” (Forde, 1992, 365). Such a leadership holds together the tensions of “the
3 See also Beasley (2008) for a similar argument. Beasley wonders whether style might be anathema to democratic politics, which are predicated on transparency and openness. 16 individualism of the American Creed on the one hand and the conformity of American behavior on the other” (Kellerman, 1884, 31).
THE CRISIS OF U.S. LEADERSHIP: EVIDENCE OF A FAILING MODEL?
History indicates that this kind of rhetorical melding has, for the most part, successfully mediated America’s messy relationship with its leaders. Is this still true today? Consider two contemporary tales of leadership as told by professional critics, bloggers, journalists, and scholarly experts. The first story posits that U.S. political leaders are no longer worthy of respect. A full 56 percent of Americans say they are not proud of the country’s leaders; two-thirds think the country is in a leadership crisis; almost three-quarters believe the nation will decline without better leadership (Brush 2006). One blogging mom sees so “many modern politicians. . .gravitating towards folksyism. Winks to the camera, tales of shopping at Home Depot, that sort of thing,” and worse, “they’re often disparaging intellect and education” (Dawn 2008, para. 1). Why have politicians succumbed to the lowest common denominator? Joe Klein (2006) picks several suspects from the lineup, including the rise of political consultants, heavy reliance on opinion polling, and a lack of political courage. Perhaps that is why Americans deeply mourn Steve Jobs,
someone who personified so many of the leadership traits we know are missing from our national politics. … He was someone who did not read the polls but changed the polls. . . he was someone who was ready to pursue his vision in the face of long odds over multiple years; and, most of all, he was someone who earned the respect of his colleagues, not by going easy on them but by constantly pushing them out of their comfort zones and, in the process, inspiring ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
There isn’t a single national politician today whom you would describe by those attributes. (Friedman 2011, para. 1-2)
According to these precepts, political leadership no longer inspires or transcends.
17 The counter-narrative is equally compelling: Leaders have lost touch with everyday citizens. That “politicians have no idea what Americans experience on a day- to-day basis” (Cruz-Wiggins n.d., para. 1) once could be dismissed as a chronic complaint, but facts on the ground now give reason for pause. During the Great Recession, the wealth gap between members of Congress and everyone else widened, with the average U.S. Senator now being nearly 25 times wealthier than the median American family (Levinthal 2011). Blogger Lois Kelly (2011) summarizes another lament about the distance between politicians and citizens: “I’m fairly educated, but man oh man, I can hardly make sense of what I hear and read from our government leaders. Isn’t it time we demanded clarity so more of us can understand what’s what?” (para. 6). Political scientists hear these protests and wonder if leaders today can adequately empathize with citizens. “Is this aspect of democracy diminishing? If so, how can politicians access ‘what it feels like’ to be a citizen?”, asks Ellie Rennie (2006, 1). Stephen Coleman (2003) understands the problem to be one of communication. He writes:
Citizens work hard at translating the often abstruse and beguiling messages emanating from politicians. They become frustrated by the opacity of political speech and irritated by its complacent, incestuous rhythms. Politicians are seen as talking at rather than talking to, preaching rather than sharing. (33)
Are U.S. political leaders failing to lead effectively because they can no longer rise above the quotidian, or are they failing to connect to citizens because they have nothing in common with them? Another way of stating the problem is this: Is the model of exceptional, ordinary leadership now failing in the U.S. context? Might the old form of leadership be unable to accommodate new realities, including more challenging economic conditions in a global economy, an ideologically polarized citizenry, hyper-
18 immediacy in the media environment, declining party apparatus, and a more politically sophisticated electorate? A second question must also be asked: Are complaints about an undistinguished, disconnected leadership simply today’s versions of yesterday’s grievances? After all, rhetoric is a strong but imperfect magic that can make the impossible happen, but not without difficulties. Perhaps the American model has always run roughly, given its inherent contradictions. As literary critic Louis Rubin Jr. (1976) observes, “out of the incongruity between mundane circumstance and heroic ideal. . .between what men would be and must be, as acted out in the American experience, has come much pathos” (260). Because the Common Style makes U.S. politics possible, we must know which of these competing visions best describes the contemporary scene. If the former holds true, we have reason for alarm. But if the Common Style persists, then our concern would be misplaced. Unfortunately, as I will demonstrate in the following review, existing literature provides an incomplete and unclear picture of this rhetoric. Without systematic knowledge of how the Common Style works, we cannot say if or why it is failing.
THE COMMON STYLE: EVIDENCE OF AN UNCLEAR CONSTRUCT?
Scholars do agree that something like the Common Style is important, for today “symbolic closeness to the masses” is a “necessary condition for . . .political success”
(Garzia 2011, 2). Mauro Barisione (2009) identifies “Everyday Man” as one of four ideal types in contemporary politics. Fritz Mondale was born in Ceylon, not on Krypton, but in 1984 voters held the Minnesotan to a “superman” standard and let Ronald Reagan pass on a less demanding “everyman” framework (Sullivan et al. 1990). The Reagan presidency was a watershed for the Common Style (Jamieson 1988; Ewen 1988) because Reagan “gave birth to a tendency now widespread. . . namely, that of trying to appear. .
19 .as an ordinary Joe,” (Garzia 2011, 6). Bill Clinton cemented the trend, evaporating all distance between leader and public (Denton 2005). By 2008, Sarah Palin was a mimesis of everyday citizens; “even her supposedly limited education and folksy syntax were signifiers of . . .her synecdochic relation to the people” (Sartwell, 2010, 96). Meanwhile, Barack Obama appeared to be somewhat like the average person, only smarter, better educated, and multiracial—someone who represented what was best in everyone (Sartwell 2010). Even historical heroes supposedly displayed everyday qualities. Historian Richard Norton Smith says that
Abraham Lincoln, for example, “had a sense of humor. . . He had an unhappy marriage, which makes him somehow accessible. He had children. He experienced tragedy.” Compared to Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln “is one of us” (Winslow 2012a, para.
22). Consequently, Smith concludes, Lincoln is more beloved. Have Americans always demanded ordinary leaders? No, says Richard Sennett (1978), who argues that modernity emphasizes personality as the essence of humanity, and so people now want intimacy even with public figures. In modern politics, “‘credibility’ is the superimposition of private upon public imagery” (Sennett, 1978, p. 25). Richard Weaver (1953, 176) identifies a similar trend, claiming that a contemporary preference for idiosyncratic, intimate details obliterates “aesthetic distance.” Meyrowitz (1987) agrees that personal details are perilous in politics. He faults television, through which we see “too much” of our politicians; as “the camera minimizes the distance between audience and performer. . . it lowers politicians to the level of their audience” (271). Scholars have consistently noted, mostly with consternation, this trend favoring the Common Style. Lim (2008) and Shogan (2007) decry the increasing simplicity of presidential discourse, blaming anti-intellectualism. Jamieson (1988) identifies an 20 electronic eloquence that is conciliatory, conversational, mostly visual, and autobiographical, to the detriment of good reasons. Cmiel (1990) coins the term “middling styles” to describe the political elite’s embrace of high and low vernacular, and he fears that rejection of transcendent rhetoric impoverishes communal life. Ewen (1988) understands today’s political rhetoric to be the final triumph of style over substance, a trend that began with Jacksonian democracy. Since that time, says Ewen, “social inequalities of wealth and opportunity were transformed, by the hoodoo of political promotion, into a consensual notion of ‘common interest’” (266).
Hart is more circumspect, noting that rhetorical style is the product of the environment in which political leaders operate. Governors who campaign for the presidency, for example, deploy a provincialism not heard from other candidates, likely because they are “closer to the people. . .thus easily able to pick up their modes of expression and issues of concern” (2000, 93). When elected to the nation’s highest office, they “may be formal, to a point, but they are unwise to forget that the president is the nation’s first citizen and, as such, generates in us expectations for direct, if not folksy, communication” (Hart 1984b, 257). Concerning the often quite negative reaction to the Common Style, Hart is sanguine, for the “establishment typically judges the gubernatorial style bumptious, too filled with enthusiasm;” rather, “it prefers the thrust- and-parry perfected in the District of Columbia” (2000, 94). Hogan and Williams (2004) are less generous, arguing that the academy has branded Huey Long a demagogue not based on rhetorical facts, but because of “intellectual aversion” to his rusticity (151). The history of public address scholarship yields even more diversity in scholarly description. Schiffman (1949) compliments Franklin Roosevelt for “going to the factory, farm, and field for his expression” when speaking to citizens. Other public address scholars (Clark 1942; Dale 1941) see American oratory uniquely emphasizing brevity, a 21 vernacular lexicon, and action over contemplation. Gunderson (1940), too, writes approvingly of nineteenth-century agrarian rhetoric, which was “not the florid, unctuous, patriotic oratory so common in American politics, but homely, pungent, colloquial speech which came straight from the cow barns and grist mill of rural America” (402). Other scholars of the period conclude just the opposite, however. Writing about the same populists as Gunderson, Lomas (1961) finds that the rhetorical tactics of the agrarians marked them as demagogues, not admirable social advocates. In his critique of Huey Long, Bormann (1957) identifies the same stylistic tendencies as did Schiffman of
FDR. Regarding Long, Bormann (1957, 252) finds that:
His speeches were easy to understand because he used concrete and specific terms. The Senator, for example, preferred to talk of cattle and hogs and milk rather than of food. Instead of referring to the ‘wealthy’ or the ‘interests,’ he talked of Morgan and Rockefeller.
Contra Schiffman, Bormann concludes that this style is that of a “typical southern demagogue” (244). Even 50 years later, Braden (1984) notes that Southern populists “became masters at establishing the impression that they were ‘just one of the boys,’ or at making ‘plain folks’ appeal” (89, emphasis added). Thus, mid-twentieth century public address scholars appear to have found little common ground on the Common Style.
Leadership Theories of Charisma
In sum, critiques of the Common Style abound, but we find very little extended consideration and no overarching theory of how leaders rhetorically draw close to citizens. In contrast, those studying organizational behavior from a social-psychological perspective offer at least a half-dozen leadership theories. One in particular—charismatic leadership theory—holds particular promise for understanding the Common Style.
22 Max Weber (1969) initially attributed a mystical quality to charismatic authority, and early studies highlighted the socially dominant, larger-than-life quality of charismatic leaders (Willner 1985). Contemporary charisma theory instead focuses on “the simultaneous roles of leaders, followers, and the situation in understanding leadership processes” (Bligh and Kohles 2009, 484). As an example, Bligh and colleagues (Bligh,
Kohles, and Meindl 2004, 213) point to public views of George W. Bush’s leadership before and after 9/11. Before the attacks, “President George W. Bush was generally not seen as a strong, charismatic leader.” It was only after the crisis, when followers experienced high levels of trauma and uncertainty, that observers described Bush as decisive or inspired. From this perspective, the key to charisma lies not in the heroic qualities of the leader but in the interplay of follower needs and leadership projections.
Unlike other leadership theories, charisma “emphasizes the importance of symbolic behaviors, emotional appeals, and making events meaningful for followers.” Bligh and Kohles (2009, 486), for instance, point to the Obama campaign’s effective use of “visual symbols, props, music, and lighting to enhance the appeal of the message and increase the level of excitement and emotion in followers.” Shamir, Author, and House (1994) argue that verbal behavior is a vital component of this symbolic action, and they identify seven lexical features of charismatic speeches, including: speaking to common history and connection between the past and the present; stressing collective identity rather than individual self-interest; testifying to followers’ worth and power as individuals and as a collective; evidencing the leader’s similarity to followers and identification with
followers;
23 more talk of values and morals than of tangible outcomes and instrumentality; projection of distal goals with few mentions of the short-term; and emphasizing hope and faith. Charismatic leadership theory also seems particularly relevant in the current political environment, which calls for a strong leadership that is also sensitive. Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter independently argued that charisma would wane as a force in modern life, but Pakulski and Korosenyi (2012, 9) claim the opposite. They point to the current media environment, which favors “spectacular and innovative candidates—those with new ideas, new solutions, and above all with ‘oratory charisma,’ who project an image of empathy, vigour and self-confidence. The high demand is for candidates who are celebrity-like.” Weber defined charisma as pre-democratic, but Pakulski and Korosenyi argue that the personalization of politics and its preference for charismatic leaders is in keeping with democratic values. Silke and Maier (2010, 210) question whether charisma and democracy are compatible, but admit that the potential benefits of leaderly charisma depend on the political context: “The classic Weberian ‘big’ charisma associated with a . . . populist leader” might aid young democracies, while “the
‘small’ charisma of the intimate, personal charm, sincerity, and personal affinity” could find favor in Western nations. As much promise as charisma holds as an explanatory concept, the theory has yet to answer important questions concerning the Common Style and political culture. For instance, Shamir and colleagues (1994) find that the language of charismatic leadership draws on community values, but many argue that contemporary life is marked by fracture and multiplicity, not overarching common narratives (e.g., Murphy 2002; Childers 2012, 174). Most critical to current politics, charisma might “increase the level of excitement 24 and emotion in followers,” but can it foster resilience and long-term commitment? Or will it burn out quickly, leaving citizens to search for the next popular figure to serve as their medium? Overall, because 1) theoretical questions about the American model of leadership still abide and because 2) empirical descriptions of the Common Style have produced different results, a more ambitious investigation of such matters seems amply justified.
CONCLUSION
Scholars and pundits heavily criticize leaders, but citizen come under scrutiny, too. Does the average American know enough about public affairs to be an effective participant in self-governance? (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Are citizens too willing to embrace the cool detachment of sophisticated cynicism, foregoing the hard work of real civic engagement? (Hart 1999; Hart and Hartelius 2007). Are people the tools of organized interests or too apathetic to defend their own welfare? (Eliasoph 1998). These questions are relevant to the Common Style, I argue, because leadership discourse suggests what kind of citizenship is preferred. In other words, leadership and citizenship are mutually influential categories that take on their character in reference to one another. Psychologist Warren Bennis (2007, 3-4) puts it this way: “Leadership is grounded in a relationship. In its simplest form, it is a tripod—a leader or leaders, followers, and the common goal they want to achieve.” This study shares Bennis’s conviction, but with a caveat: the three legs of the stool include leadership, citizenship, and rhetoric, which accounts for all the exigencies of the situation, including common goals.4 For this reason, probing the status of the rhetorical model that binds politician to
4 See Fairhurst (2008) for a similar argument. 25 the public will deepen knowledge of citizenship as much as it will enlighten understandings of leadership. But before we can explore such projections, we first must consider how the rhetorical model works under various conditions. We must identify what symbolic resources it marshals to close the gap between elite leaders and everyday people. Only then can we ask what kind of leadership and citizenship, respectively, does the Common Style suggest. Finally, we must wonder what all of this implies about American political culture. In the next chapter, I will consider how best to answer these questions.
26 Chapter Two: Studying the Common Style
Observers perennially express anxiety over democratic leaders and their rapport with the people. And yet, for most of U.S. history, politicians typically have circumvented the overwhelming evidence of irreconcilable differences between themselves and average citizens. How do they use rhetoric to accomplish this feat? And what does their discourse imply about political leadership and citizenship in the United States? These questions, too, are reoccurring ones, but the current state of leader-citizen relations demands more thorough answers than previously offered. In this chapter, I plot a course for addressing them systematically.
OPERATIONALIZING THE COMMON STYLE
Perhaps because it is everywhere in plain sight, the Common Style can be hard to notice, and even harder to isolate. Others have tried to capture the symbolic means of leader-citizen communion; their approaches fall into three categories. One branch of study seeks the Common Style in it various modalities. So long as people are separated by time and space, this approach presumes, politicians will turn to communication media to reach the electorate. When faced with stiff competition from other sources, finite amounts of time, and waning public interest, U.S. presidents, for example, harnessed every conceivable medium—even Saturday morning radio—to make their personas “ubiquitous” with the public (Scacco 2011, 67). The weekly radio address, says Scacco, met the “presidential desire to publicly connect” with citizens (68). More recently, presidents have steadily increased their beyond-the-beltway appearances to influence news coverage (Cohen 2010). In Congress, Lipinski (2004) found that members used mass mailings and in-person communications for different purposes. However, few of these studies compared leader rhetoric across modes or media. For 27 instance, Druckman, Kifer and Parkin (2009, 343) argue that the online environment is “unmediated” and “holistic” in comparison to television and newspaper, but they study only the former. Consequently, questions remain as to how politicians differentially use various modalities to connect with citizens. Others listen for the Common Style by attending to its aesthetic dimensions. This perspective examines how people signal their group memberships through performances and visual displays. As Brummett (2008) observed, when “each election season rolls around, members of the public will be quoted in the media as making their voting decisions based on whether the candidates ‘care’ about them, about their geographical area, their demographic affiliations, and so forth” (x). Popper (2013, 5) argued that this “attraction to leaders is . . . rooted in the human need to locate the self in socially recognizable categories in order to derive meaning from being linked to social entities.”1 From this view, the Common Style might be seen in Madeline Albright’s jewelry (Taylor 2011), Oprah Winfrey’s magazine covers (Stephens 2011), or presidential styles of decision-making (Childers 2011). In each case, “style organizes the social,” creating “systems of categories for social perception” (Brummett 2008, 43). Still others inquire of the Common Style by weighing its concern for relative capacities. In this sense, the politician must overcome dissimilar skills, aptitudes, intellect, or expertise. Elvin Lim (2008, 22), for example, heard anti-intellectualism in presidential “rejection of rhetorical or linguistic complexity and its valorization, in practice and by example, of linguistic simplicity.” According to Lim, presidents and their administrations assumed the lowest denominator to be the common one, and by replicating its sound they would bond with the largest possible audience. Presidents
1 See also Shamir, Arthur, and House (1994). 28 achieved this stance by offering “simple, unadorned, and therefore inconvertible pearls of folk wisdom” and by valorizing “the common citizen and the mimicry of his or her simple locution” (Lim 2008, 22-23). Similarly, Diels and Gorton (2011; 2013) found that in debates, presidential candidates over time became less inclined to use abstract, scientific terms or posit causal relationships. Instead, the candidates relied increasingly on anecdotes and illustrations such as Joe the Plumber. Diels and Gorton (2013, 26) viewed the trend as a loss, for thinking about politics more abstractly and holistically “surely enhances public understanding. . .and perhaps even leads to better public policy.” Colleen Shogan (2007, 301) expressed concern, too, that anti-intellectualism can only forge a “pseudo egalitarian connection” between politicians and the public, and “the danger is that. . .this supposed populist connection has supplanted the more intricate, policy-oriented debate that should serve as the hallmark of deliberation in an extended democratic republic.” All three approaches attend to the Common Style as it seeks to close a particular kind of distance, be it physical distance, social distance, or cognitive distance. However, none directly address another kind of distance—call it relational distance—that weighs on leadership and its expression. Boas Shamir (2013) explains:
Distance does not necessarily have to be viewed in terms of spatial, hierarchical, or other factors that create separation between leaders and their followers. Distance can also be viewed as an attribute of the leadership relationship. Close leadership relationships can be characterized by a high level of openness, transparency and honesty, rich two-way communication, de-emphasized hierarchy, egalitarianism, and flexibility. They are also characterized by a higher level of intimacy between the leaders and his or her followers and in some cases by friendship between the two parties. Distant relationships are more formal, rigid, controlled, less open, and less egalitarian. Viewed from this perspective, distance is not something that is fully given by the situation, but rather something that is also produce by the parties to the relationship. (54)
29 As family communication scholar Jon Hess observes, “closeness or distance is one of the most fundamental dimensions of every relationship. It is often the first quality that people mention” when describing their associations (Hess 2003, 197). In his comments, Hess references personal relationships, but we might characterize the closeness or distance in public associations, too, because relational distance conditions how parties understand their respective roles and responsibilities. As Kenneth Burke (1974, 20) wrote, “selection of role is a ‘symbolic act’.” For instance, if a politician indicates relative relational distance from constituents, audiences will likely construe citizenship similarly, assuming that leaders should be approached tentatively and with relative formality. Conversely, if citizens accept a more intimate construction of leader/citizens relations, they may understand their own political role as egalitarian, requiring less deference to their leaders. Therefore, unlike existing scholarship, I am not immediately concerned with the kind of distance that the Common Style overcomes. Rather, I focus on the relational distance that the style suggests, with my ultimate goal being an understanding of the character of leader-citizen relations. Toward this end, I listened to elected officials to capture the implicit social connections between them and their constituents. More specifically, I carefully considered what leaders said to citizens and why.
Language and Social Relations
Language captures the interplay between the individual and the social, which makes it an ideal place to discover the implicit quality of social relationships. Kathy Burke LeFevre (1986) advocates such a dialectic approach toward language because it transcends traditional views of words as either purely functional or exclusively expressive. Drawing on Ernst Cassirer, George Boas, Emile Durkheim, and George
30 Hebert Mead, LeFevre conceives of language as the “link between individuals and culture,” among people and social groups. Words make these connections by driving arguments forward, write Myerson and Rydin (2003), but these scholars also clarify that such an activists approach to language does not necessarily put humans “at the mercy of linguistic structures.” Rather, to study language is to study human invention, specifically,
“cultural invention and creativity;” for “people change language” just as “language changes us” (5). Unfortunately, the interplay of the expressive and functional dimensions of language—that is to say, the rhetorical force of words—lately attracts relatively little scholarly attention. As Jeanne Fahnestock (2011, 9) notes, “despite the rich and enduring legacy of rhetorical approaches to style” as manifest in word choice, “many if not most scholars who analyze language today do not in fact consciously draw on the rhetorical tradition.” The study of both language and rhetoric suffer as a consequence, because it is the rhetorical dimensions of words that give them relational force. Like Myerson and Rydin (2003, 5), I here refer to “words, not as in a dictionary, but words in voices” and “voice in relation to the other voices.” Within leadership studies, scholars increasingly recognize leadership as a linguistic enterprise devoted to “the management of meaning” (Bligh and Hess 2007). Bligh and Hess go on to define leadership as an
interactionist phenomenon through which certain individuals attempt to frame and define the reality of other individuals. Followers can use this meaning as a reference point for their own behaviors and interpretations, suggesting that through shaping meaning, leaders may influence followers’ perceptions and interpretations. (89)
Here, I am most concerned with the ways leaders use the Common Style to manage relational meanings: What does it mean to be a political leader? What does it mean to
31 be a citizen in a representative democracy? How are these two social roles to be acted out in relationship to each other? Particularly in politics, which is an inherently relational enterprise, words do the work of “managing relationships,” because their use leaves “social impressions” on audiences (Hart, Childers, and Lind 2013). In doing so, our words serve socio-rhetorical purposes, persuading others at the same time that we persuade ourselves. Particularly in the U.S. context, “there is the matter of diversity, and hence, the matter of distance, and hence again, the need to accommodate others” (44). Political leaders are, therefore,
“artisans,” using words to “build bridges between people and ideas, between people and people” (44). The words politicians choose speak to their craft, but also to the relational products of their rhetorical work.
I therefore sought the Common Style by listening to the words of political leadership. But what terms? Spoken where? By whom? There are plenty of words to choose from in politics, but some environments would seem more ripe for the Common Style than others.
TEXTS FOR ANALYSIS
When leaders speak to citizens, two rhetorical exigencies come to the fore: the speaker’s relative audience reach and the audience’s presumptions about speaker spontaneity. These factors force rhetors into trade-offs that largely determine the implied relational distance between speaker and audience. A brief discussion of each of these factors will help illustrate how and why this is so.
Audience Reach: Distance, Difference, and Influence
In a 1994 essay, David Kaufer and Kathleen Carley developed the concept of audience reach, theorizing the relative costs and benefits of distance in communication. 32 Kaufer and Carley contrasted their theory with diffusion of innovation, but their concepts apply to any persuasive influence, be it attitudinal, emotional, or behavioral. Reach, they argue, refers to “the number of people whose mental models an individual can affect with a signatured communication.” Gossip, for example, notoriously has a “wide reach in interpersonal circles.” To be clear, audience reach is a property of individual orators, not of modes of communication. Certainly, some media make it possible for speakers to reach more people, but reach is achieved only when the speaker affects some congruence between self and audience. A highly effective door-to-door campaign, for example, might have greater reach than an ineffectual television advertisement. To influence an audience, speakers must be both 1) close enough to an audience to motivate interaction, but also 2) at a great enough distance to effect change. To the first point, Kaufer and Carley (1994) argue that all other factors being equal, people more likely will interact with those who are comparable to themselves, because similarity reduces the risks inherent in communication. To the second point, parties that are perfectly proximate (meaning exactly similar) cannot change one another. By the rules of logic, one must somehow be different to learn from, be influenced by, or otherwise changed by someone else. As Kaufer and Carley explain, audience reach must allow
“enough overlap (by dint of relative similarity) between the orator and the. . .audience member for each to have a payoff” but also “enough discrepancy between the orator and the average listener to ensure that the later will eventually (with enough interaction) learn and so be changed” (27). Because any amount of audience reach requires some asymmetry between communicators, it is inherently stratified. These “disparities of reach often arise because of differences in power and status,” but also “from the ongoing project of knowledge acquisition,” for “communicators who know more and who know more things in 33 common with more people will have more reach than those who know fewer things and who share their slighter knowledge with fewer persons” (Kaufer and Carley 1994, 26-27). Thus, with audience reach comes the potential for influence: “To know more than most and yet to share much of what one knows with many is to create an environment for change” (Kaufer and Carley 1994, 27). Using the lexicon, dialect, or arguments of a particular group, for example, may convey affinity between an orator and an audience, but it also will constrain the speaker’s reach and breadth of influence. As Gariza (2011, 5) writes, narrowcasting strips the leader of “the aura of greatness” and reduces the social distinction that “characterizes any ideal conception of a political leader.” In the end, reach is a balancing act: spanning greater distances “in space, time, culture, or some mix thereof” allows for greater audience reach but also requires speakers to establish similarities with increasingly diverse, distant listeners. When harmonizing a narrow versus a broad appeal, the orator is wise to remember that “as the ‘circle of we’ narrows, questions of social identity come to the fore,” (Branham and Pearce 1996, 424) along with the attendant controversies of class, cooptation, and authenticity (Brummett, 2008). Because rhetorical style is not simply a means of expression but how one “situates oneself in relationship to others” (Brummett,
2008, 87), using the rhetoric of a particular group can purchase legitimacy with some but alienate others. Once a relatively narrow affiliation is established, political leaders may find it difficult to transcend a strong, narrow tie. Such was the case for Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama when the former labeled Republican proposals “right wing social engineering” (Chalian and Brulij 2011, para. 4) and the latter chided absent black fathers (Zelney 2008). Both politicians violated an unspoken rule of the embattled and marginalized: “one should speak one’s cultural allegiance first and the truth second”
34 (Smith 2009, sec. 2, para. 7). Rhetoric gives leaders the power to establish intimate local ties or weak general ones, but only the most rhetorically adroit can achieve both. The predicament of audience reach parallels the dilemma of nineteenth-century American writers who sought to naturalize fictional talk. “In the process they followed the bent of colloquial speech—gave it its head and let it assume its own hitherto unimaginable forms” (Bridgman 1966, 229). These were exciting literary experiments, but they were rejected as too foreign by readers and too vulgar by critics. American literary style finally came into its own when Mark Twain and Henry James, each in his own way, “learned to reproduce versions of America speech free from obtrusive regionalism” (Bridgman, 1966, 229). Twain and James recognized that their style should evoke, not copy, actual talk, creating the ideal balance between broad and narrow appeals.
Speaker Spontaneity: Authenticity vs. Authority
Regarding speaker spontaneity, the consequences of impromptu speaking versus planning are not as obvious as one might assume. The speaker perceived to be spontaneous is thought to be reacting to the moment, creating a high sense of immediacy and attachment to the audience. In comparison, the speaker with carefully planned remarks gains a sense of thoughtfulness and care as well as an ability to rely on more complex examples and linear arguments. Whatever immediacy one loses as a sense of planning increases, the speaker gains in gravitas and intellectual heft. And yet the extensive literature on teacher classroom immediacy suggests a more complicated relationship. Students, in fact, rate teachers who use immediacy behaviors as more likable, caring, and trustworthy—and more competent (Rocca and McCroskey 1999).
35 Perhaps the correlation between immediacy and competence finds its roots in the modern embrace of spontaneity as an honest revelation of the true self and actual experiences (Branch 2006). Especially in American rhetorical thought as expressed by Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau, the Romantic impulse suggests that spontaneity ties words to things. Emerson in particular thought that “genius seems to consist merely in trueness of sight in using such words as show that the man was an eye-witness and not a repeater of what was told” (quoted by Liebman 1969, 195). In keeping with this conviction, Emerson “developed a theory of automatic writing” that encouraged the student to “break through his own artificial wall of acculturation” and thereby produce thoughts “spontaneously, without the interference of conscious deliberation” (Liebman 1969, 195-196). The Transcendentalists went so far as to argue that planning and premeditation “were hindrances to effective writing—in a sense, art interfering with nature” (Liebman 1969, 196). He finally advised orators to “prepare no words, select no traditions, but fix your eye on the audience, and the fit word will utter itself” (quoted by Liebman 1969). And yet planned communication continues to dominate modern discourse, particularly the political. As Schudson (1997) points out, face-to-face conversation leads to something written rather than the reverse: “Democracies put great store in the power of writing to secure, verify, and make public” (p. 305). In the academy, “fully have we given literacy—and more specifically the ability to write—precedence over oratory” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998, 287). Even 18th-century religious leaders who advocated spontaneous prayer rejected traditional creeds “because they are not, Word for Word, in Scripture” (Branch 2006, 35). So while spontaneity and its attendant sense of immediacy may leave impressions of authenticity, modernity respects the permanency of written communication. The highly personal and subjective nature of spontaneous 36 communication may create a sense of actual, intimate knowledge, but its presumed abundance and impermanence limits its authority. It follows that a speech first written, then spoken, bears most weight in many quarters for many people. Even today, as discrete recordings sometimes compromise public figures, the embarrassed can credibly claim “that was just talk,” as did candidate Barack Obama when explaining his “guns and
God” gaffe (Davies 2008).
The Interaction of Audience Reach and Speaker Spontaneity
Any rhetorical encounter can be classified based on the speaker’s relative reach and the audience’s presumptions about speaker spontaneity. Juxtaposing audience reach against speaker spontaneity creates a four-part typology, as we see in Figure 1. The quadrants posit unique invitations for speaker-audience engagement, with each vector calling distinct social relations into being. When applied to political discourse, the typology lays bare the rhetorical dexterity required of contemporary American politicians.
37
Figure 1: Invitations to be common and the character of such encounters between politicians and citizens
In the first quadrant, the Conversational Encounter requires broad appeal to maximize audience reach but also demands the appearance of speaker spontaneity. Here, the nationally broadcast television talk-show interview is an exemplar. The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno alone reach a combined 9 million across the nation on any given night (Stelter 2010). This audience presumes high speaker spontaneity; one cannot imagine a guest showing up with a script. Since Bill
Clinton’s serendipitous appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992, it is now commonplace for entertainers to interview political leaders. In 2011, David Letterman
38 could advise candidate Rick Perry to “appear on the Late Show. Everyone knows the road to the White House goes through Dave” (Reeve 2011, para. 1). I collected 45 talk- show interviews with national political leaders and candidates for national office, broadcast between 1992 and 2012, to learn about the Common Style under these conditions. Listed in Appendix C, these texts include celebrity dialogues with household names (President Barack Obama; candidate Hillary Clinton) as well as lesser-known and emergent political figures (Governor Brian Schweitzer; Senator Marco Rubio). In contrast, speakers in the Distanced Encounter seek relatively high levels of audience reach, while audiences presume comparatively little spontaneity. To explore the Common Style as expressed in such situations, I analyzed 105 weekly radio addresses, cataloged in Appendix A, as delivered by Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, and
Obama, respectively. Addressed to the broadest of audiences—the American people— between 1992 and 2012, these unassuming speeches rarely received widespread media attention. However, they were nationally broadcast on radio, a medium that has retained its currency for a broad spectrum of listeners ("Radio Audience Trends" 2006). Regarding spontaneity, weekly addresses offer very little. Administrations carefully choose the topics to influence the legislative agenda, and presidents deliver the address from a script and record it in advance (Han 2006; “Scrambling to Muffle" 1983). Shifting to the lower-left quadrant, the Populist Encounter retains an assumption of spontaneity but does so to influence a relatively small, homogenous audience. These circumstances allow the speaker to address a local group with a heightened sense of informality. The in-district town hall meeting is such a setting. Sometimes referred to as listening sessions, most members of Congress hold open forums in high-school auditoriums, retirement communities, county courthouses, and other civic centers. Citizens with diverse backgrounds and opinions attend, but as members of the same 39 neighboring community they share localized norms, ideas, and interests. The embodied presence of the audience, as well as the question-and-answer format, create a rhetorical environment that is “spontaneous, informal, and intimate” (Ryfe 2001, 173). From the C- SPAN archive, I accessed 55 town-hall meetings hosted by U.S. Senators and Representatives in districts from California to Maryland. Members of Congress addressed a wide variety of topics in these sessions, held between 1992 and 2012. Appendix D lists all of the meetings that I analyzed—more than 79 hours of footage in total.
Finally, in the lower-right quadrant, speakers address a particular group with the explicit understanding that their remarks will be carefully prepared. This Provincial Encounter invites the political leader to use the images and language unique to the local audience, but to do so in a voice that indicates planning and forethought. Political leaders as different as Martin O’Malley, Haley Barbour, and Jan Brewer often speak to groups united by opinion, vocation, or financial interests, be it a Kiwanis luncheon, a state oil- producers convention, or an evening PTA meeting. I collected the texts of 85 such special-interest speeches, mostly from official government Web sites, delivered by 18 sitting governors and 3 mayors in 18 states. All spoke in person to a narrow group of constituents bound by specific affinities and interests. Appendix B inventories these speeches, delivered between 2000 and 2012.
CRITICAL PROBES
Whether speaking at a Shiner’s convention in Akron, Ohio, or appearing on NBC television or Westwood One radio, a political leader is inevitably auditioning for a continued position of leadership. In doing so, leaders make explicit and implicit claims about their identities. Statements such as “I am a true conservative” and “I’ll never raise
40 your taxes” may be hackneyed, but they also serve as valuable clues for discerning voters. Leaders also make claims about their fellow citizens. They do so explicitly, as in “you folks here in Iowa are so practical,” and implicitly, for rhetorical choices reveal what the leader assumes to be true of the audience (Black 1970). But to understand how citizens hold leaders to exceptional, ordinary standards, we must ask: Who are we, leader and citizen, relative to one another? What is the nature of our relationship and what are our social roles, responsibilities, and potentialities with respect to one another? To answer such questions, one must attend to the “I” and the
“you,” but most importantly, to the “we” of political discourse. For instance, in 2011 Mitt Romney joked that he was “also unemployed” (Zelney 2011, para. 2). In doing so, Romney says something about himself: “I am vulnerable; my future is uncertain; I am not so pompous that I cannot poke fun at myself.” Romney also says something about his audience, or, more specifically, what he believes to be true of his audience: They will find it funny to think he is vulnerable. Finally, Romney is trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to indicate the kind of relationship he wants to establish between himself and his audience: We share in this joke at my expense; we share in this burden; you citizens determine my future, not vice versa, and your power humbles me.
Overall, almost any discourse can be read from these three perspectives: Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? I read the rhetoric of political leaders from all three perspectives to understand the relationship between leader and citizen, but especially from the third perspective because that is where citizens perform the most critical social calculus. For each quadrant of discourses, I repeatedly read or viewed all of the texts, asking the following questions:
41 Who does the leader say he or she is, and how is that identity constructed? How do leaders distinguish themselves from citizens? Implicitly or explicitly? On what basis? Does the leader establish his or her persona in comparison to someone else’s? If so, whose and how?
Does the leader offer a persona that is inner-directed or other-directed? (Kellerman 1984). How do leaders simultaneously establish their qualifications for office and
their empathy for citizens? Do leaders draw on different social and personal roles in their personas? Is the leader presented as one person or many?
Who does the leader say the audience is, and how, rhetorically, is that identity constructed? What social identities does the rhetoric hail? What social identities are not hailed? Does the rhetoric assume an audience bound by private and personal connections and obligations or by impersonal and public ones?
What psychological needs are being activated? What needs are ignored? Are citizens human subjects or inanimate objects in the leaders’ discourse? If human subjects, what makes them human? If objects, what are their distinguishing traits or status? What is the social relationship between leader and citizens, as suggested by the rhetoric?
What is the basis of the social relationship, as suggested by the leader? (Trust; opinion congruence; shared norms; shared policy goals; shared 42 national identity; shared emotions; shared history, culture, or civic values; shared tastes and personal interests; shared social class, religion, ethnicity, or other sociological grouping; common national identity; common friends or enemies; shared lexicon; etc.?) What are the respective social roles of the citizen and leader?
