Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of Electoral Logic

Julia R. Azari and Justin S. Vaughn

Social Science Quarterly, 2014, vol. 95, issue 2, 523-540

Abstract: type="main">

This article examines Barack Obama's efforts to interpret and characterize the contrasting outcomes of the 2008 and 2010 elections, using an original data set of presidential communications.

We performed a content analysis of 241 presidential communications.

Obama's post-2008 mandate claims alternated between claiming a mandate on a variety of policy issues and framing the election as a repudiation of Republican theories of governing. Post-2010, however, Obama framed the midterm results as evidence for electoral demand for bipartisan cooperation, rather than a repudiation of Democratic policies and ideas.

Obama's choices in framing the 2008 election contributed to the administration's failure to communicate effectively. Specifically, Obama neglected to create a strong narrative linking the election's results to support for his policy agenda, focusing instead on the election as a repudiation of Republican policies. In contrast, his interpretations of the 2010 midterms appear to be more effective. By identifying the Republicans' behavior as “dysfunctional” and conceding that the election had indicated a demand for the ideas of both parties, Obama offered a more successful alternative to the Republican narrative.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ssqu.12056 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:95:y:2014:i:2:p:523-540

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().