The Impact of Televised Speeches and Foreign Travel on Presidential Approval

Abstract

Considerable attention has been devoted in recent years to the use of political drama by the president, with the most discretionary forms of drama-speeches and foreign travel- receiving much scrutiny. In fact, there has arisen a conventional wisdom which asserts that televised speeches and foreign travel by the president (1) have increased over time, (2) exert a uni- formly positive impact on public evaluations of the president's performance, and (3) can therefore be used as a strategy for in- fluencing the president's approval ratings, a vital resource for the modern president. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this conventional wisdom and thus assess the value of televised speeches and foreign travel as influences on presidential ap- proval. The paper first defines political drama and casts the con- ventional wisdom in the form of three propositions. It next devel- ops a research strategy for evaluating these propositions in an appropriate manner. Finally, the paper tests the propositions. The results cast considerable doubt on the conventional wisdom and lead to the conclusion that the use of political drama is not an all-purpose strategy guaranteed to halt declines or replenish siz- able losses of presidential approval.