What is the implied psychic distance between leader and follower? Has that distance been bridged or widened lately? Is it a relationship of reciprocal exchange, a relationship that seeks to
change follower and leader for the better, or both? Where does primary agency lie in the relationship? Who has responsibility for maintaining the relationship? What is the purpose of the
relationship? How does the rhetoric address potential conflicting social identities and relations? Does the leader have one relationship with one homogenous citizenry, or many relationships with a diverse citizenry? Using these questions to interview the texts, I repeatedly read or viewed all of the sources listed in Appendices A through D. On the first reading, I took note of the ways that the words addressed these questions, directly and implicitly. On the second and third readings, I listened for repeated patterns of language, as well as exceptional usage, in reference to my critical probes. After drawing tentative conclusions about how the speakers in each encounter commonly sought to relate to citizens, I returned to the texts a fourth time, noting both exceptions and exemplars and adjusting my conclusions accordingly. This process slowed for me the “streams of words” that normally flow quickly from public discourse, allowing me to critique and not merely appreciate the lexicon of everyday politics (Hart and Daughton 2005, 174). 43 CONCLUSION
In the following chapters, I detail how leaders of all stripes—Democrats and Republicans, executives and legislators, long-time office holders as well as political neophytes—mostly converged in their use of the Common Style. While the sound of this rhetoric changed depending on the kind of encounter, all U.S. politicians studied here relied on four different languages, and thereby demonstrated their status as ordinary Americans. Contrary to the complaints of many critics, the Common Style does not live in the stylized vocabulary of particular classes and subcultures—be it folksy aphorisms or pop culture argot. Rather, I found the Common Style in something more subtle and ultimately more vital to our personal and social lives. Finding and describing the Common Style, however, was only my first step. I also sought to learn what the Common Style would indicate about contemporary American culture. Taken together, the answers to the above prompts comprise a portrait of political life in the United States today. What does that portrait look like? Is it an image in which U.S. citizens recognize themselves? Can the model of exceptional- ordinary leadership still serve its necessary function? The four languages of the Common Style have much to say about these issues.
44 Chapter Three: The Language of Production and the Weekend Address
In August 2012, U.S. citizens were in no mood to see their political leaders go on summer vacation:
So imagine showing up to work late for a couple of months in a row, not doing any of the things your boss asks you to do, and then waltzing into your boss’ office on Aug. 1 and asking for five-week paid vacation! That’s exactly what’s happening in Washington, where Congress is choosing to do nothing rather than grapple with the country’s huge problems. (Spitzer 2012a, para. 1)
Meanwhile, President Obama, who had been criticized for golfing too much while the American economy burned (Knoller 2012), chose to forego his family’s usual holiday by campaigning in Iowa instead. Before he left Washington, however, the president recorded his weekly address, posted it on the White House YouTube channel, and made it available to broadcasters nationwide. Here is some of what he said:
Cattlemen are struggling to feed their animals. Many folks are seeing their livelihoods dry up in front of their eyes. And if we don’t get relief soon, Americans everywhere will start to feel the pinch, because the food our farmers and ranchers produce ends up on grocery store shelves.
…That’s why, at my direction, the Department of Agriculture. . .has been working with other agencies across the Federal Government to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help farmers and ranchers fight back and recover from this disaster. …
…And we’re working with crop insurance companies to give farmers a short grace period on their premiums. . .
… This is an all-hands-on-deck response, and we’ll be doing even more in the coming weeks to help families and communities that are suffering.
…Congress needs to do its part too. They need to pass a farm bill that. . .helps farmers and ranchers respond to these kinds of disasters. (August 11, 2012)1
1 See Appendix A for a complete bibliography of weekly addresses analyzed for this chapter, including the speeches that I cite directly here. 45 In his remarks, the president provided no policy innovations or stirring eloquence nor anything that the national media could characterize as news. The president’s address was just another ode to American productivity and a reminder of the politician’s duty to produce as well. Obama’s remarks constituted the 1,360th weekend address, a tradition dating back to Saturday, April 3, 1982.
It was on that date that Ronald Reagan began to leverage his talent on the radio (Martin 1984). Perhaps chief executives thereafter continued the weekend address because it allowed them room to maneuver in an otherwise constrained institution (Hart,
Childers, and Lind 2013). For whatever reason, presidents since Bill Clinton have followed Reagan’s example, speaking each week directly to the American people. These short expositions are unremarkable in almost every way except in their durability.
Thanks to such White House earnestness, there are now more weekly presidential addresses in existence than major policy addresses, States of the Union, and Inaugurals combined.2 For scholars of political communication, weekly presidential addresses offer a rich opportunity to explore--across time, administration, and topic--how leaders discursively interact with citizens. Other scholars have considered how these speeches affect and reflect news agendas (Han 2006; Horvit, Schiffer, and Wright 2008), presidential personas (Sigelman and Whissell 2002a, 2002b), ideology (Rowland and Jones 2002) and executive/legislative strategy (Foote 1984). These are important studies, but they do not consider how presidents use rhetoric to commune with their “fellow Americans” directly and insistently. Through close reading and simple word counts of a sample of 105 weekly addresses delivered between 1992 and 2012, I find that presidents talk primarily about
2 By Coe and Nuemann’s (2011) standard, U.S. presidents delivered 406 major addresses between March 1933 and January 2011. 46 their work. This is an especially effective strategy in a culture committed to the dignity of labor and to the need to sacrifice for others. Drawing on these cultural truths, presidents establish their status as ordinary Americans through a language of production. As an inflection of the Common Style, this particular lexicon requires study so that we may understand how it brings leader and citizen together, and ultimately, what it reveals about American political culture. This chapter therefore begins with a review of the work ethic as instantiated in the United States, from its Reformation roots and Puritanical drive through its absorption by the industrial age and its later inclusion in contemporary American culture. I will then discuss how leaders draw on this cultural ethos in their descriptions of themselves, in their talk about the citizenry, and in the implied social relationship between leaders and led. Finally, I will consider the larger questions prompted by this rhetoric, including the division of labor between the president and the people and how the language of production can backfire, alienating citizens already cynical about the American promise.
AN AMERICAN WORK ETHIC: SHARED DUTY AND DIGNITY IN PRODUCTION
Every culture has a collective set of attitudes, values, and behaviors with respect to work, but to speak of an American work ethic implies a distinctive ethos. Historian Herbert Applebaum (1998) aptly summarizes Americans’ particular sense of a duty to contribute productively:
American ideology is an ideology of equality in which everyone is expected to make a contribution to society by working. Never mind that some have more opportunity than others, or that some have no opportunity, or that some cannot find work through no fault of their own. That is all true. But. . .if a person has nothing else to offer his or her self-respect to be at work is the least one can do to establish a place in society, no matter how boring or unsatisfactory their work may be. (xii)
47 How did this come to be? In a verdant country thought to be a Promised Land, could not the new inhabitants have relaxed and enjoyed the milk and honey? Blessed with affluence previously unseen in the history of the world, why do Americans continue to insist that their neighbors work before granting them respect? Max Weber (2001/1930, 124) famously reformulated that question by arguing that despite relative riches, “the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs,” thanks in large part to America’s Puritan heritage. For “while pure Puritan theology did not survive the eighteenth century, its work ethic did,” says Applebaum (1998, xi).
The Early American Work Ethic
Weber traces the roots of the American work ethic to Martin Luther, whose conception of vocation was designed to give the Christian meaning in this life. According to Weber (2001/1930), Luther saw monasticism as “a renunciation of the duties of this world” and “the product of selfishness” (41). In contrast, labor as a calling is the “outward expression of brotherly love” (Weber, 2001/1930, 41). Luther justified that claim by embracing the division of labor: If one is called to stitch shoes and another called to butcher beef, each must rely on the other. But Luther did not dwell on this argument, instead emphasizing that “the fulfillment of worldly duties is under all circumstances the only way to live acceptably to God. It and it alone is the will of God, and hence every legitimate calling has exactly the same worth in the sight of God” (Weber 2001/1930, 41). Despite Luther’s testament of material production as a blessing, Weber is quick to note that Luther would have rejected contemporary capitalism. It took John Calvin’s more radical extension of Protestant theology to make faith amenable to conspicuous production. While Luther offered peasants a Godly life through menial effort, his
48 theology did not link eternal salvation to earthly work. Instead, only through union with God, via scripture and sacrament, could Lutherans find redemption. Rejecting all such overtures to mysticism, Calvin resorted to true, rational faith as the sole means of God’s receiving grace (Weber 2001/1930, 68-69). With no way of knowing whether one’s faith is true enough, the Calvinist is impelled to produce good work as a manifest sign of proper devotion. Calvinists consequently profess an “intense faith in activity, the contempt for the idler, and the horror of idleness itself” (Rodgers 2009, xvi). “In practice, this means that God helps those who help themselves,” says Weber (2001/1930,
69). Weber completes the story of the Protestant work ethic with Calvin’s most influential and zealous inheritors, the Puritans. “God, the Puritans believed, called every man to serve Him by serving society and himself in some useful, productive occupation” (Morgan 1967, 4). In the Puritanical world, “God called no one to a life of prayer or to a life of ease or to any life that added nothing to the common good” (Morgan 1967, 4). Taken together, Luther’s vocation, Calvin’s rationalism, and “the moral energy of the Puritans” was “a mixture of necessary and precipitating conditions which. . .brought about the rise of modern Western capitalism” (Weber 2001/1930, xviii).
Profound and highly influential though it is, Weber’s thesis has been widely criticized too, most notably for its failure to account for conceptions of vocation that predate Luther.3 Nevertheless, cultural historians agree that the Puritans brought to colonial America a fervent duty to produce, and their passion about such matters had a
3 In his introduction to Weber’s The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Anthony Giddens (2001/1930) cites evidence that “vocation” in its Lutheran connotation was not unique to Luther, and that Catholicism does not reject productive work to the extent that Weber claims. Clair (2008), for example, points to medieval monasteries that “flourished under the philosophy of hard work, self-sufficiency, and spirituality. The monks regarded labor as a holy activity” (19). 49 disproportionate influence on American culture. “Work was the closest thing to a universal religion in colonial New England,” states Applebaum. The “Puritans had no tolerance for those who would not work or persons without some visible means of support” (Applebaum 1998, xii). Idleness brought shame, but any sort of work could bring dignity. “No task was degrading. . .if approached in the proper spirit. The conviction possessed an immense potency in Puritan-descended America, and most of us would still find it hard to dismiss it completely” (Rodgers 2009, xv). The American work ethic took on political meaning as relations with England soured. Until 1773, sale of British goods in the colonies was tolerated. Once tea was subjected to a Parliamentary duty, however, it suddenly “became luxurious and enervating” (Morgan 1967, 9). The shopkeepers who sold British products also were widely condemned. In contrast to the Puritan work ethic, merchants “did not actually produce anything” but rather “simply moved things about” (Morgan 1967, 5). Merchants were therefore excoriated, but everyday people rose in the common estimation. The colonists knew that the British military was infinitely better equipped and armed, but they also believed that American soldiers, steeled by hard work and a Spartan frontier life, would prevail. “’Who but a pompous blockhead,’ asked one American, could expect dissipated voluptuaries to conquer a ‘hardy, virtuous set of men’ who were strangers to that luxury which effeminates the mind and body?’” (Zuckerman 1991, 173). Ultimately, the American Revolution was not just a political and military action, but “a trial run in economic self-sufficiency” says Applebaum (1998). In this way, “the Puritan Ethic acquired a value that had been only loosely associated with it hitherto: it became an essential condition of political liberty” (Morgan 1967, 9-10).
By the Revolution’s end, “nothing separated Americans. . .more from Europeans than their attitude toward work and their egalitarian sense that everyone must participate 50 in it” (Applebaum 1998, 55). For the idle rich, “the fancied life of the leisured classes was not to be tolerated in democratic, revolutionary America” (Applebaum 1998, 51). Gordon Wood (1991) argues that the real American revolution was the subsequent attack on the colonial aristocracy and the juxtaposing of the rhetoric of work to the rhetoric of idleness. As for the poor, Benjamin Franklin “told prospective migrants to America to give up any idea that they would get a free ride from the government or that they could be idle and live off the labor of others” (Applebaum 1998, xii) Pauline Maier (1991) finds that early American writers were careful to distinguish the deserving poor, who because of calamity were down on their luck, from the “idle and vicious poor,” who were assumed to be the vast majority of beggars (199-200). Rationalizing the existence of the rich in a supposedly egalitarian society presented a more vexing problem because wealth was presumed to be a result of natural industriousness, an otherwise desirable trait (Maier 1991). In essence, early Americans did not rest on their laurels because they were not allowed to do so. The country’s emerging social organization, its public discourse, and its general acceptance of a duty-to-work goaded all into action. Political and economic separation from the British Empire demanded productivity and their Puritan history haunted them fully. Lifted up by Luther, given urgency by Calvin, brought to America by the Puritans, and justified by freedom of opportunity, the American work ethic became part and parcel of the egalitarian spirit of the new country. The result was a nation that offered its people both dignity and an opportunity to meet their social obligations through sheer, unadulterated effort.
51 The Changing American Work Ethic
Faith in a duty to produce thrived in an agrarian society of small landowners with strong local ties and a healthy fear of a higher power. But what would become of the American work ethic when young men and women left their parents’ farms for the cities’ factories? Would craftsmen take pride in their products when they worked at the foreman’s pace and were rewarded for quantity instead of quality? Who would work hard and live humbly for the good of the community when consumerism itself would tempt the masses with the trappings of luxury? Production in the industrial age threatened the work values cultivated in the thirteen colonies. Before mechanization took hold, farmers and artisans produced at their own pace; they kept an irregular schedule and integrated fraternization and family life into the flow of their working days (Applebaum 1998). The craft ethic also emphasized quality over quantity, and early Americans retained a great deal of control over what they produced, when, and for whom (Byrne 2010). It was little wonder, then, that there were “tensions between the customs of working people. . .and the demands of an industrial system” (Applebaum 1998, 65). The work ethic of the early nineteenth century, “in the sense of endowing good work for its own sake with moral significance−became an abstraction increasingly out of place in the new realities of the assembly line” (Rodgers
2009, x). Worse still, mass manufacturing put the trappings of luxury within reach of a growing number of citizens. Michael Zuckerman (1991) confirms that Americans started acquiring tea sets, wallpaper, stylish clothing, and other accoutrements even before the Revolution. As mass reproductions of high-status goods became more affordable and widely available throughout the nineteenth century, the work ethic’s call for simplicity and self-denial seemed less reasonable. Although sometimes shoddy in construction and 52 intentionally disposable, consumer goods allowed commoners to present themselves as privileged and elite (Ewen 1988, 65). New modes of production and consumption, as a result, stretched previous meanings of the American work ethic. Ultimately, however, the new economy and the old values were reconciled. Yankelovich and Immewahr (1984) argue that the Calvinist duty to sacrifice eased the transition to industrialization:
[Those] who were willing to work hard at unpleasant, low-discretion jobs received considerable respect and support from their families and from society. Their self-sacrifice was seen as a laudable effort to provide their families with opportunities and a standard of living that would have seemed impossible in earlier times (59). Eventually, sociologist Claude Fischer (2010) argues, most citizens learned to feel good about their productive contribution to the new economy:
Many commentators assume that modern industry forced workers who had been independent craftsmen into specialized, repetitious, subservient, and disheartening jobs, pointing to, say, the unemployed artisanal carriage-maker forced to work on the automobile assembly line. This certainly happened many individuals. But if we consider American workers as a whole, far more of them and their children gladly left the drudgery of farming or labor, such as stevedoring, to move into more stimulating jobs, such as industrial and clerical work, however imperfect those were. Americans’ labor became less alienating. (6)
Today, “work” does not necessarily connote physical effort but it still retains its essence of sacrifice, duty, and fulfillment. By 2010, 80 percent of Americans held jobs that were basically sedentary (Parker-Pope 2011), but no one would conclude that only 20 percent of Americans worked for a living. Americans in fact work longer hours than anyone else in the industrialized world, and 50 percent longer than Germans, Italians, and the French (Prescott 2004; Schabner 2012). And unlike in Europe, U.S. work hours correlate positively with both life satisfaction and happiness measures (Okulicz-Kozaryn
2011).
53 In sum, the American work ethic survived the industrial age and assimilated the white-collar worker by adapting to the changing economy. The moral value of work became less about contributing to the community and more about personal responsibility and the duty to provide for one’s self and family. As labor left the home and as working conditions for many Americans deteriorated, society placed greater emphasis on labor as distinct from leisure, giving the former priority in one’s life. The worker did not just take pride in the quality of the product but also in the effort itself, in doing “a good day’s work.” Finally, work became less defined by physical effort and more by dedication, passion, and commitment. “As rhetorical commonplace, as political invective, or as moral shibboleth, the equation of work and virtue continued to pervade the nation’s thinking long after the context in which it had taken root had been all but obliterated”
(Rodgers 2009, xiii).
Twenty-first century production Whether or not the American work ethic will survive the information age is currently unknown. Contemporary observers continue to give reasons why the drive to produce will go away: The nanny state (thearmedforcesteaparty 2012). Generation X (Fisher 2008). Postmodernism (McCortney and Engels 2003). Global competition
(King, Lambsdorff, and Zhu 2012). The collapse of global capitalism (Byrne 2010). The triumph of plenty over scarcity (Roddenbery 2012). As we have seen, however, the American work ethic has adapted to changes at least as great as these. There also are good reasons to think that, for now, Americans will continue to accept work as central, sacred, and leveling. The duty to produce determines public policy (Spitzer 2012b; Lipari 2001). Mass entertainment reifies the American work ethic as millions watch The Apprentice, Undercover Boss, and Dirty Jobs. Even the
54 mildly cynical Jerry Seinfeld sees his work as a gift, not as drudgery (Browning and Morris 2012, 118). If one requires more evidence that the American work ethic is alive, consider those who question its vitality and the sharp retorts such questions receive:
The work ethic is dead. Younger generations in the workforce have killed it off. If you're under 30, “work” has a different meaning than it did -- for the younger employee, work is something to do with your hands while chatting on your cellphone. (Dauten 2007, para. 1)
“I don’t believe there’s a work ethic in this country. … I think there’s a consumptive ethic. People work because they have to.” (Mays 1980, B1)
Populism is a “plan to put the lazy, greasy fizzle who can’t pay his debts on the altar, and bow down and worship him” (William Allen White, 1886, quoted by Rodgers 2009, 221)
As we see here, American commentators are chronically anxious about industriousness and its demise, which only goes to show how sacred such beliefs continue to be. For better or worse, Americans are still haunted by Weber’s ghost. Deep down, they know that every human being was made to do something constructive: those who work are to be admired; those who do not are to be pitied or scorned. Any American can find dignity, if not a living wage, in even the most menial tasks, no matter how dangerous or demeaning they may be. In the United States, self-help books such as The Four-Hour
Work Week are wild commercial successes, but they can also be seen as morally questionable. In contrast, blogger Brett McKay (2008) offers sound Puritanical advice for the twenty-first century American:
Putting in an honest days [sic] work lets you look at yourself in the mirror without feeling ashamed. Think back to the last time you wasted an entire day playing video games. Sure, it was fun while you were kicking ass at Halo, but when you finally turned off the machine at 4 AM, how did you feel? If you’re like me, you probably felt like a useless bum. You realize that you spent an entire day doing something that didn’t contribute to making you or the world around you better.
55 You have certain gifts and talents that should be shared with others. But when you waste the gift of time, you show that you are content to dwell in selfish mediocrity. Fulfill your true potential and make every hour of your existence count. (para. 10)
COMMON CALLING TO WORK: THE LANGUAGE OF PRODUCTION
U.S. presidents have followed McKay’s advice in their public communications, using every conceivable forum−even the Saturday morning radio address−to be seen as productive . It is unclear, though, who hears these weekly speeches: The news media? (Han 2006; Viles 1993) The blogosphere? (Cillizza 2008) The partisan opposition? (Foote 1984). Do the speeches move public opinion, affect congressional debates, or influence news agendas? The empirical evidence is conflicting (compare Roberts 2008; Han 2006; Horvit, Schiffer, and Wright 2008). And yet the chief executive persists each week, briefly addressing the public, one citizen to another. Despite its ubiquity, however, the weekly address presents a rhetorical challenge: How does a leader address an audience consisting, potentially, of every single American? Presidents face this dilemma each time they come to the podium, but thanks in part to the American work ethic, they never seem to be at a loss for words.
Political Production and the Labor of Governance
Studs Terkel (1975) finds that, unlike U.S. presidents, most people are reticent about what they do for a living. He writes that both blue-collar and white-collar employees “call upon the identical phrase: ‘I’m a robot.’ ‘There is nothing to talk about.’” In contrast, American presidents gush about their work.
I want to talk to you today about a big idea, a big change in the way your Government works. (George H. W. Bush, June 6, 1992)
All the people here in Washington are going to have to get on the bus. …We’ve got to be out there working for you to make this country what it ought to be. (Bill Clinton, April 24, 1993) 56 For a year and a half now, I and my administration have worked very hard to do the right thing by ordinary Americans. . . (Bill Clinton, June 18, 1994)
Our administration has worked hard to make our schools safer. . . . (Bill Clinton, February 24, 1996)
Across America, States and school districts are working hard to implement these reforms. (George W. Bush, January 1, 2003)
The tax relief we passed is working, and our economy is gaining strength. (George W. Bush, December 13, 2003)
We are working with other governments to break up terror cells and stop planned attacks, on virtually every continent. (George W. Bush, August 7, 2004)
I also met this past week with the leaders of China and Russia, working to forge constructive relationships to address issues of common concern. . . (Barack Obama, April 4, 2009)
Work is always a popular topic for presidents, with five variations of “work” (workers, working, work, works, and worked) being among the 100 most-frequently used words in American English (Francis and Kucera 1964). In the speeches analyzed here, U.S. presidents spoke these five words four times as often as they appear in the normal American lexicon, as reported in Table 1.
“workers” “working” “work” “works” “worked” total Weekly addresses 0.0708 0.1211 0.2473 0.0167 0.0605 0.5165 Brown Corpus4 0.0088 0.0149 0.0749 0.0128 0.0126 0.124
Table 1: Percent relative frequency of the “work” lexicon in Brown Corpus as compared to weekly presidential addresses
As much as they talk about work, president are vague about what, exactly, their labor entails. A passage from a George W. Bush speech illustrates. While Bush did look
4 As the first computer-readable collection of its kind, the Brown Corpus of Standard American English, which is a catalog of one million words from 1961 American English texts, could be considered dated but remains in wide use. 57 forward to “talking to the world leaders,” he devoted much more lexical coinage to his “work” in general.
I look forward to talking to the world leaders gathered there about our obligation to defend civilization and how we must work together to support the forces of freedom and moderation throughout the Middle East. … As we work with the international community to defeat the terrorists and extremists, we must also provide our military and intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep our country safe. … My administration is working closely with members of both parties to pass these bills. … my administration will work with Congress to find common ground. … Both these bills are essential to winning the war on terror, so we will work with legislators from both sides of the aisle to get them passed. (George W. Bush, September 16, 2006, emphasis added)
Bush speaks here of forging agreements in Washington and abroad. In another context, he might have mentioned negotiating, persuading, influencing, dealing, strategizing, or compromising—all basic requirements of political deal-making. He also could have explained the many meetings, speeches, dinners, and receptions that fuel political consensus. But thanks to the American duty to produce, none of these actions is instinctively thought of as work. Washington State produce apples. Washington County, Texas, makes ice cream. Washington, D.C., meanwhile, is known for its verbiage. Little surprise, then, that in their weekend addresses, presidents gloss the precise details of what they do for a living. In the language of production, public policies become projects, things to do, work to be accomplished. While the tangible fruits of this labor are sometimes slow to show themselves, presidents expect to be given considerable credit. Their work is, inevitably, hard work:
I’ve done as much as I could to push more authority and decision-making back down to the States, to encourage innovation in important areas like welfare and health care reform. (Bill Clinton, June 6, 1995)
58 The textile agreement our two nations recently reached shows that with hard work and determination, we can come together to resolve difficult trading issues. (George W. Bush, November 19, 2005)
For more than 6 years now, our administration has worked hard to widen the circle of opportunity for every American. (Bill Clinton, June 5, 1999)
We were able to pass this law because we listened to the people, set the right priorities, and worked hard until we finished the job. (George W. Bush, December 13, 2003)
The sacrificial nature of these efforts is further substantiated by the president’s pledge to work with anyone and to keep struggling despite the opposition’s efforts to deter him. As George H. W. Bush (September 12, 1992) once warned, “If Congress balks, I will work with Governors, mayors, teachers, community leaders to keep my agenda moving forward.” Hard work, agile work, doth a president make.
Presidents never stop working, even if their political opponents do. In the following examples, it is important to note that Congress is not said to be wrong-headed, callous, or imperial. Rather, the opposing party is charged with something more serious: it has been unproductive.
Unfortunately, this compromise is being blocked by the Senate Democratic leader, who has refused to allow Senators to move forward and vote on amendments to this bill. I call on the Senate minority leader to end his blocking tactics and allow the Senate to do its work. (George W. Bush, April 4, 2006)
By failing to do the work necessary to pass these important bills by the end of the fiscal year, Democrats are failing in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people’s money wisely. (George W. Bush, July 7, 2007)
And I’ve been pushing Congress to help us get there by passing a few commonsense policies that would make a difference. Democrats and Republicans have already done some important work together. . . But now we need to do more. That’s why we made Congress a handy to-do list, just like the kind I get from Michelle. (Barack Obama, May 12, 2012)
59 In the U.S. political lexicon there is no surer way to demonize one’s opposition than to charge them with lethargy. Americans assume that those who are indolent also lack conscientiousness, and, hence, they have a problem of the soul (Roberts 2010).
Citizen Workers and Their Private Duty to Produce
Calling out political opponents for their slothfulness has an additional persuasive benefit: It creates social distance between the partisan other and ordinary citizens who are, seemingly by definition, ever diligent. In the language of production, the people are workers whose primary duty is to contribute economically to their families. Presidents address citizens on their Saturday morning radio shows as fellow employees, hailing them for their labors and asking them for continued productive sacrifice.
Again, as reported in Table 2, straightforward word counts illustrate the point: Presidents primarily approach the people as (1) family members who (2) work. Speaking only of exertion might sound crass, so presidents instead combine words about work with those of familial kinship. They thereby remind audiences of the cultural truth that persistence and perseverance is worth it when it is done for someone else’s sake. Ethnographer Kristen Lucas (2011) reports that working-class people echo this internalized cultural norm. In interviews, they claim to be motivated by need for a “‘roof over their heads’ and ‘food on the table’” (354), not necessarily by a passion for their vocation.
60
Family Roles Civic Roles child, children('s), grandchild(ren), and kid(s) = 283 leader(s) = 125 family(ies) = 194 citizen(s) = 67 (grand)parent(s), dad(s), father(s), mom(s), mother(s)=38 taxpayer(s) = 26 husband(s), wives, wife, and spouse(s) = 5 volunteer(s) = 13 member(s) = 12 Meritocratic Roles mentor(s) = 5 student(s) = 90 politician(s) = 3 learner(s) = 1 neighbor(s) = 3 friend(s) = 2 Human Roles follower(s) = 2 man/men = 52 voter(s) = 0 women(an) = 43 girl(s) and boy(s) = 14
Economic and Professional Roles worker(s) = 67 teacher(s) = 55 police = 23 doctors = 20 executive(s) = 16 consumer(s) = 13 owner(s) = 10 employer(s) = 7 first-responder(s) = 6 employee(s) = 5 nurse(s) = 2 tenant = 1 banker(s) = 1 lawyer(s) = 1 firefighters = 1
Table 2: Frequency of words regarding social roles in 105 weekly U.S. presidential addresses, 1992-20125
Speaking against the lexical grain, Bill Clinton (1999, January 16) deems “active citizenship” to be the “highest calling,” but the bulk of his words, as well as those of other presidents, belie his claim. Indeed, the citizen’s responsibility to pay taxes, a duty
with economic consequences, is the only civic responsibility mentioned with special
5 I created a word-search list of social roles by adapting O’Brien (2006). 61 frequency in the weekend addresses. Only rarely did presidents explicitly ask listeners to support their policies or call upon citizens to contact their congressional delegation. There is not a single mention of “voter” or “voters” in the speeches examined here, nor did presidents ever speak of protestors or activists, persons committed to overt civic engagement.
Admittedly, in the weekend addresses presidents do not presume that the public should be completely docile, but they do suggest proper boundaries for what Americans ought to expect of leadership and why. Barack Obama, for example, once framed citizens’ economic demands as reasonable because they were quite modest in magnitude and for the family’s sake:
In the end, the folks I hear from in letters or meet when I travel across the country, they aren’t asking for much. They’re just looking for a job that covers their bills. They’re looking for a little financial security. They want to know that if they work hard and live within their means, everything will be all right. They’ll be able to get ahead and give their kids a better life. (Barack Obama, June 21, 2011)
In contrast, could one imagine Obama praising citizens who had written letters to the editor or who had lifted signs on the public square? Conceivable, perhaps, but certainly not in the weekend addresses. Sharon Jarvis and colleagues (Jarvis and Han 2010; Jarvis and Han 2011; Jarvis, Han, and Laster 2007) demonstrate that journalistic discourse unwittingly marginalizes citizens by placing them in feckless political roles. In a similar vein, presidents appear to exempt citizens from involvement by focusing exclusively on their family and economic roles, not on their civic or political duties. Quantitatively, then, citizens are most likely to be described as workers and, qualitatively, they are given high praise for productivity as well. In fact, as Presidents
Bush and Obama do here, citizens are said to have earned quality public services and leadership because of their private productivity. 62 In this new century, Americans need to know that if they work hard their whole lives, they will retire with dignity, so we’re working to save Social Security. (George W. Bush, June 18, 2005)
Taxpayers work hard to earn the money they send the Government. Government should work equally hard to ensure that the money is spent wisely. I will work with Congress to build a Government that is responsive to the people’s needs and responsible with our people’s money. (George W. Bush, August 25, 2001)
Congress should help the millions of Americans who have worked hard and made their mortgage payments on time refinance their mortgages at lower rates. . . (Barack Obama, May 12, 2012)
Saskia Sassen (1996) argues that as global trade regimes and worldwide corporations usurp national sovereignty, a new form of “economic citizenship” will be required for citizens to assert power. But in the speeches analyzed here, presidents define even purely domestic dimensions of citizenship in starkly economic terms. In the language of production, legal and moral obligations due to military veterans, for example, become fundamentally economic commitments: “We owe them fair salaries, first-class health benefits, and decent housing. And what we owe, we will pay” (George W. Bush, June 30, 2001). Overall, the weekend addresses create and then respond to a particular kind of audience: one that makes a meaningful contribution to society through hard work and productive careers and that is reflexively honored with productive political leadership in turn. Unlike the usual state of affairs, Bill Clinton spoke differently on the Saturday morning following the contested 2000 election:
The people have spoken. The important thing for all of us to remember now is that a process for resolving the discrepancies and challenges to the election is in motion. The rest of us need to be patient and wait for the results. (November 11, 2000)
Unprecedented circumstances call for exceptional language. Clinton here references a civic voice, for “the people have spoken.” Also, rather than praising citizens for their
63 persistence, Clinton suggests that they be still, patient. Only rarely in their weekly addresses do presidents imagine a truly active citizenry.
Leaders and Citizens: Same Role, Different Responsibilities
In the language of production, the space that hierarchy creates disappears as leader and people labor side-by-side for a better future. Politicians are busy with the people’s business, and everyday citizens work hard for their families’ economic benefit. But while presidents become fellow laborers with the public, they also parse work into specialized tasks, with leadership and citizenship destined for quite different responsibilities. The result is a social cohesion of necessity. In keeping with the American work ethic, politicians describe themselves as self- effacing; they work for the people, not for themselves:
All the people here in Washington. . . … We’ve got to be out there working for you to make this country what it ought to be. (Bill Clinton, April 24, 1993)
We’ll help to develop energy-efficient lighting, refrigerators, and other appliances that will mean lower monthly bills for you. . . (Bill Clinton, January 31, 1998)
That’s what Wall Street reform is all about, making this economy stronger for you. (Barack Obama, May 19, 2012)
We’re not going to play business as usual here. We’re going to shift the course of this economy from consumption and waste to investment and growth. We’re taking on some of the hardest problems facing America, such as changing the health care system to make it work for you. (Bill Clinton, April 24, 1993)
As we see here, presidential work is citizenly work while political maneuvering, in comparison, is self-serving gamesmanship. In the language of production, politicians are said to abdicate their responsibility to citizens when they allow “politics” to intervene in the public’s business:
64 This past week, a minority of the United States Senate, 43 Senators, played parliamentary games with our people’s lives. They blocked an attempt to even vote on our plan to put Americans back to work. (Bill Clinton, April 24, 1993)
In sharp contrast, the people work hard for their families with nary a political motive in sight:
We need to build an economy where hard work and responsibility are rewarded, where you can find a good job, own your own home, maybe start a businesses, and give your kids the chance to do even better. (Barack Obama, May 12, 2012)
We will do what Americans have always done, build a better and more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. (George W. Bush, June 18, 2005)
The combined result is a symbiotic relationship. Citizens need leaders to do the work of politics and governance, while leaders need citizens to perform their private economic duties for the sake of civitas. Both must work hard in close association—but at different tasks. The result finds people and president conjoined as one:
Our Nation’s strong economy is no accident. It is the result of the hard work of the American people and pro-growth policies in Washington. (George W. Bush, July 7, 2007)
You need a reformed Tax Code that is simple, fair, and easy to understand and rewards your hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. And Congress needs to do its part by making the tax relief we passed permanent and burying the death tax forever. (George W. Bush, June 18, 2005)
That’s why it’s so important that Members of Congress stand on the side of reform, not against it. . . We can’t afford to go back to that brand of you’re-on- your-own economics. Not after the American people have worked so hard to come back from this crisis. (Barack Obama, May 19, 2012)
You’re working harder. You’re meeting your responsibilities, and your representatives in Washington should do the same. (Barack Obama, May 12, 2012)
A rhetoric that linguistically argues for a division of labor between leader and led attempts to promote a sense of specialization cum camaraderie. Adam Smith (1902) famously explained the division of labor of the capitalist firm, but Emil Durkheim’s 65 exposition on the topic gives it a communal force beyond economics. According to Durkheim (1947), specialization is a necessary condition for all advancing societies. Simpler forms of organization rely on affinity for social cohesion and action, but differentiation allows for material and intellectual development and encourages cooperative effort. Social specialization allows “dependence to grow in the relationship which in turn develops into solidarity” (Clair 2011, 53). In this light, the language of production draws leaders and citizens together into an interdependent relationship, each playing a different but necessary role.
The lexicon studied here is, therefore, a useful tool for leaders willing to establish an interconnected relationship with citizens but, once again, Bill Clinton provides the contrast. In the following passage, he momentarily abandons the language of production, attesting to citizens and leaders’ shared political work, thereby calling attention to how rarely presidents excuse the American people from their God-ordained economic labors:
My hand was strengthened in these meetings with other world leaders because of everything the American people have been doing: calling for change, pushing the Congress to cut the deficit and increase investment in American jobs, demanding that we reform our campaign laws, our Government, and our health care system. In these meetings I was able to say to the world’s other leaders, “The American people are willing to make some tough choices, and now your nations must do the same thing so that together we can get the world's economy growing again.” (Bill Clinton, July 10, 1993)
As do other presidents, Clinton here speaks of teamwork. He indicates that his unique task (leaning on Congress and foreign governments) is achievable because Americans have done their part (speaking out for change). However, Clinton’s statement is unusual for a weekend addresses when he assigns citizens a distinctly political and aggressive role, with citizens “calling…pushing…demanding.” Such talk of active citizen participation in public debate contrasts sharply with the duties usually attributed to the
66 people by their presidents, such as their “hard work and entrepreneurial spirit” (George W. Bush, June 18, 2005) and working “so hard to come back from this [economic] crisis” (Barack Obama, May 19, 2012).
QUESTIONS RAISED
The foregoing Clinton example illustrates that presidents can linguistically share the work of public policy while still binding themselves to citizens through interdependent specialization. But more often, presidents in their weekend addresses use a language of production to build common cause with the people. This idiom is part of the Common Style of U.S. political discourse and thus facilitates practical ends, but it is also a window into political culture writ large. Because this is so, at least two questions should give us pause. First, is it helpful for leaders in a representative democracy to speak of everyday people in mostly economic terms and in a way that downplays their political responsibilities? Second, if the American work ethic has evaporated, can the language of production continue to bring leaders and citizens together?
Whose job? For what purpose?
The language of production is designed to confront two negative stereotypes: (1) that politicians are in it for themselves and (2) that they do little good for the average citizen. In 2011, CBS News reported that 80 percent of Americans thought that members of Congress were most interested in serving special interests and not their constituents, and 69 percent believed that congressional leaders made too much money for their work ("United States" 2011). Presidential talk of a shared duty-to-produce counters these common sentiments and thus becomes a way-station in which leaders and led can dwell.
At the same time, the language of production placates the people’s desire to be left to their own private devices, which is fine for many Americans. Hibbing and Theiss- 67 Morse (2002) document that most citizens do not want to make policy decisions, wish for no greater public input, and have no interest in knowing more about political decision- making. They conclude that “the last thing people want is to have is more responsibility in the political arena” (44). Like the back-breaking work of picking tomatoes or eviscerating hogs—jobs that supposedly no U.S. citizen wants—most people are content to let someone else struggle with conflicting interests, limited resources, and crafting compromises. Based as it is on specialization, the language of production reassures citizens that they do their part by simply holding down a job. Such talk can marginalize the under- or unemployed (McCortney and Engels 2003) and those unable to work (Lipari 2001) by relegating all citizens to the realm of private, economic action. Paradoxically, the language of production, while sounding democratic via its claims about the dignity of the ordinary American worker, is also republican in cast when assuming that the work of governance is properly that of political elites. Even Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) admit that the “stealth democracy” that most people seek is not “a particularly feasible form of democracy and its allure rests on erroneous assumptions” (10). In this way, presidents tell Americans what they want to hear and also assign them their preferred roles. In an ideal representative democracy, however, there is no quid pro quo between political leaders and citizens with an even exchange of public for private production. If greater civic engagement from a broader swath of Americans is considered desirable, it is undermined by heavy reliance on a language of production.
