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Examines the role of political disaffection and of the growth of cable in the loss of television viewers by presidents, and strategic reaction to this reality in scheduling of appearances of presidents in order to promote their policies; US.

In recent years presidential charges of maltreatment by the press have become commonplace. Various scholarly research into political communication appear to confirm the validity of these charges. However, a number of issues prevent one from inferring bias from the high levels of unfavorable presidential news these studies report. The research reported here is designed to overcome these problems & allow us to test the bias hypothesis more conclusively. Applying this design to the three networks' evening news programs during the years 1990 through 1995, we find qualified support for the bias hypothesis but even more compelling evidence that changes in presidential approval, whether favorable or unfavorable, drive news coverage of the president's public support. We also find surprising differences in the networks' routines & patterns of coverage that call into question the common assumption of homogenous network behavior. 2 Tables, 5 Figures, 1 Appendix, 25 References. Adapted from the source document.

Examines bias, effect of changes in presidential approval on news coverage, and differences in networks' routines and patterns of coverage; based on three networks' evening news programs, 1990-95; US.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986

Partisan conflict between the White House and Congress is now a dominant feature of national politics in the United States. What the Constitution sought to institute--a system of checks and balances--divided government has taken to extremes: institutional divisions so deep that national challenges like balancing the federal budget or effectively regulating the nation's savings and loans have become insurmountable. In original essays written especially for this volume, eight of the leading scholars in American government address the causes and consequences of divided party control. Their essays, written with a student audience in mind, take up such timely questions as: Why do voters consistently elect Republican presidents and Democratic congresses? How does divided control shape national policy on crucial issues such as the declaration of war? How have presidents adapted their leadership strategies to the circumstance of divided government? And, how has Congress responded in the way it writes laws and oversees departmental performance? These issues and a host of others are addressed in this compact yet comprehensive volume. The distinguished lineup of contributors promises to make this book "must" reading for both novice and serious students of elections, Congress, and the presidency.

According to the conventional view, presidents are largely bereft of influence with an opposition-controlled Congress. Congress sends them legislation with a "take it or leave it" choice that maximizes the preferences of the opposition majority while minimizing presidents' preferences. To extricate themselves from this bind, presidents threaten vetoes. Past research suggests that their efforts largely fail, however, for two model-driven reasons: first, veto threats amount to minimally informative "cheap talk," and second, Congress is a unitary actor with firm control over its agenda. We relax both assumptions, bringing veto rhetoric into a setting more closely resembling real-world conditions. Presidents transmit credible veto threats to a heterogeneous, bicameral Congress where chamber rules enable the minority party to wield some influence over legislation. Examining the legislative histories of all veto-threatened bills passed between 1985 and 2016, we confirm that veto threats ward off about half of veto-targeted legislative provisions—a far greater share than for comparable unthreatened provisions. The House of Representatives is more likely to introduce and pass legislation objectionable to presidents and the Senate is more likely to accommodate presidents, findings consistent with the textbook description of the modern bicameral Congress.

Veto threats may offer presidents bargaining leverage, but such leverage will be diminished if they and those with whom they transact business view a veto as hurting the president's approval rating and his party's prospects in the next election. How concerned must presidents be about the audience costs associated with a veto? Political science research suggests that they should be in that the public does not like vetoes and punishes presidents when they exercise this authority. In this article, we test this argument with survey responses during times after presidents have issued a veto threat but before an actual veto. While, on average, respondents register opposition to a veto, this preference varies greatly with the specific policy in question and with respondents' party identification and presidential approval. The results suggest that opposition to a veto comes disproportionately, may be limited to politically distant respondents, and thus may not be as costly as the net negative numbers suggest.

Presidents' audiences have been shrinking over time. Prior research suggests that the rise of cable television is to blame. We investigate whether this shrinkage is occurring disproportionately among those the president most needs to persuade—disapprovers of his performance. Analyzing both A. C. Nielsen's audience ratings and self‐reports of speech watching from 32 postspeech surveys, we find that as the share of households subscribing to cable has grown, the statistical relationship between the president's approval rating and the percentage watching his televised speeches has strengthened commensurately for each group of party identifiers. Consequently, as presidential approval ratings have polarized during the past two decades, so too has the partisan composition of presidents' audiences, a phenomenon unknown during the broadcast era. Modern presidents thus find themselves increasingly preaching to their party choir and losing the capacity to influence public opinion more broadly.

The modern history of divided government in America suggests that the framers succeeded in creating a government unresponsive to popular passions. Yet in the nineteenth century the party winning the presidency almost always captured control of the House of Representatives. Why and how could nineteenth century national elections be so responsive that they resemble parliamentary outcomes? We identify electoral institutions present in the states that directly linked congressional elections to presidential coattails. Specifically, we estimate the impact of state ballot laws and the strategic design of congressional districts on presidential coattail voting from 1840 to 1940. We find that presidential elections, as mediated by state electoral laws, strongly account for unified party control of the House and the presidency throughout the nineteenth century.