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In 2008, the senatorial race in Louisiana between Senator Mary Landrieu, Representative Bill Cassidy and Retired Colonel Rob Maness was one of the most important and hotly contested in the country. The democrats in Congress looked to hold on to the seat so that they might be able to maintain control in the Senate, and the republicans targeted Landrieu as a weak "Obamacare-aligned" Democrat that could be removed and add to an attempt to garner a Republican controlled senate. In this, one of the most expensive races in the country and the most expensive in Louisiana history, Landrieu, Cassidy and Maness relied heavily on Facebook for dissemination of information, building support, and attacking the opposition. This paper looks specifically at how this social medium was utilized, the candidates' tendency towards negativity or positivity, the various subjects with which they each dealt, and voter responses to their posts, measured through the likes, shares, and comments on Facebook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the course of the 2008 primary election cycle, Jon Stewart and the "fake" news program, The Daily Show, were often viewed by the political pundits and media outlets as little more than a leftist attack machine. But, how "fake" and how partisan was the show in all actuality? This paper examines, through an extensive content analysis, The Daily Show episodes for the year leading to the elections of 2008 for the issues that were covered and the perspectives that were most frequently adopted. The content analysis looks at the newsworthiness of the reporting, the amount of coverage of both parties, the jokes that were made, and the footage that was shown concerning both the Democrat and Republican parties and the presidential primary candidates of 2008. This analysis includes a full dissection of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show in order to determine not only viability as a news source, but also partisanship in coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let's face it. The return of students to campus in the fall always brings about the same apprehensions. We have to prepare for the upper level political science classes. What papers should be assigned? What books should be used? What kind of standards should be pushed? Unfortunately, too often the preparation for the higher level classes means that many of us turn to an old reliable intro level text (or at least the newest edition of the same book). The problem always arises year after year however: How do we get the students to engage and digest the text, and not just open the book for the first time the day before the exam? I think that a solution is to use non-traditional methodology to reach and teach those students who are often written off as politics averse. By utilizing Jon Stewart's America: The Book as a primary text for intro classes and The Daily Show as a current events news source, especially in an election year, I believe that we are better able to introduce students to complex topics of political science as well as retain their attention and engagement levels throughout the semester. This paper examines the changes that have taken place since the transition from standard political science textbook to non-traditional source. It also suggests other ways that we might be able to reach students without sacrificing rigor and information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidential proclamations are a rarely studied facet of executive politics and communication. This is largely because they are now seen as useful only for honorary and ceremonial purposes. Yet, this is not the way that things have always been. In fact, during much of the 1800's and 1900's, proclamations were a way for a president to make policy without experiencing the difficulty of waiting on congressional action. This paper examines the development and use of presidential proclamations from the founding to the present. I find that presidential proclamations were one of the first ways that presidents sought to exert their sovereignty within the political system. I also find that their development challenges the general assumptions regarding their innocuous nature and the suggestion that they do not occur in "traditional" presidencies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whenever a sitting president presides over an international conflict, whether a war or police action, they must provide the people with an accounting of the engagement as well as garner support for ongoing operations. The United States has seen many different foreign entanglements, from the French and Indian War to the War on Terror. Times have changed and technology has advanced. However, something that has not changed is the need for the president to suggest that the military engagement is in the best interest of the country and the people. This paper examines the ways that the executives of the past have used the State of the Union Address to discuss the issue of war and elicit support from the public at-large. What is surprising, however, is not that they use this public forum to address the important issue. The surprise is the incredible similarity between the wartime presidents regarding the type of rhetoric that is used in these communications. Although we might suggest that contemporary presidents would use "modern" language and rhetorical stylings that would be markedly different from those presidents of the 18th and 19th centuries, observation and analysis of State of the Union Addresses suggests that, when faced with military conflict, presidents of varying eons tend to espouse incredibly similar verbiage. This study not only provides important commentary on presidential wartime rhetoric, but also brings questions regarding a "modern" versus a "traditional" rhetorical presidency to light. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let's face it. The return of students to campus in the fall always brings about the same apprehensions. We have to prepare for the upper level political science classes. What papers should be assigned? What books should be used? What kind of standards should be pushed? Unfortunately, too often the preparation for the higher level classes means that many of us turn to an old reliable intro level text (or at least the newest edition of the same book). The problem always arises year after year however: How do we get the students to engage and digest the text, and not just open the book for the first time the day before the exam? I think that a solution is to use non-traditional methodology to reach and teach those students who are often written off as politics averse. By utilizing John Stewart's America: The Book as a primary text for intro classes, I believe that we are better able to introduce students to complex topics of political science as well as retain their attention and engagement levels throughout the semester. This paper examines the changes that have taken place since the transition from standard political science textbook to non-traditional source. It also suggests other ways that we might be able to reach students without sacrificing rigor and information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to many scholars of the presidency, the initiative to speak to, as one of, and for the people of the United States is a 20th century development. "Popular address" and "popular rhetoric" as they have been coined, are used by the president in his addresses to appeal to Congress and the people. According to the tenets of the "traditional/modern paradigm, those presidents of the "traditional" presidency were, by the reverence of their position or the limited powers directly granted in the Constitution, prevented from utilizing popular rhetoric in their addresses that would attempt to move or speak to the greater populous of the country. However, as seen in this study, this type of public-address rhetoric was not necessarily foreign to even those who predate the official formation of government in the United States. The focus of this paper is to examine the usage of public address rhetoric within the State of the Union Addresses in order to identify trends and determine whether presidents since the founding of the United States have used popular appeal and rhetoric in their address, or whether the introduction of going public is indeed a "modern" development that was little used in the rhetorical past of the presidency. Specifically, I look at instances in which the president attempts to address his audience as one of them, attempts to use his presidential position as justification for his arguments, and those instances in which the president actually makes a command or request in his State of the Union Address. Although rhetoric by its very nature is diverse, I will classify, and focus on, three types of popular address rhetoric in general and note their occurrences within the State of the Union Addresses. These are: identification rhetoric, authority rhetoric, and directive rhetoric. The labels given to the types of rhetoric are for parsimony more than anything else, but accurately reflect the type of rhetoric that is examined under the given label. Each label effectively measures a different attempt of the president to speak as one of the people, to the people, in reference to the people, or as the president using different pronouns. "Politicians make use of pronouns to good effect: to indicate, accept, deny, or distance themselves from responsibility for political action; to reveal ideological bias; to encourage solidarity; to designate those who are supporters (with "us") as well as those who are enemies (against "us") and to present specific idiosyncratic aspects of the individuals and personality" (Wilson, 1990, 76). In addition, the four typologies of rhetoric above seek to delineate presidential purpose in policy proposal and popular address. The current sentiment in the discipline is that there is a significant change that occurs with the "modern" presidents (usually beginning with Wilson) in which popular address rhetoric begins to be used. My study suggests that founding presidents were as active as their contemporary counterparts in their inclusion of popular address in the State of the Union. It also takes issue with claims of easily utilized paradigms of presidential history, and demonstrates the importance of re-examining the oft dismissed "traditional" presidents for their contributions to presidential rhetorical development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is specifically an examination of the way that fourth graders from both public and private schools view the president and the presidency. Generally, it is an attempt to highlight the importance of renewed political socialization study of the very young in America. This 2005 study uses Fred Greenstein’s Children and Politics as the original starting point for the study, and incorporates the survey data gathered by him in 1958 as well as that compiled by Carter and Teten in their article “Assessing Changing Views of the President: Revisiting Greenstein’s Children and Politics” (2002), and that collected by this study in 2005 for comparison purposes. I find that children in today’s political system, as early as the fourth grade, are providing very sophisticated political commentary about the importance of the office of the presidency, the job that the individual in the office is doing, and the cynical and optimistic speculation about others’ ability to do the same job. The findings here are contrary to those in Greenstein’s study as well as seemingly at odds with those results found in 2002. Fourth graders in 2005 still view the presidency as an office with importance, but evaluate George W. Bush much more positively than they did Bill Clinton; they also continue this selective negativity observed in 2000 into their responses on several other questions. In addition, the study sees what could be speculated to be the political maturation of the country’s children. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the State of the Union Addresses delivered by U.S. Presidents. Information on the rhetoric exhibited by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002; Distinction between two eras of presidential activity; Discussion of the directive rhetoric classification.