Take this job and shove it?
Second, the language of production signals what leaders and citizens have in common and thereby becomes a rallying cry, but only to the extent that Americans share
68 the same work ethic. Social critics lament that a working life has never been as glorious as the Puritan ethos claims it to be. Even at the zenith of a half-century of U.S. economic dominance, for example, Studs Terkel (1975) found that work was mostly an unfulfilling extension of the rest of the stratified social world. Consequently, “status rather than the work itself” was paramount for most Americans:
Thus the prevalence of euphemisms in work as well as war. The janitor is a building engineer; the garbage man, a sanitary engineer; the man at the rendering plant, a factory mechanic; the gravedigger, a caretaker. They are not themselves ashamed of their work, but society, they feel, looks upon them as a lesser species. (Terkel 1975, xx)6
Union lawyer Beth Shulman (2003) agrees that the work ethic has now turned upside down, with the public degrading and not honoring the labors of nursing home aids, poultry processors, retail clerks, security guards, and hotel staff. Even if their fellow citizens were truly inspired by egalitarian goals, working-class people themselves could not escape the harshness of physical toil:
An American President is fortunate−or, perhaps, unfortunate−that, offering his Labor Day homily, he didn’t encounter Maggie Homes, the domestic, or Phil Stallings, the spot-welder, or Louis Hayward, the washroom attendant. Or especially, Grace Clements, the felter at the luggage factory, whose daily chore reveals to us in a terrible light that Charles Dickens’s London is not so far away or long ago. (Terkel 1975, xv)
A world away, play has supplanted work as the penultimate value of white-collar life. Popular business literature now extols the benefits of team-building exercises, puzzle-solving activities, themed parties, hip interior design, and foosball in the office— all in the name of “enhancing job satisfaction, motivation and commitment” (Butler et al. 2011, 329). The increasingly aesthetic demands of many fields also contradict the industrial distinction between work and play (Lair 2011). Overall, sociologists find
6 For a less reverent but equally applicable example, see the Job Title Generator at http://www.bullshitjob.com/title/ 69 appreciation of work-for-work’s-sake to be in decline (Highhouse, Zickar, and Yankelevich 2010). White collar, blue collar, or no collar, all employees today have good reason to be anxious about their jobs. Previously a worry of only the manufacturing sector, most workers now have no job security or “enjoy any of the conditions that were once the basis of their cooperation and loyalty to corporate America. Real wages have stagnated” and “unemployment is a threat to all workers” (Applebaum 1998, 137). The increasingly contingent nature of most employment makes it difficult, and dangerous, to make an emotional commitment to work (Lair 2011). With no assurance that their employment will be there tomorrow, many employees now turn from production to consumption as the source of their identities (Korczynski, Hodson, and Edwards 2006, 2).
A working-class denied any real honor, a corporate culture that no longer honors work, and citizens losing confidence in employment as a means to an honorable end— can such an America hold together? Willy Loman, not John Henry, appears to be the American archetype. And yet the language of production persists or, at least, it exists at the presidential level and at least on weekends:
On this Labor Day weekend, Americans pay tribute to the spirit of hard work and enterprise that has always made this Nation strong. Every day, our workers go to factories and offices and farms and produce the world’s finest goods and services. Their creativity and energy are the greatest advantage of the American economy. (George W. Bush, August 8, 2003)
If the American work ethic is a lie, why do presidents continue to give it countenance? Are political leaders deploying this language in vein? Are they making matters worse, pushing away a knowing citizenry with smug platitudes about the dignity of production and a shared obligation to work? Is the language of work still a common style? Unless “credibly associated with valued outcomes, work ethic ideology may be
70 counterproductive and generate cynicism and a sense of betrayal,” says Applebaum (1998, 220). The same can be said of political discourse: A vocabulary meant to draw leader and citizen together will surely produce greater estrangement if it denies what the public itself believes to be true. Citizens have good reason to be skeptical of their ability to find respect, fulfillment, and decency in their jobs, but they remain certain that no one can honorably forsake work. While income disparity has risen in the United States, the Pew Research Center (Kohut et al. 2012) reports that the wealthy are as widely admired today as they were in 1987–as long as they have earned their success. “On the other hand,” says Pew, “most Americans do not admire those who simply are rich, with no mention of them becoming wealthy through their own efforts” (35). At the other end of the economic spectrum, candidate Mitt Romney’s attacks on the Obama administration’s changes to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families demonstrated a continuing presumption that all able-bodied people must work. While widely panned as inaccurate and misleading, the text of Romney’s campaign advertisement makes clear what the nation expects of the poor. “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check” (Kiely and Moss 2012). Even if the
American dream has failed to produce universal employment, Americans themselves continue to expect that a universal desire to work is common parlance. Meanwhile, politicians are seen as notorious slackers in 2013. As long as political leaders are thought to be unproductive—no bills passed, no problems solved-- they will be a breed apart in the United States. Consequently, leaders must find means, symbolic and otherwise, to earn respect with a citizenry measuring merit via production.
I have argued here that the American work ethic is a profitable rhetorical resource toward this end, but changing economic conditions and the shifting nature of employment 71 threaten its continued utility. Scholars should therefore further investigate the language of production and its cultural meanings to see if it remains a stylistic resource suitable to all Americans.
CONCLUSION
In his classic lecture on politics as a vocation, Max Weber (1919) alludes to the difficult task of public leadership, calling it the “strong and slow boring of hard boards” (27). Many Americans remain unconvinced:
Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organized against the productive but unorganized. (Sobran 2012)
Just what do Politicians do? Well we know they lie. But what good are they? They don’t do any real work. All they do is blab, and talk, and walk around, shaking hands with people. What good is that? (Dom 2012)
They just want to scream and shout instead of helping people out. These politicians aren’t doing anything. Nothing at all. (Conrad 2012)
In the United States, where every citizen has a presumed duty to produce, political leaders are obliged to confront these notions as false. Perhaps that is why, each week, presidents put on thick-soled Red Wings and a Carhartt to rub elbows with the noble American worker. Dignified labor may be an oxymoron, but if the Puritanical obligation to justify oneself through constructive effort remains, then the language of production may continue to be a viable source of commonality for all Americans, including those separated by difference and distance. In his book-length ode to baseball as craft, George Will (1990) turns to Jim Lefebvre to explain why some people believe that players of the past had greater skill. When Lefebvre came up to the big leagues, he says, no one took the college route.
Instead, professional players had to survive the rigors of the farm system, and consequently, “they knew their trade. They played, they played, they played” (303). Of 72 course, what Lefebvre meant was that his generation worked, and worked, and worked. Based on either pure nostalgia or a current faith, Americans still justify themselves and others−including professional entertainers−based on sacrificial effort. As long as they continue to do so, politicians will continue to use the language of production as a way of building bridges to the island of citizenship.
73 Chapter Four: The Language of Progress and State-Based Politics
It is hard to imagine any two politicians who cut figures more different than Rick Perry and Deval Patrick. The Texas governor grew up on a farm near Paint Creek. As a boy, the Massachusetts governor called a south-side Chicago housing project home.
Perry excelled socially but not scholastically at Texas A&M, while Patrick graduated cum laude from Harvard. Perry cut his persuasive teeth on door-to-door encyclopedia sales. After college, Patrick worked for the United Nations in Africa. Perry climbed the political ladder by running for the state legislature and then for state-wide offices. Patrick, in contrast, never campaigned for public office before seeking the governorship. Instead, he practiced law, served in the Clinton administration, and joined Fortune 500 boards. Today, Perry overseas a large red state that prospers from oil and gas whereas Patrick runs a commonwealth whose residents lean blue, with many of them working for prestigious educational, research, and technology companies. Call them Felix and Oscar if you will but in many ways these two governors are quite alike. That is, both leaders consistently draw on cultural convictions common to their constituents. Consequently, they are at times lexically indistinguishable:
We must all bond together – Republican, Democrat and Independent – to use our every today to better their tomorrow.1
And I ask you to keep working together and with us for a better future for our neighbors and our nation. 2
And the thing I want to give is a better chance for someone else. A better school. A better job. A better community. A better government. A better future. 3
1 Rick Perry, January 30, 2001 2 Deval Patrick, May 15, 2012 3 Deval Patrick, March 3, 2010 74 Millions of children can now dare to dream of a tomorrow that is better than what their parents and grandparents experienced.4
. . .industry has already shown us they can do better than that. . .5
Each one of us here can point to that one teacher or administrator who made a lasting impression on us during those formative years—someone. . .who demanded better of you because your full potential had yet to materialize.6
Patrick’s and Perry’s respective audiences represented diverse interests, too. They included a Texas teachers union, chambers of commerce in Boston and Austin, and a New England construction trade group. Yet all the citizens they addressed in the remarks quoted above had joined voluntary associations and, therefore, shared a belief that tangible improvement is necessary, possible, and efficacious. Despite evidence that it has failed to work as promised, American success rhetoric continues to charm people. Thio (1972) argues that such a discourse is hegemonic, with the public having “internalize[d] the ethic of self-responsibility for their own life- conditions” (387). Ewen (1988) claims its persuasive power lies in the promise of enhanced identity: with success comes fame; anybody can be somebody; one must only try hard enough. Such a discourse, says Winslow (2012b), allows capitalists to extract excess labor from workers distracted by the struggle to achieve something grand.
These critiques have merit but do not account for the rhetoric of success’ leveling function. The promise that one can improve one’s lot by trying hard encourages social competition and, inevitably, unequal outcomes, but it starts with the presumption that everyone can prosper. The possibility of improvement is there but so too is vulnerability: tomorrow can be better but it also might be worse. In its purest form, the American cultural bias for positive change gives a nation of extreme economic disparities, mixed
4 Rick Perry, December 11, 2000 5 Deval Patrick, May 15, 2012 6 Rick Perry, January 30, 2001 75 ethnicities, conflicting religions, and few strong cultural institutions something in common, something to share. Thanks to the improvement ethos, every American is a work in progress. Few political leaders have a bigger stake in progress than governors and mayors. While U.S. federal politics has become increasingly partisan and polarized, it has been said the governors and mayors, no matter their party of origin, must get things done.
When analyzing some 90 speeches7 delivered by sitting mayors and governors to local citizen groups, I find that politicians harness the American drive to improve, using a language of progress to build solidarity between themselves and their fellow citizens. Ambitious people such as those who join the Maryland Agricultural Council, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, and the Tacoma Rotary Club have been known to have sharp elbows, making it tricky for a striving politician to orchestrate harmony amongst confrontation. But the language of improvement helps them overcome such obstacles, language famously popularized by America’s so-called first citizen, Benjamin Franklin. This chapter begins by asking why the concept of improvement is so sacred in the United States. In answering that question, I rely heavily on Franklin’s political thinking, showing that the improvement ethic he articulated need not be rapacious. Next, I turn to the state-based speeches to demonstrate how the language of progress positions politicians as strivers, citizens as achievers, and both as partners in community advancement. I close the chapter by considering what words are missing from the language of progress and reflecting on what this aspect of the Common Style means in an era of shortened horizons.
7 Appendix B is a bibliography of all local speeches that I analyzed, including those that I cite directly in this chapter. 76 DOING BETTER: THE AMERICAN ETHOS OF IMPROVEMENT
Put simply, the improvement ethos embraces the cultural assumption that everyone and everything can be made better. Such a belief is not unique to the United States, nor is it new. Richard Weaver (1953) identified a long-standing hubris in a Western culture “that takes the form of a changing relationship between ourselves and nature, in which we pass increasingly into the role of master” (213). In that sense, development conveys dominance: “It provides the warrant for [John C.] Calhoun’s exhortation, ‘Let us conquer space!’−a statement that to pre-sixteenth century ears might have sounded ridiculous, presumptuous, or both” (Hostetlier 2011, para 11). Simon Swain (1989) sees the pre-Enlightenment attitude in the literature of antiquity, which offered static characters whose personalities changed little during a given narrative. In contrast, the post-Enlightenment ideal presumes that individuals are autonomous, active agents whose choices and actions can change material outcomes and even themselves. As linguist Francis March proclaimed in 1868, “under the old philosophy the highest word is CULTURE, under the new philosophy the highest word is PROGRESS” (quoted by Cmiel 1990, 163). The United States has a particularly strong faith in the promise of improvement, where “belief in progress, technology, and invention has been an important element in
American ideology,” for it seems to move “the country in the direction of more material comforts, a higher standard of living, and an improvement in the social and economic structure of the nation” (Applebaum 1998, xiii). Alan Houston (2008) argues that improvement is neither an ideology nor a political program but rather is “best understood as a set of priorities” for individuals and society. Americans believe improvement to be an unassailable good—and even a necessity in a meritocratic society—so spending on education, children’s music lessons, and gym memberships is rarely questioned. 77 Socially, 91 percent of Americans agree that it is “important to society as a whole that individuals are involved in positive social change” (Sumpter 2011). Many moments in U.S. history, including progressive politics (Aune 2008), temperance, and the civil-rights movement owe their existence in part to an American demand for social acceleration. Faith in progress has been well-fed in the United States, be it by Western expansion, the immigrant experience, or unbridled commercialism. Frederick Jackson Turner (1921) famously argued that the United States is uniquely conditioned to strive for improvement because of the demands made “in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area. . .the complexity of city life.” Turner likely was influenced by nineteenth-century social theories that “made it plain to most Americans that humanity was traveling on an evolutionary path from savagery to civilization” (Coward 1995, para. 6). Immigration provided economic fuel and “anecdotes of the. . .the huddled masses who arrive in the Unites States penniless, and yet go on to win Nobel prizes and lead multinational corporations” (Borjas 2011, xi). Contemporary pundit David Brooks (2012b, para. 2) contends that the United States has always been defined by this “ferocious commercial energy, this zealotry for self- transformation.” Historian Mark Zukerman (1991) agrees, documenting an “optimistic materialism” that became “salient. . .early in the life of the new nation” (174). These forces helped sustain a “peculiar American mania for self-improvement,” says John Rury (1995, 690). Such a mania rests on certain assumptions about personal agency and personal responsibility. For example, Claude Fischer labels the United States a “voluntaristic culture” where “people assume that they control their own fates and are responsible for themselves” (10). Fischer connects volunteerism with an ethic that instinctively values improvement: 78 A voluntaristic culture encourages people to examine and improve themselves, because they can and because their individuality is key to their fortunes. . . .In several ways, then, many [traits] that outside observers have for generations described as particularly American—such as self-absorption, ‘can-do’ confidence, egalitarianism, conformism, and status-striving—derive from a voluntaristic culture. (Fischer 2010, 11)
Consequently, the United States “interprets social change as being the result of freely- chosen individual decisions,” while cultures with an external locus of control are more likely to see change as an imposition (Braun 2008). For this reason, “market forces are not automatically interpreted to be a good thing” in other cultures (455).
Melding the Moral and Material
However, it would be a mistake to assume that the American drive to do better is purely materialistic, competitive, and individualistic in nature. As a promoter of capitalist values and community development, Benjamin Franklin embodied the complexities of the American improvement ethos. One must see Franklin’s vision of a liberal, egalitarian society of self-improvers who are also civically virtuous to understand how the improvement ethos operates in the United States today. According to Houston (2008), Franklin recognized the dangers of personal striving but maintained that self and social enrichment were compatible—if individuals and groups worked to cultivate the habits of usefulness. Let us consider how Franklin’s politics of improvement blended the materialistic and moral, the individualistic and the communal, and the competitive with the cooperative. Franklin is usually likened to materialism, but, in his time, moral virtue could not be separated from its material concomitants.8 Economic and ethical development “were
8 Franklin’s best-known detractors include Max Weber (2001/1930). See Houston’s (2008) Appendix for a case against Weber’s interpretation of Franklin as an amoral materialist. 79 of a piece,” says Cohen (2009).9 Like his contemporaries, Franklin used a simple but profound criterion, utility, to judge the worthiness of an activity or program. By Franklin’s measure, “to improve something is to increase its value or excellence, to bring it to a more desirable state. Land is improved by cultivation; minds are improved by education; inventions are improved by use and experience.” In usefulness, Franklin found a practical standard that transcended the moral-versus-materialist debate:
Franklin did not think of utility in narrowly economic teams, nor did he think usefulness could be straightforwardly measured in terms of profits and losses. Knowledge was useful; so, too, were friendship and freedom. Moreover, usefulness was not a natural property of groups of individuals. It has to be cultivated personally, through the formation of habits of virtue, and collectively, through the cooperation of men and women who held different beliefs and had conflicting interests. The pursuit of prosperity did not signal the release of uninhibited greed; instead, it provided the material base for the development of sociability and civility. (Houston 2008, 221)
Daniel J. Boorstin (quoted by Kilmer 1996, 158) captured this same sentiment when claiming that “people have come here not for wealth but for a better ‘way of life.’” Wealth makes possible the good life, but it is the enriched social sphere, not wealth itself, that constituted Franklin’s better way. Material and moral improvement, then, cannot be achieved in a vacuum. Rather, it is only through conscientious effort and a “projecting public spirit” that a people may move forward (Houston 2008, 221). In commercial societies such as Franklin’s, citizens had good reasons to respond to one another’s needs and interests, but the “resilience of relationships” based on economic cooperation depended on the degree to which groups and individuals cultivated the “habits of virtue” (59). According to Franklin’s philosophy, that result obtained because “usefulness is not a natural property of
9 According to Cohen (2009) “moral and material mandates of American improvement” were demonstrated most clearly in early American attitudes toward technology, science, and agriculture. 80 individuals or groups” (Houston 2008, 59). Put differently, Franklin did not believe that progress was inevitable. Rather, when left to their “natural inclination or custom,” people tended toward sloth, wastefulness, and selfishness. Franklin’s optimism lay in his conviction that, with effort, people could develop the habits of a useful character. Franklin rejected Locke’s conception of private property as a natural right and he also had little appreciation for Adam Smith’s invisible hand.10 Instead, Franklin saw that a virtuous civil society based on cooperative, commercial relations had to be cultivated, grown, and nurtured.
Franklin also believed that improvement was a personal and communal project. Thirty years before de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United States, Franklin wrote in detail about the rich associational life in the new country. Franklin was himself a founder, member, or conceiver of more than a dozen voluntary associations. He pursued these groups with passion, believing them to be critical to propagating the habits of usefulness. It was here, in these associations, that members “negotiated relations of interest, taste, and value. They met needs and provided important settings with which habits are formed, characters are shaped, and ideas are confirmed” (Houston 2008, 61). If asked what to do about today’s problems,
In all likelihood, [Franklin] would also call for the creation of a group−a “society for mutual improvement”−to pursue the matter. The world was constantly changing. New discoveries might lead to improvements in the quality of life. There could be no substitute for individual industry and cooperative effort. (Houston 2008, 224)
10 Franklin read and was strongly influenced by Adam Smith, and he certainly appreciated Smith’s point that selfish motives could drive individuals to behave in beneficial ways. On the other hand, Franklin rejected the idea that the invisible hand would inevitably produce the most desirable outcomes for individuals and society. Franklin accepted that intentional effort, experimentation, investigation, and collective effort were necessary. 81 As Franklin’s cultural heirs, Americans today continue to struggle with the “promises and pitfalls” of a cooperative, commercial society (Houston 2008). Franklin sought material success for the leisure and learning it afforded him, but “it was Franklin the bourgeois, not the cultivated patrician, who spoke directly to the needs of the American people” in his autobiography (Huber 1971). Nicole Biggart (1983) finds the same bias in contemporary self-help books in that they focus on how to achieve success and give little consideration to the consequences of striving. Nonetheless, Americans have supported an unbroken chain of development exercises over the years, including debating societies and lectures (Kett 1994), elocutionary education (Eastman 2010; Ruyter 1999), phrenology (Kett 1994), literary improvement clubs (Blair 2011a), Emile Coue’s applied psychology (Huber 1971), direct selling (Biggart 1988), and Oprah
Winfrey (Peck 2010). In each case, Americans showed more interest in moving up the ladder than in embracing some sort of abstract virtue. Crass and vacuous though they may be at times, Americans also strive for post- material goals. Sociologist Charles Fischer (2010, 204) argues that twentieth-century prosperity allowed for new projects in self-improvement:
Self- fashioning became, like so much else, democratized—and also professionalized, analyzed, and medicalized. Many took up the intense disciplines of yoga, long-distance running, or psychoanalysis to learn how to relax, be spontaneous, or genuine—never mind the irony. These endeavors, along with simpler efforts at self-improvement such as dieting and spiritual ones such as seeking the “purpose driven life,” were part of more self-perfecting by more Americans.
So Americans are self-perfecting but also self-centered. Mullins and Kopelman (1984) found that popular non-fiction since 1950 has increasingly focused on self-absorbed pursuits, mirroring societal trends toward narcissism. Claude Fischer (2010, 19) sums up
82 this complex “American mentality” as “increasingly the product of self-consciousness and purposeful change. Benjamin Franklin would have been proud.”
The Egalitarianism of Improvement
At its most Darwinian point, the struggle to do better puts all Americans on the same path, even if they tread upon each other along the way. One British observer notes that, for the professional classes, “it is hard for such people to imagine that America is anything but a meritocracy: their lives are a perpetual competition” ("Meritocracy in America" 2004, para. 20). Leo Lemay (2008) attributes the same idea to Benjamin Franklin, who “subverted the aristocratic and hierarchical bases of eighteenth-century society” by assuming “that a person was not born into a fixed station in life but existed in a fluid society and could change.” (578). Americans’ “belief in human possibility and reinvention” means that everyone must be “striving for what’s new and improved” (Rodriguez 2011, para. 7). Because all can better themselves in the United States, no pedestals are necessary. Or at least not for long. After all, today’s success might well be tomorrow’s failure. In fact, the United States has the lowest level of intergenerational mobility of any industrialized democracy (Stepan and Linz 2011), meaning that the poor overwhelmingly stay poor and the rich remain rich. Culturally, however, Americans keep one another in check via a mythology of changing fortunes. Take, for example, the generic American story of success, which requires at least one setback, some disastrous change of fortune, or undignified fall from grace (McAdams 2006). In the United States, even the “ground is invented, based not upon a myth of natural right or of ethnicity. . . … American culture presumes nothing, accepting. . .that ‘everything is possible’” (Meisel 1998, 132).
83 Existentially, the improvement ethos humbles every American. It emphasizes striving toward a goal but not the goal itself. And because better is always possible, no one ever becomes a finished product in the United States. The Puritans understood this, for “it was their lot to be forever improving the world, in full knowledge that every improvement would in the end prove illusory” (Morgan 1967, 5).
MOVING FORWARD VIA THE LANGUAGE OF PROGRESS
To observers unconversant with the American improvement ethos, U.S. politics at the state and local level probably sounds bizarre. Paradoxically, its leaders speak words of both pride and discontent as they seek to inspire; of efficacy and independence as they try to level; and of competition and vested interests as they attempt to unify. Odd though it may seem, for those who implicitly accept the American need to achieve, this language of progress can build egalitarian connections between ambitious local leaders and their constituents.
Leaders as Strivers
When the Christian Science Monitor ran the banner “Baby hit by train survives; no politicians take credit” (Orr 2009), it was hard to say which half of the headline was the more newsworthy. After all, political leaders constantly sing their own praises or, in their more polite moments, use the editorial “we” to reference group accomplishments. Even so, state and local leaders heavily accentuate achievement when speaking to citizen groups. The following excerpts are indicative of the overall emphasis on achievements found in each and every speech in my sample:
Meanwhile, the kids currently using our playgrounds are getting new schools, new classrooms, new gymnasiums, and new technology. . . 2011 was a big year for the program but 2012 is even bigger. (Mick Cornett, January 19, 2012)
84 And let us not forget, that in just the first 5 months since taking office, there are many accomplishments that the Republican led Legislature and I have made that don’t get the attention they deserve. (Jan Brewer, June 13, 2009)
2006 was another big year. Major Moves was our shorthand for the Toll Road transaction that liberated trapped value—$4 billion of it—for in essence an under- performing asset, and we are re-investing that money in the infrastructure. . . We reformed telecommunications in a way that no other state in the country has yet matched. (Mitch Daniels, March 24, 2010)
We have with the help of the legislature a number of bond bills pending in the legislature all of which will pass out before the end of the current legislative session. …Those bond bills in the aggregate will enable us to makes an approximately $16 billion investment in our Massachusetts infrastructure. . . (Deval Patrick, April 29, 2008)
Through the Innovation Network, we’ve established what we call the STEMnet Teachers hub, a network for teachers that includes online access to STEM curricula, lessons plans, webinars, tutorials, classroom-ready experiments and professional development. (Martin O’Malley, February 3, 2011)
The frequency of such talk indicates that local leaders have a more meaningful purpose in mind than mere ego enhancement. By themselves, few if any of the accomplishments cited above are significant enough to win citizen devotion, but that is not the point. As de Tocqueville (1899, 186) observed, “a brilliant achievement may win for you the favor of a people at one stroke; but to earn the love and respect of the population which surrounds you, a long succession of little services rendered and of obscure good deeds. . .will be required.” Satirists and everyday citizens may despise the self-congratulatory sound of politics, but elected officials who fail to mention their accomplishments sound infinitely worse: ineffectual or indifferent to the people’s immediate concerns. Worst of all, they would present themselves as non-participants in the broader American voyage to a perfected place.
But if local leaders highlight attainments so as to cast themselves as part of the great American whole, then why are they also eager to distinguish themselves by taking
85 credit for a job well done? Notice in the following examples that each speaker readily proclaims personal pride in what is admittedly a public accomplishment:
As I move closer to the end of my term, I can say I took on our health care crisis with every tool I had, and created new tools. I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished together. (Chris Gregoire, May 14, 2012)
I’m proud of their progress, and they’ve been very successful. Just ask Toyota, Severstal, GE Aviation and many others. (Haley Barbour, December 8, 2011)
My first act as Governor was to launch a number of immediate job creation action items, and I’m proud to report that we’ve made real progress on all of them. (John Kitzhaber, March 4, 2011)
We have eight large fires around the state of California right now, but the firefighters have fanned out across California and they are doing an amazing job. Really, I’m very, very proud. (Arnold Schwarzenegger, August 31, 2009)
I have often said that if a state could be known for anything, the best title would be “The Education State.” I am proud to tell you that there is no state in this country that has a better claim to this title today than Virginia. (Tim Kaine, October 1, 2009)
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was “proud of the progress” at three private employers, organizations in which he had no formal responsibility. At least Schwarzenegger, Gregoire, and Kitzhaber claimed satisfaction in work properly done by the executive branch, although the California governor made no case for how he was personally responsible for firefighter performance. Governor Tim Kaine was so bold as to claim pride in the Virginian state title, as if he controlled the entire commonwealth. Who do these politicians think they are? Strivers, that is who. As illustrated here, pride is a complex sentiment in the United States. It cannot exactly be counted as a virtue because vanity dangerously sets the individual apart from the community. At the same time, pride also indicates ownership or control and is therefore associated with perseverance and task completion
86 (Williams and DeSteno 2008), two prized traits in a society of go-getters. Because pride indicates a sense of inner confidence and self-promotion, American women are counseled to be more boastful at work to help themselves get ahead (Mielach 2012). For the same reason, partisan supporters feared that candidate Mitt Romney was too reticent about his own successes during the 2012 presidential campaign (Bolton 2012). The line between vanity and self-assurance is brilliantly unclear in the United States but, and it has long existed. Ben Franklin, too, was ambivalent about pride. He recognized it in himself and saw that it moved him to greater industriousness. His original list of virtues numbered only 12 until a friend accused him of “overbearing” and “insolent” behavior. Franklin accepted the charge, “if anything…with delight” says Houston (2008, 36). Nevertheless,
Franklin added a thirteenth virtue, humility, to his list. Like the wild turkey that he preferred as the nation’s symbol, Franklin was willing to accept “a little vanity” and silliness in himself because it drove him toward virtuous improvement (Houston 2008, 208). Franklin observed that the same was true throughout a consumer-based society, where accumulation could turn envy, vanity, and pride into useful attributes, spurring citizens to better themselves via envy and emulation of others (Houston 2008, 55).
Within a society of strivers, that is, prideful words point to speakers who value improvement and who will humble themselves by hustling for it. The Puritan half of the U.S. brain struggles against haughtiness while the Franklin half predictably seeks greater success. Note, for example, how the following local leaders, even in their boasting, express equivalent amounts of dissatisfaction and incompleteness as well as pleasure with a job well done:
Although we’ve made tremendous gains in the Boston Public Schools, I am frustrated with the pace of our progress, especially in our low performing schools. 87 And I am not alone. Just this spring, Superintendent Johnson, the School Committee and I have met with thousands of parents. They know we have some great schools, but they want more of them – and so do I. (Thomas Menino, June 9, 2009)
We are making some good progress as it relates to workforce development and training but we need to do a whole lot more. (Jon Huntsman, March 20, 2008)
In four years our graduation rates rose 7 and a half percent. We are proud of that progress. But we will not be satisfied until all of our students graduate high school well-prepared for the future that awaits them. (Sonny Perdue, January 9, 2006)
We are proud of what we have accomplished together, but by no means satisfied. (Deval Patrick, May 23, 2012)
I’m continually amazed by our outstanding people. We have a good team – and we have a team that knows we can always do better. (Greg Fischer, January 12, 2012)
Words such as these do more than acknowledge citizens’ unrealized expectations; they also flatter the speaker as a demanding progressive. Alone, words of discontent can be heard as pessimistic but when combined with references to great goals yet to be achieved, they become hopeful. By juxtaposing words of accomplishment, pride, and dissatisfaction, local leaders describe themselves as people of action who go all-out to move the community forward. As a consequence, they show themselves to be no better or no worse than any other driven American. Like all U.S. citizens, they have not, and never will, really arrive.
Citizens as Leaders
Local leaders certainly preen when speaking to citizen groups but, in fairness, they also praise their audiences. Throughout the sample, governors and mayors of both parties attributed success to citizen action. Jan Brewer (May 11, 2012) said that “the turnaround we’ve experienced is due in large part to those of you in the room today – a group that includes some of Arizona’s brightest, most forward-thinking businessmen and 88 women.” Likewise, Rick Perry (July 18, 2011) relished “any chance I get to address the TMPA. . .because it’s a chance to communicate. . .with people who are making a real difference in the lives of Texans every single day.” Speaking on behalf of Chris Christie, New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno (May 14, 2010) referred to the “direct and meaningful impact” her audience made “in your communities and on our citizens.”
Local leaders sometimes are overwrought (e.g.: “You are the quiet heart-beat of Arizona’s power and productivity;” said Jan Brewer on May 12, 2009), but even so, amongst self-made strivers there is no higher compliment than to be credited with improvement. Citizens are exalted because they make things happen and leaders are indebted to them for it. When speaking to a Republican women’s group, Jan Brewer (June 13, 2009) praised the “real backbone” of her party: “I want you to know that I am standing here today, largely, because of the hard work that you and other Republicans always provided throughout my career to help me.” Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (April 15, 2011) made the same point to gathered Greens: “The environmental community knocked on countless doors, made countless phone calls and turned out thousands of voters. I could not have done it without you. And I won’t forget it.” These are the terms of political patronage, but they also confer power and control and, therefore, status on the audience. In similar fashion, local leaders emphasized that other citizens depend on those in the audience. Speaking to a Missouri teachers’ union in 2009, Jay Nixon acknowledged that “our children, our families, our communities and our state depend on you.” Jan Brewer (April 29, 2009) agreed that in her state, “without you and the work that you do, Arizona would not be able to achieve success.” Political party, ideology, and region seem to make no difference in such matters. Notice, for example, that in the following
89 excerpts Bobby Jindal and Deval Patrick use slightly different words but express kindred feelings:
We need you to provide paid internships, apprenticeships, and other work-study programs. We need you to work with community-based organizations to identify mentors and coaches for these children. We need your help. The success of this initiative depends on it, and I believe it is not an overstatement to say that the success of those many children who are currently at risk of dropping out of school also depends on your involvement. (Bobby Jindal, January 8, 2009)
Remember that being a member of a community is not an intellectual exercise. It’s not just about rhetoric. It's about how we behave. And that cannot be the responsibility of government alone. That must be your responsibility. (Deval Patrick, October 22, 2008)
Washington Governor Chris Gregoire (March 1, 2008) went so far as to put the fate of “our very democracy” in the hands of the Junior League of Seattle, on “people like you,” who represent “an engaged citizenry.” Those who join voluntary and special-interest groups tend to experience relatively high levels of political efficacy (Kahne and Westheimer 2006), but they also crave such affirmations. Sociologist Richard Mannon (1990, 93-94) claims that the middle and professional classes are most scarred by what he calls the country’s “performance ethic,” as they face gender ideals, parenting standards, and status-achievement measures. In the same way that “celebrity links the extrication from poverty to extrication from the mass of ‘unknowns,’” (Ewen 1988, 95) leaders bestow special status on organized citizens by acknowledging their accomplishments. In doing so, politicians appeal to contemporary life’s “common conditions, and to common discontents” (Ewen 1988, 95). Leaders thereby encourage their hard-charging fellow citizens through talk of community dependence The ancient Greeks condemned such flattery as corrosive to democracy (Stengel 2002), but its frequency in local-leader speeches suggests it has an important rhetorical purpose in U.S. political culture. Indeed, the language of progress 90 constructs a role for organized citizens that is on par with that of public officials, both of whom can take pride in community progress.
Leaders and Citizens: Partners in Progress; Camaraderie in Competition
British scientist Sir William Thomas is often quoted as saying, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”11 Perhaps this is why governors and mayors speak so much about measuring up. As the following examples illustrate, local leaders’ repeated references to numerical rank, percent change, rising and falling, and winning and losing indicate a near obsession with one’s relative standing:
To compete--and win--in the 21st century, we must embrace emerging science and technology as critical industries of tomorrow. (Jay Nixon, November 19, 2009)
Thirty years ago – when I graduated from high school – the United States ranked #1 in high school graduation rates among our global competitors. Today we’ve slipped to 11th… Thirty years ago, America ranked #1 in college completion. Today we’ve slipped to #12. (Martin O’Malley, February 15, 2012)
Just last week, ABC News reported Salt Lake City is number one for jobs. Forbes Magazine has ranked Utah as the second best state for business. CNBC has placed Utah as number three among America’s Top 10 States for Business that they rolled out just a while ago. (Jon Huntsman, March 20, 2008)
While the national trend between 2006 to 2010 was going in the other direction, we increased the number of people insured in Massachusetts by more than 400,000 people. … More businesses offer health insurance to their employees today than before our reforms took effect, some 78 percent of Massachusetts businesses as compared to the national average of about 69 percent. (Deval Patrick, May 15, 2012)
11 Thus Lord Kelvin is incorrectly quoted, but he did express a similar sentiment. See for example http://isowatch.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/if-you-cannot-measure-it-you-cannot-improve-it/ and http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/quotes/. Oxford’s Essential Quotations (“Lord Kelvin” 2009) traces the misattribution to Lord Kelvin’s Popular Lectures and Addresses, in which he writes: “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.” 91 Only with an educated and trained workforce can California compete in the global economy of today and the future. That’s why we are here today. We’re staking out the role California will play in the economy of the future and we are mapping the route we will take to get there. (Arnold Schwarzenegger, August 31, 2009)
No occasion or topic seems sacred enough to escape the local leaders’ measuring rod. Even when addressing a prayer breakfast, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (February 19,
2008) could not help but tally the score in the discursive contest over God:
In case you didn’t notice, 2007 was a big year for atheists. I don’t know if they’re having a breakfast to celebrate somewhere at this moment, but they’d be entitled to. By my count. . .at least three important books [by atheists] reached the New York Times Best Seller List.
Richard Hofstedter (1964) attributes such fixations to “the rootlessness and heterogeneity of American life, and above all, [to] its peculiar scramble for status.” Alain de Botton (2005, xi) admits that the “hunger for status” is useful in its “encouraging excellence, and restraining us from harmful eccentricities and cementing members of a society around a common values system.” Botton, however, devotes the remainder of his bestselling book to countering the “excesses” of status and its “exceptional capacity to inspire sorrow” (xi). While they might be said to sound anxious, the local leaders studied here cannot be described as sorrowful in tone. Management guru Rosa Say (2012) better captures their sentiment when detailing “the wonderful camaraderie” among professional triathletes. As she writes, “It is clear that they admire and respect each other, and no less important, they genuinely like each other. … Make no mistake. . .they do compete against each other, with fierce determination” (para. 6-7). Say attributes the comity to “mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together” (para. 8). Professional baseball player Moe Berg had a similar phenomenon in mind when he observed that “there is no greater leveler, no greater teacher of humility than competitive
92 sport” (Dawidoff 2011, 92). At the time, Berg was promoting America’s pastime in Japan, and his comments were as much about the mutuality players find in competition as they were about sport’s punishment of arrogance. Likewise, Cokie Roberts (Just 2011) credits frequent across-the-aisle socializing during her father’s tenure on Capitol Hill with creating friendships that transcended partisanship.
