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Antisemitism has been found on both the extreme left and right among political elites. However, at the mass public level, limited research suggests right-wing antisemitism, but not much left-wing antisemitism. This paper challenges that research, at least for the U.S., offering an alternative theory. The theory argues that the lowest levels of antisemitism will be found among mainstream liberals and conservatives. Ideological moderates will exhibit higher rates of antisemitism, while those lacking an ideological orientation will show still higher antisemitic rates. Extremists of the right and left may be more antisemitic than mainstream conservatives and liberals, but the inability of standard ideological self-placement questions to distinguish extreme ideologues from the very conservative/liberal makes it difficult to test the extremism hypothesis. Numerous items measuring attitudes towards Jews in the U.S. across five major surveys finds overwhelming support for the mainstream philosemitism theory. The conclusion puts the findings into perspective and offers suggestions regarding future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a barrage of bad news in 1998, Bill Clinton still enjoyed strong and rising popularity with the public. Many have sought to explain this paradox. My intention is to describe the new news environment that began to emerge in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Four trends describe the news environment of the new media age. First, the news media have become increasingly competitive and decentralized. Second, reporting styles have changed. News is now softer and increasingly negative. Third, the public now consumes less news from traditional outlets than it once did. Fourth, public regard toward the news media has declined. To a degree, this news environment insulates the president from news, which helps explain Clinton's popularity rise in 1998 despite bad news. But this news environment also impedes the president's ability to lead the mass public. As a result, the president's governing style has changed. Instead of focusing their efforts on leading the nation, presidents spend more time targeting select constituencies. This narrow 'going public' style reinforces the polarization in the political system, while also alienating the broad middle from American politics., By almost any standard, 1998 was a horrible year for any president. Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky became public, leading to his impeachment. The Republican-controlled Congress heartily attacked him, [...]

Muslims are often accused of being antisemitic and for being a major source of attacks and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions. Research also finds variation in Muslim orientations toward Jews at the aggregate, cross-national level, with lower levels of anti-Jewish sentiment in some western nations. There is also variation in the antisemitic sentiment of Muslims at the individual level in western nations. This paper asks whether factors that affect antisemitism among non-Muslims similarly affect Muslims with the same weight. In order to estimate these relative effects with precision, it is desirable to have a common dataset that includes both Muslims and non-Muslims. Since Muslims comprise a small percentage of the population in most western nations, nationally representative surveys rarely contain enough Muslim respondents for reliable statistical analysis. This paper uses the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape survey, which has over 500,000 respondents, including 5000 Muslim respondents, sufficient for such analysis. The analysis finds that although American Muslims are less positive toward Jews than non-Muslims, the difference is not great, and, on average, American Muslims have positive views of Jews. Results also find that education, being foreign born, and perceiving discrimination against Muslims similarly affects Muslim and non-Muslim attitudes toward Jews. However, perceptions of a weak economy and age have discernably different effects on Muslim and non-Muslim attitudes toward Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although foreign policy bas enormous implications for public support of the president, the research on the dynamics of presidential approval emphasizes the impact of economics and tends to downplay the impact of foreign affairs. Data limitations bare impeded the incorporation of a more refined sense of the impact of foreign affairs on presidential approval. In this article, the author discusses these limitations and presents a methodology that allows one to compare the public's assessment of presidential job performance of both economic and foreign affairs. The data, which span the Clinton years, display the similarities and differences in over time movement of economics and foreign affairs approval., Perhaps more than any other issue, presidents are held responsible for foreign policy. The literature on public approval of the president, however, focuses more on the impact of economics on [...]

This article looks at changes in public perceptions of President Clinton's personal characteristics across his eight years in office. Utilizing a battery of questions that the Gallup Poll repeatedly asked of the public, we find that on issues of character, the public's views of Clinton became increasingly negative. In contrast, on issues of competence, public regard for Clinton rose. These findings are put into a theoretical context of the relationship between the president and the mass public rather than a narrow focus on Clinton's term in office., Bill Clinton's tenure as president was, on one hand, propitious and lucky, with the nation generally at peace and prosperous. But his tenure was also marked by scandal. Few presidents [...]

Approval affects congressional support for the president, with a reelection motivation the main linkage mechanism. Yet, the literature has not fully explored this linkage due to theoretical barriers and serious data limitations. Using a new theory and novel data, we argue that the impact of the reelection motivation should vary with contextual factors. This paper identifies two such factors rarely explored together: member party and chamber. We hypothesize that opposition party legislators will be more responsive to constituent approval than co-partisans, but this partisan differential will hold only for the Senate, not the House. We test our hypothesis on House and Senate data, from 2006 through 2012, using multiple regression poststratification (MRP) to measure district and state approval of the president. The analysis finds support for the chamber differences hypothesis that has implications for partisanship and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the recently released American National Election Studies (ANES) 2018 Pilot Study, this article tests for presidential referendum effects in House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests during that election cycle. Results find strong presidential referendum effects in spite of the considerable correlation between presidential approval and several political predispositions, notably partisan and ideological identification. Weak electoral performance of Republican candidates was due to President Donald Trump's overall low approval ratings. However, Trump approvers appeared more inclined to turn out to vote than disapprovers, which softened the negative effect of Trump's weak approval polls on Republican candidate vote totals. The conclusion discusses the potential implications of these findings for the upcoming 2020 presidential elections, especially if Trump approvers continue their turnout advantage over disapprovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poll interest in the vice president has expanded in recent years as the office has become more important in policy making and as a stepping stone to the presidency. This article tracks these trends in poll interest in the vice presidency and then compares the approval ratings of Bill Clinton and Al Gore during Gore's tenure as Clinton's vice president. Clinton's approval casts a long shadow on approval of his vice president, but data also indicate some differences in the sources of approval of these two national figures., The vice president serves under the shadow of the president. The major rationale for the office is to provide for succession to the presidency in the case of the death [...]

