Rhetorical Presidency

Jeffrey K. Tulis teaches in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Legacies of Losing in American Politics. Russell Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College.

"[The] canonical book on the history of presidential rhetoric."--Christopher Baylor, Washington Post "Over the past few years the conceptual foundations of presidential studies have been recast. Jeffrey Tulis's The Rhetorical Presidency stands ... as one of the benchmarks of the new formulation... a formidable piece of scholarship."--Stephen Skowronek, The Review of Politics "The Rhetorical Presidency is one of the two or three most important and perceptive works written by a political scientist in the twentieth century, and it is the one that may help the most to explain the pathological aspects of modern politics--not only in the United States but in all social democracies."--Jeffrey Friedman, Critical Review "In this outstanding work Tulis elegantly portrays the increased use of rhetoric by 20th-century presidents, portraying the negative effects of the 'rhetorical Presidency.' Presidents of the 19th century were seldom seen or heard by the public, a comportment intended by the founders who feared the excitation of the masses by demagogic leaders. Theodore Roosevelt changed the practice, and Woodrow Wilson provided the rationale for speaking 'the common meaning of the common voice.' The drawbacks of this behavior include an increasing lack of 'fit' between the office and its occupant, a greater mutability of policy by rhetorical persuasion, the erosion of careful deliberation, and the decay of political discourse. This is an exemplary work of mutually supportive normative argument and empirical investigation. Tulis's quantitative analysis is motivated by concern for the health of the American republic, not by a banal attempt to be 'scientific.' The work is a must for all undergraduate libraries."--S.E. Schier, Choice "Brilliant."--George Will, Newsweek "Writing in 1988, I argued that The Rhetorical Presidency was right in all its essentials, and beseeched political scientists to center future presidential studies on its perceptive interpretations and practical insights. Now, some two decades and one White House experience later, I must revise that assessment. Upward, that is ... The Rhetorical Presidency has proven to be even better as political development crystal ball than it was as a rear view mirror."--John J. DiIulio, Critical Review "The best book on this subject."--Walter Berns, Wall Street Journal "Jeffrey Tulis's book The Rhetorical Presidency has experienced a scholarly reception enjoyed by few other works in presidency studies. Ten years after its 1987 publication, it was the subject of at least two retrospective edited volumes (Ellis 1998; Medhurst 1996). Ten years later, Critical Review published a 20-year retrospective on the work, with another edited volume plumbing the nuances of the book's thesis following (Friedman 2007; Medhurst 2008)."--David Crockett, Presidential Studies Quarterly