Herein lies the irony of the language of progress: Under different cultural presumptions, so much talk of relative status, rivalry, and struggle might sound divisive. But as long as leader and led are equally committed to an achievement culture and its values of competition, perfectionism, and aggressiveness, politicians can appeal to these higher principles to establish a sense of camaraderie between themselves and much of the polity. Because local leaders and organized citizens share this cultural knowledge, translation is rarely necessary, but in 2008 Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe spoke to a state-wide gathering of miscellaneous development groups. To prevent any misunderstandings, he spoke explicitly of how cooperators can be competitors and vice versa. In the process, Beebe laid bare what local leaders usually leave between the lines:
You are here today as leaders of our State, as people who care about your own communities. Compete with each other all you want to. That’s healthy. Competition is good. But don’t begrudge one another’s success. Don’t be afraid to knock down traditional barriers. Don’t be afraid to cross jurisdictional lines. Don't be afraid to embrace crossroads or cornerstones that lead to regional partnerships. (October 17, 2009)
Interestingly, while local leaders usually failed to explicate the relationship between competition and cooperation, they were quite explicit about the benefits of cooperative effort. Whether one’s business is “biotech start-up, an insulation installer, a local caterer, or a ‘mom and pop’ shop on the corner,” said Deval Patrick (May 23,
2012), “your collective growth and prosperity depend on your collective growth and prosperity.” Christine Gregoire (May 20, 2009) spoke of education as an “investment” 93 that returns higher future earnings for students and assembled business leaders. Mike Beebe (October 17, 2008) was certain that those attending the Arkansas Works Summit would secure personal rewards if they worked together:
When the business community invests in your schools, you will succeed. When your nearest college president talks on a regular basis with your local school superintendents, you will succeed. When your mayor and your county judge sit down and talk with educators, you will succeed. When a strong community mechanism, like a chamber of commerce, brings your stakeholders together to brainstorm ideas and opportunities, you will succeed. When you prioritize improving your workforce, today, right now, you will succeed.
Such talk of interdependence and shared benefits would have resounded with Ben Franklin. Houston (2008) argues that Franklin appreciated the rhetorical challenge facing leaders seeking mutual effort. Occasionally, it is necessary to appeal to “shared vulnerability,” Franklin believed, as “a condition of equal citizenship” (Houston 2008, 91). Perhaps for this reason, local leaders sometimes talk of the risk of backsliding rather than of the promise in improvement, as Mike Beebe (October 17, 2008) does here:
Arkansas’s workforce isn’t fully equipped to compete in the 21st-century economy, and we must all work to change that, and we must start now. If we don’t, our children and our children’s children will struggle against a tide of poverty in a world that will have left them behind. That danger is real; it is not inevitable.
Beebe could have stayed on the sunny side, speaking only of the promise of progress through coordinated effort. However, the risks and benefits of collective action are not evenly distributed across citizens, and so to persuade all the people, one must instill a sense of shared threat as well as perceived mutual benefit.
DISCUSSION
The gubernatorial and mayoral speeches examined in this chapter assign the people an important social role as do the presidential addresses described in the preceding
94 chapter. But while presidents focus on citizens’ private responsibilities to the detriment of civic duties, the narrowcast speeches described here make space for public action on the parts of citizens. Speeches to local interest groups include frequent references to partnership, teamwork, and coordinated action for shared success. Contrary to popular criticism, the language of progress is not always a “makers-versus-takers rhetoric” (Sirota
2012, para. 2). As deployed by municipal and state executives of both parties, the vocabulary asks that leaders and the people become useful to one another. Should mayors and governors be commended for engaging citizens as their civic peers? Perhaps. The language of progress, however, has its own troubling consequences. First, because the language presumes a high level of personal initiative and efficacy, it mostly fails to convey a sense of obligation to the other. Second, by privileging human mastery during short time horizons, words of progress may fail to breach the leader- citizen divide. The following discussion considers each of these limitations.
Utility vs. Duty
Unlike his Puritan forebearers, Benjamin Franklin doubted that moral obligation could move most people to do the right thing, and experience taught him that selfless intentions were not necessary for community-serving outcomes. If vices such as envy, status-seeking, and the desire for material comforts could be harnessed to develop a harmonious, progressive society, so be it. Contemporary mayors and governors reflect Franklin’s thinking, for they speak mostly of interests, utility, and forward movement. But because the language of progress trades in uses and benefits, it leaves little room for obligation, which is unfortunate because no one is completely self-made.
As illustrated above, local leaders do speak of their obligations to the people, making clear that they are in debt to citizens for their own political fortunes. Otherwise,
95 mayors and governors speak only sparingly of rights, duties, IOUs, and obligations. When they do, they do so only with reference to vulnerable populations, including the military (“To all of Arizona’s veterans, I say, thank you. . .We honor you by fulfilling our solemn compact with you who faithfully served,” Jan Brewer, November 11, 2011); the needy neighbor (“That day on the road to Jericho this man found his duty near at hand and did it when no one would know,” Mitch Daniels, February 19, 2008); the elderly (“I will not turn my back on senior citizens. …To do otherwise would be to shirk our duty,” Chris Gregoire, October 17, 2008); and the nation’s elders (“Then the author compared the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boom generation and described us as the Grasshopper Generation – because we have been feeding off of that all our lives. It’s time for us, I believe, to turn that around,” (Deval Patrick, April 3, 2012).
These examples are exceptions. More commonly, citizens hear government actions described in terms of investments, rates of return, or the proverbial tide that lifts all boats. Discussions of public spending on education, infrastructure, economic development, job training, renewable energy, and substance abuse are mixed with talk of profitable returns for vested individuals. Deval Patrick’s (March 22, 2011) speech to the AFL-CIO, for example, is more in keeping with the overall pattern of the language of progress:
We worked together to give schools and teachers new tools and new ways to reach the kids stuck in the achievement gap. We worked together to streamline a sprawling transportation bureaucracy, to save the state millions and improve customer service. We worked together to end the worst excesses in our public pension system. We worked together to close our budget gap.
Patrick was here countering governor Scott Walker’s efforts to curtail Wisconsin public- sector unions, so he might have, theoretically, spoken of the fundamental right to free speech or to choose one’s associates. He also could have mentioned an obligation to
96 workers serving their fellow citizens productively. Instead, Patrick credits unions with improvements—progressive achievements that have benefited everyone. In a culture committed to progress, confident in its ability to control its destiny, and unaccustomed to hearing its leaders argue otherwise, Patrick made a good rhetorical choice. There is, however, another cultural discourse that speaks of obligations to others, and its near absence in these speeches is telling. Coined by Erik Erikson and studied today by psychologist Dan McAdams (2006), “generativity” captures the ideals of giving back and passing on what one has been given. In several separate surveys, McAdams measured generativity as a personality trait and found that high-generativity adults volunteer more, give more to charities, and show greater interest in public issues. McAdams also analyzed the personal narratives told by highly generative people and discovered a language that captures American themes of “early advantages, the suffering of others, moral depth and steadfastness, redemption, power versus love, and further growth” (70). The leaders represented in this chapter likely could tell similar stories. The joiners in their audiences, too, might be good candidates for accepting the responsibility to pass on what they have received. But mayors and governors rarely ask people to recall how their success is connected to paths paved by previous generations, mentors, or the rule of law. Instead, mayors and governors often exempt them from the duty to give something back.
Shifting Attitudes toward Progress
The language of progress is firmly rooted in modernity, an age in which individuals and groups seek to control the material world and reach their goals through rational and technological means. In earlier epochs, humans “lived in conditions that
97 were dependent to a large degree on external forces,” including “the rhythms of the seasons, the cycles of night and day, the extremes of weather and the impenetrability of natural environments” (Giddens and Pierson 1998, 16-17). Now, “faith in natural and social science, in rational administration and ever-improving technology” supports a “historical narrative that describes Western civilization as on an upward trajectory”
(Smith 2000, 507) In this way, modernity promises progress and possibility (Miller 2010). And yet “for all the achievements of modernity, there is also now a profound uneasiness” (Hunter 2007, para. 5), much of it being manifested in contemporary doubts about individual and collective agency. The increasing specialization and technical complexity of the everyday world limits any one person’s field of influence. Many see their livelihoods erased by global competition and political debates dominated by moneyed interests. Naturally, they conclude that their actions mean little and that much of life’s outcomes lie beyond their control. For such citizens, “living in the modern world is more like being aboard a careering juggernaut…rather than being in a carefully controlled and well-driven car” (Giddens 1991). World leaders and public intellectuals, too, have lost faith in the human capacity to affect major change through institutional efforts. In his most recent intellectual history, Daniel T. Rodgers (2011) reviews a quarter-century shift in focus from macro to micro forces. Since about 1980, “conceptions of human nature that in the post-World War II era had been thick with context, social circumstance, institutions, and history gave way to conceptions of human nature that stressed choice, agency, performance, and desire. Strong metaphors of society were supplanted by weaker ones” (3). With minds like those of David Riesman, C. Wright Mills, and Daniel Bell engaged in grand thinking, it is “no wonder that the leaders who followed them were so ambitious. . .presidents as 98 politically distinct as Johnson and Nixon were hardly shy about using the power of the state to achieve their ends” (Wolfe 2011, 4). Now, the current “age of fracture” admits to collective human agency, Rodgers argues, but only in a constricted way. It is in this milieu that state and local leaders seek to influence citizen opinion and action. Can the language of progress continue to persuade a citizenry that feels it is losing control? The answer is unclear. A rhetoric that speaks exclusively of citizen control while ignoring political power, competing interests, or the processes of bureaucracy might set up audiences for disappointment. As Kahne and Westheimer
(2006, 290) warn, “emphasizing efficacy may promote a false victory by obscuring the need to understand how various governmental policies and market structures can both create and respond to different social problems.” Is this true for particular individuals or the polity at large? These unanswered questions can and should be addressed through further study of the language of progress.
CONCLUSION
When speaking to civically engaged citizens who are organized around a particular interest, governors and mayors talk a good deal about how to get ahead. One can imagine young, ambitious community leaders listening attentively to the speeches studied here. Open and eager, they explore each word for hints about how they, too, can make it in the political world. Based on the findings of this chapter, soaking up the words of Benjamin Franklin would serve them equally well.12
All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world. (Benjamin Franklin)
12 The following Franklin quotations are from Brainy Quote, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjamin_franklin.html 99 When I say “we,” I mean we, all of us: government, insurers, the medical industry, business groups, doctors and other health professionals, patient advocates. Everyone has acknowledged the problem and everyone has worked on a part of the solution. (Deval Patrick, May 15, 2012)
* * * *
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. (Benjamin Franklin)
Companies, without exception, want to know that we have a well-trained, educated, modern workforce. And they also want good schools for their children and their employees’ children. (Christine Gregoire, April 6, 2006)
* * * *
Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. (Benjamin Franklin)
I won’t be satisfied until, working together, we have created the opportunity for every Arkansan who will work for it to make the most of his or her own life and until we’ve given all of our children the kind of future they need and deserve. (Mike Beebe, October 17, 2008)
* * * *
Energy and persistence conquer all things. (Benjamin Franklin)
This legislative session has been – and will continue to be – the most challenging Oregon has faced in many years. But I am determined to answer the question that I posed on the opening day of the 75th Legislative Assembly: What do we have to do to make things better? (Ted Kulongoski, May 15, 2009)
We have learned here that to sound like a U.S. governor or mayor, one must attend to Franklin’s rhythms. In doing so, local leaders find solidarity with Americans who still believe in progress. But if American culture increasingly looks to human instincts, rather than human agency, to explain social behavior, and if citizens lose confidence in the possibility of improvement, will the language of progress still resound? For “without continual growth and progress,” Franklin remarked, “such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
100 Yet for the foreseeable future, local leaders likely will continue to speak of their drive to improve. When announcing that he would step aside in 2014, Rick Perry did not say explicitly whether he would again run for the governorship. Rather, as Paul Burka heard it, Perry “just bragged about Texas, and bragged and bragged” (Schwartz and Martin 2013, 2, para. 4). Deval Patrick much earlier swore off running for elected office again. Even so, at every opportunity Patrick continued to talk about his state’s achievements in public education, balanced budgets, and health-care reform (e.g. Deval Patrick, April 12, 2011, Appendix C). In their own ways, these two very different leaders demonstrated how much they had in common with each other and with every other striving American as well.
101 Chapter Five: The Language of Experience and Television Talk Shows
Aristotle (1998) argued that human beings were, by their nature, political animals. However, many democratic citizens today are certain that the reverse is untrue, particularly when the political animal seeks or holds elected office. Writing of the current vice president’s “rubber-faced debate strategy,” John Kass (2012) of the Chicago Tribune explains that “Biden got away with it the way we indulge the crazy uncle we release from the chain in the basement so he can sit with the family on the holiday.” Fox News anchor Sheppard Smith, after almost 30 years as a professional observer of public affairs, proclaimed, “Politics is weird. And creepy” (Friedersdorf 2012, para. 3). Perhaps that is why politicians, when given the opportunity, flock to the entertainment talk show, a genre known for showcasing humanity at its best and worst. Elected leaders only slowly warmed to the venue after Ross Perot announced his presidential candidacy on Larry King Live in 1992, a watershed moment (Delli Carpini 2012). Eventually, however, more and more leaders accepted the relative risks of the talk-show interview in exchange for the potential rewards: a large, typically uncommitted audience; relatively friendly questions; and an opportunity to display one’s authenticity.
Today, national candidates and officeholders alike travel the circuit, from The View to
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, from The Daily Show to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (Baym 2010). Scholars of politics, communication, and culture have taken notice, but they disagree on what the trend means for political culture. Disinterested citizens have abandoned traditional news for competing entertainment options (Prior 2007), but at least they now encounter political leaders on more accessible turf (Baum 2005). According to some, soft-news sources such as Jon Stewart hold truer to the purpose and values of 102 public journalism than what sometimes passes for news on NBC, CBS, or CNN (Baym 2010). Others argue that “Larry King was not Mike Wallace,” (Hart 1999, 25) and that Jon Stewart refuses to accept the public leadership responsibility that has been granted him (Hart 2013). Rather than informing citizens, television in general, but especially the celebrity interview, gives leaders “no choice but to traffic in intimacy” (Hart 1999, 32).
All this may be true. But based on my close reading of 70 politicians’ interviews on celebrity talk shows, intimate disclosures about boxers versus briefs are mostly a distraction from the true power and persuasive appeal of the entertainment interview.1
On talk shows, politicians do more than reveal something about their “personal or private life, which was not publicly known before” (Eriksson 2010, 532). Rather, when at their rhetorical best on the set, politicians share stories of their leadership experiences in a way that speaks to their humanity. Narratives that explain how leaders struggle with the ultimate problems of human existence−including meaninglessness, isolation, freedom, and human mortality−tap into the universal human condition. When such accounts are relayed in an experiential language, leaders offer a glimpse across the existential divide and show themselves to be fully human. This unique register of the Common Style ultimately projects an apolitical persona for leaders that raises interesting questions for scholars and citizens alike. In the end, a discourse that denies its political nature is no less political but it may well be disingenuous.
SPEAKING OF EXPERIENCES
Talk shows, like much of modern discourse, speak the language of experience, a verb-based, introspective idiom that trades in the subjective perceptions of the world as
1 See Appendix C for a complete list of interviews analyzed, including those cited in this chapter. 103 lived. Emmanuel Mesthene (1959) contrasts the traditional language of philosophic inquiry, the “language of being,” with that of experience:
The Greeks observed the world, and they talked about the world. …they used an extroverted or object-oriented language - a noun language… In our own day, Dewey and others have argued that the language of being has been misused to perpetuate social and moral traditions by describing them as fixed constituents of nature. They have felt that the only way to correct this error . . . is to talk explicitly about experience... Dewey, therefore, uses a relational or action- oriented language - a verb language; he talks in the language of experience. (511)
Philosopher and rhetorician Paul Stob (2011, 2008) also hears the language of experience in the writings of William James as well as those of Kenneth Burke. James and Burke understood the essential human predicament to be the need to make meaning from an otherwise chaotic perceptual stream (Stob 2008). While James focused on the mind’s capacity to selectively attend to one thing instead of another, Burke emphasized the power of symbols to serve as terministic screens, directing awareness and interpretations of experience. But both Burke and James “insisted that the quality and character of our symbols shape the quality and character of our experience. To grasp that insight through the experiential language of life seems wholly fitting” (Stob 2008, 149). In this way, pragmatists gave philosophical footing to modernity’s general embrace of relational, active discourse. While the English language is highly “noun- oriented and well suited to discussions of concepts and categories,” (Peat, para. 7), the modalities of Western culture, including democracy (Cmiel 1990), television (Jamieson 1988) and even quantum physics, demanded “a more process-oriented approach, a verb- based language. . .that emphasizes flow, movement and constant transformation” (Peat, para. 7). As a consequence, many discursive forms have made a conversational turn, including public lectures (Branham and Pearce 1996), fiction (Bridgman 1966), news (Tolson 2006), and politics (Jamieson 1988).
104 The language of experience also is commonly associated with pathos, but in fact it reveals many kinds of perceptions and internal states, not just emotions. Paul Sharf (2000) helpfully clarifies the epistemological sense of experience as used here, meaning “to ‘directly perceive’, ‘observe’, ‘be aware of’, or ‘be conscious of’” (276). By describing physical perceptions—what one sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells, or feels— experiential language has “the power to evoke a wide range of sense impressions, and hence emotions” (Sharpling 2002, 175). For this reason, it is more accurate to say that the language of experience provokes, though not necessarily describes, emotional states. Bill
Clinton, for example, freely and famously spoke of his feelings, but a more circumspect George W. Bush also employed the language of experience, as he does here:
On September the 14th, 2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It is a day I will never forget. I will never forget the voices of those in hard hats yelling at me at the top of their lungs, “Whatever it takes.” I will never forget the police or firefighter coming out of the rubble who grabbed me by the arm and he looked me square in the eye, and he said, “Do not let me down.” Ever since that day—ever since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes. (Bush 2004, para. 71)
Here, the President recounts what he saw and heard that day, but the listener must infer his emotional experiences. Whatever were his feelings, they must have been intense because the President now “wakes up every morning” motivated by the experience. He describes himself as “unrelenting,” but this is a characterization of his state of being more than a description of his experience. Bush recreates the scene as he experienced it, but he does not directly speak of his sentiments. Nevertheless, his tale is quite moving. But how, and why? From what well does the language of experience draw its persuasiveness? Answering that question requires an acknowledgement of a basic human limitation: No one can ever fully know what it is like to be someone else. “We cannot
105 borrow people’s optical or olfactory or auditory nerves to know what something looks or smells like or sounds like to them, nor can we lend them a peek of the world through our senses” (Pinel et al. 2004, 352-353). Consequently, everyone experiences a degree of existential isolation each day, the “unbridgeable gulf between oneself and any other being” (Yalom 1980, 355). Unlike interpersonal isolation, which is caused by literal separation from others, one can feel existentially isolated in a crowded room. Most people are able to keep this sense of separation at bay; a few are crippled but by it; no one escapes it completely (Yalom 1980).
But thanks to symbolic exchange, humans can cooperatively build meaning from their isolated perceptions. Robert Penn Warren (1986) writes that “we are creatures of words, and if we did not have words we would have no inner life. Only because we have words can we envisage and think about experience.” With uncharacteristic succinctness, Burke (1968, 152) describes the symbol as “the verbal parallel to a pattern of experience.” In theory, the “Symbol” would perfectly reveal one’s underlying experience, but it only does so in a few extreme cases; instead, words generally “have little more than a denotative function—they point to something” (Burke 168, 158). But even though “our species conceives of reality somewhat roundabout, through various media of symbolism,” and “despite the irreducible pluralism of our experiences,” through symbols “we have the chance to leap over the gap of our unique experiences, forging commonality with some while pushing away from others” (Stob 2008, 144). And herein lies the appeal of talk about personal experiences: By promising to bridge the sensory divide, the language speaks to a common human need to know and to be known. In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke (1950, 22) argues that the resources of rhetorical identification are available precisely because there is division: “If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for rhetoricians to declare their unity.” 106 The language of experience, then, is one of a “wide range of ways whereby the rhetorical motive, through the resources of identification, can operate without conscious direction by any particular agent” (Burke 1950, 35), for the language subconsciously appeals to the desire for “absolute communication” (Burke 1950, 22) but also recognizes subjective distinctions. As Sharf (2000) contends, modernity’s strong preference for radical empiricism and specialized expertise makes the rhetoric of experience “our last line of defense” in maintaining an “autonomous self” who can also be understood by others.
Stories of Experience
But while “our deepest craving” is to understand and be understood, “little of our experience comes to us” in a comprehensible form (Warren 1986, 65). Life as lived is full of mysteries, doubts, contradictions, and enigmas, with all of it going by too fast for proper reflection. Because the stream of experience is overwhelming, “we want the factual richness of life absorbed into a pattern” (Warren 1986, 102). That pattern, says Warren, is the narrative. The story form organizes lived experience, focuses perceptive attention, and allows persons to find meaning in their experiences. To be clear, narrative and experiential language are distinct forms that sometimes co-occur, but one does not necessitate the other. A spare story can document events without revealing the protagonist’s subjective experience. The reverse is also true: experiential language can reveal new worlds without telling a meaningful story. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman exemplifies the first condition when summing up his formative years for David Letterman and his audience:
I left my senior year of high school—I’d been junior class president, ran for senior class president, lost, ran for another office and lost. Gave up on politics. Wanted to become a musician, pursued it with great passion. And left high school without a, with a couple of classes undone. Went to do music full time. Didn’t make it as a musician like I thought I might; went back to civilian life, finished 107 school, and went on kind of as planned. Now I’m back in politics. (December 21, 2011)
Huntsman focuses here on externally verifiable facts, not internal states. The audience learns the chronology of his late adolescence and how he was changed by a series of events. But viewers know very little about what Huntsman experienced as he embraced risk, lived the life of a rebellious high school drop-out, and in the process found his true calling. At the other end of the lexical spectrum, Diane Wakoski (1988) opens her autobiographical poem, “Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons,” by re-creating her childhood experiences:
The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard, as if you were walking on the beach and found a diamond as big as a shoe;
as if you had just built a wooden table and the smell of sawdust was in the air, your hands dry and woody;
as if you had eluded the man in the dark hat who had been following you all week;
These stanzas are lovely and emotive examples of the rhetorical figure of enargeia, which seeks to transcend language and “embody a primal, linguistic plenitude. . .a rhetoric not of communication. . .but of presence” (Sharpling 2002). But without the narrative form to indicate movement through time or change, the passage leaves open infinite alternative meanings. These examples illustrate that it is the combination of the narrative form and experiential language that elicits the sense of shared experiencing that moves audiences. 108 Storytellers have harnessed this rhetorical alchemy for millennia. Warren (1986) refers to it as “imaginative enactment,” where we find “not only the pleasure of recognizing the world we know and of reliving our past, but also the pleasure of entering worlds we do not know and of experimenting with experiences” (64). Thespians speak of the suspension of disbelief, and experimental psychologists seek to isolate “narrative transportation” (Green and Brock 2000). In the realm of interpersonal communication, conversational storytelling is said to draw “upon the fundamental human capacity to transfer experience from one person to another through oral narratives of personal experience” (Labov 2010, 546). But even if storytelling is fundamental to humanity, the rhetorical formula for telling good stories—the kind that lift audiences out of their own lives and into someone else’s—is not a universal gift (Green 2008). Even a seemingly natural storyteller such as Mark Twain only slowly mastered the narrative of personal experience. He first abandoned the third-person, omniscient voice for first-person narration; next, he found a language that better conveyed his lived experience than the formal lexicon then expected in literature. In Huckleberry Finn, for example, Twain discovered “a spokesman perfectly suited for describing everyday life as lived by most Americans” (Rubin Jr.
1963, 670). Thus was born the United States’ greatest novel, told in a language of experience that “speaks so directly to all Americans that we cannot fail to respond to it” (673).
The Entertainment Talk Show and the Common Need to Know
Americans also respond to talk shows, a decidedly low-brow form of entertainment. But how should we characterize these programs when an elected official is the guest? President Obama on David Letterman does not rise to the level of Nixon-
109 Frost, but it is not Chelsea Lately either. Can anything definitive be said about politicians’ appearances on entertainment talk shows? Many scholars have tried. Baum (2005) found that talk-show appearances make candidates more likable, particularly with cross-party voters, but he leaves unanswered how leaders achieve this feat. Those who conduct discourse analysis have demonstrated how the chatty tone of talk shows changes power relationships between politicians and interviewers, putting them on similar communicative and social footing (Montgomery 2008). Many assume that entertainment talk shows are pure fluff (e.g., Hamo, Kampf, and Shifman 2010), but House (2012) coded significant amounts of talk about policy, not just claptrap. On the other hand, through content analysis, Laes (2012) found that The Daily Show threw softballs at interviewees compared to CNN reporters, and that Jon
Stewart saved his easiest questions for liberal guests. Entertaining sources of political information also have been linked to civic disengagement directly through increased cynicism (Baumgartner and Morris 2006) and indirectly through cultivation.2 All of this is good to know, but with regard to the Common Style and ordinary/extraordinary leadership, important questions remain. Why are leaders so compelling when they plop down on the talk-show couch, and why do some politicians seem more compelling than others? What is it about their guest appearances that make them more likable and what exactly is it that citizens like? What are the available means of persuasion when chatting over a cup of coffee with a few million friends, and how do politicians employ this rhetoric to establish kinship with everyday citizens? Goran Eriksson (2010) gets it right when he identifies narratives as the key resource of talk shows. However, Eriksson overlooks the deeper rhetorical significance
2 See Delli Carpini (2012) for a review of soft-news effects and political engagement. 110 of these stories when he dismisses the “thrill” of their disclosures. True, such stories provide an adrenalin drip for viewers, but audiences seek the same pleasure when watching a movie, reading a novel, flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine, or conversing with friends. Call it voyeurism, escapism, or just plain curiosity, people want to know what it is like to be someone else. Bored with being themselves, fearful that they are ultimately alone, and desperate to find meaning in the aporia of lived experience, talk-show audiences crave stories of others’ experiences because of their need to know. Ironically, citizens come to talk shows to find out what it is like to be someone else and, in the process, are reassured that all people—even politicians—are the same.
SPEAKING OF THE HUMAN CONDITION
So it was with viewers of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on November 21, 2011. Like other potential presidents, Michele Bachmann made the talk-shows rounds, including a visit to Fallon’s show. At the time, the Minnesota congresswoman was a serious presidential candidate. Her poll numbers flagged as the autumn leaves fell, but during the summer she was the GOP candidate to beat. She won the Iowa Straw poll and was the first woman to do so. Only a second-term representative in Congress, she had founded and chaired a 60-person assembly of her colleagues, the Tea Party Caucus, a testament to her political opportunism if not her leadership skills. But no matter how serious Bachmann might have been about becoming the leader of the free world, on November 21, Jimmy Fallon just wanted to talk Thanksgiving dinner.
JIMMY FALLON: You do all the cooking and everything?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHELE BACHMANN: Sure!
FALLON: Stuffing? BACHMANN: Oh yeah!
111 FALLON: Dressing, stuffing—do you call it dressing or stuffing?
BACHMANN: No, we call it stuffing.
FALLON: Stuffing?
BACHMANN: Oh yeah very important to get it right.
FALLON: Right? Yeah.
BACHMANN: Right.
FALLON: Yeah, absolutely. And then, cranberry sauce—do you do the can?
BACHMANN: Oh, no. Are you kidding? The real thing. You cook ‘em down, the sugar, the whole deal.
FALLON: But the can, you, push it out--the can. [Laughter.] It makes a sound.
BACHMANN: Well, I, I, I, can’t top that.
FALLON: It stays the same shape as the can!
BACHMANN: I can’t top that—that is so cool. And then you take the fork and you smash it.
FALLON: Oh, yeah, yeah, I cut ‘em into slices.
BACHMANN: Oh! You julienne!
FALLON: Yes!
Bachmann’s supporters, as well as some of her political foes, criticized Fallon for the misogynistic music that announced the candidate’s stage entrance for this interview; however, few have discussed Fallon’s line of questioning. Throughout the seven minute and 30 second interview, Fallon made no inquiries about Bachmann’s work as a political leader or her stance on public issues. The conversation covered Donald Trump, family traditions, home life, and hair styles, but contained no overtly political concerns.
In this way, the Bachmann-Fallon interview is an outlier among the others analyzed here. Every other conversation in my sample includes at least some, or 112 considerable, talk about public affairs. Sometimes the talk was tongue-in-cheek, as when Jay Leno and Drew Hastings (November 16, 2011) bantered about what it is like to be a small-town mayor. Sometimes the questions were serious, as when Leno peppered Bachmann (September 16, 2011) with question about the debt ceiling (“You would rather that the country default?”) and her stance on homosexuality (“That whole pray-the-gay- away thing. I don’t get that.”). While the talk-show interviews I analyzed are quite diverse, the language of experience gives them coherence. That is, Fallon, Leno, Oprah Winfrey and every other successful practitioner of the personality interview wants to know what is it like to be you. One quickly notices in the following excerpts that political leaders are usually happy to oblige:
What is it like to run for office?
OPRAH WINFREY: Are you, like, getting a crash course in government?
Mr. SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, you know, there's a lot of things to...
WINFREY: Really? Like, are they at your house to--teaching you stuff every night?
Mr. SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh ...(unintelligible). It’s from morning...
WINFREY: Really?
Mr. SCHWARZENEGGER:..to--it's from morning to night, Oprah. It's amazing. You get up--I get up at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning. I used to ride the Lifecycle and watch television. Now I ride the Lifecycle for an hour and I have a stack of briefing papers in front of me and study the issues of the--and--and--and get briefed and all those things. Then you go and make phone calls for two hours. Then you go and ask people for their support and for their endorsements. Then you go do a fund-raiser. Then you go do an interview. Then you fly up to San Francisco. So it's like all day long. At midnight sometimes I sit outside the house, they're already all asleep, my whole family, and I'm still sitting out there studying a speech for the next day. And so it's very--it's--it's very intense, the 113 whole thing, but, you know, I'm in shape. I'm ready to pump it up, you know. So it's no problem. (September 15, 2003)
What is it like to have everyone criticizing you constantly?
BARBARA WALTERS: The one thorn, biggest thorn this past month?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, you know, the reasons it’s hard to answer is, the things that the media may focus on are not necessarily the things I’m focused on.
I have to sign letters to parents of children who have been killed in Afghanistan, or the husbands or wives of people who have been killed in battle. And that gives you a sense of perspective that is just different from what is going on on cable TV on any given day. (July 28, 2010)
What is it like to make decisions that change people’s lives?
LARRY KING: So those 3,000 plus lives have not died in vain?
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: No, sir. Larry, you worry about every single casualty. And
KING: Do you feel the burden of it? (July 31, 2007)
What is it like at the top?
KING: We were talking before we went on about Elvis Presley and isolation. And I was saying that I thought he had a more isolated life than you do. But this is an isolated life in here, isn't it?
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: It can be very isolating.
KING: Do you have to fight it?
CLINTON: I fight it all the time. (July 20, 1993)
In each of these cases, we hear interviewers encouraging guests to talk about their experiences of leadership. In doing so, interviewers seek what audiences want: a moment to know, vicariously, what it is like to be someone else. Pinel and colleagues (2004) argue that, interpersonally, people are drawn to others who speak experientially because it helps dispel an innate sense of existential isolation. Because everyone “needs to know
114 and to feel connected to others,” we “gravitate toward people who make us feel … connected” (353). So if guests resist such efforts, interviewers coax them back on track, as David Letterman tried to do, mostly unsuccessfully, with then-candidate George W. Bush on October 19, 2000:
DAVID LETTERMAN: Let’s talk about the debates that just concluded. We had three of them the first of them was with the, everybody’s at the podium. How did you feel about working at the podium? Did you like that?
GEORGE W. BUSH: It’s okay. It’s alright.
LETTERMAN: It seems to me, I didn’t see all, all of them, but I saw…
BUSH: Wait a minute… [Audience laughter]
LETTERMAN: I saw most of the first two and very little of the third, but it seemed to me like the most effective debate as far as actually information was the second one—did you feel comfortable with the second one?
BUSH: I felt very comfortable. I thought Jim Lehrer did a fine job. We kind of-- we weren’t hiding behind our podiums lobbing political grenades at each other.
LETTERMAN: And then the most recent one, earlier this week, I saw a little bit of it. You guys--it looked like elementary ballroom dancing. … Was that alarming or disturbing or anything?
BUSH: Uh, no it was just the way it was. I mean, it was, it was, it was, I’ve never had done one of those before like that, of course.
LETTERMAN: It just seemed odd to me. The whole thing seemed odd. And how do you feel you did? I guess, they said that you did well. They said--did you win? The people, the polls show that you won one, won two, won three?
BUSH: I don’t know. I think it’s all going to, I guess the answer to that question is what happens on November the 7th.
LETTERMAN: Right.
BUSH: Because I don’t think people are going to make up their mind as a result of one debate or another debate. I think there’s a--they’ve got to have a lot of evidence.
115 LETTERMAN: But what was the feeling based on the evidence of your camp had? Did you feel like that you had done alright? That you had won?
BUSH: Well, a lot of folks don’t think I that, you know, can string a sentence together. And so when I was able to do so--expectations were so low all I had to do was say, “Hi. I’m George W. Bush.”
Notice that Letterman is doing most of the talking here, especially early in the exchange. Heritage and Clayman (2010) explain that such terse responses are violations of the understood rules of interviewing. Public introspection was not Bush’s forte (Renshon 2002), and perhaps that was why he mostly avoided such encounters once becoming president. In this case, however, Bush defused the tension he created through humor and, oddly enough, found his best footing for the talk-show appearance, which also values witty repartee. Nevertheless, the example illustrates that the genre asks interviewees to reveal what would otherwise be inaccessible to others. The candidate’s unwillingness to follow Letterman’s lead left the audience wanting. But for those who speak the language of experience freely and easily, the talk show is an ideal opportunity to establish shared humanity. Irving Yalom (1980) identifies four universal “givens” of the human condition: isolation, meaninglessness, freedom, and mortality. It takes little interpretive license to find all four in talk-show narratives. As we saw above, President Clinton resisted isolation by jogging regularly— and by telling Larry King how frustrating it was to be kept behind bullet-proof glass. Dick Cheney justified war casualties by talking about the responsibilities entailed by his existential freedom to act. Arnold Schwarzenegger, too, described the tension he experienced between the responsibilities of public and family life−two roles he had freely chosen. Barack Obama contrasted his White House experiences to the media’s version of his life, stressing the significance of the former and the pointlessness of the latter. On yet other occasions, the uncomfortable reality of death was even invoked:
116 LARRY KING: How long do you want to stay [in office]?
SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY: I say until I get the hang of it. I usually get that question from my nieces and nephews, wondering, "How long are you going to stay?"
KING: But you’ve been called one of the great senators of all time. Time magazine dubbed you the deal maker. That must be a great honor to you. Like the Senate, obviously?
KENNEDY: I enjoy it. Time didn't always have that, 40 years ago, they had another reference to me. I’m not going to tell you about it if you don’t know. (April 20, 2006)
Retirement is a significant yet common human experience. Materially, however, Kennedy’s life in its twilight was very different from most Americans. Few people have so much control over when and how their working lives will come to a close, and Kennedy’s career surely was unparalleled. Whether senator or sanitation worker, however, everyone dies, and no one really knows what that will be like. To reach a more universal plane, the Senator draws here on the common human condition. In reflecting on his own experience, Kennedy indicates that he, too, is finding his way to the ultimate unknown. The Lion of the Senate thereby becomes mortal, bridging the gap between his privileged and powerful existence and that of everyday citizens. He finds common ground not in questions of retirement but in the human condition itself.
The Subtlety of the Language of Experience
Kennedy’s story is reserved and dignified yet revealing. He says nothing explicitly about his feelings, only that he has “enjoyed” his career and “loves” serving Massachusetts. Is he sad as the end of his career approaches? Is he hopeful? Angry? Is he buoyed-up by a sense of pride from a lifetime of public service or regretful about what he has failed to accomplish? Rhetorically, I argue, these issues are moot. With his choice of words, Kennedy indicates the emotions he is experiencing even though his
117 audience has never lived through experiences quite like his. According to Burke (1968), the power of the symbol lies not in its ability to conjure similar experience, but in communicating shared experiencing. Under normal conditions, “the author can exploit one of several mutually antagonistic experiences of the reader” so long as the words invoke something “about which we have … great emotional concern,” says Burke (1968,
158). Conversely, a gratuitous description of one’s feelings does not necessarily produce intimacy. Bill Clinton, for example, sounded completely self-absorbed following his grand-jury deposition on the Lewinsky affair (Hart, Childers, and Lind 2013). In most other circumstances Clinton shone, particularly on the talk-show set, because the language of experience was his native tongue. Even when not couched in narrative, Clinton usually found ways to externalize the internal:
KING: Foster, is he going to go through?
CLINTON: I think he will. ….
KING: Is Senator Dole going to bring it to the floor?