During Hillary Clinton's First Ladyship, public and poll interest in the First Lady surged as a function of Mrs. Clinton's active public, political, and policy presence. Does such an active First Lady have consequences for public evaluations of the president? I address this question by looking at 'job approval' poll data on the First Lady and President Clinton. Although their polls are highly correlated, no causal connection between public evaluations of the First Lady and the president seems to exist., The institutionalization of the presidency suggests that we need to view the presidency as a collective enterprise and not only from the perspective of the person in office. Among the [...]

This article uses a February 1997 Gallup Poll to address at the individual level the connections between presidential job approval and favorability as well as to look at the sources of favorable attitudes toward the president. The analysis found that an overwhelming number of people hold consistent and favorable job performance assessments of the president. However, sources of inconsistency, in which a person might view the president favorably but disapprove of his job (or visa versa), are not randomly distributed. The analysis also looked at factors that may structure people's favorability toward the president, focusing on presidential traits. While one can conceptually organize the traits into two sets that one can distinguish as character and competence, the public seems not to make such a distinction, lurking all into one set., Public opinion toward the presidency and its incumbent is complex and multifaceted. A rich understanding of public views of the president would include knowledge about public expectations, public reactions to [...]

A presidential favorability time series is the construct for the period 1991 to 1998. Although the favorabilty series is related to presidential job approval, the two series are not identical. Periods can be identified when favorability is greater than approval, as well as periods when approval is higher than favorability. Other possible sources of the dynamics of presidential favorability are discussed, and the article argues for a multidimensional understanding of public assessments of the president., During 1998 and early 1999, the months when scandal and impeachment plagued President Clinton, a disconnect was noted between his job approval and favorability ratings. Specifically, Clinton's job approval soared [...]

Bill Clinton's presidency has been beset by scandal, investigations, and, in early October 1998, the House Judiciary Committee commenced impeachment heatings. Throughout the late summer and fall of 1998, the [...]

Controversy exists concerning the effects of approval on congressional support for the president. One source of confusion is the paucity of constituent‐level data for testing the approval–support hypothesis. This study applies multilevel regression poststratification techniques on the Cooperative Congressional Election Study from 2006 through 2012 to estimate constituent approval for both the House and Senate at the member level. Using these data, we test a marginality hypothesis, which suggests that electorally marginal legislators will be more responsive to constituent approval than safe ones. Results indicate support for the approval–support linkage as well as the marginality hypothesis. The marginality effect operates differently across the two chambers and is stronger in the House. The conclusion puts the findings into context and suggests directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the influence of the president to the voter's job approval ratings which used as a measure of public interest. It states that the voters will vote in favor of presidents' legislative proposals in the Congress. It also cites the use of floor votes as measures of presidential or gubernatorial success.

Presidency scholars, like political scientists in general, have increasingly used experiments in their research. This article argues that, to differentiate itself from other experimental political science, presidency scholars should bring to bear their knowledge of the institution when using experiments and focus on issues of governance. Doing so, however, raises a host of issues and complications in designing experiments to study presidential governance. This article discusses some of these concerns and offers suggestions to improve and stimulate experimental research on the presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do presidential source cues affect public opinion? If so, which types of voters are most susceptible to presidential source cue effects? This study uses a split-ballot experimental design embedded into a nationally representative survey to test for presidential source cue effects, using the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court as the test case. Results detect significant presidential source cue effects. Two factors, respondents' political predispositions and educational level, mediate those cue effects. The conclusion discusses the real world implications of the findings and offers suggestions to improve the use of experiments to test for presidential impacts on of public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presidents increasingly engage in public diplomacy, especially traveling to other nations. Often presidents target the public in the visited nation, with the aim of improving the opinion climate there and then using that improved opinion climate to further U.S. policy goals in the visited nation. To a degree, then, foreign travel resembles presidential domestic going public. This article tests one important linkage in the process from a presidential trip to foreign public opinion, whether trips can focus public opinion in the visited nation on the president. Analysis uses a pooled cross-sectional time series analysis of weekly Google Trends data for forty-two nations during Barack Obama's first term in office. Results suggest that presidential trips lead to impressive increases in searches on the president, an indication of increased attention to the president. The conclusion places the findings into two literatures, presidential going public and public diplomacy, and suggests directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidents increasingly go public to influence public opinion on issues, but research is divided over the effectiveness of such efforts. This presents us with a puzzle: Why do presidents go public so much if the effects of going public are so unpredictable? Debate in the literature on the effects of going public stems in part from the large number of variables that mediate between presidential public communication and public opinion. This article hypothesizes that different types of presidential communication provide voters with different types of information about the president. This information, in turn, interacts with the voter’s political predispositions, so that different types of voters will react differently to each presidential communication. An experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey is used to test the hypothesis, and results provide support for it. The conclusion discusses limitations of the experiment and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the impact of interest group membership on presidential approval. Data come from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which asked respondents about membership in 11 interest groups. Distinguishing between easy and hard issues, I argue that interest groups will tighten the relationship between issue position and approval for hard issues because of the information that groups provide it members. Analysis looks at interest group effects on five issues: abortion and the Iraq War, both deemed easy; the environment and Social Security Reform, which are harder issues; and stem cell research, which is harder for some. As hypothesized, membership in abortion or veterans groups has no impact on members' approval either directly or through the relevant issues. But for members of environmental and senior groups, the relevant issues are found to have statistically significant impact on approval. And membership in abortion rights groups affects stem cell research. The conclusions put the findings into perspective and discuss directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]