Complete Schedule

Presentation Type

Open Access Paper Presentation

Keywords

Campaign promises--United States; Presidents--United States--Messsages;

Abstract

Previous research has illustrated that presidents will make many promises along the campaign trail and those promises are what build their agenda and hopefully get them elected. Once elected their agenda continues to be built through speeches. Researchers have compiled the campaign promises of previous administrations and tracked the completion of those promises. They have both tracked the completion of promises and good faith attempts at completing promises. In this paper, I analyze good faith attempts at keeping the promise on their agenda through presidential rhetoric in State of the Union Addresses. Presidents speak to Congress and the public on many occasions, most notably in their annual required State of the Union Address. The State of the Union Address signals to Congress what the president’s goals and expectations are for the year to come, as well as bragging about their accomplishments and making promises to the public. Studies have shown that when presidents speak on issues of salience and complexity, they have more legislative success in those policy areas.

Start Date

11-4-2022 12:00 PM

End Date

11-4-2022 12:50 PM

Faculty Advisor

Donna Hoffman

Department

Department of Political Science

Student Type

Undergraduate Student

Comments

Paper - Download button

This entry was part of the following session:

  • Date: Monday, April 11, 2022
  • Time: 12:00 to 12:50 p.m.
  • Moderator: Scott Peters

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS
 
Apr 11th, 12:00 PM Apr 11th, 12:50 PM

Presidential Agenda Rhetoric in the State of the Union Address: Obama and Trump

Previous research has illustrated that presidents will make many promises along the campaign trail and those promises are what build their agenda and hopefully get them elected. Once elected their agenda continues to be built through speeches. Researchers have compiled the campaign promises of previous administrations and tracked the completion of those promises. They have both tracked the completion of promises and good faith attempts at completing promises. In this paper, I analyze good faith attempts at keeping the promise on their agenda through presidential rhetoric in State of the Union Addresses. Presidents speak to Congress and the public on many occasions, most notably in their annual required State of the Union Address. The State of the Union Address signals to Congress what the president’s goals and expectations are for the year to come, as well as bragging about their accomplishments and making promises to the public. Studies have shown that when presidents speak on issues of salience and complexity, they have more legislative success in those policy areas.