CLINTON: I hope he will. …
KING: And you think they’ll override a Gramm filibuster if it comes to the floor?
CLINTON: I don't see how a majority of the Senate, even 60 percent of them, could say this man’s not entitled to a vote, up or down. (June 5, 1995, emphasis added)
Notice here that King asks the President to predict future, observable events, but Clinton reflexively reports what he is thinking and feeling. And when the 42nd president combines this psychological pattern with the narrative form, he often becomes transcendent. On Larry King in 1993, for example, Clinton channeled Albert Camus by implying that perseverance is the only thing that makes life meaningful:
118 And also when you’re President, you have to make a lot of tough decisions. You just have to keep lining them up and making them, whether it’s base closings or the very difficult problems in the Pacific Northwest with the forests or the whole litany of things that we’ve done here: the POW/MIA issue and how we’re going to deal with Vietnam, the FBI, the gays in the military, you name it. And they keep coming in quick succession. You can’t just say, “Okay, stop the world. I’m going to just work on this. I’m not going to make these other decisions.” You have to keep going. (July 20, 1993)
Clinton does not say here that he is tired or frustrated with being president. He does not ask for sympathy. He simply reports what it is like to be president. Few Americans are responsible for so many intractable issues as a chief executive, but everyone at some point has wanted to jump off the merry-go-round. Clinton, however, demonstrates that one does not have to speak of one’s inner feelings to build emotional congruence between leader and citizens. Rather, any description of personal experiencing that invokes the problems fundamental to the social condition can position a leader as fully and imperfectly human.
Who Speaks the Language, How, and When
Like Clinton, Barack Obama, too, is thought to have considerable emotional appeal, although his approach is to integrate his personal experience into the larger American story (Rowland and Jones 2007). Because the language of experience appeals to the most basic aspects of the human condition, one does not a need a birthright or a particular social identity to speak that idiom. On Jay Leno’s show, for example, Obama (October 25, 2011) once justified the use of covert deadly force based on what he had experienced when in the presence of Special Force members:
It could have been a disaster, but the reason I was able to do it was -- when you meet these SEALs and you talk to them, they are the best of the best. They are professional. They are precise. They practice. They train. They understand what exactly they intend to do. They are prepared for the worst in almost every circumstance. So even though it was 50/50 that Bin Laden would be there, I was
119 a hundred percent confident in the men, and I could not have made that decision were it not for the fact that our men and women in uniform are the best there is.
The President’s description here implies that any other person who may have met Navy SEALs face-to-face would have made the same decision he did. Obama’s experience, however, was surely unique: after all, he was a man, a black man, a biracial man, a father, a Chicagoan. Nonetheless, the language of experience permits a temporary suspension of the rules of the social order, rules that normally assist meaning-making, thereby letting Obama appeal to the common lot of everyone. By way of further example, one can compare the interviews of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Michele Bachmann. By social stereotype, women ought to be particularly skilled in the language of experience, a characteristic of the feminine rhetorical style as described by Campbell (1989). But in her interview with Fallon, described above, Bachmann fails to shift into more meaningful reflections on her experiences as a leader. In contrast, the allegedly driven and distant Hillary Clinton became artful on the Letterman show, adeptly sharing what it was like to run for national office. Notice in the following that she draws on words that call upon the predicament of human freedom and the quintessential need to find deeper meaning:
LETTERMAN: You know, I think about you people all the time. Candidates. … It’s, and, and, it’s—and I want this to come out the right way—but I’m telling you, as a observer, it’s fatiguing to watch.
HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: Now, it must be, it must be taking an incredible toll on everybody in the race, except the people, now, who have dropped out.
CLINTON: Yes, that's right.
LETTERMAN: Maybe they’re the only smart ones—adios, we’re getting in the bus.
120 CLINTON: That’s right. I talked to one of them who shall rename nameless who said that he had not realized how tired he was until he stopped. You know what it’s like when you’re running on adrenaline and you just keep going. Look, it’s both exhausting and exhilarating. You know, I get into a plane or into a car and try to catch some sleep because I’m not getting much of it. But you know you end up like I did today at Clark University in Massachusetts and you know there's this huge crowd and there’s all these people and they’re so excited and you feel like you're getting an energy transfusion. And then when it’s over you get back in the car you get back in the plane and you know, you try to get some more sleep. You know, it’s that kind of cycle—it just keeps going. (February 4, 2008)
Clinton’s experience is surely unique; not many people are willing or able to campaign for the presidency. But her description does not portray her as a woman, a political insider, a skilled professional, or even a candidate. Rather, she describes herself as carrying the same burdens as anyone who might find themselves in similar circumstances, struggling with the responsibilities of her chosen life but grateful for, and sustained by, them as well. The Bachmann-Clinton comparison is, of course, unfair. Clinton had the advantage of having had many more years of media experience as well as a friendly interviewer. The disparity further demonstrates that the language of experience, like all other symbolic action, is a strategic if unconscious choice (Kellermann 1992). As in any other rhetorical situation, many factors constrain the persuasive possibilities of the language of experience used on talk shows. Because of his particular worldview, for example, Jon Stewart pushes interviewees toward experiential themes that emphasize absurdity. When interviewing guests on The Daily Show, Stewart typically avoids the “what’s it like?” question, instead aligning himself with the audience rather than with the interviewee (Faina 2013). When Stewart does give politicians an opportunity to share their leadership experiences, he does so from a decidedly cynical perspective (Hart and
Hartelius 2007). Here, for example, Stewart in effect asks the governor of Massachusetts this: “What’s it like to try to maintain your integrity while being a politician?” 121 GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK: …And the book is a tribute to the people who have given me those gifts. …who have given me a reason to believe in the politics of conviction.
JON STEWART: This politics of conviction, this idealism: have you ever thought of giving those up to run for national office?
PATRICK: [Laughter.] You know what, Jon? … Well, first, I’m not running for anything else, but I have not given up those ideals and values for any job. I think the point I’m trying to get acrossed (sic) in this book is that you don’t have to leave your conscience at the door to do a job and do it well. And I think that’s been true of our work in government as well. (April 12, 2011)
Stewart’s question presumes that politics is an unseemly game of deception, thereby forcing the governor into one of two responsive possibilities: reject the query on its face or accept its premise and explain how he can live with himself as a politician. In the process, Patrick finds an opportunity to connect with the citizen-humans in his audience who also face some level of absurdity on their jobs each and every day. In contrast, the story formula of The Montel Williams Show suggests who may speak of the human condition. During his 17-year run, Williams followed a consistent formula: spotlight otherwise anonymous citizens who have experienced a moral panic or social ill, then ask politicians to serve as expert sources on legislative solutions (Dagostino 2008). Of the eight Montel episodes in my sample, only once does an elected official fully embrace the language of experience. In that instance, Congressman Bart Stupak (March 8, 2002) became both victim and political expert. Stupak first described his experiences on the night his teenage son killed himself, then talked about a bill requiring disclosure of the possible mental-health side-effects of drugs.3 Stupak-the- citizen movingly told of his feelings of powerless in the face of his son’s death, while Stupak-the-leader made greater use of the language of being, classifying his son’s suicide
3 Stupak and his spouse, then-Mayor Laurie Stupak, blame the popular acne drug Accutane for their son’s death (Duewald 2002). 122 as preventable. The rhetorically able Stupak, in essence, found the right words for both roles demanded by the program’s formula. While he might have preferred one language to the other, he opted for a dual-language, one that quite naturally drew on life-as- experienced.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF BEING HUMAN
In chapters three and four, respectively, I asked how the languages of production and progress positioned both leaders and citizens. In this chapter, I have found that the experiential idiom of the Common Style side-steps these questions, insisting that politicians draw directly on their humanity, thereby affording a pre-social, apolitical ethos for national leaders. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeing politicians as human, but there are good reasons to be skeptical when public figures lead with their interior selves. First, the language of experience works on an American soft-spot and thus can be misleading. Second, the language allows citizens to insulate themselves from politics and that is dangerous. Both consequences are unhealthy for American political culture.
An American Longing for Openness
The popularity of televised talk shows is a world-wide phenomenon, and
Americans are particularly smitten with broadcast chat. American secular culture, from Walt Whitman to Ralph Waldo Emerson to Kanye West, is often a celebration of the self unchained from the constraints of family, class, and state. Americans are, therefore, especially susceptible to the existential isolation described earlier in this chapter. Perhaps that is why they have hired “an army of replacement confidantes,” including 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 400,000 nonclinical social workers, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 105,000 mental-health counselors, 123 220,000 substance-abuse counselors, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists, and 30,000 life coaches (Marche 2012). Talk shows are a natural response to these cultural uncertainties, offering possibilities of self-expression and personal authenticity but also displaying an over-mediated community bound by shared struggles (Xiaoping 2008). However, self-invention is only part of the cultural story; Americans are also encouraged to be self-perfecting. Throughout the eighteenth century, as “more and more Americans created—or at least presented—a better self,” they increasingly wondered about the sincerity of other people’s self-presentations, writes Claude Fischer (2010,
201). During that time, manners books became common, “Jacksonian America’s democratic culture encouraged social climbing,” and “growing cities meant encountering more strangers.” Consequently, “middleclass Americans worried more about being fooled by bad character” (Fischer 2010, 201). Without the old distinctions of gentleman and commoner, without well-known family histories or well-established community ties, on what basis could people assess the character and intentions of others? Increasingly, citizens were advised to look for, and emulate, a robust kind of authenticity. The elocutionary movement, for example, taught that rhetorical style was to be an external expression of a speaker’s internal essence (Einhorn 1987). “Among the moderns,” wrote Adam Smith in his rhetoric, “the best author is Swift, who . . . reveals his personality in his style rather than covering it over with the affected elegance of figurative language” (quoted byBizzell and Herzburg 2001, 806-807) (quoted by Bizzell & Herzburg, 2001, 806-807). From lessons like these taught in schools and community, Americans learned to read easy-going, garrulous, and unreserved communication as indicators of honesty and good character. Regional cultural preferences persisted, with the strong silent type being more desirable in New England and the upper Midwest. Nationally, however, Americans came to prefer a natural and unaffected style. 124 However, history and experience revealed no necessary connection between openness and authenticity, as a long list of disgraced public officials would prove. Even so, the love affair with interiority persists, working on Americans where they are most vulnerable: eager to believe in the essentially goodness of others, feeling alone in a country of 310 million, and susceptible to confusing candor with good character.
American political culture should, therefore, be instinctively wary of political talk-show discourse. While it is unrealistic and unnecessary for Americans to abandon the language of experience, they would be wise to pay attention to its various shortcomings—both emotionally and politically.
Liking Instead of Trusting; Knowing Instead of Questioning
Second, political discourse couched in the language of experience feeds a particularly unhelpful American beast: fear of open conflict and argumentation. Living in a violent society without natural cohesions, citizens of the United States protect themselves by encouraging affability in all. This cultural tendency makes it easy to engage in small talk with strangers, but very difficult to argue publicly about important issues. Susan Herbst (2010, 127) makes a direct connection between American trepidation over argument and experiential language: “The desire to avoid serious conflict, to ‘feel good’ during political talk, has likely been heightened by the therapeutic and self-disclosing nature of contemporary culture.” Like the “proliferation of psychological helpers and self-help books that encourages us to root out what makes us uncomfortable and unhappy,” Americans understand public argument as a problem that needs to be fixed, not embraced (Herbst, 2010, 127). The language of experience, then, is consummately American in both desirable and undesirable ways. It is fully American in that it is rooted in the liberal, egalitarian assumption that all human experience is
125 worthy of being witnessed (McAdams 2006). But it is also fully American in that it is non-argumentative, for how can one possibly disagree with someone else’s subjective experiences? The fantasy worlds of literature, film, and even video games speak to us in much the same way, often helpfully. In fact, the power of narrative to build empathy among otherwise dissimilar groups can have distinct social benefits (McAdams 2006). That said, the cumulative effect of too much experiential discourse presents a problem. Scholars have documented, for example, that soft news widens the knowledge gap between disinterested audiences and more attentive citizens (Prior 2003; Iyengar et al. 2009). In addition, experiential talk can promote an uncritical view of political leadership, as we have seen in this chapter.
What is the right ratio between being and experience? How much serial disclosure can an audience consume via Jay Leno before its interests suffer? These are difficult but not impossible questions to answer. Addressing them, however, will require an uncommon approach to soft-news research. As Michael Delli Carpini (2013) argues, very little soft-news scholarship connects people’s actual media habits to the full range of values-based behavior. Rather, most quantitative scholars compare media exposure to political knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. But depending exclusively on such measures may overlook the many subtle, procedural effects also found in the media environment. Critical/cultural research, on the other hand, often speaks provocatively to the macro-level effects of soft news, but without empirical studies to isolate and measure these effects, scholarship cannot identify the point at which soft news goes from harmless entertainment to social detriment.
Delli Carpini (2013) suggests several alternatives that would associate normative outcomes (opinions on women’s rights or torture of terror suspects, for example) with 126 exposure to entertaining sources of political information. In addition, he suggests that a cultivation-theory approach to soft news could “meld critical, cultural and quantitative research” (544). He concludes that the increasing predominance of soft-news, as well as a complex media environment of overlapping genres and technologies, “cries out for collaborative rethinking of how we conceptualize and study” politics and political- relevant information (544). No matter how the discourse is studied, it seems improbable that politicians will abandon talk shows anytime soon. As a result, citizens would be wise to follow technology guru Clay Johnson’s (2012) lead by limiting their consumption of soft news. Johnson explains the unintended side-effects of what otherwise seems to be harmless amusement:
Just because your boss doesn’t see you looking at that Kim Kardashian post on The Huffington Post doesn’t mean that it’s not without consequence. When you click on it, you’re making it so that it’s more visible to other people. That means an information diet is something that is of ethical consequence to you and others. ("Is It Time" 2012)
The unconscious consumption of soft news not only displaces more critical sources, but it also threatens one’s future information choices, as content providers strive to provide information that satisfies audience demand.4 Johnson, like many scholars of media literacy (Alvermann and Hagood 2000; Zettl 1998), argues that the first step in improving one’s information diet is to make oneself aware of what one is consuming. By doing so, audiences will be less likely to attend to lower-quality information and more likely to be conscientious in developing such habits as well.
4 As the Internet continues to replace television as a source for audio-visual media, Johnson’s point about online content becomes increasingly applicable to entertainment talk shows. Indeed, all of the content analyzed for this study originally was broadcast on free or cable television, but I collected it from online sources. It is therefore fair to assume that a significant part of the viewing population watched it online. 127 MEDIA-AND-POLITICIAN COLLUSION
Some critics bemoan chat-show politics, arguing that it is demeaning to both public life and to leadership itself. Why must John McCain—a 30-year public servant, Vietnam War veteran, and presidential candidate—smile pleasantly while the women of The View “picked our bones clean?”, asks Cindy McCain (Bradley 2008, para. 3). What important public need is met when the President of the United States (Barack Obama, July 29, 2010) shares with Barbara Walters his “rose and thorn” of the month? Defenders of soft news retort that the public needs to know their leaders. Trite as they often are, that is, talk shows contain meaningful leadership clues (Popkin 1991), and they recognize “the importance of the emotional and the apparently trivial,” offering “wider opportunities for political engagement to all sections of society” (Temple 2006,
257). In addition, entertaining political information might become a gateway to more substantial political activity (Jones 2010). Besides, if the real news cannot do its job, someone must ask politicians tough questions (Baym 2010), and to deny Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar that right is elitist, sexist, or both—or so one might argue. This chapter supports neither camp definitively, but instead draws attention to how experiential talk speaks to common human problems, thereby revealing us all to be fellow travelers on what would otherwise be a lonely trek. On this count, talk shows are nothing new. The Hebrew scriptures, for example, are filled with tales that speak to the absurdity of life (The Book of Job) and the terrifying reality of death (The Psalms). Nor is it new for politicians to use rhetoric to present themselves as fully human. As the old line goes, politics is show business for ugly people, and the talk show is simply the latest performance venue for leaders seeking to meet citizens where they live emotionally.
128 What is new is that the model for profitable media has changed. News as traditionally conceived is no longer financially omnipotent (Jones 2009), so television producers have adapted and thereby discovered that political guests are a sure-fire way to boost their ratings (e.g., Carter 2012). As political blogger Kevin Drum (2009, para. 3) observes:
Given the fact that virtually everything in the world has been entertainment-ized these days, it’s hard to see how politics could have avoided this fate. Finance is entertainment. Cooking is entertainment. Science is entertainment. Real estate is entertainment. Sports has always been entertainment. Hell, entertainment itself is having a hard time competing these days. What are the odds that politics, of all thing, could have bucked this trend?
Should we be concerned when political leaders find eager audiences on the talk- show circuit even as newspapers have a hard time calling attention to public policy issues? Are democratic ends being met when media owners and politicians find mutual benefit in the talk-show appearance versus the traditionally adversarial exchange between journalist and politician? At the very least, citizens who wish to keep their political leaders on a short leash would be wise to think of them first as political animals having strategic ends and only secondarily as fellow experiencers of life itself.
129 Chapter Six: The Language of Deference in Town Hall Meetings
In August 2009, the U.S. Congress adjourned for its traditional summer recess. Following their routine, many returned to their districts and held town hall meetings, inviting members of the public to speak their minds and learn about the latest Washington goings-on. Most officials chose health care as their chief topic, knowing of citizens’ concerns about the reform proposals. Even so, the vibrant crowds that swelled high school gymnasiums, fire halls, and church sanctuaries took almost everyone by surprise. In some locales, people had to be turned away (Urbina 2009). The extremely defiant behavior displayed at these meetings astonished many as well. Several meetings devolved into fist fights. Representative Frank Kratovil Jr. of
Maryland was hanged in effigy; Representative Lloyd Doggett’s name appeared on a mock tombstone held aloft as he tried to address a public gathering. Some legislators cancelled or rescheduled their planned meetings, citing the threat of violence and an inability to make themselves heard over jeering crowds (Adamy and Bendavid 2009). Pundits concluded that these raucous assemblies could be read as the rotten fruit emanating from a two-decade trend favoring incivility (e.g. Collins 2009). Joe Klein
(2009, 24) wrote that the town halls revealed a “public malignancy” that “threatens the democratic fabric of our nation.” If the health-care town halls were shocking or, as Klein suggests, a symptom of civic sickness, what should a town hall look like, ideally? According to American mythology, town halls are the sine qua non of democracy. As political historian Frank Bryan (2003, x) writes, the town meeting is thought to be “real democracy—where people make decisions that matter, on the spot, in face-to-face assemblies that have the force of law.” But only a tiny number of town hall meetings today enact public policy. 130 The genre nevertheless implies that everyday citizens are politically active, efficacious, and equal. Like the 1943 illustration “Freedom of Speech” in which Norman Rockwell depicts a gas-station owner with “gnarled hands, grubby jacket and blue flannel work shirt” speaking at a town hall “as if talking to God” (Kennicott 2009, para. 3), the format suggests a reverence for everyday citizens and their common-sense wisdom.
But while town halls convey a “vision of participatory democracy” (Ryfe 2001, 182), they give the people only an indirect voice in political decisions. Given this inherent contradiction, observers might well be surprised at the acquiescence usually displayed at these events. In many other ways, that is, the health-care meetings were anomalous. Normally, Congressional staffs struggle to assemble a respectable-size crowd for in-district assemblies. Sometimes referred to as “listening sessions,” attending a Congressional town hall usually feels like watching paint dry, with the politician doing most of the talking and relatively little listening (Kay 2012). Despite their mundanity, Congressional town halls have value. There, citizens come face-to-face with politics, politicians, and other citizens—an increasingly precious experience in the media age (Hart 1999). And with such close proximity to the people they represent, elected leaders can establish their legitimacy before a relatively active slice of the citizenry (Shamir 2013). Finally, as ceremonies of American political culture, Congressional town halls serve as venues in which the cultural mythos can be performed and re-affirmed (Rothenbuhler 1998; Ryfe 2001). Aware of these unique opportunities and tensions, I analyzed 55 in-district, public meetings held by U.S. Senators and Representatives between 1993 and 2013.1 My sample included meetings held in 28 different states around the country. Republicans and
1 See Appendix D for a bibliography of meetings analyzed for this study, including those cited in this chapter. Meetings ranged in length from one to seven hours. 131 Democrats sponsored these meetings in equal number, and C-SPAN recorded, broadcast, and archived them. Collectively, they bare an uncertain resemblance to the direct democracy from which they took their name, but they lived up to their reputations as sites of ritualistic interaction between leaders and citizens. I found that in town-hall meetings, legislators used a language of deference to establish and reinforce social cohesion between themselves and their constituents. Despite the conventional wisdom that politicians will simply say anything to stay in their constituents’ good graces, I found deferential rhetoric to be both a serious and complicated business. Drawing on the cultural rules of polite interaction, as well as the unique truths of American culture, political leaders achieve the proper demeanor when interfacing with citizens only through rhetorical finesse, balancing the words of esteem for, and service to, others and with those of personal integrity and independence. The most adroit and disciplined politicians use this delicate linguistic balance to evoke relations of mutual respect between themselves and citizens. In their weaker moments, legislative leaders accept the risks of a more radical version of the language, honoring citizens by dishonoring themselves.
DEFERENCE DEFINED
Deference permeates human society, as social actors of high and low status ritualistically honor one another through displays of appreciation (Goffman 1959, 1956). Conversationalists use deference to mitigate face threats (Brown and Levinson 1987). Team members rely on one another’s specialized capabilities when solving problems (Houser and Lovaglia 2002). Low-knowledge citizens defer to scientific experts when forming their opinions on controversial issues (Brossard and Nisbet 2007). Deference surrounds us and social and humanistic inquiry has frequently mined it for insights.
132 Yet every field has a slightly different conceptualization of deference. Historians, for example, speak of an early American “deference democracy,” meaning “an integrated structure of political relations and functions that was essentially elitist and was based on an organic, hierarchical view of society” (Willingham 1973, 401). Sociolinguists conceive of deference as a strategy of negative politeness that conveys avoidance, unlike positive politeness—which expresses solidarity. That is, deference is the “humbling of the self and the raising of the other” (Brown and Levinson 1987, 81-82). English literature scholar Susan Fitzmaurice (2002, 248) makes a similar assumption by locating deference in the “formal and formulaic markers of politeness” and distance. These scholars, as do others, unanimously characterize deference as intrinsically hierarchical, indicating relations of distance and unequal power. Following Erving
Goffman (1956, 1959, 1971), I suggest a broader way of thinking about deference, more in keeping with the relational and communicative realities of flattened societies, an approach that better captures the style of interaction within representative democracies. Specifically, I want to think about democratic deference as a granting of respect for one’s civic capabilities and responsibilities. The existing scholarly literature suggests how one might arrive at such a conceptualization.
First, deference is inherently relational. Sociolinguists and anthropologists remain divided as to the universality of deference in human cultures (e.g. Mao 1994), but they agree that social relationships determine what constitutes proper deference. Fraser and Nolen (1981, 94), for instance, note that “the specific terms of a relationship influence what types of speech acts,” including acts of symbolic deference, “can be seen as appropriate.” Colloquially, we speak of deference as a thing that can be granted to others, as in “giving deference” to someone or something (e.g., Brown and Levinson 1987, 23). When the Washington Post, for example, reported that George Bush “struck a 133 more deferential tone,” the newspaper also identified to whom the President deferred— his “political adversaries” (Fletcher 2005, para. 7). Civility, in contrast, connotes a general manner of conduct appropriate to a situation or context—namely, the civic realm. In sum, deference is ultimately relational because it “is not encoded in language by the use of arbitrary forms, but the use of motivated forms” (Brown and Levinson 1987, 23).
Second, deference owes its sociological force to the basic human need for inclusion and recognition. Contemporary psychology demonstrates the importance of mutual deference to developing healthy self-esteem and for warding off acts of violence
(Mecca, Smelser, and Vasconcellos 1989). Thomas Scheff (1988) theorizes that a self- confirming “deference-emotion” system explains much of human self-regulation and behavior. In this subtle feedback loop, “mutual conformity and respect lead to pride and fellow feeling, which lead to further conformity, which leads to further positive feeling, in a system that seems virtually automatic.” But when “there is a real and/or imagined rejection on one or both sides (withdrawal, criticism, insult, defeat, etc.) the deference- emotion system may show a malign form, a chain reaction of shame and anger between and within the interactant” (Scheff 1988, 397). But no matter how much they need it, people cannot grant themselves deference, says Goffman (1956). Instead, they are “forced to seek it from others” (478), largely through rituals of interaction. For this reason, deference ultimately works for social cohesion and control, even if its practice sometimes projects distance between particular individuals. For example, Fraser and Nolen (1981, 97) theorize deference as the “giving of personal value to the hearer, the giving of status, and by doing so creating relative symbolic distance between the speaker and the hearer.” Making the same assumption but from the opposite direction, Clayman and Heritage (2002, 772) presume that declining deference in press conferences signals “a reduction in the distance separating the 134 president from ordinary citizens.” But at the societal level, seeking deference ensures that people “enter into interaction and relationships with one another. If the individual could give himself the deference he desired there might be a tendency for society to disintegrate into islands inhabited by solitary cultish men, each in continuous worship at his own shrine” (Goffman, 1956, 478). Thus, deference pulls people together even as it keeps them apart. Third, because deference conveys respect and appreciation, it is not necessarily limited to social superiors. Goffman (1956, 479) pointed to acts of “symmetrical deference” between social equals, as well as rituals in which those of higher status displayed deference to those of lower social station. Indeed, “high priests all over the world seem obliged to respond to offerings with an equivalent of ‘Bless you, my son’”
(479). From this perspective, “respectful awe” is not the only motivation for deference; rather, trust, esteem for expertise, and “affection and belongingness” can also justify appreciative acts between people of differential and similar status (Goffman, 1956, 479).
The Democratic Demeanor and Deference
No matter what their social station, everyone in the United States must show deference to almost everyone else, at least in theory.2 Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans developed a preferred style of social discourse in keeping with their egalitarian sensibilities (Cmiel 1990; Smith 1999). In his travels across America, Lord Bryce (1888) noticed this style of democratic interaction, which downplayed social differences in a country otherwise stratified by class. Particularly in the United States, says Goffman (1956, 482), “differences in rank are seen as so great a threat to the
2 American society, of course, often does not live up to its egalitarian ideals in this matter. For a fascinating exploration of the lack of deference afforded African Americans and their search for civic and social inclusion in Europe, see chapter 3 of Elisa Tamarkin’s (2008) Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum America. For a pointed critique of deference in American politics, see Slouka (2008). 135 equilibrium of the system that the ceremonial aspect of behavior functions not as a way of iconically expressing these differences but as a way of carefully counterbalancing them.” Consequently, Americans hold to “conventions of flexibility and conviviality,” writes Barbara Kellerman (1984), conventions that mandate that “a successful interpersonal actor in this country is to undertake frequent pro-social or friendly communications, and it is to avoid unwarranted expressions of dominance. Quite simply, we are of a temper that is both democratic and friendly” (Kellerman 1984, 30). U.S. political culture seems particularly conflicted about deference and has been since the founding. Colonial-era elites argued that they owed no deference to hereditary aristocrats, for royal blood lines made kings and queens no more qualified for leadership than they (Richard 2004). But at the same time, the founders advocated civic republicanism to replace Europe’s regental controls. The political deference of common citizens would undergird this new civic order, leaving the work of governing to a natural aristocracy of gentleman landowners (Beeman 1992). John Adams describes this “deferential ethic” as “a Decency, and Respect, and Veneration ... for Persons in Authority” (Beeman 1992, 401). Traditional authority prevailed for a time in the colonies, but post-revolutionary
America began to experience a “changing relationship between political leaders and ordinary citizens, whose interests were becoming recognized as a necessary and legitimate part of the public good” (Beeman, 1992, 402). Over time, leaders appealed less often to civic republicanism and began to engage in “open and aggressive protection, promotion, and mobilization of interests” (Beeman, 1992, 402). By 1828, when Andrew Jackson won the presidency with promises to elevate the farmer and mechanic over the rich and the well-born, the deferential ethic had been stood on its head. American
136 political culture thereafter mandated that leaders pronounce their fealty to popular rule (Mercieca 2010). The layering of this cultural reverence for the citizenry onto the American insistence for egalitarian sociability results in an “other-directed” political leadership, says Kellerman (1984). Such a headship defers to what the people want rather than to what great leaders decide by relying on their own thoughts and reflections. For better or worse, conceding to the public’s wishes holds in tension “the individualism of the American Creed on the one hand and the conformity of American behavior on the other”
(Kellerman 1984, 31). In sum, U.S. political leaders must symbolically defer to citizens for at least two reasons. First, because social cohesion necessitates it, and second, because American culture expects it, even if most people would rather not make political decisions themselves (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002). For a politician to do any less would seem anti-social or even imperial by U.S. standards. But at the same time, leadership requires something more than pure deference. As Jennifer Lees-Marshment (2012, 165) observes, not just in the United States, but “globally, in established democracies, there is a trend towards a public that wants to feel a sense of involvement in political decision-making but [that] also desires strong, principled leadership.” John Gastil (1994) argues that democratic leadership is conceptually distinct from authority, but lay audiences seem to conflate the two (Barker and Carman 2012). Political theorists would agree that a certain measure of centralized power is necessary for democratic governance, and as long as authorities remain ultimately answerable to citizens for their actions, regimes retain their democratic character (Dahl 1982). As Tulis (1987, 39) observed of the U.S. presidency, it was
“intended to be representative of the people, but not merely responsive to popular will.”
137 Rather, “the president was to be free enough from the daily shifts in public opinion so that he could refine it.” Whether executive or legislative, democratic leadership therefore demands some deference—but not too much. As Barker and Carman (2012, 152) write, total defiance of public opinion “might not really count as leadership at all,” because autocratic control makes social relations between leader and citizen unnecessary. Edmund Burke, for example, argued that good governance demanded that representatives ignore the fickle and ill-informed public, instead relying only on their own superior judgments. While that may count as governance, says Hanna Pitkin (1967, 170), it cannot count as democratic representation. In contrast, absolute deferment “lies a ‘delegate’ democracy where. . .there is little need . . .for formal leadership, since the views of the electorate should be translated directly into public policy” (Geer 1996, 17). At both extremes, officials renounce leadership, which by definition requires some level of affection between authorities and the electorate. And as most long-time associates know, maintaining affection requires substantial effort.
The Deference Dilemma
According to social satirists—and even some leaders—political deference is simple. As the following critics imply, politics and acquiescence go hand-in-hand:
Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. --Groucho Marx
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. --H.L. Menken
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. --Ronald Reagan
But in fact there is more to deferential leadership than meets the cynical eye. U.S. politics demands an artful balance between respect offered and respect retained. Too 138 little deference can be read as haughtiness while too much deference might call into question the leader’s credibility. Several historical examples illustrate the point. Hebert Hoover, for instance, erred on the side of arrogance. According to Alan Brinkley (2010), Hoover’s repeated missteps at the opening of the Great Depression communicated that he had no empathy for suffering citizens and was impervious to their concerns. Similarly, if U.S. politicians indicate that leadership is theirs alone to execute, they risk charges of egotism or even autocracy. Al Haig was a case in point, having never lived down his statement, “I am in control here,” words uttered while President Reagan lay nearly mortally wounded at George Washington Hospital (Hohmann 2010). Haig apparently thought the situation called for a decisive statement of power to calm the public, but his words had the opposite effect. Haig, the Army general, had not learned the cardinal rule of elected American leadership: never forget who is really in charge. Conversely, politicians who seem too quick to appease citizens will be chided as weak-willed and ineffectual. To wit, a leader such as Bill Clinton, at the height of his popularity, opened himself to charges of immorality and a lack of principles. Thanks to his cunning ability to morph and match the political landscape (Murphy 2002), Clinton opened himself to charges by Republicans that he was governing by the polls. Susan Millgram (2011) unwittingly testifies to the presumption that true leadership requires some measure of defiance when she opines: “Paul Ryan Ignores Polls, Shows Leadership in Budget Debate.” The most effective leadership demeanor lies somewhere between these extremes of indifference and concern, between independence and subservience. Effective leaders therefore must use rhetoric to negotiate the horns of this dilemma, conveying respect for others to the extent that they do not sacrifice their own credibility. Ironically, “elected 139 officials must be both leaders and followers” in a representative democracy (Geer 1996, 16). This is not a straightforward problem but it is a common one; political leaders face it each time they speak to the citizenry. From this perspective, symbolic deference sounds rather mercurial. It certainly serves strategic ends, although not necessarily self-interested ones. Rather, deference helps to maintain leader-citizen relations. If relationships are cooperative exchanges, then symbolic deference is the means by which people trade respect for their mutual benefit. As Sykes and Clark (1975, 591) put it, a “common ‘coin’ of exchange is used to bestow social value, and the tokens of such coin are the niceties of ceremony.” From this perspective, the linguistic rituals of social interaction are more than rote and banal expressions, and are instead a subtle and necessary system of rhetorical regulation. When leaders offer too much or too little coinage, they violate the rules of Common Style and alienate the people. But when leaders modulate their rhetoric, offering and withholding the proper amount of deferential respect, they often succeed in building harmonious associations. To further complicate such matters, town-hall meetings represent a truly bizarre encounter between people of unequal social and political status. For better or worse, elected leaders generally occupy an elevated position above the average citizen, economically and socially. But at the same time, an American sensibility indicates that citizens hold superior political power, at least in myth if not in fact. Likewise, the elected official has greater expertise and more sources of information on politics and public policy, but in a body ruled by a democratic majority, the opinions and experiences of citizens ultimately trump the politician’s specialized knowledge. These paradoxes underlie all U.S. politics, but when leaders and citizens come face-to-face in a town-hall meeting, where the people themselves live, the contradictions cannot be escaped. Under 140 such convoluted conditions of power and differential status, how can leaders and citizens maintain productive associations?
THE LANGUAGE OF DEMOCRATIC DEFERENCE
Legislators respond to these dilemmas by performing the linguistic rituals of democratic deference, thereby demonstrating their willingness to abide by the unspoken rules of mutually respectful relations between U.S. leaders and citizens. As demonstrated in the meetings studied here, the steps of this delicate rhetorical dance are as follows: first, sound appreciative; next, verbally accommodate citizens’ opinions and capacity for influence; and finally, heed the communicative obligations of representative leadership. When strung together adroitly, these symbolic acts make “a concession to the authority of the sovereign people” (Kane and Patapan 2010, 372) without sacrificing the leader’s integrity.
Appreciation
To strike the proper deportment for leadership, legislators must first sound grateful. As Goffman (1956, 477) sees it, deference is “that component of activity which functions as a symbolic means by which appreciation is regularly conveyed to a recipient
… These marks of devotion represent ways in which an actor celebrates and confirms” relationships. Humans crave the comfort of the clan as well as individual freedom, so deference rituals must both present (draw near) and avoid (respect boundaries). Social life consequently involves a “constant dialectic between presentational rituals and avoidance rituals. A peculiar tension must be maintained, for these opposing requirements of conduct must somehow be held apart from one another and yet realized”
(Goffman 1956, 488).
