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An examination of public support during the presidency of Ronald Reagan reveals a unique pattern. The major features include two instances of rapidly declining support followed by historically unprecedented and sustained recoveries. The recovery of support is particularly surprising given that the literature of the early 1980s emphasizes the irrecoverable erosion of public support and a resulting “no win” presidency. In this sense, the pattern of public support from 1981 to 1987 raises a significant question about the “no win” presidency. Does the Reagan case contradict recent assertions about the inability of modern presidents to maintain public support or is Reagan an exception that “proves the rule”? To answer this question, the analysis is divided into five parts. The first examines the literature and shows that there is a striking uniformity in contemporary accounts of Reagan's public support. These explanations discount the importance of conditions in the environment and emphasize that Reagan's public support is based upon a mixture of luck, personality, and political drama. Part two defines political drama and examines its use from 1981 to 1987. In part three, we develop a methodology for incorporating political drama into a general model of public support for Reagan. Part four estimates the model and uses the results to assess the relative impact of the economy and political drama on public support for Reagan. These results are used in the final section to evaluate the specific explanations of Reagan's public support and to reflect upon the competing general explanations found in the literature.
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