Economic Actors, Economic Behaviors, and Presidential Leadership by Arthur C. Damien;

Author:Arthur, C. Damien; [Arthur, C. Damien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.1. Presidential Economic Rhetoric.

Adapted from The American Presidency Project, 2014.

Constructing an appropriate model that ascertains how the public responds to presidential rhetoric is crucial for understanding the influence presidents have over public perceptions of the economy (Wood, 2007; Wood, Owens, and Durham, 2005). Scholars have used the Consumer Confidence Index as a measure of how the public responds to the positive economic rhetoric (Wood, 2007; 2012).2 Regressing the tone (positive) of presidential rhetoric on the Consumer Confidence Index does not definitively prove that the rhetoric has an influence; it does not take into account the multiple reasons for the changes in the index such as international events, whether or not they are economic in nature. There is no definitive evidence that those selected to participate in the Consumer Confidence Index survey heard the president speaking about the economy. Therefore, I am skeptical of theoretically connecting the tone of the president’s rhetoric to the Consumer Confidence Index, since presidents do not have any direct connection to it, and then considering it a definitive measure of the effectiveness of presidential rhetoric. The justification for maintaining that positive gains in this one indicator, as somehow a definitive measure of presidential rhetoric’s effect, does not provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between rhetoric and the public’s economic behavior; thus, it does not withstand scrutiny.

An indicator of how the public perceives the president and his handling of the economy would offer a more comprehensive measure of whether he can influence the public’s economic perceptions and behavior with his rhetoric. Therefore, I use the National Election Studies3 (NES) data to assess the influence the presidents have over how the public perceives the handling of the economy.4 These data show how the public perceives their own past, present, and future economic situations in relation to the president’s attempts to shape, with the use of positive statements, the public’s perceptions of the economy. Moreover, they allow for another measure of rhetoric’s effect, which contributes to the large questions regarding why presidents utilize so much of their rhetorical resources on economic discussions and the extent to which they are effective.

This chapter posits that the president’s relationship with the public is constrained by the limitations of audience, political predilections, and the ideological values exhibited by political parties. As a result, the economic rhetoric from the president is unable to influence or shape the public’s perceptions regarding the economy; the rhetoric is not able to predict that the public will perceive the economy as “good.” In fact, party identification will make more of a difference in how the public views the economy than the tone of presidential rhetoric. For instance, the public receives its information from party elites and approves or disapproves of it based upon the “elite” providing the message, complicating the president’s ability to lead the public (DiClerico, 1993; Wolf and Holian, 2006). In other words, those persons who self-identify with the Democratic Party values will be more susceptible to rhetoric from Democratic presidents, although it is still not a guarantee that their will be agreement.

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