Replication Data For: Empirically Contrasting Presidential Rhetorical Simplicity and the Public's Policy Preferences

Research on presidential rhetoric has noted the explicit communications strategy of simplifying the language in presidential remarks to the public. Rhetorical simplification removes in-depth political analysis and argumentation from executive branch communications. Research by Elvin T. Lim (2008) shows that presidential rhetoric that is linguistically simplified is also substantively simplified language. Linguistically and substantively simplified language can be interpreted to mean the political environment is lacking complications or difficulties. Simplified presidential rhetoric has the potential to encourage people to perceive there is no need for an expansion in government involvement in domestic affairs. As an initial attempt to assess this possibility, time series analyses of presidential rhetorical simplicity and public opinion in the United States are performed using quarterly information spanning between 1993 and 2011.