Spinner in Chief
How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves
Stephen J. Farnsworth
First published 2009 by Paradigm Publishers
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 2009 Stephen J. Farnsworth
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Farnsworth, Stephen J., 1961
Spinner in chief : how presidents sell their policies and themselves / by Stephen J. Farnsworth.
p. cm.(Media and power)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-267-4 (hc : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-268-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. PresidentsUnited States. 2. Spin doctorsUnited States. 3. Communication in politicsUnited States. 4. Persuasion (Rhetoric). 5. United StatesPolitics and government. I. Title.
JK516.F36 2008
320.973014dc22
2008018827
Designed and typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.
ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-267-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-268-1 (pbk)
To my parents, who have made all things possible
This project is the result of support generously offered from many sources. The first debt is owed to Dan Froomkin, author of the White House Watch column on www.washingtonpost.com, who generously allowed me the use of this works title.
I also wish to express my deep appreciation to my colleagues and students at George Mason University, the University of Mary Washington, Georgetown Universitys Communication, Culture, and Technology Program, and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, who shared with me their reactions to my ideas about presidential communication during the years I worked on this project. In particular, I would like to thank Diana Owen, Jim Lengle, Jack Kramer, Lew Fickett, Jason Davidson, Antonia Maioni, Stuart Soroka, and Bob Lichter for their support and advice.
Jennifer Knerr, the Paradigm editor who first proposed this project and guided this work along the way, and David Paletz, editor of Paradigms Media and Power series, deserve special thanks for their careful reading of earlier versions of this manuscript as they sought to make this a much stronger work. I also greatly appreciate the rapid and first-rate copyediting and production assistance of Melanie Stafford, Sharon Daugherty, and Kathy Delfosse.
Thanks are also due for the many years of encouragement I have received from my parents and from Tanya DeKona, who in particular has endured much grief as the companion of an anxious academic these many years.
All conclusions in this work, as well as any errors or omissions, are my responsibility.
Stephen J. Farnsworth
Regardless of what the Founders intended, American politics now centers on the White House. Although a modern president is constrainedat least most of the timeby the constitutional system of separate institutions sharing governmental power, todays chief executive dominates modern Washington in a way that was unthinkable a century ago. The most important explanation for this massive shift in the contemporary political environment is todays all-consuming mass media. All a president has to do is start talking and all public attention turns toward the White House. Excessive legislative branch power may have been the chief concern of the Founders, but in modern times Congress has struggledand mostly failedeven to be heard along with the presidents voice, amplified by 24/7 news media.
What modern mass communication systems have wrought is truly amazing. Three-quarters of a century ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) would sit at his desk surrounded by a few dozen print reporters and regularly hold forth on the issues of the day (Goodwin 1994). When he wanted to go over, under, or around the mass media, he did so through the famous fireside chats on the then new medium of radio. These unmediated remarks helped convince an anxious nation that the country was being run by a president who cared and would not rest until the Depression was vanquished (Burns and Dunn 2001).
Roosevelts mastery of the media helped convince his successors that the best way for the White House to compete in its policy struggles with Congress was through aggressive use of the mass media. An administrations careful determination of what to say and what not to say can help set the political agenda and also frame the debate to the advantage of the White House. Presidential spin, the selective release of information to win political arguments, did not start with FDR, but his effective use of the mass media led to a new era of presidential marketing, a White House governing advantage that has grown exponentially with the new technologies of television and the Internet.
Today, White House priorities are presented via stage-managed, tightly scripted events before friendly audiences or mute television cameras. Every presidential backdrop and every utterance is precisely designed to shape news coverage and mold the public debate (Kurtz 1998; Waterman, Wright, and St. Clair 1999). CNN and CSPAN broadcast the most important executive branch news briefings live, particularly in times of crisis, and even the White House Web site offers clips and transcripts of presidential speeches, written statements, and administration briefings. The audience for White House communications is far larger as well, as people anywhere in the world can at will tune in or click on the news from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
During the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies in particular, shaping news coverage has been a vital if not dominant part of presidential operations. Playing to the cameras and the Web has become such an intense White House focus that selling administration priorities to enhance the presidents influence may undermine sound policy management. As the examples in this book show, these two presidents and their teams concentrated on how to win daily political debates too often at the expense of the nations long-term best interests, and sometimes even at great costs to their own long-term political standing. Although presidents have long worried about how they are portrayed by reporters, todays hyperactive executives have turned what was once merely an area of White House concern into an overriding obsession.
