Rethinking the Rhetorical Presidency and Presidential Rhetoric1

Abstract

While the “rhetorical presidency,” has been both accepted as a heuristic justifying the study of presidential speech on one hand and disputed as to its accuracy and utility on the other, this model assumes a white male president who governs within a pre-cable, pre-internet political context. This essay will first briefly survey the history of the rhetorical presidency and then look closely at the factors (class, race, gender, and the mediated and even interactive nature of presidential rhetoric) that will need to be taken into account as scholarship on the rhetorical presidency—and on presidential rhetoric—moves forward.

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