141 To verbally demonstrate their appreciation, American legislators pepper their constituent meetings with simple and frequent expressions of gratitude. For example:
Thank you for your comments. (Russ Feingold, April 16, 1993)
I’m glad you raised it. (Joe Lieberman, March 31 1999)
I want to thank Mr. Williams for your kind introduction and all of you for what you have done for our country. So often it is said that our veterans seem as if they are unseen and noticed, unappreciated, and un-applauded. Join me in giving yourselves a hand. (Elijah Cummings, August 3, 2009)
When we do town hall meetings like this, I always start out with a couple of words of thanks. I say this from the bottom of my heart: thank you for the privilege of working for you. You are my boss. You and the people who live in the first congressional district. Thank you for coming out today. (Jo Bonner, August 26, 2010)
One might dismiss such statements as platitudinous, but they serve an important purpose. Anything but empty, these ritualistic expressions of appreciation testify to the speaker’s desire to be in social communion with the listener. Beyond the ubiquitous “thank you,” legislators take special pains to sell the compliment. For example, Senator Lisa Murkowski opened am August 20, 2009, meeting by noting that “outside we have a beautiful Alaska summer day. And you all chose to be here, to give two hours of your evening, to offer your comments, your concerns, yours suggestions, your fears. And I thank you for doing this.” Murkowski could have simply said, “thank you for being here tonight,” but instead she built a case for why the citizens in her midst merited special recognition. Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland, too, took time to explain what made his audience worthy of praise:
My friends, allow me to begin this afternoon by thanking you for coming out. It makes me feel good. …every time that I have come here…we always have a
142 good audience. I want to thank all of you. We really have every seat filled. (Elijah Cummings, August 3, 2009)
In her ethnographic study of town meetings, Townsend (2009) found opening and closing dialogue to be highly formulaic, closing hewing to ritualistic expectations developed over time. The local meetings studied here also conveyed a liturgical, although informal, quality. Rather than following Roberts Rules, leader-citizen interaction is structured by cultural norms that require politicians to recognize the engaged people before them. Citizens express appreciation in return, thanking legislators for their presence, their leadership, and their work. One of Russ Feingold’s (April 16, 1993) constituents, for instance, explicitly told the new senator: “I appreciate your sensitivity to your constituents.” Most participants probably do not consciously notice a leader’s words of appreciation, but if these simple expressions of gratitude were missing, constituents would sense their absence. Likewise, leaders lift up the people in their midst as civic-minded and politically astute. As Representative Dan Lundgren (August 18, 2006) told his constituents, “I appreciate the fact that so many of you have come out, and it seems to me that this is a great demonstration of democracy in action.” Senator Ron Wyden (January 10, 2010) said that “the gentleman raises another good point and that is, is it possible to take some sort of, I believe you used the word incremental approach.” Before responding to an audience member, Tom Coburn (August 16, 2011) expressed the same sentiment in three words: “Two good questions.” As presented here, these statements may sound like so much flattery, but within the town-hall setting they present the leader as being almost devotional. Particularly when a questioner implicitly gains “a measure of control over the introduction of topics, and hence the ‘agenda’ for the occasion” (Drew and Heritage 1992, 49), a deferential
143 answer indicates respect for the space between questioner and questioned. For this reason, Newt Gingrich (October 19, 1999) tells one citizen that he asked “a very good, very sobering set of questions,” and another that he raised “a very good point.” In doing so, the Speaker of the House emphasizes the agency of the inquirer. Too much appreciation, however, can be smothering, so leaders also use words to convey separation and autonomy. For example, when a citizen questioned Gingrich about an education-financing option being considered in the neighboring state, the Representative said that he would “let Alabama decide for itself whether that’s a road
Alabama wants to go down.” Texas representative Kevin Brady (August 24, 2011) also sought to distance himself from one citizen, but for different reasons. When questioned by a constituent who disapproved of Republican tax cuts, Brady responded: “With all due respect, I disagree with the way you characterized everything you said.” Nonetheless, leaders rarely chose words that explicitly distanced themselves from citizens. More often, legislators found subtle ways to be present and avoidant at the same time. Lisa Murkowski (August 20, 2009) illustrates when she responds to a local physician speaking at a health-care meeting: “I want to acknowledge you and thank you as a family practice doctor. You are almost a dying breed in our state.” Murkowski’s words draw attention to the citizen, presenting her as a person of special value in the community. At the same time, as a “dying breed,” the doctor also stands apart, distinct from the people in the room, not to mention other Alaskans. With her words, Murkowski wove the doctor into the community but also left space for the doctor’s individuality. Terms signaling presentation and avoidance collectively honor the inherent contradictions of democratic citizenship.
144 Accommodation
While Goffman saw appreciation in the everyday interactions among people, other social theorists have conceptualized symbolic deference as a kind of accommodation. These scholars foreground differences in status, expertise, or power, which create social divisions that might otherwise become adversarial. Symbolic deference naturalizes the resulting hierarchy, creating a buffer useful for smoothing interactions between people on different rungs of the social ladder. For example, Steve Clayman and colleagues (Clayman et al. 2006; Clayman and Heritage 2002) argue that journalists display their lack of deference for the president through active, direct, assertive, and adversarial questioning. It thereby follows that a deferential style is one that accommodates others by making space for them. In local meetings, legislators do so in at least three ways. First, the leaders studied here explicitly allowed for citizen initiative, symbolically opening the door to the audience’s political assertions. For example, after an exchange with a constituent whom Bob Kerrey (August 28, 1993) clearly knew, and with whom he disagreed, the Senator invited his interlocutor to bring others into the conversation. He asked, “To get an open dialogue started, what do you think should be the alternatives” to lower mileage requirements on cars and trucks? His question sparked no broader dialogue, but the citizen did explain her position and, as a result, Kerrey was able to indentify points on which they agreed, as well as reasons why he supported lower mileage standards. Kerrey took a risk, granting a great deal of leeway to the citizen, but considering their differences, as well as his prior experiences with the constituent, it probably was a risk worth taking. In contrast, Kevin Brady (August 24, 2011) used his more secure position with a like-minded person to open an exchange of ideas. When responding to a constituent’s question about the growing Federal Register, Brady first 145 explained his own bill to curtail rulemaking and then asked the audience member if “that is something you could support?” In both instances, the leaders spoke in ways that accommodated certain differences in opinion. Clearly, Brady had good reason to expect that his questioner would support his position, but nevertheless, in asking the question Brady tacitly acknowledged that citizens have their own ideas. Both Brady and Kerrey suggested a measure of equality between themselves and the citizens in their audiences. Differences in opinion may still divide, as they did in Kerrey’s case. Even so, Kerrey found what commonality he could find, including a mutual desire to reduce oil imports, as well as a shared ability to weigh in on important public matters. Second, leaders use words to acknowledge and accommodate citizen power.
Representative Barbara Lee (March 24, 2007), for example, told her constituents that their work against the Iraq War had resulted in specific legislative victories. Speaking of legislation to disestablish U.S. military bases in Iraqi, she said that “that came from you, right here in the ninth Congressional district. It’s accepted now as a policy by both Democrats and Republicans in the House.” She also assured her audience that a budget supplemental that denied more funding for the war—a bill many in the audience supported—was having its intended effect: “This bill that passed yesterday has them, the White House, on the defensive,” she said. Overall, “the elections in November sent a strong message to the White House to do something,” said Lee. Two years later, on the other side of the aisle and within a different debate, several leaders assured their constituents that, thanks to the “huge turnout at meetings like these” (August 12, Grassley 2009), Congress would have to abandon its planned comprehensive healthcare reform. Dan Lundgren (August 18, 2009) said that “the outpouring and passionate views of the public have made a huge difference in 146 Washington D.C.” Senator Grassley voiced the same sentiment, but he also reminded Iowans that votes matter most: “Every two years, you have an opportunity in an election; and there are significant times when elections have made a difference. Elections have consequences. We’re finding that out right now.” Lee, Lundgren, and Grassley acknowledged citizens’ past political actions, implicitly encouraging them to continue their political engagement. More profoundly, such talk acknowledged and tacitly approved of citizen initiatives, crediting them with a relatively high level of political influence.
In comparison, legislative leaders speak circumspectly of their own power. Senator Joe Lieberman (March 31, 1999), for example, was careful not to promise so- called “notch babies” higher Social Security benefits, despite what was then projected to be a $1 trillion budget surplus. Even with the extra public cash, Lieberman could only commit to his effort, not the benefit: “We’re going to give it a shot this time—I don’t want to raise your expectations or anything,” he said. The distinction here is subtle but important: legislators may promise the moon when it comes to their personal efforts, but their political power is limited and ultimately over-shadowed by that of citizens. “That’s why we need you to keep pushing, keep fighting,” said Barbara Mikulski (September 27,
2005) in reference to Social Security. Third, legislators mostly concur with voters and only rarely express disagreements with them. Following the common stereotype of politicians as sycophants, politicians in the meetings I studied usually showered constituents with frequent professions of agreement, as do Kerrey, Phil Gingrey, and Paul Gosar here:
I completely agree with you. Let me say a couple things. (Kerrey, August 28, 1993)
147 Larry, I appreciate that point. Everybody in the room agrees with you. I hope we live long enough to see some changes there because I'm tired of it as well. (Phil Gingrey, August 18, 2010)
I agree with you. (Paul Gosar, February 4, 2011)
Even when they disagree, politicians can find concordance in difference:
It’s possible. But the proposal I’m going to make is ending stocks. (August 28, Kerrey 1993)
That’s an interesting idea—I’ll think about it. It’s like everything else, it depends on how much it costs and what it all adds up to. (Lieberman, March 31, 1999)
At the end of that conversation, we may have to agree to disagree, but on something as important as health care, it is of this important for us to engage. (Donna Edwards, August 25, 2009)
To say that politicians agree with their constituents is to say that the sky is blue.
The more interesting question is why? The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. Discourse analysts (e.g., Clayman 2002) explain that with affirmation (versus disagreement) a respondent chooses the more efficient and pro-social alternative. While disagreement closes off options, affirmation makes cooperation possible. Notice that in the examples cited above, the leaders use their positive responses as springboards for further comments. Bob Kerrey, for example, wanted to “say a couple things,” and the possibility of “agreeing to disagree” was reason enough to keep talking, claimed Donna Edwards. Just as improvisational actors are taught to respond to their fellow performers affirmatively and not with the negative, leaders almost always voice agreement when talking with citizens. There are, of course, limits to legislative leaders’ agreeableness. Senator Tom Coburn (August 16, 2011) minced no words when a town haller asked if “we can count on you” to “support the Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Act.” He responded, “The answer is no, you cannot.” Coburn went on to explain his opposition to the bill, but the initial
148 shortness of his response made it stand out in the town-hall context. Senators and representatives more often opened doors for citizens rather than closing them.
Obligation
Finally, political philosophers often write of deference as a state of obligation
(e.g., Perry 2011b). In her classic account, Hanna Pitkin (1967) argued that democratic representation “involves, inter alia, authorization, accountability, and the looking out for another’s interests” (Rehfeld 2006, 3). Similarly, Robert Dahl (1982) argued that true democracy does not preclude delegation, as long as the people’s representatives maintain “final control over the agenda of the demos” (47). In this sense, to be deferential is to forego final authority and to be answerable or responsive to another.
In local meetings with constituents, leaders stylistically conveyed their obligations to citizens through talk of constant contact. Mentions of communication conjure engagement and accessibility and also imply connection among leaders and constituents. As legislators demonstrate below, there are many, many ways to say: “I need to hear from you”:
I have an open mind. I’m here today to share with you and to also listen to you. I know when to do that in a civil and respectful way. We always do that here. When we are finished, hopefully, the residents will show the rest of America how a town meeting ought to be run. (Gerry Connolly, August 25, 2009)
After I had my town hall meeting in Folsom, a month ago, I went back and told my colleagues what I had heard and what I had seen—the passion, the interest, the knowledge that people had about this issue. (Dan Lundgren, August 18, 2009)
This is part of the pledge that I made to Oregon back in 1995. I said if I was chosen as Oregon’s first new United States Senator in 30 years, we would have an open community meeting in every county every year that I served in the Senate. So that’s what we have done. We have had more than 500 of them. For the next 90 minutes or so, we are going to practice pure, unfiltered democracy. (Ron Wyden, January 10, 2010)
149 I’ll be back next year, and I’ll be back in two years if I get elected. (Arlen Specter, August 11, 2009)
But it is so important that we come back, that we stand before you, to present ourselves, let you know our perspective, our insights, what we’re seeing, and today I want to give you a little additional insight. (Allen West, August 30, 2011)
I am here to answer questions you have and share a few thoughts, but most importantly I’m here to listen. It is a tradition in this district we start the year listening and now more than ever I think it’s important that Washington D.C. listen to the American people and to their priorities and so please feel free just to make a comment. (Mike Pence, January 7, 2010)
I really only have one rule, and that is when we get to the Q&A period, I am going try to give as many of you an opportunity to make a comment as wish to. You’re here to talk to me and I’m here to talk to you and to listen to you. (Joe Barton, August 19, 2010)
Whether artful or hackneyed, articulated commitments like these operate as a form of meta-communication. Interpersonally, meta-communication serves as a power- maintenance strategy within relationships. Patch (1995, 748) explains that “people who meta-communicate are willing to comment on the appropriateness of another’s behavior as it happens, thereby legitimizing their own standards or their own perspective.” In contrast, those who do not meta-communicate are “constrained by a tacit acceptance of another’s behavior” and “sacrifice power for the sake of face saving and politeness.” But the leaders studied here flip the relational function of meta-communication, commenting on their own communication behavior (“I need to hear from those who disagree;” “What I have tried to do in order to get the message out.”) In essence, legislators constrain themselves through meta-communication by referencing their obligation to be in touch with the public. Legislators also convey their obligation to constituents through detailed accounts of Washington work. During the town-hall meetings, many leaders found it difficult to repress their inner policy wonk. Steny Hoyer (February 22, 2005) offered a 15-minute
150 history lesson on Social Security. 3 Rick Santorum (April 23, 2003) took 11 minutes to explain the status of Medicare and Medicaid funding. 4 Steve Kuyendall (August 23, 1999) spent two minutes explaining why he knows almost nothing about private pension protection.5 Based on the general rules of conversation, it is impolite to dominate an interaction by broadcasting irrelevant information (Grice 1989). But when thinking about symbolic deference, detailed narratives convey accountability. Norms will vary by organization and situation but, generally speaking, the more detailed the report the greater the implied need for a public accounting. A thorough reporting of actions taken not only demonstrates a leader’s legislative energy but also tells citizens they can expect full explanations from their leaders.
THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF DEFERENCE
Duncan (1985, 262) observes that “superiors, inferiors, and equals use. . .ceremonies as social stages to display themselves before audiences whose approval sustains their position in the local hierarchy.” By examining Congressional town halls as a type of social ceremony, we find that Senators and Representatives maintain their positions, paradoxically, through words venerating others. That is, the Common Style adheres to the American preference for other-directed leadership (Kellerman 1984) and sustains the cultural mythos of a sovereign citizenry (Mercieca 2010). Even so, it is entirely possible for leaders to rely too much on a good thing.
Mutual vs. Asymmetric Deference
At its most egalitarian, the language of deference approaches citizens as political equals, presuming that they can form, hold, and voice their own opinions. The Bob
3 See http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MeetingonSoci, starting at 11:00 and ending at 24:40. 4 See http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/HallMeetingon, starting at 7:40 and ending at 18:57. 5See http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CongressionalTo, starting at 34:55 and ending at 36:52. 151 Kerrey (August 28, 1993) example cited earlier is representative. By asking a disagreeing citizen to share her views, he momentarily deferred to her, accommodating her difference of opinion, and implied that others had the right to express their ideas as well. In that same exchange, the Senator also asserted his own right to disagree. At its extreme, the language of deference approaches citizens as political superiors, elevating their local knowledge and experiences above that of a distant or centralized leadership. Indiana Congressman Mike Pence (January 7, 2011), for example, joked that
throughout my nine years we’ve done town halls on a regular basis. My wife says they’re my anecdote to Potomac fever. She means things that sound like a good idea in Washington before you come home, I go to a town hall meeting, and get an attitude adjustment.
Representative Mike Lee (August 30, 2011) of Utah was more serious when warning that onerous regulation is the consequence of allowing “laws to be made by people other than Congress. … The reason why we got rid of King George III is because we could not get him out of office.” Pence deprecates himself with clichéd humor, while Lee gains Tea Party credibility by referencing the Revolution. Using slightly different styles, both Lee and Pence aligned themselves with praiseworthy citizens even as they distanced themselves from Washington and called into question the capacities and motives of other leaders. In the meetings studied here, it was not unusual to hear both inflections of deference—and sometimes within the same meeting. Why the shape-shifting? Warren Bennis (2007) answers that effective principals will consider what is possible in a given time and place, offering a different form of leadership as needed to capitalize on a given situation. From a philosophical perspective, Kolers (2005, 156) concludes that sometimes political movements require a kind of deference that is critical and 152 questioning, while at other moments “the agent is to be determined by someone else’s judgment.” Likewise, Fenno (1978) found that an elected representative’s interpersonal demeanor is largely a function of what the leader understands to be unique about the district and the particular group being addressed. Barker and Carmen (2012) argue that the cultural divide within the United States demands different styles of leadership, with red America preferring minimal deference and blue districts listening for more consideration. In the town halls I studied, I found further evidence that politicians must be attuned to facts on the ground when deploying a given leadership style.
Even if there are situational benefits to unbalanced deference, this analysis also demonstrates that it comes at a cost. Representative Joe Barton paid that price when he briefly lost control to two citizens attending his August 19, 2010, meeting in Crowley,
Texas. His constituents insisted that the Congressman support militarization of the southern U.S. perimeter and shoot-to-kill orders for border-jumpers. This was a position judged too extreme even for a member of the Tea Party caucus, but Barton had trouble finding words to say so, struggling through seven minutes of dialogue to come to a defensible position that satisfied his interrogators. He finally settled on an explicit statement of disagreement: “I believe in civilian control, and I do not want to militarize the border between the U.S. and Mexico.” This was a difficult turn for Barton because, up to that point in the proceedings, he had deferred to populist wisdom and reflected a deep suspicion of the current leadership in the nation’s capital.6 Some 1,300 miles to the north at his town hall on health care, Bart Stupak (January 7, 2010) adopted a style of deference moderated by a measure of self-respect. He opened the meeting by acknowledging the differences of opinion in the room, asking
6 See http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JoeBart, running from 32:50 to 37:22 and 42:14 to 50:15. 153 constituents to contact his office and expressing appreciation for those who came to ask him difficult questions. However, Stupak in no way denigrated his own leadership or that of the opposing political party. When the grilling started, the Representative consequently held a relatively strong position. Stupak frequently corrected his constituents, explained his thinking in detail, defended his legislative actions, and insisted that participants show him and others respect by refraining from shouting, interrupting, or cursing. The hour-and-a-half meeting was tense and both sides of the debate were heard. As these examples illustrate, leadership rhetoric is not unidirectional nor is it inconsequential. Most basically, town-hall meetings highlight the dialogic nature of public address, making them part of an ongoing public conversation. Interpersonal scholars have long recognized that the tenor of talk influences how conversational partners subsequently interact with one another (Bateson 1979). Recent applications of Social Learning Theory also demonstrate that, in a deliberative setting, communicators will model the civility or incivility of others (Han and Brazeal 2013). This chapter indicates that the same may be true of oratory: citizens will respond to the rhetorical projection of leadership in predictable ways, choosing a tone that fits the interactional frame suggested by the leader’s discourse.
In the end, even if situational exigencies sometimes demand a stoutly populist tone, asymmetrical deference cannot sustain itself. Demeaning fellow politicians is a reliable but lazy way to connect with Americans citizens who have been taught that politics is beneath them. Ultimately, however, a rhetoric that defers to citizens by denigrating political leadership sacrifices its ability to be transformational. Thanks to the dual demands for ordinary cum extraordinary leadership, American politicians must work hard to harmonize deference to the people with a language of inspired transcendence.
154 Leaders of Good Conscience; Citizens Who Know Their Limits
Turning from social implications to practical ones, elected officials must maintain a sense of personal and public integrity even when deferring to voters. Too much obsequious language can upend this tricky balancing act. When does leadership become so deferential that it no longer leads?
Joe Klein (2009) must have had this question in mind when attending Blanche Lincoln’s 2009 health-care town hall in Russellville, Arkansas. Klein noted that circumstances had put the Senator in a very difficult position, since she faced a tough re- election campaign and might be required to deliver a key vote for passing reform. But in an “attempt to speak the same language as her electorate,” Lincoln offered “gobbledygook,” says Klein, creating confusion rather than clarity (24). The New York
Times ("Who Wants" 2009) also declared that “too many members of Congress” assumed a posture of “passivity and pandering” during the health-care town halls. The Times called for defiant leadership, not the “I-respect-your-opinion razzmatazz being mouthed by more timorous politicians.” I have argued here that the language of deference is more than razzmatazz because it provides a needed centripetal force in U.S. political culture. But the language has its limits, too. It can coalesce otherwise disparate factions only as long as both parties are willing to abide by its principles. As Avery Kolers (2005, 157) writes, “Deference involves understanding the value, but also the limits, of one’s own best judgment and perspective.” Ample evidence from the health-care town halls indicates that many in attendance were unwilling to abide by these boundaries. Klein (2009), for example, observed that no matter how clearly Senator Lincoln addressed the facts, her audience presumed her statements to be false. At the other extreme, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank showed little deference in his meetings, but how else might 155 he have responded when a constituent demanded to know “why he supported President Obama’s ‘Nazi policy,’” other than to ask on what planet the citizen usually resides? ("Who Wants" 2009, para. 1-2). Because American political culture asks that leaders be both ordinary and extraordinary, finding the proper balance between other-directedness and personal fortitude is the key leadership challenge in the United States. That challenge becomes impossible, however, if a critical mass of citizens fails to recognize its own limited vision. Many activist groups and media personalities did just that when encouraging citizens to disrupt Congressional town halls on health care (Urbina 2009). Only when leaders and citizens recognize that their opinions and interests are necessarily hamstrung by those of other citizens can democratic deference be both mutual and constructive.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEADERSHIP
Ultimately, the language of deference speaks directly to the ongoing debate over political representation. After more than 200 years of experimenting, Americans are still troubled by leadership questions: Are elected officials to be trustees, making wise choices on behalf of citizens? Or should they to be delegates, acting as a conduit for the majority’s wishes? (Barker and Carman 2012; Pitkin 1967). Do legislators act in the best interests of their constituents when they embrace the most advantageous policy for their district or when working for the national common good? (Disch 2012). As long as these debates remain unsettled, senators and representatives must answer to all at once. For this reason alone, members of Congress arguably have the hardest job in U.S. politics, being forced to demonstrate allegiance to their party, to Congress, to the country, and to their home districts—all at the same time.
156 With more than 16 years on Capitol Hill, Rick Santorum surely wrestled with these competing demands, which makes the following narrative from the 2012 presidential campaign all the more revealing. At one Santorum event, a supporter indentified President Obama as “‘an avowed Muslim’ who ‘constantly says that our Constitution is passé’ and ‘has no legal right to be calling himself president’.” Santorum did nothing to correct her. Instead, he later told reporters, “I don’t feel it’s my obligation every time someone says something I don’t agree with to contradict them” (Avlon 2012, para. 7-8). As a leader, did Santorum have a responsibility to set the follower right? Or, as a fellow citizen, did he fail in his ethical duty? As I have argued here, much of U.S. political culture says that Santorum chose well by being agreeable and by conceding the rights of citizens to have their own opinions. But a countervailing strain demands that
Santorum do far more if he wishes to wear the full mantle of leadership. Some say it is unfortunate that our leaders, like Santorum, fail to “push us out of our comfort zone and make us great” (Friedman 2011, para. 9). Others say that the problem lies not with our leaders but with ourselves, persons now unaccustomed to acknowledging “just authority” (Brooks 2012a, para. 6). Based on the Santorum case, both camps miss a more important point: The problem is not that citizens denounce their leaders nor that leaders kowtow to citizens but that both fail to hold one another accountable for the civic and ethical duties of responsible self-governance. In true democracy, that is, both leaders and led have their obligations, obligations demanding someone defer to someone else about something.
157 Chapter Seven: The Logic of the Common Style
There are few things in U.S. politics that unite as effectively as the Common Style. Observers of the left, right, and in-between agree—to their consternation—that the Common Style is a fact of political life. Its sound raises both suspicion and resignation, as evidenced by the following statements from the blogosphere: The Common Style is inauthentic: “Mitt Romney visited Des Moines earlier this week and warned that a ‘prairie fire of debt sweeping across Iowa and our nation.’ How will this cheesy bit of hollow rhetoric sound when Romney addresses residents of other states?” (Weiner, Handy, and Ball 2012) The Common Style is self-interested: “Mike Huckabee’s folksy demeanor hides
the fact that the fair tax would probably cost you more and him less.” (cheldemedo 2013) The Common Style is deceptive: “It is a rare day in the session that some legislator doesn’t offer the folksy wisdom that the state would be fine if it would just balance the budget like the folks back home. … Such homey examples are designed to communicate the state’s budget situation. . .but they may actually do
the folks back home a disservice by oversimplifying what the state budget is.”
(Camden 2012) The Common Style cannot be avoided: “As much as we all like to pretend that elections are about issues, they really aren’t that way anymore (if they ever were). In today’s media climate, elections are popularity contests, first and foremost.” ("The Hick Schtick" 2013)
These critics could have found great fault with Hubert Humphrey, particularly on September 14, 1968. Over the Labor Day weekend, Humphrey won his party’s 158 nomination for the presidency, but the Chicago convention brutally demonstrated the deep divisions among and between the leaders of the Democratic Party and its members. Images of tear-gas clouds and bloodied protestors surely were not forgotten just two weeks later in Pittsburgh when the vice president spoke at the Democratic Women’s Picnic (Humphrey 1968). His senatorial colleagues regarded Humphrey as an elevated political speaker (Tompkins 1966), but in his address to this group of like-minded citizens in a relatively informal setting, Humphrey became consummately down-home. The candidate opened his remarks by praising the band: “Well, that was good
Democratic music. I want to thank that band. They really tuned it up. Marvelous.” He next turned to the audience: “Well, my dear friends, if this isn’t a Democratic gathering I have never seen one. I can tell by looking out, the women are so beautiful, the men so strong, and it’s nice and noisy. That is just the way it ought to be.” Humphrey went on for ten more minutes in the same way, sounding as if he had never left Wallace, South Dakota, and cared nothing for the formality normally associated with presidential settings. He joked about mayor Joe Barr’s daughter, Candy Barr—“Isn’t that cute?”, he quipped. He compared the fish in Minnesota to the fish in Pennsylvania. He singled out a dozen different dignitaries and local party leaders, all of whom of earned the same teasing treatment, including a man who would become governor: “You sure do grow them big and strong and good looking. Take a look at that Bob Casey. Now, isn’t he some man? Stand up again, Bob. Let these women get a look at you.” Humphrey apologized for his wife’s absence, saying that “she wouldn’t have missed it for the world except. . .she picked up a little cold, and I said Mom, you stay home. You get all fixed up and don’t have a cold.”
Perhaps aware that some in the audience had grown restless, the Minnesota senator eventually answered what many might have wondered: 159 Well, somebody might say, now, are we just going to have a little fellowship here? Are we going to get down to issues and cases? And we are. But this is a beautiful day and in a beautiful setting, in a wonderful part of America, and public life and politics ought to be sort of mixed with family sprit and with community spirit.
While he undoubtedly had political shortcomings, Humphrey shows here that he understood the challenge of exceptional-ordinary leadership: U.S. politicians must be distinguished in some way to merit being elected to office but they dare not stand apart from ordinary people. Leaders under less trying circumstances than Humphrey typically use folksy language to show their kinship with average Americans. However, as I have discovered in this study, the rhetoric of leader-citizen relations is a rather subtle confection. More specifically, it seeks to bring leaders and followers together by mixing politics with the things most Americans treat as sacred and true.
The preceding chapters have explored these rhetorical complications, the result of which I have identified as the Common Style. By systematically describing that style in four different rhetorical situations, I learned how U.S. politicians try to create and maintain workable relations between themselves and everyday citizens. Below, I reflect on these observations and then construct a tentative theory of the Common Style. But first, I briefly review my study’s goals and findings and close by proposing an agenda for future research and highlighting the limits of the rhetoric here described.
DESCRIBING THE COMMON STYLE
In spite of its ubiquity, scholars have not yet systematically analyzed politicians’ efforts to become part of the citizenry. They have instead focused on particular cases, including Ronald Reagan (Jamieson 1988), Huey Long (Gunn 2007; Hogan and Williams
2004), and Bill Clinton (Llewellyn 1994). Others have probed possible dimensions of the Common Style, such as anti-intellectualism (Lim 2008), folk wisdom (Mieder 2005), and
160 authenticity (Liebes 2001). However, none has offered a unified explanation of how leadership rhetoric in the United States manages the country’s paradoxical insistence that leaders be both ordinary and extraordinary, especially in an era featuring stresses in U.S. political affairs: Has the gap between leaders and citizens now become an impassable chasm or are political relations today no more difficult than one might expect in any complicated political culture? Without a systematic understanding of the Common Style, scholars cannot authoritatively address such a nuanced question. Accordingly, I asked how political leaders used rhetoric to create a sense of commonality between themselves and everyday citizens. I also asked what this rhetoric told us about leadership and citizenship in the United States. When doing so, I pursued a novel theory of political relations. Specifically, I argued that two factors influence the Common Style: (1) presumptions about speaker spontaneity and (2) audience reach. That is, audiences sometimes expect leaders to speak off-the-cuff while in other situations they must come fully prepared, often with a prepared text, and these cultural conventions affect how listeners perceive a speaker. Too, leaders must at times stand before local groups while in other instances they must address national audiences. Greater audience reach, however, implies greater audience distance, all of which makes influencing any particular listener considerably more complicated. Given these conflicting trajectories, my resulting assumption has been that political address can be classified according to speaker spontaneity and audience reach and thence assigned to one of four categories: The Distanced Encounter: Low spontaneity because of the formalities of speaking
to a large and diverse audience.
161 The Provincial Encounter: A relatively well-prepared presentation delivered to a comparatively small, narrowly focused group. The Conversational Encounter: High speaker spontaneity occasioned by the media’s ability to maximize audience reach. The Populist Encounter: An impromptu presentation before a local group or
community organization. Using these archetypes, I identified four kinds of political speech, one for each model category. I systematically examined a sample of these speeches and discovered four different registers of the Common Style—the languages of production, progress, experience, and deference—and determined that politicians used these registers in structurally different ways.
When speaking to all Americans directly via the weekly address, presidents frequently used a language of production, arguing that their productive efforts made them comparable to citizens who also worked hard for their families’ economic benefit. These speeches sounded egalitarian, with all being redeemed by hard work. But at the same time presidents assigned distinct roles to leaders and citizens, with the former working in the civic realm and the later devoted exclusively to private endeavors.
In contrast, mayors and governors put themselves and the citizens they spoke to on similar social footing via a language of progress. When delivering a speech to the chamber of commerce, the teacher’s union, or the Sierra Club, they described themselves and their audiences as dissatisfied strivers concerned with self- and community- improvement, often relating progress as a desirable and achievable goal but only if citizens cooperated. These special-interest speeches presented a more efficacious citizenry but almost exclusively referenced the benefits to be reaped rather than the debts to be paid through civic engagement. 162 On entertainment talk shows, political leaders told stories, largely relying on a language of experience when doing so. Often, they spoke about something that most viewers would never experience, such as running for office, serving in the Senate, or meeting foreign dignitaries. Politicians told these stories humbly, thereby making it possible for audience members to see themselves—and their own limitations—in the narrative. By externalizing what they thought and felt when going about their daily lives, politicians expressed a general sense that all people are similar, even though each person must go it alone. This was a satisfying message for a distant audience, but also a message that bypassed raw politics and sharp political differences. Leaders at town-hall meetings were far less entertaining, often using an unremarkable language of deference. Senators and Representatives typically droned on and on. Their answers were often formulaic and sometimes even embarrassing, with endless talk about the wise, generous, and committed citizens seated before them. But in light of the complicated nature of U.S. political culture and the human need for respect, the deference that leaders displayed at these meetings made considerable sense. By performing rituals that citizens have come to expect, politicians showed themselves to be fully integrated into the community. And the most rhetorically adept among them found ways to praise the people without sacrificing their own integrity. In contrast, when leaders failed to find the right amount of deference, considerable awkwardness ensued. This study’s findings form an important foundation on which to build. Until now, scholars only understood the Common Style as a way to win and maintain the confidence of constituents. But my findings reveal an additional function beyond practical politics: The Common Style also reminds citizens and leaders of their shared standards, respective group loyalties, and concomitant social roles, thereby creating and sustaining public culture itself. Put differently, the style not only makes leaders sound like everyday 163 citizens but it also suggests to both parties who they are and how they must work together. At a time when the public seems increasingly frustrated with politicians, my findings indicate that the Common Style is, when it works well, a tool to keep politics working.
ADDRESSING AMERICAN MYSTERIES
We have learned a good deal about the Common Style, yet nothing about it is easy. In fact, the Common Style challenges us to think about three intriguing but unsolvable American mysteries: 1) the possibility of a shared U.S. culture, 2) the genus and species of the American political system, and 3) the ontology of leadership and citizenship in United States. Below, I will consider what the Common Style says about each of these tensions. In doing so, I will explicate a theory of the Common Style suggested by my findings.
Do Americans share a common culture?
This study sought what many scholars have presumed to be dead or never to have existed at all: a shared American culture. New languages, rivalrous religions and ethnicities, varying family structures, and an increasing sensitivity to what makes
Americans different from one another led many to pronounce a “common culture” in serious jeopardy. The economic disruption and uncertainty caused by deindustrialization, as well as the mobility offered to members of the knowledge class, have also created a sense of dislocation in American society. Stanley Renshon (2000, 7) frets over the political consequences of this fracturing, which he says has torn the “very fabric of American political and national identity” with its “assertive expansion of individual and group rights” and “acerbic debates regarding the legitimacy and limits of these claims.” As a result, the nation cannot find its “political center, which is increasingly difficult to 164 discern, much less to lead from.” John Murphy (2002, 236) is suspicious of such claims, but he agrees that “if there ever was a single meta-narrative, it has gone by the boards. The resulting cultural anxiety percolates through the nation.” If points of common culture do exist, they are dubious at best, say others. Unfamiliar with the classic texts that once defined American ideals, public speakers and audiences must now stoop to proverbs, aphorisms, and simplistic anecdotes to make their points (Jamieson 1988). Reporter Joe Klein (2006) attributes an insipid quality to political discourse today that has “robbed public life of much of its romance and vigor.”
Even as the digital age dawned, Barnet Baskerville (1979, 226) decided that “if much of the speaking heard today from the public platform is commonplace and unimaginative, inept and undistinguished,” the fault rests “in the cultural limitations of the audience.”
Hooray for that, say the postmodernists, who mostly cheer the nation’s liberation from the strictures of high culture, suffocating as they are. As Frederic Jameson (1991, 2) writes of modernity, the “elitism and authoritarianism of the modern movement are remorselessly identified in the imperious gesture of the charismatic Master.” Postmodernism instead represents a “kind of aesthetic populism” made up of
schlock and kitsch, of TV series and Reader’s Digest culture, of advertising and motels, of the late show and the grade-B Hollywood film, of so-called paraliterature, with its airport paperback categories of the gothic and the romance, the popular biography, the murder mystery, and the science fiction or fantasy novel.
Continuing in his celebratory tone, Jameson claims that no matter how “we may ultimately wish to evaluate this populist rhetoric,” it has merit because it effaces the border “between high culture and so-called mass or commercial culture,” and it promotes
“new kinds of texts infused with the forms, categories, and contents” that were once denounced.
165 Accepting the postmodern critique for a moment, if rhetors wished to move a diverse audience, which popular culture would they engage? Successful musicians, comedians, and television producers now create products for niches, not for the masses. “Univision, for example, is watched by millions of Latinos in the U.S., but millions of other Americans couldn’t tell you what channel it’s on,” reports Elizabeth Blair (2011b, para. 5). Consequently, “there is no one, dominant cultural conversation. … American culture is sliced up in so many different ways that what’s popular with one group can go virtually unnoticed by another” (Blair 2011, para. 5, 8).
Still others argue that the United States has never been whole. Rather, from the earliest days of the Colonial period, North America has contained eleven competing regional cultures (Woodard 2011). From the English Quakers to the West Indian slave lords, from Puritans to Dutch West India Company officials, the “real founders…didn’t recreate an America; they created several Americas” (Woodard 2012, para. 3). Woodward (2012) sees the resulting fault lines in today’s political debates: “Despite the rise of Wal-mart , Starbucks, and the Internet, there is little indication that [regions] are melting into some sort of unified American culture.” In sum, history and present circumstance give us reason to doubt whether the notion of a “universal culture” explains anything at all about the United States. If Americans share next to nothing culturally, other than, perhaps, a respect for individualism and diversity (Bellah 1998), then was my search here for the Common Style pursued in vain? It was not. To the contrary, in the previous chapters, I demonstrated that American political leaders of various ideological and geographic commitments from 1992 to 2012 frequently appealed to a set of common values—some of them situated and some of them universal.
166 Specifically, both presidents in their weekly radio addresses and local executives in their special-interest speeches reified the American Dream. That dream, at its most basic, promises that, if one works hard, one will get ahead. Despite its critics, that mythology continues to motivate much of what politicians do rhetorically, perhaps because public opinion in the United States concurs with such a vision.1 The languages of production and progress draw on this shared faith. Politicians deployed the egalitarian strain of the American Dream when broadcasting to all citizens, but emphasized its pragmatic and competitive elements when speaking to special-interest groups. And while this study confirmed that the materialistic themes of the American Dream continue to take precedence over its moralistic ones (Lucas 2011; Fisher 1973), I also found that governors and mayors of both parties appealed to corporate action for the sake of community progress. In contrast, when audiences expected speaker spontaneity, their leaders tended to reference universal values. On television talk shows, for example, politicians fed the common desire to know and share with others. When questioned by citizens at town-hall meetings, leaders appealed to a general commitment to human dignity and mutual respect. In both cases, shared values suggested connection between an otherwise disparate people. While the postmodern worldview invites citizens to explore many possible identities, the spontaneous speeches studied here appealed to the notion that everybody is, really, quite similar after all. These empirical observations suggest a tentative precept of the Common Style— that it accommodates the need to live somewhere distinctive and yet to believe that
1 See, for example, see Pew’s most recent study of American values (Kohut et al. 2012), which finds that while increasing numbers of Americans recognize a widening gap between economic haves and have-nots, lower-income citizens and recent immigrants are no more cynical about the American Dream and their potential to realize it. 167 people are the same wherever one goes. Americans in particular need to hear both strains. When citizens doubt that they have anything in common with their leaders or with one another, the Common Style reminds them that they are productive and progressive and hence alike. But as powerful as is the America ideal, it only goes so far. And so the Common Style also says, “Not to worry. There is something more to life than working and producing, improving and progressing. There even is something bigger than being an American.” With this implicit message, the Common Style allays the chronic U.S. fear that one just might not make it the United States. Through the journals of an otherwise unknown late-nineteenth century social climber, Jocelyn Wills (2003, 323) details how one American reconciled his early dreams of self-made success with the reality of social stagnation. Rather than blaming an unfair system, Boyle “along with the
‘mighty majority,’ adjusted to, rather than challenged, his descent into respectable mediocrity.” Citizens like Boyle, which is to say, almost all Americans, need not just the American Dream but also the promise that life has meaning even if one fails to hold on to the brass ring. Throughout this dissertation, I found that the Common Style differentially responded to the exigencies of four distinct rhetorical situations. But the keen observer will note that the languages of production, progress, experience, and deference can be heard in all four genres to varying degrees. In this way, the Common Style simultaneously honors the situated and the universal and thereby ameliorates the tension between the two. Hart (1984a, 759) points to the unique synthesizing function of American public discourse and its “tempering utopianism with pragmatism.” The people demand synthesis, says Hart, perhaps “because they are somewhat unsure which of their values were, and are, truly true.” Americans might also demand a rhetoric of amalgamation because they see themselves as a made-up, anything-is-possible people 168 (Rodriguez 2011). Either way, the Common Style has special value in a culture marked by radical self-doubt; it simultaneously tells Americans that something sets them apart and keeps them together. Whether the Common Style works the same way in other times and places remains to be seen. How are situated versus universal values transacted in other cultures?
