Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public.

• Author: Denton, Jr., Robert E.
• Position: Book Reviews

Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public. By Mel Laracey. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002; x + 280. $42.95.

Mel Laracey challenges the well-accepted notion that only contemporary presidents use the techniques of "going public," going over Congress directly to the people in times of policy disputes. More specifically, he challenges the claims that policy-oriented speechmaking by Presidents increased dramatically in the twentieth century and, consequently, changed forever the policy-making process and the institutional presidency. Laracey further rejects the assumption that "going public" by presidents subverts the executive-legislative power balance intended by the constitution.

As part of Laracey's historical analysis, he takes a broader view of "going public" to include any means of reaching the public beyond speechmaking endeavors. In addition, he includes any presidential activity involved in the policy making process (such as vetoes) as well as if the president still communicated with people even if he did not become active in the public policy-making process. From this perspective, Laracey finds half of the nineteenth century presidents engaged in a form of "going public," even though few made genuine policy speeches. Early presidents relied upon party oriented newspapers to express ideological or policy positions. These newspapers functioned as the "semiofficial voice" of presidential administrations. For Laracey, the failure to consider how presidents appealed to the public through the newspapers of their time is a serious oversight by scholars of presidential communication.

By expanding the range of presidential communication activities, Laracey develops a typology of presidential policy making activities. In one case, the president not only "goes public," but also is very active in the policy making process. The second case is when the president is active in the policy making process, but keeps a rather low public profile. In this case, the president is working directly with Congress. A third case is when the president uses special events to engage the public, but on "policy-neutral" themes such as patriotism or national character. The final typology is one where the president avoids public communication almost totally. Thus, the typology allows for more consideration of types of presidential communication activities.

In the first chapter, Laracey examines the historical debate about the...