The article discusses the development of the contemporary rhetorical presidency and the evolution of presidential rhetoric. It examines every State of the Union Addresses delivered by various U.S. presidents including George W. Bush. It looks at the total number of words and policies per State of the Union Address.

This paper, entitled ?The Policy Proposing President and the Modern/Traditional Divide" attempts to shed light on the history of the contemporary rhetorical presidency as well as evaluate the propriety of the ?modern? versus ?traditional? presidency distinction of rhetorical style and political activity accepted by many presidential scholars today. Through an intensive line-by-line reading and content analysis of all State of the Union addresses from Washington to Clinton, I examine presidential policy proposal and presidential rhetorical format to determine whether they are indeed consistent with the tenets of the modern/ traditional divide, which assert that many modern elements were absent until the rise of the modern president in the early twentieth century. What I have discovered is that presidents long before the ?modern? period were proposing policy and speaking to or on behalf of the public. This study and the massive data set on presidential policy that it has produced, are important not only to our understanding of the development of the Presidency as an institution, but also to enriching our understanding of the men who have held the office since its inception and their unrecognized contributions to the evolution of the American Political System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the political socialization of children has seen a significant lapse in research since the 1950's and 1960's. Indeed, most scholars still look to Fred Greenstein's Children and Politics (1965) for information on youth political socialization when they conduct research today. The purpose of this paper is to update contemporary understanding of children's political socialization and development, and specifically political comprehension and cynicism regarding the President, by asking questions such as "What changes have taken place in children's political beliefs since the Greenstein work?" and "Are the children of today as politically optimistic as they were in the last century?" and "How do the children of today view the President of the United States?" Using survey data that replicates Greenstein's original study, we examine the political viewpoints of over 2000 children in 2005 in the third through the twelfth grades. Specifically, we look at today's children's evaluation of the office of the presidency and their approval rating of the officeholder, compared with the children of the past. We find here that although the children of the new millennium still view the office of the presidency with high importance, they are willing to negatively evaluate the President himself in ways not even suggested in the studies of the past. In addition, we find that optimistic presidential evaluation is directly related to education level, and that the highest approval ratings emerge with the third grade responses, while the lowest come from the high school students. A lack of consistent evaluation of children's political development over the past fifty years makes the suggestion of an evolution of political socialization impossible. However, these new data propose that children today begin to form political opinions, significantly, negative opinions, in ways that were never observed nor recognized in the past. As a result, there needs be a call to arms of sorts to re-examine the voters of tomorrow for the changes and cynicisms that are taking place in their political beliefs far prior to their voting ability at eighteen years old, and possibly as early as the third grade. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, I completed a study of nearly 3000 children in grades 3-12 regarding their views on politics, the political system, the media, technology, and society in general. This important examination of political socialization is a replication of a survey done in 2000 and another done by Fred Greenstein in 1958. The preliminary findings that observed the changes that had taken place among only the 4th graders were presented at the SPSA meeting of 2006. This paper presents the complete view of children's view of the presidency from the 3rd all the way to the 12th grades. How do all of the children view the president? When does political cynicism begin to set in to the youth of America? Is there a grade at which we can decisively conclude that these children become aware political beings? What are some of the impacts of the media and technology on political awareness of the presidency? These are some of the questions that can now be answered by the newly collected and coded data. My paper strikes at a very real gap in political science; namely, the examination of the political socialization of children is extremely important and extremely understudied. My paper attempts to enrich the understanding of these important issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]