Replication Data For: Presidential Moral Rhetoric and the Public's Policy Mood

A long-standing curiosity in the presidency literature is whether the chief executive has the capacity to persuade the public. The president often seems unsuccessful at rhetorical leadership efforts to direct public opinion. In particular, presidential issue rhetoric expressing an ideological viewpoint on policy issues appears to shape the public'€™s policy preferences only when specific contextual conditions exist in the political environment. This current project proposes that moral rhetoric, a more simplified form of issue discussion engaging with widely held and fundamental values in an accessible way, should be more effective at consistently directing public issue attitudes in a direction congruent with the views of the president. In contrasting the dynamics of presidential usage of moral rhetoric expressing liberal issue positions and public policy mood for liberal domestic policies between 1960 and 2008, the analysis finds even a specialized form of presidential issue discussion like moral rhetoric struggles to guide public opinion.