Persuasion and the Bully Pulpit:
Expanded Evidence on Strategies of
Presidential Leadership
Chad Murphy – Assistant Professor
Annie Morris – Alumna
University of Mary Washington
Outline
• This project
– Re-affirmation of the importance of nationally
televised addresses
• Next Step: causal mechanism
– Signaling vs. Bully Pulpit
• Future research: Other methods of influence
– Face-to-face bargaining
– “Going local”
This Project
• Are presidents able to use their rhetoric to
influence the legislative process?
• More specifically, are presidents able to use
their rhetoric to alter congressional behavior?
Neustadt and Bargaining
• Neustadt – “presidential power is the power
to persuade”
• Bargaining with members of Congress was at
the heart of executive power
• This changed for a number of reasons in the
mid 20th century
Tension in the Literature
• Kernell and “going public”
– Nationally televised addresses
– The “bully pulpit”
• Edwards’s counter-argument
– Most likely case studies
– Necessary conditions
Multiple Questions Emerge
• Do nationally televised addresses work?
• How?
• Other methods?
Persuasion vs. Observed Behavior
• Persuasion involves a change in behavior
– Dahl’s story of the man screaming into traffic
• Most scholarship on this topic looks at
observed behavior
• We look at a change in behavior depending on
presidential speeches
Krehbiel’s Veto “Experiment”
Veto Overrides as an Appropriate
Test
• Endogeneity
– President decides when to give the speech, but
Congress decides when to override
• Difficult test
– MCs have already taken a position
– All other avenues of potential persuasion have
taken place
– Veto override represents a bad situation for the
president
Main Hypothesis
• H1: When presidents make a speech after the
initial passage vote but before the veto
override attempt, members of Congress will be
more likely to switch their vote from the initial
passage vote to the veto override vote.
Variables
• Dependent: Did the MC switch in the president’s
direction?
• Explanatory: Did the president make a speech?
– Before the original vote?
– Before the veto override?
• Control:
– Original vote margin
– Party support in Congress
– Presidential approval
– President’s party
Simple Model
Variable
Coefficient
Speech Before Original
Vote
-0.084+
(0.056)
Speech Before Veto
Override
0.057*
(0.034)
Future Work
• What is the underlying mechanism?
• Signaling
• “Surprise” vetoes
• Co-partisans
• Bully pulpit
• Presidential approval
• Popularity differential
• Charismatic presidents
• Others?
Future Work
• Face-to-face bargaining
– Classical conception of persuasion
– Kucinich and Air Force One
– Coding presidential meetings with MCs
• “Going local”
– Barnstorming tour
– Press coverage improves
Discussion
• We find support for the power of nationally
televised addresses as persuasive
• There is a need to return to studying
nationally televised addresses