THE PRESIDENTIAL DIFFERENCE by FRED I. GREENSTEIN

Author:FRED I. GREENSTEIN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics
Publisher: The Free Press
Published: 2000-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

SIGNIFICANCE

Public Communication As a public communicator Carter began well but faded rapidly. The Inauguration Day procession of the Carter family down Pennsylvania Avenue was arresting political drama, as was the populist symbolism of Carter’s early media appearances. The cardigan sweater phase of the Carter presidency was a communications success. Time declared that he was “winning converts by the millions with his revivalist, meet-the-masses approach to the presidency.” Newsweek wrote of his “genius for intimacy with his public.” His support level averaged 71 percent in his first two months in office, and it remained above 60 percent through the summer. 13

As the year continued, Carter’s limitations as a public communicator began to manifest themselves. His speeches suffered because they reflected the absence of organizing principles in his program. He read their lines in an uninflected voice, barely moving his lips, and pausing at inappropriate points. It was evident that his presentations would profit from coaching and rehearsals, but he spurned suggestions that he invest effort in improving his speaking style. The overall tone of Carter’s communications is well captured by the title of a widely read article by his former speechwriter James Fallows: they were “passionless.” 14

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