Common sense suggests that all people need a rhetoric that helps them balance local allegiances with transcendent goals. The United States, as the most imagined community of all (Anderson 1983), perhaps makes unique demands of leadership in this regard. In the end, the Common Style cannot be read as a ringing endorsement for a U.S. common culture. Instead, the Common Style endorses the American desire to be provincial and cosmopolitan, on the ground and in the clouds, predictable and unique, all at the same time.
Is the United States a democracy or a republic?
Americans have long been puzzled by their form of government: Do they live in a republic, a democracy, or something in-between? Notwithstanding the Pledge of Allegiance, talk of “the Republic” has mostly vanished from civic lessons and public discourse, while “the vague commitment to ‘democracy’” remains (Medvic 2013).2 This is not to say, though, that republican themes have disappeared from the American consciousness. Indeed, the language of freedom and liberty can be heard loudly—in Tea Party rhetoric but elsewhere as well. A common reference to a “democratic republic” attests to the rampant cultural confusion.
2 A simple Ngram of Google books originally published between 1800 to 2012 illustrates the point. Relative frequency of the use of “democracy” overtook the relative frequency of “republic” in 1908. Since then, usage of “republic” has slowly dropped while “democracy” has increased many fold. See http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=republic%2C+democracy&year_start=1800&year_end=20 12&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= 169 As a result, an alien arriving in the United States might reasonably conclude that, when hailed, the country would answer to either “republic” or “democracy”. For example, in her analysis of popular texts, Susan Herbst (2001) found that the people were said to be savvy and capable political agents, but she also discovered that stories of politically naïve and vulnerable citizens resounded, too. Similarly, populist firebrands on the Left (e.g., Jim Hightower) and Right (e.g., Glenn Beck) testify to the contradiction. In their rantings, both men speak of fairness for all while also encouraging vigilance against elite attempts to constrain the people financially and otherwise.
But while republics can be more or less democratic, the two are not the same. Democracy is founded on equality, republicanism on liberty (Mercieca 2010). Some commentators explain democracy as a constant search—something the United States strives for but has yet to fully attain (e.g., Dahl 2006). Others characterize the U.S. system as racked by a republican “need for stability” versus a democratic “desire for active participation” (Mercieca 2010). Literary critic Louis Rubin (1976, 257) speaks of a necessary balancing act: “The problem of democracy…is one of how, in short, a democracy can reach down to include all its citizens in its decision-making, without at the same time cheapening and vulgarizing its highest social, cultural, and ethical ideals.”
Whether healthy or not, democratic-republican dualism has been sustained from the government’s earliest days. According to Paul Ellenbogen (1996), the founders intended to empower and constrain both republican and democratic orders. While the peculiar arrangement of the House and Senate is now understood as a necessary compromise between large and small states, Anti-federalists at the time argued for the bicameral legislature as a way to balance the competing forces of the “natural aristocracy” and the “natural democracy” (Ellenbogen 1996). John Adams in particular condemned “’simple democracies,’” favoring instead the “creation of a second house to 170 which the natural aristocrats. . .would aspire” and where they would “fight each other, freeing the lower house from their factional struggles and permitting the people as a whole to keep better watch on their endeavors” (249). The Common Style embraces this confusion, indeed heralds it, and then claims it as its own. By emphasizing a shared desire for improvement, the language of progress is thoroughly democratic, telling audiences that they are every bit as capable as their political leaders. Likewise, politicians on talk shows tell stories about human experiences that emphasize the common human condition. But the Common Style has a republican sound, too, as we hear in the languages of productivity and deference. In the former, presidents assign themselves the role of political laborer-in-chief, while citizens are relegated to the important but separate role of private workers. The resulting social arrangement resembles an ideal of the early American republic, with a leadership class responsible for civic duties and a common class responsible for private affairs. Meanwhile, at the town hall, leaders and citizens are also placed in separate social spheres but the hierarchy is reversed when leaders downplay their own political power and praise citizens as the true rulers of the republic. When the Common Style calls forth both democratic and republican virtues, it speaks to the total American experience. Others have found that American voters usually reject political voices that fail to balance the democratic values of reform, community, populism, and utility with the republican ideals of nationalism, independence, and restoration (Hart, Childers, and Lind 2013). When leaders present themselves as everyday citizens, they make room for both the democratic and republican sentiments that have long been written into the national self-understanding.
Perhaps that is why the Common Style sounds best when it sounds polyvocal. For example, many have noted Ronald Reagan’s uncanny ability to convince Americans 171 that he was one of them in spite of his economic royalism, his uncommon occupation, and his unconventional religious beliefs (e.g., Shogan 2007; Jamieson 1988; Ewen 1988). Armed with a new theory of the Common Style, scholars might well re-examine Reagan’s rhetorical skill. Notice in each of the following examples from the 1980 presidential campaign, for example, how Reagan speaks about Republican policies even while nodding to both democratic and republican virtues: The Language of Production: “Americans, who have always known that excessive bureaucracy is the enemy of excellence and compassion, want a change
in public life—a change that makes government work for people.” (Reagan 1980c) The Language of Progress: “The progress we made in dealing with minority
issues is something I am particularly proud of.” (Reagan 1980b) The Language of Deference: “These are problems of flesh and blood; problems that cause pain and destroy the moral fiber of real people who should not suffer the further indignity of being told by the Government that it is all somehow their fault.” (Reagan 1980a) Mentions of “real people,” “minority issues,” and a government that works “for people” sound egalitarian, while references to “excessive bureaucracy,” “excellence,” and “moral fiber” heralds republicanism’s preference for independence and nationalism. Some might call such a rhetoric disingenuous, but it is American to the core because it is conflicted to the core. For these reasons, the Common Style cannot truly transcend divisions of ideology or party. Rather, it reproduces the American desire to be equal and free, democratic and republican, and, as a result, produces an even stronger desire to live in a nation constantly in search of itself.
172 What does it mean to be a leader and a citizen?
Finally, American political culture evinces considerable uncertainty about the distinction between leadership and citizenship. What are their respective duties? How should they behave? Regarding leadership, journalist Joe Klein (2006, 23) laments that “sadly, most politicians are neither risk-takers nor leaders. They are followers—of convention, of public opinion—and while leadership is an art, followership has become science, measured in polls and focus groups.” Stanley Renshon (2000, 8) connects the lack principled leadership to strained political relations. He writes:
The rise of leaders anxious for office and lacking either strong principled convictions or the courage of them, leads to a mismatch between ambitions and performance. We therefore elect “leaders,” but receive little leadership. As a result, it is the public’s hopes and emotional connections with their government that are squandered.
According to these critics, leadership means acting decisively, with or without the support of one’s followers. An old lament, this. Others say that citizens, for their part, should practice better followership, that they too often set an “ordinary-and-exceptional trap” for leaders, putting their elected officials in a no-win situation (Medvic 2013).3 As it is, “politicians are subject to the criticism that they fail to be what the public wishes them to be. In other words, they fail to be all things to all people” (Medvic 2013, 20). Worse yet, citizens take no responsibility for creating these impossible conditions. Instead, leadership’s failure, “from the public’s perspective, is not the result of the trap that they themselves have set for politicians. . . … It is, instead, a failure inherent in the nature of politicians” (20).
3 Medvic (2013) and I independently developed the concept of the public’s contradictory demand for ordinary-extraordinary leadership. He makes a case a very similar to my own, citing many of the same sources as I do in Chapter 1 of this dissertation. Medvic’s description of the what he terms the “ordinary- extraordinary trap” appears in his most recent book, published six months after I defended my dissertation prospectus. There, I first described and explained the paradox and its place in U.S. politics. I initially encountered Medvic’s work early in 2013. As my mother often observes, great minds think alike. 173 Rather than putting leaders in a Catch 22 situation, citizens should be more consistent in their expectations, (Medvic 2013) agues. “Ideally,” he writes, “we would decide whether we want politicians to be leaders or followers; whether we would prefer them to be principled or pragmatic; and whether we want elected officials to be like ordinary Americans or to be exceptional” (136). Only when the public chooses between these incongruous criteria can leaders be held fully and fairly accountable. If the public wants leaders, “we would give them room to lead. We could not then demand that they follow public opinion.” But if “we want elected officials to hew closely to the public’s will, we would not be able to accuse them of pandering. We would expect them to read polls and act accordingly” (136). Notice that both of the leadership positions Medvic describes—unencumbered managers or beholden delegates—rejects the concept of the exceptional-ordinary leaders described in this study. In the former position, politicians may comfortably maintain their status as a breed apart. In the latter, there is little need to seem exceptional, for anyone could read the polls and vote accordingly. In seeking to replace the exceptional- ordinary “trap” with a more rational and holistic brand of leadership, Medvic, Klein, and Renshon would make the Common Style obsolete. I feel, however, that such an effort is unnecessary and even counterproductive for at least three reasons. First, citizens do make contradictory demands of politicians, but being two things at once is not too much to ask of leaders capable of leading. Indeed, this study has demonstrated that political leaders, who are by definition distinct from ordinary citizens, can reach out to everyday people through the Common Style. When doing so, leaders using the Common Style need not be demeaning, pandering, or shameful. Rather, the
Style only asks that politicians show their commitment to a set of shared values via their
174 language choices. In exchange, leaders may maintain their various public personae, be they relatively sophisticated or folksy. Second, given the inherent contradictions within a representative democracy, citizens would be sensible to expect their leaders to be ordinary and exceptional. As demonstrated in chapter one, voters ultimately need clear criteria when judging their leaders. Exceptional life experiences, personal attractiveness, and social class are, after all, reasonable if sometimes imperfect indicators of superior skill (Popkin 1991). But citizens also need assurance that their values and interests will be honored. Exit polls showed that in 2012 Barack Obama overwhelmed Mitt Romney on the “cares about the problems of people like me” measure (Cook 2012). Some read this as evidence of a “dreadful decline for America, its final Oprah-ization.” That, says editor John Podhoretz
(2012, 18), is “a terrible misunderstanding. Of course politicians should ‘care about the problems of people like me.’ … Otherwise being a politician is nothing but regulation and management.” In contrast to corporate life, perhaps, a political leader must stand somewhere between complete independence and total subservience. Anything less cannot be counted as leadership, at least not in a pluralistic democracy. Third and most critically, leaders and citizens must remain open to one another for persuasive change to occur, and the Common Style helps leaders achieve that feat. Just as yoga disciplines the mind by stretching the body into anatomical postures of openness, the Common Style orients the political class toward the public and develops in leaders the flexibility and strength needed to be both extraordinary and ordinary. Such contortions may seem awkward and contrived when performed by a neophyte, but for the practiced politician, the Common Style, like the perfect yoga pose, looks effortless.
Habituation to the Common Style imparts the kind of supple strength necessary to persuade and, therefore, lead a diverse, demanding, and often disagreeable citizenry. 175 For his part, Medvic would abandon exceptional-ordinary leadership, substituting a more coherent style of governance that either a) instructs politicians or b) grants them considerable latitude. And yet, he claims that his preference is “to view elected officials as our partners in governing,” and as in any healthy partnership, “there should be robust dialogue between partners” (126). But when leaders are either chained or unleashed, the back-and-forth of dialogue becomes irrelevant. Ironically, Medvic’s ideal can only be achieved when citizens expect both from politicians. That is the beauty of the Common Style: it turns a messy, compromised, illogical system into a noble one—not perfect, but noble. In sum, condemnations of the leadership paradox in the United States have been misplaced. If we value democratic representation as a partnership between leaders and citizens, then exceptional-ordinary leadership makes sense by forcing politicians and the citizenry to continually consider what they have in common. It also demands that leaders and citizens remain open to one another and their respective persuasions. Rather than castigating the paradoxical demands of leadership, then, we might instead condemn attitudinal atrophy. Legal scholar Jack Sammons (2012, 908) explains:
In the back-and-forth of seeking assent in democratic political conversation, we are persuaded by those who uncover–show us in the conversation–somewhere within an understanding of our own experiences, broadly considered, some truth or some aspect of a truth about our identity. In other words, those who show us something about ourselves persuade us.
As demonstrated in my study, the Common Style achieves precisely this kind of dialogical relationship, working with what citizens already know to be true about themselves in order to uncover something new about themselves and their leaders. “To approach rhetoric this way, however,” requires an acknowledgement of the poetic dimensions language, says Hammons (2012, 911), “in the sense of uncovering for us
176 what we could call poetic truths about us.” But for language to do such persuasive work, citizens must remain open to what leaders have to say. For this reason, Medvic (2013, 130) is right to argue that the ultimate sin of citizenship is cynicism, which closes its adherents to the possibilities of persuasive change. “The cynic knows what is really going on, which is that all politicians are up to no good.” And “because cynics are convinced that they know the truth about politics, they are uninterested in learning more about it” (Medvic 2013, 130). The cynic already knows what she knows, and her assumptions about the Other’s impure motives prevent her from fully considering the
Other. For this reason, we more likely will find the source of leader-citizen estrangement in an anemic Common Style and not in the exceptional-ordinary model that gave it birth. Future research must consider this possibility.
WHAT NOW FOR THE COMMON STYLE?
With a better theoretical understanding of how and why the Common Style operates across political situations, scholars now have a guide for investigating its rhetoric over time and whether it continues to serve its avowed purpose. Scholars have at least three good reasons to keep listening to the Common Style. Below, I expand on them and anticipate some of the most important research questions that must be asked in the years ahead.
Cozier in the digital age?
The Common Style has played a necessary role in U.S. politics since at least the time of Andrew Jackson. Even so, its past cannot guarantee its future, especially in light of the demands of the digital age. Joe Trippi argues that the transparency demanded in such an age makes the Common Style and its alleged hypocrisy obsolete (Montagne 2006). Others presume that the digital media demand a democratized approach, forcing 177 politicians to interact with citizens in unprecedented ways (Wattal et al. 2010). The Common Style will likely find its own place in this new age, but we need additional study to say exactly where and why. Perhaps the style will flourish on social-media sites, which seem well disposed to the rhetoric’s communal manifestations. On Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, politicians personalize their viewpoints and build credibility as everyday people (Pennington 2013). However, politicians mostly strengthen ties to current supporters with these messages rather than building new ones across party or position (Sastry 2012).
If social media are to be used to reach across such divides, politicians might need a new language to do so. We must therefore ask: What does the Common Style sound like when tweets, wall posts, and YouTube videos body it forth?
The niche audiences promoted and sustained by digital media pose the clearest threat to the Common Style. The freedom to choose not to watch the news at all (Prior 2007), or to only watch what conforms to one’s political predispositions (Stroud 2011), fragments the public into audiences distinguished by their differing levels of political knowledge and polarized opinions. Cable news and online sources attract specialized audiences by tightly controlling the kinds of news they provide (Tewksbury 2005). If audiences become even more entrenched in their respective ideological foxholes, will the Common Style still have resonance for them? Most fundamentally, the digital media may not only change who we communicate with and how, but may affect our very experience of connection and presence. In its traditional sense, that is, intimacy could be understood as the inverse of distance, but when one’s pen pal in Australia is only an instant message or a Skype session away, intimacy and distance enter a new kind of relationship, perhaps even an inverse one Stephen Marche (2012) makes this claim when arguing that Facebook’s enormous appeal 178 “stems from its miraculous fusion of distance with intimacy, or the illusion of distance with the illusion of intimacy.” At the same time, deeply meaningful relationships become increasingly scarce as more people live alone, Marche observes. In the realm of politics, digital technologies make it possible for leaders to represent constituencies scattered over the globe, but physical distance forces followers to make less confident inferences about those who lead them and so their relations become less resilient (Shamir 2013). Will internet-mediated politics follow this trend, allowing leaders to develop weaker, more fragile ties with those they lead? If so, what then for the Common Style?
Inclusivity and the Common Style
One of the signal findings of this study has been the continuing presence of several important shared values in American political discourse. But will the Common Style sound the same when politics in the United States becomes more representative of more people? U.S. political leadership in many ways fails to mirror the country’s population, but the dearth of women and ethnic minorities in elected office most obviously challenges the sense that politicians are “of the people.” This study’s texts ranged from 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman in politics, to 2012, the same year that the United States ranked 91st in world percentages of women serving in the national legislature (Lawless and Fox 2012). Likewise, almost every ethnic group in the United
States other than Caucasian is under-represented in Congress. Despite this shockingly slow progress, more women now hold state and national office in the United States than ever before. Female legislators have been shown to make unique contributions to policy making, sponsoring more bills related to women’s health and economic issues and speaking about women more often than their male counterparts (Shogan 2001; Gerrity, Osborn, and Mendez 2007; Gershon 2008). Citizens also tend to
179 contact female legislators more often, and women leaders spend more time at meetings with citizens (Herrick 2010). Do women also approach their interactions with citizens via a different rhetorical style? To answer that question, we must specifically research the discourse of women leaders as it relates to the exceptional-ordinary model. Are women better at projecting the Common Style, or do they tend to draw on different values when talking to citizens? Also, now that demographic realities have invigorated efforts in both parties to enlist non-white candidates (Goldmacher 2013), scholars might listen to these recruitment efforts to learn what the Common Style sounds like when a more diverse set of leaders gives it voice. A corollary question must also be asked: What will political leadership sound like when it finally takes seriously the need to embrace all citizens? More studies like Petre’s
(2013) and Connaughton and Jarvis’s (2004) will be needed to provide a full and fair answer to that question. Petre found that in their appeals to female votes, speakers at the 2012 Republican National Convention emphasized stories of exceptional success while those at the Democratic convention emphasized their candidate’s willingness to “fight” for women. Connaughton and Jarvis found that, from 1984 to 2000, presidential campaigns offered affirming messages about Latino voters and their role in civic life.
These two studies represent a different way of thinking about the Common Style, namely, how can leaders speak in a way that draws more people into political engagement? After Barack Obama’s first presidential victory, cultural critics as well as rhetorical scholars hotly debated what his success indicated about U.S. racial attitudes. While William Bennett praised Obama for not “acting like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton,” (Rangel 2008), sharper critics heard more than Bennett did. Zadie Smith
(2009, para. 14), for example, agreed that Obama did not have to adopt the style of other black leaders, “not because we live in a post-racial world—we don’t—but because the 180 reality of race has diversified. Black reality has diversified. It’s black people who talk like me, and black people who talk like L’il Wayne.” To suggest that leaders might use rhetoric to triangulate new relations with people of other racial groups is not to suggest that race no longer matters. It is to say that we might look at how all leaders—including Caucasian ones—use language to establish working political relations across race and ethnicity. More studies focused on heterogeneous districts could uncover how this rhetoric is most effectively accomplished, giving leaders insights into how they might rhetorically accommodate a wider swath of the public.
Do citizens still need leaders? Can citizens still believe in them?
The greatest challenge to the Common Style might lie beyond any politician’s control. In what he identities as the “defining change in the political culture of our era,” Lance Bennett (2012) sees a “personalization” in politics that empowers everyday citizens but that marginalizes leadership. As he explains, “social fragmentation and the decline of group loyalties have given rise to an era of personalized politics in which individual expression displaces collective action frames in the embrace of political causes” (20). Leadership may still exist in such an environment, but no longer will it organize large groups to effect major social change. Rather, citizen action will be “channeled through dense social networks over which people can share their own stories and concerns” (22). In this milieu, individuals “become important catalysts of collective action processes as they activate their own social networks” (22). Instead of cohesion and coordination between leaders and citizens, personalized politics demands acts of citizen publicity to quickly mobilize amorphous social networks. Contemporary examples of “leaderless” movements such as Occupy Wall Street make us wonder
181 whether the Common Style will be necessary at all when the “commons” themselves become agents of change. Even if society decides that it does need leaders, can citizens still muster the faith necessary to make politics work? As I suggested earlier, exceptional-ordinary leadership functions only if politicians and people fulfill their respective requirements: Leaders must make the case for their status as one of the people, and citizens must remain open to leaderly influence, foregoing the cynicisms that dismiss politicians and their ploys out-of- hand. Citizens may accept or reject leaders’ rhetorical overtures, but if the people are unwilling or unable to accept the premise of the Common Style—that leaders can be special and average at the same time—then exceptional-ordinary leadership becomes untenable.
To understand why citizens must be complicit in their own persuasion, we must remember that rhetoric turns on what might happen next. From the position of a pure skeptic, exceptional-ordinary leadership should not exist for, logically, leaders cannot be two things at once. Rhetoric, however, does not conform to scientific or dualistic logics but instead trades in possibilities. As Kenneth Burke (1950) wrote,
Since “the future” is not the sort of thing one can put under a microscope, or even test by a knowledge of exactly equivalent conditions in the past, when you turn to political exhortation, you are involved in decisions that necessarily lie beyond the strictly scientific vocabularies of description. (42)
Burke further explained that rhetoric fell somewhere between primitive magic and modern science. The former contends that saying equals doing, while the later denies language any extra-material power. Rhetoric keeps a foot in both camps: Like science, it must respect facts-on-the-ground but, like magic, rhetoric also requires some belief in the unseen because the future is not yet known. Without some measure of faith—in someone, in something—persuasion becomes impossible. 182 What remains to be seen is whether the public will grasp the necessary faith. In their defense, average citizens have good reason not to believe. From TARP to Citizens United, from stop-loss to the erosion of the middle class, current events indicate that most Americans do not carry as much weight as the politically and economically powerful. Deceitful political messages (Jamieson and Hardy 2008) and political scandals (Medvic
2013) give even earnest people reason to doubt that politicians have anything but their own self-interest in mind. One could also add to that list leaders who show more ambition than skill (Renshon 2000), political institutions seemingly collapsing under the weight of their own polarization (Wolf, Strachan, and Shea 2012), and an entertainment industry happy to confirm citizens’ most profound suspicions (Hart 2013). People must hear and see all this and wonder: How could leaders possibly resemble me? A citizen might also ask: If this is leadership, why would I want to see myself in it? Can the Common Style overcome such sentiments? Is there enough magic left in the lamp for leaders to convince citizens that they share the same goals and want the same things? My study has systematically detailed how politicians try to work the Common Style, but it cannot say whether citizens will come when called. That is a critical question that must be addressed in future scholarship, for the legitimacy of
American political leadership hangs in its balance. With such an important question now awaiting an answer, we would be remiss to not at least tentatively consider how it might be addressed. One option is traditional public-opinion polling, but it may not provide valid answers. Medvic (2013) points out that the mass media naturally emphasize politicians’ failings while mostly ignoring their successes, leaving the public with an unfair and unfavorable impression of political leadership. Citizens quickly responding to a closed-ended survey might be offering what they just heard on the news, rather than providing their more fundamental opinions. In- 183 depth interviews would allow citizens to express more nuanced views, but here, too, researchers must be wary of respondents who respond cynically because that is what they are expected to say. Citizens, of course, use rhetoric, too, and their words thereby indicate what kind of social relations they wish to develop and maintain. Listening carefully to otherwise unremarkable citizens and their political appeals, even if crafted to achieve different ends, could therefore offer great insight into when, where, and why citizens remain open to politics. For example, social psychologists have found that conversationalists converge in their language patterns, with more intimate partners showing more linguistic affinity (Ireland and Pennebaker 2010). Comparing citizen and leader language styles over time and circumstance could indicate the relative strength or weakness of their relationships.
THE LIMITS OF LEADERSHIP RHETORIC
As scholars embrace a more complete understanding of leadership and citizenship in the United Sates, they must avoid certain confusions about the Common Style and its capacities. Three in particular might cause us to claim more for that style than it can possibly achieve.
First, important though the Common Style might be, it cannot cool heated politics, nor should it. In fact, “common cultures are normally riven with argument, controversy and conflict,” says Robert Bellah (1998), as are the political cultures bound by the Common Style. Ideally, that style does not smother political disagreements but instead fosters an environment in which leaders and led can disagree and still see each other as worthy. Argumentative discourse requires a measure of both politeness and civility (Muddiman 2012), and if politics today seems short on either, then a dysfunctional Common Style may be to blame. Still, we ask too much if we expect
184 rhetoric of any sort to solve our shared problems in a perfectly rational and dispassionate manner. Put differently, the rhetoric of leadership might convince citizens that they have a place in politics, but it cannot make politics palatable to those who shun conflict at all costs. Second, we must keep in mind that words matter but that other symbolic forms do as well. My study produced a theory of language and relationship maintenance unique to public discourse in the United States, but much about the rhetoric of exceptional-ordinary leadership remains to be explained. For example, while some scholars have pursued the style of politics (Brummett 2011, 2008), none have systematically described how the nonverbal elements of style work, or fail to work, with regard to leader-citizen relations. For example, every politician tries to pass the “average Joe” test through made-for-media rituals. By eating cheesy grits in the South or by sharing their tournament brackets on ESPN, politicians demonstrate their common identity with particular subcultures through visual imagery. Critics malign these performances as inauthentic, and political scholars mostly fail to take them seriously. Consequently, we are unable to say how the Common Style might be aided or abetted by such para-linguistic elements. One might even plausibly speculate that the Common Style and its nonverbal counterparts often work at cross-purposes when unintended messages are delivered to local audiences. As local reporter Phil Luciano (2012, para. 11) observes, what plays in Chicago might well raise suspicion in Peoria:
Downstaters don’t much like Chicago, and many would like to secede to form their own state. So, a candidate might be tempted to flounce into the Windy City, chomp a Chicago-style hot dog or deep-dish pizza, and pull on a Cubs hat. But if they cuddle up too closely to Chicago, Peorians might say, “Hey, that candidate is buddy-buddy with Chicago. Must be buddy-buddy with Blagojevich. Ixnay.”
185 Third and finally, let us remember that the Common Style is an essential ingredient in democratic politics but it is not its raison d’être. Leadership must ultimately be judged by its ability to foster social change and not simply by its ability to maintain social cohesion. This is to say that espousing situated and universal values might well be a necessary and effective means of achieving certain political ends, but politicians must also further those ideals for their leadership to be deemed effective. As Warren Bennis defines it, leadership is “the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Therefore, reality, not rhetoric, ultimately speaks for leadership, even if rhetoric is what sustains it initially. We might also imagine circumstances in which leader-citizen collusions work against the public interest. Even now, some voices (anarchists, for example) argue that elite-mass accord disadvantages average citizens in almost every respect. While political culture in the United States marginalizes these messengers as dangerous radicals, their continuing presence demonstrates that almost nothing is ever settled with finality in the United States. In so many ways, the power of the Common Style is ultimately measured by how common it really is and what common visions it enforces or despises or leaves uncertain.
186 Appendix A
The following bibliography lists all presidential weekly addresses analyzed for Chapter 3. Bush, George H. W. 1992. Radio Address to the Nation on the Balanced Budget Amendment, June 6. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=21057. Bush, George H. W. 1992. Radio Address to the Nation on a "GI Bill" for Children, June 27. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=21161. Bush, George H. W. 1992. Radio Address to the Nation on Health Care Reform, July 3. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=21198. Bush, George H. W. 1992. Radio Address to the Nation on the Agenda for American Renewal, September 12. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=21448 Bush, George H. W. 1992. Radio Address to the Nation on the Results of the Presidential Election, November 7. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=21739. Bush, George W. 2001. The President's Radio Address, March 24. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45953. Bush, George W. 2001. The President's Radio Address, May 12. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45607. Bush, George W. 2001. The President's Radio Address, June 30. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45838. Bush, George W. 2001. The President's Radio Address, August 25. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25004. Bush, George W. 2001. The President's Radio Address, September 15. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25001. Bush, George W. 2002. The President's Radio Address, February 16. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25080. Bush, George W. 2002. The President's Radio Address, April 13. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25072. Bush, George W. 2002. The President's Radio Address, June 1. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25065.
187 Bush, George W. 2002. The President's Radio Address, November 2. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25043. Bush, George W. 2002. The President's Radio Address, December 14. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25037. Bush, George W. 2003. The President's Radio Address, January 4. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25138. Bush, George W. 2003. The President's Radio Address, March 1. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25130. Bush, George W. 2003. The President's Radio Address, August 30. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25104. Bush, George W. 2003. The President's Radio Address, November 8. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25094. Bush, George W. 2003. The President's Radio Address, December 13. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25089. Bush, George W. 2004. The President's Radio Address, March 27. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25156. Bush, George W. 2004. The President's Radio Address, July 24. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25139. Bush, George W. 2004. The President's Radio Address, August 7, 2004. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25170. Bush, George W. 2004. The President's Radio Address, October 9. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25888. Bush, George W. 2004. The President's Radio Address, December 25. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58784. Bush, George W. 2005. The President's Radio Address, June 11. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58775. Bush, George W. 2005. 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The President's Radio Address, December 22. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=62246. Bush, George W. 2008. The President's Radio Address, January 12. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=76295. Bush, George W. 2008. The President's Radio Address, March 15. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=76855. Bush, George W. 2008. The President's Radio Address, July 5. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=77638. Bush, George W. 2008. The President's Radio Address, July 26. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=77786. Bush, George W. 2008. The President's Radio Address, December 27. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=85266 Bush, George W. 2009. The President's Radio Address, January 3. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=85413. Clinton, William J. 1993. The President's Radio Address, July 10. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46831#ixzz1x29pWkah. Clinton, William J. 1993. The President's Radio Address, May 29. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46637#ixzz1x29amyyV. 189 Clinton, William J. 1993. The President's Radio Address, Dec. 18. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46254#ixzz1x29GTxjZ. Clinton, William J. 1993. The President's Radio Address, Feb. 13. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=47121#ixzz1x28sP6en. Clinton, William J. 1993. The President's Radio Address, April 24. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46476#ixzz1x28XPRDY. Clinton, William J. 1994. The President's Radio Address, Sept. 10. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=49062#ixzz1x27gy07n. Clinton, William J. 1994. The President's Radio Address, Dec. 17. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=49597#ixzz1x27zuTt3. Clinton, William J. 1994. The President's Radio Address, June 11. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50329#ixzz1x26hs500. Clinton, William J. 1994. The President's Radio Address, June 18. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=50359. Clinton, William J. 1994. The President's Radio Address, July 30. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=48922#ixzz1x27Md8MR. Clinton, William J. 1995. The President's Radio Address, July 10. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51476#ixzz1x2AUajsS. Clinton, William J. 1995. The President's Radio Address, Aug. 26. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51772#ixzz1x2Bl7vOt. Clinton, William J. 1995. The President's Radio Address, Feb. 25. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51031#ixzz1x2BITkh7. Clinton, William J. 1995. The President's Radio Address, March 18. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51124#ixzz1x2B2fOyK. Clinton, William J. 1995. The President's Radio Address, June 3. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51446#ixzz1x2Ag9sOn. 190 Clinton, William J. 1996. The President's Radio Address, Sept. 7. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=53305#ixzz1x2CWCnvx. Clinton, William J. 1996. The President's Radio Address, Dec. 21. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52363#ixzz1x2CGyIEy. Clinton, William J. 1996. The President's Radio Address, Feb. 24. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52449#ixzz1x2Ch64Gn. Clinton, William J. 1996. The President's Radio Address, April 27. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52732#ixzz1x2CuIbj5. Clinton, William J. 1996. The President's Radio Address, June 1. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52897#ixzz1x2DFXyKI. Clinton, William J. 1997. The President's Radio Address, Sept. 13. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=54614#ixzz1x2hoNcmV. Clinton, William J. 1997. The President's Radio Address, Aug. 16. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=54545#ixzz1x2h0iSj9. Clinton, William J. 1997. 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191 Clinton, William J. 1998. The President's Radio Address, Feb. 28. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=55546#ixzz1x2jH912Y. Clinton, William J. 1998. The President's Radio Address, March 14. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=55630#ixzz1x2j5DpJi. Clinton, William J. 1998. The President's Radio Address, July 25. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56365#ixzz1x2jWM1ul. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, July 31. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=57986#ixzz1x2nObXDt. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, Sept. 4. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56462#ixzz1x2mEZTWC. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, Jan. 16. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=57488#ixzz1x2mlWtNm. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, Feb. 13. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56982#ixzz1x2mttW1N. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, June 5. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=57689#ixzz1x2mVgBIm. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, July 31. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=57986. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, September 4. 1999. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=56462. Clinton, William J. 1999. The President's Radio Address, February 26. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58178. Clinton, William J. 2000. The President's Radio Address, June 3. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58149. Clinton, William J. 2000. The President's Radio Address, August 12. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25530. Clinton, William J. 2000. The President's Radio Address, September 16. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25535.
