Speaking with the People's Voice: How Presidents Invoke Public Opinion. By Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014. 195 pp.

Abstract

Speaking with People's Voice: How Presidents Invoke Public Opinion. By Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014. 195 pp. Scholars who study discourse of America's contemporary presidents are familiar with rhetorical presidency, idea that presidents often circumvent Congress, instead appealing directly to public opinion to garner support for their vision. As Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury notes in his exhaustive review of extant literature on rhetorical presidency, academic scholarship frequently evaluates success based on persuasive to public opinion and subsequent changes in public opinion polls following communication event (p. 6). In Speaking with People's Voice, however, Drury argues that a complementary explanation for evaluating involves examining how presidential rhetoric might serve not only as of public opinion but also as by public in which public opinion is means of leadership (p. 9). His book, therefore, reframes conventional practice of studying how presidents outline their policy agendas through their rhetorical to public advancing case that scholars should explore how presidents exercise their through public opinion, which Drury defines as the rhetorical representation of beliefs and values of US citizens (p. 12). Scholars in communication, political science, and studies fields will find that this book does, in fact, provide new insight into how contemporary presidents exercise their leadership, even as they cast rhetorical presidency to fit present-day exigencies. After establishing requisite background justifying his study in first half of introductory chapter, Drury provides readers with a brief synopsis on argumentation theory and three argumentative patterns he employs in his study of modern rhetoric and invoked public opinion: bandwagon appeals, identity appeals, and contra populum appeals. Most argumentation theorists will already be familiar with bandwagon appeal. Drury describes identity appeal as a pattern in which president invokes a public opinion shared by his audience as a catalyst for further agreement while defining contra populum ploys as those appeals 'against people' [that] function to correct invoked public opinion by means of alternative decision-making criteria (p. 19). The book applies each appeal in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respectively, by examining nationally televised speeches from both Democratic and Republican presidents. Drury provides a well-articulated discussion of rhetorical situations that prompted presidents to address public via television (although readers familiar with speeches included in this analysis should revisit them, given innovative application of three argumentative patterns). …