The public mind is not easily changed. It’s gradually molded. So it goes with presidential power. The chief executive does not steward public opinion in quick turns. It’s more like turning an oil tanker. Slow going.
Nearly all televised addresses affirm this rule. Presidential scholar George Edwards, in his book “On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit,” reviewed the impact of every televised address from 1981 to 2003, also utilizing Gallup data. He found that most presidential addresses fail to significantly shape the public’s views. The exceptions largely concern war: Desert Storm, the 9/11 attacks or the second Iraq war. The same is true regarding great scandals, Iran-Contra or Watergate. But in scandal and war, the opinion shift is more likely a reaction to the jarring event; it’s not the rhetoric about that event…
We have grown numb to the televised presidency. President Obama’s most watched primetime press conference had 31 percent of American households tuned in. The first televised prime-time press conference, by Richard Nixon in 1969, earned 59 percent of households. Presidential debates have followed the same pattern.
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