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193 Obama, Barack. 2011. The President's Weekly Address, May 19. In The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=100858. Obama, Barack. 2011. The President's Weekly Address, June 6. From http://www.whitehouse.gov/
194 Appendix B
The following bibliography lists all local-executive addresses analyzed for Chapter 4. Barbour, Haley. 2011. Education Speech in Jackson, Mississippi, December 8. Online at http://ameribornnews.com/2011/12/08/1309/ Beebe, Mike. 2008. Governor's Speech to 2008 Arkansas Works Summit, October 17. From States News Service, http://www.lexisnexis.com. Brewer, Jan. 2009. Gov. Jan Brewer’s Opening Remarks at the 4th Annual Arizona Substance Abuse Conference, Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak, April 29. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2009. Gov. Jan Brewer’s Remarks to the Paradise Valley Republican Women’s Club, June 13. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2009. Remarks by Gov. Jan Brewer at the Arizona Farm Bureau 88th Annual Meeting, November 12. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2010. Tribal Legislative Breakfast, January 19. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2010. Remarks by Gov. Jan Brewer at the Pinal Partnership Breakfast, May 14. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2011. Prescott Chamber, Prescott Valley Chamber, Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce, March 23. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2011. Remarks by Gov. Jan Brewer at the Arizona Families for Home Education Annual Convention, July 23. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2011. Arizona State Veteran Home—Tucson Grand Opening, November 11. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2012. Remarks by Gov. Jan Brewer, Manufacturer of the Year Summit Awards Luncheon, May 11. http://azgovernor.gov/ Brewer, Jan. 2012. Remarks by Gov. Jan Brewer at the Mohave County Medical Society, Kingman, Arizona, June 14. http://azgovernor.gov/ Christie, Chris. 2010. Mayor's Annual Luncheon, April 29. http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/addresses/2010s/approved/20100429.html Christie, Chris. 2010. Excerpted Remarks of Governor Chris Christie to the Foundation for Excellence in Education, November 30. http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/addresses/2010s/approved/20101130a.html Cornett, Mick. 2012. 13th State of the City Message, January 19. http://www.okc.gov/council/mayor/mayor.html 195 Daniels, Jr., Mitchell E. 2008. Indiana Leadership Prayer Breakfast, February 19. Transcribed from extemporaneous remarks. http://in.gov/governorhistory/mitchdaniels/2528.htm Daniels, Jr., Mitchell E. 2009. Indiana Grantmakers Alliance Fall Conference on “Fearless Philanthropy,” Indianapolis, Indiana, November 12. Transcribed from extemporaneous remarks. http://in.gov/governorhistory/mitchdaniels/files/111209_Fearless_Philanthropy.pd f Daniels, Jr., Mitchell E. 2009. Anti-Defamation League “Man of Achievement Award,” Indianapolis, Indiana, November 23. Transcribed from extemporaneous remarks. http://in.gov/governorhistory/mitchdaniels/files/112309_Anti_Defamation_Leagu e.pdf Daniels, Jr., Mitchell E. 2010. The Economic Club of Indiana, “Indiana’s Economy and Its Prospects,” March 24. Transcribed from extemporaneous remarks. http://www.in.gov/governorhistory/mitchdaniels/files/Press/032510_EconClub.pd f Fischer, Greg. 2011. Louisville Venture Club Jobs Address, June 1. http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Mayor/Speeches/6-1-11+venture+club.htm Fischer, Greg. 2011. Compassion Speech at 2011 Festival of Faiths, November 7. http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Mayor/Speeches/compassion+charter.htm Fischer, Greg. 2012. State of the City Address, Downtown Rotary Club. January 12. http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Mayor/Speeches/1-12-12+state+of+city.htm Gregoire, Christine. 2006. Governor Gregoire Addresses Seattle City Club Annual Meeting, April 6. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=35 Gregoire, Christine. 2008. Governor Gregoire addresses the Junior League of Seattle, March 1. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=128 Gregoire, Christine. 2008. Gov. Gregoire address the Senior Citizens Lobby Fall Conference, October 17. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=195 Gregoire, Christine. 2008. Gov. Gregoire visits the Veterans in Piping training program, October 21. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=196
196 Gregoire, Christine. 2008. Gov. Gregoire addresses the Tacoma 8 Rotary Club, October 23. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=197 Gregoire, Christine. 2008. Gov. Gregoire addresses the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce annual Leadership Conference, October 24. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=199 Gregoire, Christine. 2009. Washington Scholars Luncheon, May 20. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=125 Gregoire, Christine. 2009. Foundation for Early Learning Luncheon honoring Mona Locke, May 31. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=211 Gregoire, Christine. 2012. Foundation for Health Care Quality, May 14. http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/GovernorGregoire/speeches/speech- view.asp?SpeechSeq=226 Guadagno, Kim. 2010. Excerpted Remarks of Acting Governor Kim Guadagno to 95th Annual League Conference Luncheon, November 18. http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/addresses/2010s/approved/20101118.html Herbert, Gary R. 2012. Governor's Economic Summit Keynote, April 10. http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=6943 Huntsman, Jon. 2008. Governor's Economic Summit Keynote: Our Current World, Salt Lake City, UT, March 20. http://mainstreetbusinessjournal.com/view/articleview.php?articlesid=2870&volu me=11&issue=10 Jindal, Bobby. 2009. Governor Bobby Jindal’s Remarks at Louisiana Association of Business and Industry Meeting, Baton Rouge, January 8. http://gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&catID=3&article ID=894&navID=11 Kaine, Tim. 2009. Governor Kaine's Remarks as Prepared for Delivery to Virginia Summit on Economic Competitiveness and Higher Education, Richmond, VA, October 1. Online by States News Service. http://www.lexisnexis.com Kitzhaber, John. 2011. YMCA Youth and Government Model Legislature, February 16. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/ymca_youth_govt _model_legislature_021611.aspx
197 Kitzhaber, John. 2011. City Club, March 4. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/city_club_030411. aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Oregon League of Conservation Voters, April 15. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/oregon_league_co nservation_voters_041511.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Make It Your Business Breakfast, April 28. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/make_it_your_bus iness_breakfast_042811.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Governor Kitzhaber Details Education Improvement Plans to Springfield Teachers and Community Leaders, September 6. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/stateofschools_09 0611.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Governor Kitzhaber talks jobs at the AFL-CIO convention, September 28. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/jobs_aflcioconven tion_092811.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Native American Heritage Family Center Gala, November 11. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/native_american_ heritage_family_center_gala_111111.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2011. Oregon School Boards Association Annual Convention, November 12. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2011/osba_annual_conv ention_111211.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2012. Keynote Address Oregon Wine Association, January 18. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2012/oregon_wine_asso ciation_011812.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2012. Address to Oregon League of Women Voters, February 7. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/pages/speechess2012/league_women_v oters_020712.aspx Kitzhaber, John. 2012. Governor Kitzhaber’s Keynote Address, Oregon Community Foundation Annual Meeting, May 9. http://www.oregon.gov/gov/media_room/Pages/speechess2012/OR_community_f oundation_050912.aspx Kulongoski, Ted. 2009. Remarks by Governor Ted Kulongoski City Club of Portland, May 15. http://archivedwebsites.sos.state.or.us/Governor_Kulongoski_2011/governor.oreg on.gov/Gov/docs/Portland_City_Club_051509.pdf
198 Menino, Thomas M. 2009. Address to the BC CEO Club, June 9. http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/2009_BC_CEO_Club_tcm3- 8793.pdf Menino, Thomas M. 2011. Address to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, December 6. http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/2011%20State%20of%20the%2 0City%20Final_tcm3-22748.pdf Nixon, Jay. 2009. Gov. Nixon's remarks to Missouri State Teachers Association Annual Conference, Nov. 19. http://governor.mo.gov/newsroom/speeches/2009/MSTAAC_Conference2009.ht m Nixon, Jay. 2010. Remarks at State Parks Youth Corps Dinner, October 21. http://governor.mo.gov/newsroom/speeches/2010/spyc_dinner.htm Nixon, Jay. 2010. Text of Gov. Nixon's Remarks an Right-Sizing and Refocusing State Government to Springfield Business Leaders, SPRINGFIELD, MO, March 11. Online by States News Service. http://www.lexisnexis.com Nixon, Jay. 2012. Remarks to Missouri Association of Veterans Organizations, March 22. http://governor.mo.gov/newsroom/speeches/2012/032212veteransassociation.htm O’Malley, Martin. 2011. Maryland Agricultural Council, Glen Burnie, MD, February 3. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=3675 O’Malley, Martin. 2011. Maryland Chamber of Commerce, Baltimore, MD, May 4. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/speeches/110504.asp O’Malley, Martin. 2011. Share Our Strength Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, October 16. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=2305 O’Malley, Martin. 2011. 20th Annual Maryland Business Roundtable for Education Meeting, Baltimore, MD, November 9. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=2946 O’Malley, Martin. 2012. Keynote at Tech Council of Maryland Annapolis, MD, January 18. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=3519 O’Malley, Martin. 2012. United Way Leadership Society: Economic Competitiveness, Baltimore, MD, February 15. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=4179 O’Malley, Martin. 2012. CFA Luncheon: Jobs, Economy and Innovation, Baltimore, MD, May 3. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=5361 O’Malley, Martin. 2012. Job Creation is a Choice: Maryland Municipal League, Ocean City, MD, June 26. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=5865
199 Parnell, Sean. 2012. February 3. Alaska Outdoor Council, Prospector Hotel. http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/press-room/full-press-release.html?pr=6034 Parnell, Sean. 2012. May 28. Speech: Rural Providers Conference, Dillingham. http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/press-room/full-press-release.html?pr=6154 Parnell, Sean. 2012. May 22. Speech: Sackett v EPA, a Patriotic Imperative; Resource Development Council. http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/press-room/full-press- release.html?pr=6162 Patrick, Deval L. 2008. Northampton Workforce Training Fund Grant Remarks, April 29. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/termonespeech/042908- northampton-workforce-training-fund.html Patrick, Deval L. 2008. Latino Convention, October 22. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/termonespeech/102208- latino-convention.html Patrick, Deval L. 2010. Address Before Building Trades Conference, Plymouth Radisson, Plymouth, MA, March 3. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/termonespeech/031110- building-trades-conference.html Patrick, Deval L. 2011. AFL-CIO State of the Union Conference, Plymouth Radisson Hotel, Plymouth, March 22. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/032211-afl-cio-state-of-the- union-conference.html Patrick, Deval L. 2011. Tourism Conference, Boston, MA, March 23.http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/032311-tourism- conference.html Patrick, Deval L. 2011. Associated Industries of Massachusetts 96th Annual Meeting, Westin Hotel, Waltham, May 13. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/051311-associated- industries-of.html Patrick, Deval L. 2012. New England Council Breakfast, Bank of America, Boston, April 3. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/040312-new-england- council-breakfast.html Patrick, Deval L. 2012. Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Seaport Hotel - One Seaport Lane, May 15. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/20120514-boston-chamber- of-commerce.html Patrick, Deval L. 2012. Small Business Fair, Small Business Fair, Great Hall, State House, May 23. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/20120523- small-business-fair-remarks.html
200 Perdue, Sonny. 2006. Eggs and Issues Address, January 9. http://sonnyperdue.georgia.gov/vgn/images/portal/cit_79369762/8163015101090 7_Eggs_and_Issues.doc Perdue, Sonny. 2009. Governor Perdue Addresses Eggs and Issues Breakfast Hosted by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Atlanta, GA, January 13. Online by States News Service. http://www.lexisnexis.com Perry, Rick. 2000. Chamber Remarks, December 11. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/10860/ Perry, Rick. 2001. Remarks by Gov. Rick Perry to TEA Midwinter Conference, January 30. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/5562/ Perry, Rick. 2002. Text of Gov. Perry’s Remarks at Announcement of Trans Texas Corridor, Victoria, Texas, February 20. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/10532/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Gov. Perry Speaks at the Lubbock Day Legislative Luncheon, Austin, Texas, January 25. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/15620/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Gov. Perry Speaks at the 2011 Texas Prayer Breakfast, Austin, Texas, February 17. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/15724/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Gov. Perry's Remarks at the Governor’s Commission for Women Legislative Luncheon, Austin, Texas, April 26. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/16045/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Text of Gov. Perry’s Remarks at the Power On For Texas Film, Interactive and Tourism Conference, Corpus Christi, Texas, May 15. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/17249/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Gov. Perry's Remarks at Santé Ventures' Annual Dinner, Austin, Texas, June 17. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/16271/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Gov. Perry Speaks at Texas Municipal Police Association’s Annual Conference, Austin, Texas, July 18. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/16391/ Perry, Rick. 2011. Remarks at the Lone Survivor Dinner, Houston, Texas, September 17. http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/16613/ Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2009. Text of Governor's Speech on Ballot Measures to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, Calif., March 12. Online by San Francisco Gate. http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-03-13/bay-area/17214893_1_special- interests-reform-measure-budget Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2009. Governor Announces Nation's Largest State-Sponsored Green Jobs Training Program, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, August 31. Online by States News Service. http://www.lexisnexis.com
201 Appendix C
The following bibliography is a complete list of all talk-show interviews analyzed for this study. Allen, Diane. 2002. “True Crime: Free to Rape and Kill; Guests Relate Stories of Repeat Offenders Assaulting Them or Their Loved Ones.” The Montel Williams Show, August 2. Transcript online by http://www. lexisnexis.com. Bachmann, Michele. 2011. “Michele Bachmann, Part 1 (91611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, September 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/michele-bachmann-part-1-9-16-11/1355952 Bachmann, Michele. 2011. “Michele Bachmann, Part 2 (91611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, September 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/michele-bachmann-part-2-9-16-11/1355953 Bachmann, Michele. 2011. “Michele Bachmann, Part 1 (112111).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, November 21. Audio downloaded at http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/michele-bachmann-part-1-11- 21-11/1369885 Bachmann, Michele. 2011. “Michele Bachmann, Part 2 (112111).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, November 21. Audio downloaded at http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/michele-bachmann-part-2-11- 21-11/1369881 Biden, Joseph. 2001. “America under attack: where do we stand now? examining realities in the aftermath of the attack.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, September 17. Transcript online by http:www.lexisnexis.com Bloomberg, Michael. 2012. “Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Part 1 (4412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 4. Audio downloaded at http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/mayor-michael-bloomberg-part- 1-4-4-12/1394888. Booker, Cory. 2012. “Mayor Cory Booker, Part 1 (61812).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, June 18. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mayor-cory-booker-part-1-6-18-12/1406730. Booker, Cory. 2012. “Mayor Cory Booker, Part 2 (61812).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, June 18. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mayor-cory-booker-part-2-6-18-12/1406731. Bush, George W. 2000 “David Letterman - George Bush - YouTube.” Late Show with David Letterman, October 19. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNcnNZWbp98&feature=related
202 Cain, Herman. 2011. “Herman Cain, Part 1 (93011).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, September 30. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/herman-cain-part-1-9-30-11/1359512. Cain, Herman. 2011. “Herman Cain, Part 2 (93011).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, September 30. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/herman-cain-part-2-9-30-11/1359511. Cain, Herman. 2011. “Herman Cain Talks Politics Part 1.” The View, October 4. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vob-aM2W270&feature=plcp. Cain, Herman. 2011. “Herman Cain Talks Politics Part 2.” The View, October 4. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXTBDDhDN1g&feature=plcp. Cheney, Dick. 2007. “Interview With Vice President Dick Cheney.” CNN Larry King Live, July 31. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Clinton, Hillary R. 2003. “Interview with Hillary Rodham Clinton; Guess Panel Discusses Clinton’s Political Future.” CNN Larry King Live, June 10. Online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Clinton, Hillary R. 2008. Clinton Interview, Part 1. Late Show with David Letterman, February 4. Video downloaded at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4a104_david-letterman-senator-hilary- clin_shortfilms Clinton, Hillary R. 2008. Clinton Interview, Part 2. Late Show with David Letterman, February 4. Video downloaded http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4a14n_david-letterman-senator-hilary- clin_shortfilms# Clinton, Hillary R. 2008 “Hillary Clinton on Ellen (HQfull) - Part 1.” The Ellen DeGeneres Show, April 7. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHiQ6gGV6Q Clinton, Hillary R. 2008 “Hillary Clinton on Ellen (HQfull) - Part 2.” The Ellen DeGeneres Show, April 7. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHiQ6gGV6Q Clinton, William J. 1993. “Interview With Larry King,” July 20. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=46883. Clinton, William J. 1994. “Interview With Larry King,” January 20. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=50243. Clinton, William J. 1995. “Interview with Larry King,” June 5. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51450. 203 Clinton, William J. 1999. “Telephone Remarks on the Oprah Winfrey Show.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, October 21. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56800&st=Oprah+Winfrey&s t1=#ixzz1ywP72pZ9 Coburn, Tom. 2012. “Exclusive - Tom Coburn Extended Interview Pt- 1 .” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, May 2. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-2-2012/exclusive---tom-coburn- extended-interview-pt--1. Coburn, Tom. 2012. “Exclusive - Tom Coburn Extended Interview Pt- 2 .” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, May 2. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-2-2012/exclusive---tom-coburn- extended-interview-pt--2. DeMint, Jim. 2012. “Exclusive - Jim DeMint Extended Interview Pt- 1.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 11. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-11-2012/exclusive---jim- demint-extended-interview-pt—1. DeMint, Jim. 2012. “Exclusive - Jim DeMint Extended Interview Pt- 2.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 11. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-11-2012/exclusive---jim- demint-extended-interview-pt—2 DeMint, Jim. 2012. “Exclusive - Jim DeMint Extended Interview Pt- 3.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 11. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-11-2012/exclusive---jim- demint-extended-interview-pt--3 Deutsch, Peter. 2003. “Prescription Drugs: What You Don’t Know Can Kill You; Guests Discuss the Problem of Counterfeit and Unsafe Drugs and How to Crack Down on Suppliers of These Medications.” The Montel Williams Show, October 15. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com. Duncan, John. 2001. “Will You Fly This Holiday Season?; Experts Discuss how Airline Safety has Changed since September 11th and how Passengers View the Safety of Flying.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, November 16. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Edwards, John. 2004. “Interview With John Edwards.” CNN Larry King Live, October 25. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com. Frank, Barney. 2010. “Rep- Barney Frank in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, August 31. Video online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpmMccYYpKI
204 Frank, Barney. 2012. “Barney Frank on Jimmy Kimmel Live PART 1.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, February 22. Video online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YyUpVXb1kk&feature=relmfu Frank, Barney. 2012. “Barney Frank on Jimmy Kimmel Live PART 2.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, February 22. Video online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpnP9pJIdHg&list=UUa6vGFO9ty8v5KZJX Qxdhaw&index=588&feature=plpp_video Gingrich, Newt. 2010. “Newt Gingrich - 2012 Presidential Race - The View - YouTube - 1.” The View, November 9. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-D1wT6hxU&feature=plcp Gundrum, Mark. 2002. “Voyeurs Exposed: Women Outraged; Women Discuss how They have been Victimized by Men Who were Secretly Watching and Sometimes Videotaping Them.” The Montel Williams Show, May 30. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Hastings, Drew. 2011. “Drew Hastings, Part 1 (111611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, November 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/drew-hastings-part-1-11-16-11/1368983 Hastings, Drew. 2011. “Drew Hastings, Part 2 (111611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, November 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/drew-hastings-part-2-11-16-11/1368961 Huntsman, Jon. 2011. “Jon Huntsman on Politics Part 1 - The View - YouTube.” The View, October 6. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQizzlmP1l4&feature=plcp Huntsman, Jon. 2011. “Jon Huntsman on Politics Part 2 - The View - YouTube.” The View, October 6. Online by ABC at .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ZAfVKI9Es&feature=relmfu Huntsman, Jon. 2011. “Jon Huntsman on His Campaign Part 1! - The View - YouTube.” The View, December 13. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQMFM3kScP4&feature=relmfu Huntsman, Jon. 2011. “Jon Huntsman on His Campaign Part 2! - The View - YouTube.” The View, December 13. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSTJWsyZIJc&feature=fvwrel Huntsman, Jon. 2011. “Jon Huntsman on Letterman (12-21-11) - YouTube.” Late Show with David Letterman, December 21. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLr3jvImOdQ. Huntsman, Jon. 2012. “Jon Huntsman, Part 1 (2712).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, February 7. Video downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/jon-huntsman-part-1-2712/1383909
205 Huntsman, Jon. 2012. “Jon Huntsman, Part 2 (2712).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, February 7. Video downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/jon-huntsman-part-2-2712/1383912 Johnson, Gary. 2012. “Gary Johnson - 060512.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 5. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-5-2012/gary-johnson Kennedy, Edward. 2006. “Interview With Edward Kennedy.” CNN Larry King Live, April 20. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Kerry, Edward. 2006. “Larry Interviews With Senator John Kerry.” CNN Larry King Live, November 29. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com. McCain, John. 2009. “Senator John McCain on the Jay Leno Show 10/16/09.” Online by SenatorJohnMcCain. October 16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqfb8aq0GE McCain, John. 2012. “John McCain, Part 1 (22912)” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, February 29. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/john-mccain-part-1-22912/1388339. McCain, John. 2012. “John McCain, Part 2 (22912)” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, February 29. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/john-mccain-part-2-22912/1388177. McCain, John. 2012. “John McCain, Part 3 (22912)” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, February 29. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/john-mccain-part-3-22912/1388340 McCain, John. 2008. “John McCain on The View 9-12-2008 part 1 of 3 - YouTube.” The View, September 12. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyQpmN-nH64&feature=channel&list=UL McCain, John. 2008. “John McCain on The View 9-12-2008 part 2 of 3 - YouTube.” The View, September 12. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoQ_G6eMJAQ&feature=channel&list=UL McCain, John. 2008. “John McCain on The View 9-12-2008 part 3 of 3 - YouTube.” The View, September 12. Online by ABC at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvEDfwAg1ng Nagin, Ray. 2005. “Interview with Ray Nagin.” CNN Larry King Live, September 14. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Obama, Barack. 2006. “Barack Obama on the Tough Questions; Senator Barack Obama discusses his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," working in the US Senate and joined by his wife Michelle, comments on family life and values.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, October 18. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com.
206 Obama, Barack. 2007. “Barack Obama on David Letterman - YouTube.” April 9. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAVauLsJ56Q&feature=related Obama, Barack. 2008. “Obama on Letterman 091008 Part 1 of 3 - YouTube.” September 10. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BXjQko- w8&feature=channel&list=UL. Obama, Barack. 2008. “Obama on Letterman 091008 Part 2 of 3 - YouTube.” September 10. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8sw6zfyjzU&feature=channel&list=UL Obama, Barack. 2008. “Obama on Letterman 091008 Part 3 of 3 - YouTube.” September 10. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lHhle9FJ9Q&feature=related Obama, Barack. 2008. “Barack Obama Interview The View 1 of 4, Barbara Says He's Sexy - YouTube.” The View, April 28. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Wqkl60lE. Obama, Barack. 2008. “Barack Obama Interview The View 2 of 4, Barbara Says He's Sexy - YouTube.” The View, April 28. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv-WYqYVaX8&feature=channel&list=UL. Obama, Barack. 2008. “Barack Obama Interview The View 3 of 4, Barbara Says He's Sexy - YouTube.” The View, April 28. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUVbG2tV2I&feature=channel&list=UL. Obama, Barack. 2008. “Barack Obama Interview The View 4 of 4, Barbara Says He's Sexy - YouTube.” The View, April 28. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcmQtkr8hsE&feature=channel&list=UL. Obama, Barack. 2008. “Interview With Jay Leno of ‘The Tonight Show’ in Burbank, California.” March 19. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=85872&st=Leno&st1=#ixzz1 yp0OnH00 Obama, Barack. 2009. “Barack Obama al David Letterman show Part 1.” Late Show with David Letterman, September 29. Online at http://www.youtube.com Obama, Barack. 2009. “Barack Obama al David Letterman show Part 2.” Late Show with David Letterman, September 29. Online at http://www.youtube.com Obama, Barack. 2009. “Barack Obama al David Letterman show Part 3.” Late Show with David Letterman, September 29. Online at http://www.youtube.com Obama, Barack. 2009. “Barack Obama al David Letterman show Part 4.” Late Show with David Letterman, September 29. Online at http://www.youtube.com
207 Obama, Barack. 2010. "Interview on ABC's ‘The View’," July 28. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88313. Obama, Barack. 2010. “Interview with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show’," October 27. Transcript online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=97095. Obama, Barack. 2011. “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (part 1) - YouTube.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, May 2. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=invJq5ZgoUk&feature=relmfu Obama, Barack. 2011. “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (part 2) - YouTube.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, May 2. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ILhouPWmvU&feature=channel&list=UL Obama, Barack. 2011. “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (part 3) - YouTube.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, May 2. Online at Thttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAcP_RnC0R0&feature=channel&list=UL Obama, Barack. 2011. “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (part 4) - YouTube.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, May 2. Online http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X- xbpbsf1hY&feature=channel&list=UL Obama, Barack. 2011. “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (part 5) - YouTube.” The Oprah Winfrey Show, May 2. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLMsW2xzAcM&feature=channel&list=UL Obama, Barack. 2011. "Interview With Jay Leno on NBC's ‘The Tonight Show’," October 25. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=97085. Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 1 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 2 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 3 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 4 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 5 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com Obama, Barack. 2012. “President Barack Obama, Part 6 (42412).” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, April 24. Audio downloaded at http//www.nbc.com
208 Pascrell, Bill. 2005. “Should We Be Scared?; Guests Discuss the Possibility of an Avian Flu Pandemic.” The Montel Williams Show, October 31. Transcript online by Burrelle's Information Services at http://www.lexisnexis.com. Patrick, Deval. 2011 “Deval Patrick – 041211.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, April 12. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-12-2011/deval- patrick Paul, Ron. 2011. “Ron Paul, Part 1 (121611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/ron-paul-part-1-121611/1374351 Paul, Ron. 2011. “Ron Paul, Part 2 (121611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/ron-paul-part-2-121611/1374365 Paul, Ron. 2011. “Ron Paul, Part 3 (121611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/ron-paul-part-3-121611/1374381 Paul, Ron. 2011. “Ron Paul, Part 4 (121611).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 16. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/ron-paul-part-4-121611/1374352 Paul, Ron. 2012. “Ron Paul, Part 1 (32012).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 30. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/ron-paul- part-1-32012/1391821. Paul, Ron. 2012. “Ron Paul, Part 2 (32012).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 30. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/ron-paul- part-2-32012/1391827 Paul, Ron. 2012. “Ron Paul, Part 3 (32012).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 30. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/ron-paul- part-3-32012/1391800 Pelosi, Nancy. 2006. “Pelosi on Letterman - Part 1.” Late Show with David Letterman, August 26. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKxxZZqDdA&feature=relmfu Pelosi, Nancy. 2006. “Pelosi on Letterman - Part 2.” Late Show with David Letterman, August 26. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHOKiOfLfYo&feature=relmfu Pelosi, Nancy. 2006. “Pelosi on Letterman - Part 3.” Late Show with David Letterman, August 26. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeLuuSUnvn8&feature=relmfu Pelosi, Nancy. 2007. “Interview With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” CNN Larry King Live, February 27. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Pelosi, Nancy. 2011. “Exclusive - Nancy Pelosi Extended Interview Pt- 1 - 110911.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 9. Online at
209 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-9-2011/exclusive---nancy- pelosi-extended-interview-pt—1 Pelosi, Nancy. 2011. “Exclusive - Nancy Pelosi Extended Interview Pt- 2 - 110911.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 9. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-9-2011/exclusive---nancy- pelosi-extended-interview-pt—2 Pelosi, Nancy. 2011. “Exclusive - Nancy Pelosi Extended Interview Pt- 3 - 110911.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 9. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-9-2011/exclusive---nancy- pelosi-extended-interview-pt—3 Perot, Ross. 1995. “Interview with Ross Perot.” CNN Larry King Live, August 3. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Perry, Rick. 2011. “Governor Rick Perry, Part 1 (12111).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 12. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/governor-rick-perry-part-1-12111/1371548 Perry, Rick. 2011. “Governor Rick Perry, Part 2 (12111).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 12. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/governor-rick-perry-part-2-12111/1371550 Perry, Rick. 2011. “Governor Rick Perry, Part 3 (12111).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 12. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/governor-rick-perry-part-3-12-1-11/1371549?auto=true Roessler, Carol. “Watched By A Stranger; Guests discuss unknowingly being videotaped by strangers.” The Montel Williams Show, April 14. Online by Burrelle's Information Services at http://www.lexisnexis.com Romney, Mitt. 2010. “Mitt Romney – Video.” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, December 1. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mitt-romney/1262892 Romney, Mitt. 2012. “Mitt Romney, Part 1 (32712).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 27. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mitt-romney-part-1-32712/1393111 Romney, Mitt. 2012. “Mitt Romney, Part 2 (32712).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 27. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mitt-romney-part-2-32712/1393112 Romney, Mitt. 2012. “Mitt Romney, Part 3 (32712).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 27. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight- show/video/mitt-romney-part-3-32712/1393113
210 Rubio, Marco. 2012. “The View Season 15 Episode 189 Full TV Episode Online .” The View, June 25. Video downloaded at http://abc.go.com/watch/the- view/SH559080/VD55213868/the-view-625 Rubio, Marco. 2012. “Exclusive - Marco Rubio Extended Interview Pt- 1 -062512.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 25. Audio downloaded at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-25-2012/exclusive---marco-rubio- extended-interview-pt—1 Rubio, Marco. 2012. “Exclusive - Marco Rubio Extended Interview Pt- 2 -062512.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 25. Audio downloaded at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-25-2012/exclusive---marco-rubio- extended-interview-pt—2 Rubio, Marco. 2012. “Exclusive - Marco Rubio Extended Interview Pt- 3 -062512.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 25. Audio downloaded at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-25-2012/exclusive---marco-rubio- extended-interview-pt--3 Santorum, Rick. 2012. “Rick Santorum, Part 1 (5812).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, May 8. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/rick- santorum-part-1-5812/1400581 Santorum, Rick. 2012. “Rick Santorum, Part 2 (5812).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, May 8. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/rick- santorum-part-2-5812/1400580 Santorum, Rick. 2012. “Rick Santorum, Part 3 (5812).” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, May 8. Audio downloaded at http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/rick- santorum-part-3-5812/1400550 Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2003. “Season premiere; Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver discuss their personal lives and careers and Arnold's political aspirations. The Oprah Winfrey Show, September 15. Transcript online at http://www.lexisnexis.com Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2009. “Arnold Schwarzenegger Pro Gay Marriage Anti-Prop 8.” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, May 27. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3IHqW-znKg Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2010. “Governor Schwarzenegger Pumps GERRYMANDERING on Leno.” The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, April 29. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB7TG92QK8Q Schweitzer, Brian. 2012. “Schweitzer Visits The Late Show with David Letterman.” Late Show with David Letterman, April 26. Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=983bhGKa4H4&feature=related
211 Slaughter, Louise .2012. “Louise Slaughter - 021512 - Video Clip.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, February 15. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed- february-15-2012/louise-slaughter Specter, Arlen. 2000. “Senator Arlen Specter - 110600 - Video Clip.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 6. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-6-2000/senator-arlen-specter Stupak, Bart. 2002. “Safe...but deadly?; guests discuss lack of information regarding deadly effects of drugs and food allergies.” The Montel Williams Show, March 8. Transcript online by Burrelle’s Information Services at http://www.lexisnexis.com Vitale, Joe. 2004. “Taking Back My Life; Guests discuss what their adversity has motivated them to do.” The Montel Williams Show, October 15. Transcript online by Burrelle's Information Services, http://www.lexisnexis.com Warren, Elizabeth. 2012. “Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt- 1 - 0124.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 24. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-24-2012/exclusive---elizabeth- warren-extended-interview-pt--1 Warren, Elizabeth. 2012. “Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt- 2 - 0124.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 24. Online at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-24-2012/exclusive---elizabeth- warren-extended-interview-pt—2 Winkler, Lenny. 2003. “A parent's right to choose; guests discuss the issue of children being medicated to treat behavioral problems.” The Montel Williams Show, April 15. Transcript online by Burrelle's Information Services at http://www.lexisnexis.com
212 Appendix D
The following bibliography is a complete list of all town-hall meetings analyzed for this study. Armey, Richard. 1995. Majority Leader Armey held a meeting with constituents to discuss the debate over the budget. C-SPAN online video. November 25. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/68560-1 Bartlett, Roscoe. 2006. Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson spoke and Representative Roscoe Bartlett spoke at a town hall meeting with veterans at the American Legion Francis Scott Key Post 11, in Frederick, Maryland. C-SPAN online video. September 6. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/HallMeetingw Barton, Joe. 2010. Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) took questions from constituents at a Town Hall meeting in Crowley, Texas. C-SPAN online video. August 19. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JoeBart Becerra, Xavier. 2011. Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) held a town hall meeting with constituents in his district. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/Xav Bonner, Jo. 2010. Congressman Jo Bonner (R-AL) held a town hall meeting that focused on the BP oil spill and its aftermath. C-SPAN online video. August 26. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JoBon Bradley, Bill. 1993. Senator Bradley then took questions from an audience of his constituents on a variety of policy issues. C-SPAN online video. September 2. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SenateT Brady, Kevin. 2011. Representative Kevin Brade (R-TX) held a town hall meeting at the H.E.A.R.T.S Veterans Conference Center, Huntsville, Texas. C-SPAN online video. August 24. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BradyT Cardin, Ben. 2005. Representative Cardin spoke with constituents about the future of the Social Security system and Bush administration plans to partially privatize accounts. He also answered questions from the audience. C-SPAN online video. February 3. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MeetingonSo Cardin, Ben. 2010. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) held a town hall meeting with constituents. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/295247-1 Coburn, Tom. 2010. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) held a town hall meeting to take questions from his constituents. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/295249-1
213 Coburn, Tom. 2011. Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn spoke to a crowd of around 150 constituents and answered questions at Tulsa Community College. C- SPAN online video. August 16. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TomCobu Connolly, Gerry. 2009. Representative Gerry Connolly held a town hall meeting on health care reform at Greenspring Retirement Community in Springfield, Virginia. C-SPAN online video. August 25. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/Gerry Cummings, Elijah. 2009. Representative Elijah Cummings hosted a town hall meeting for veterans. C-SPAN online video. August 3. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/VeteransT Daschle, Tom. 2003. Senator Daschle talked about war and other war-related topics with a group of veterans, family members of troops overseas, and ROTC students. C- SPAN online video. April 16. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Meetingwith Davis, Danny. 2010. Congressman Danny Davis took questions from constituents at a town hall meeting in Chicago. C-SPAN online video. August 16. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/295069-1 Edwards, Donna. 2009. Representative Donna Edwards held a health care town hall meeting at Plum Gar Community Center in Germantown, Maryland. C-SPAN online video. August 25. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DonnaEdw Edwards, John. 2004. Senator John Edwards, former Democratic nominee for vice presidential, spoke at one of a two-day series of town hall meetings he held in North Carolina before he leaves office in January. C-SPAN online video. December 1. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TownHallMeeting3 Feingold, Russ. 1993. Senator Feingold held a "listening session" for his constituents in West Bend, Wisconsin. C-SPAN online video. April 16. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/TownHa Frank, Barney. 1993. Cameras followed Rep. Barney Frank as he met with constituents in his home district during a break on the House schedule. C-SPAN online video. June 1. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/42573-1 Gingrey, Phil. 2010. Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) held a town hall meeting with constituents in his district. C-SPAN online video. August 18. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/PhilG Gingrich, Newt. 1998. Speaker Gingrich answered students' questions about a number of national political issues C-SPAN online video. October 19. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/114051-1 Gosar, Paul. 2011. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) held a town hall meeting. C-SPAN online video. February 4. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Gosa
214 Grassley, Charles. 2009. Senator Charles Grassley held a town hall meeting at a Methodist church in Afton, Iowa. C-SPAN online video. August 12. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/GrassleyT Harmon, Jane. 1997. Rep. Harman hosted a town hall meeting on defense issues in California. C-SPAN online video. May 30. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/85020-1 Hoyer, Steny. 2005. Representative Hoyer spoke to constituents about the president's proposed Social Security reforms, preserving the fiscal security of the system, and personal private account proposals. C-SPAN online video. February 22. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MeetingonSoci Kerrey, Bob. 1993. Sen. Kerrey discussed various aspects of the Budget Reconciliation Bill with constituents in Red Cloud, Nebraska. C-SPAN online video. August 28. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/49567-1 Kind, Ron. 2009. Representative Ron Kind held a town hall meeting at Whitehall High School in Whitehall, Wisconsin. C-SPAN online video. August 21. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/RonK Kuykendall, Steve. 1999. Representative Kuykendall, his staff, and other government officials met with constituents to discuss various issues including Social Security, Medicare, and a Republican tax cut plan. C-SPAN online video. August 23. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CongressionalTo Lee, Mike. 2011. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) spoke with constituents at a town hall meeting held in the Peterson Dance Hall. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/LeeT Lee, Barbara. 2007. Representative Barbara Lee held a town hall meeting on the 4th anniversary of the war in Iraq. C-SPAN online video. March 24. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/Meetingonth Lieberman, Joe. 1999. Senator Lieberman talked to his constituents about Social Security and Medicare. C-SPAN online video. March 31. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/MeetingonS Lott, Trent. 1993. Senator Lott, town hall meeting with high school students. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/LottT Lundgren, Dan. 2009. California Representative Dan Lungren held a town hall meeting on health care reform at the city council chambers in Citrus Heights, California. C-SPAN online video. August 18. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DanL McCarthy, Kevin. 2010. Representative Kevin McCarthy held a town hall meeting at the Kern County Board of Supervisors Building. C-SPAN online video. June 2. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CarthyTo
215 McHenry, Patrick. 2009. Representative Patrick McHenry held a town hall meeting on health care reform at Beam Intermediate School in Cherryville, North Carolina. C-SPAN online video. September 19. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/McHe Merkley, Jeff. 2010. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) held a town hall meeting to take questions from his constituents. C-SPAN online video. August 31. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/JeffM Moran, James. 2009. Representative James Moran held a health care town hall meeting at South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. C-SPAN online video. August 25. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Moran Mikulski, Barbara, and Paul Sarbanes. 1999. Participants talked about the future of Medicare and how to improve coverage for older Americans. C-SPAN online video. September 27. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CareTow Murkowski, Lisa. 2009. Senator Lisa Murkowski held a town hall meeting at A.J. Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska. C-SPAN online video. August 20. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Murko Pence, Mike. 2010. Representative Mike Pence held a town hall meeting on health care reform proposals with constituents in Bluffton, Indiana. C-SPAN online video. January 7. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MikeP Ross, Mike. 2010. Congressman Mike Ross (D-AR) answered constituents' questions at a town hall meeting. C-SPAN online video. August 17. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/295080-1 Royce, Ed. 2010. Representative Ed Royce held a town hall meeting. C-SPAN online video. August 14. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/EdRo Sanders, Bernie. 2010. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a town hall meeting. C-SPAN online video. September 29. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/BernieSa Sanders, Bernie. 2012. Town Hall on Post Office Cuts. C-SPAN online video. January 4. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CloseP Santorum, Rick. 2003. Senator Santorum held a town meeting in Pennsylvania about the Iraq War. C-SPAN online video. April 23. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/HallMeetingon Scott, Tim. 2012. C-SPAN online video. January 14 http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/303690-1 Shays, Christopher. 2003. Representative Christopher Shays held a district-wide issue forum on Iraq and the War on Terrorism at the Bedford Middle School in Westport, Connecticut. C-SPAN online video. February 23. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/Iraqandthe
216 Shays, Christopher. 1998. At an often raucous town hall meeting Representative Shays told constituents that he wanted to hear their views about his forthcoming vote on the impeachment of President Clinton. C-SPAN online video. December 15. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TownHallMeet Specter, Arlen. 2009. Senator Arlen Specter held a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on health care to discuss the various options being discussed by Congress. C-SPAN online video. August 11. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/SpecterH Stupak, Bart. 2010. Representative Bark Stupak held a town hall meeting on health care reform proposals with constituents in Houghton, Michigan. C-SPAN online video. January 7. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/StupakT Taylor, Gene. 2009. Representative Gene Taylor held a town hall meeting at Pelican Landing Conference Center in Moss Point, Mississippi. C-SPAN online video. August 17. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/GeneTa Warner, Mark. 2009. Senator Mark Warner held a town hall meeting on health care reform at the Fredericksburg Expo Center in Fredericksburg, Virginia. C-SPAN online video. September 3. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MarkWa West, Allen. 2011. Representative Allen West (R-FL) held a town hall meeting following his return from a recent trip to Israel. C-SPAN online video. August 30. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/WestT Whitfield, Ed. 2002. Representative Whitfield and General Keane conducted a town hall meeting on efforts to combat terrorism around the world and the involvement of personnel from Fort Campbell in those efforts. C-SPAN online video. January 28. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TerrorismTo Wyden, Ron. 2010. Senator Ron Wyden held his annual Benton County town hall meeting on health care reform at the Linus Pauling Middle School in Corvallis, Oregon. C-SPAN online video. January 10. http://www.c- spanvideo.org/program/RonW
217 References
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