Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public

When the American president cannot get his way with Congress on something of great importance to him, he often appeals directly to the American people. This kind of appeal has been criticized as an unconstitutional means of subverting the power balance intended by the Constitution. In this volume, Melvin C. Laracey challenges the notion that direct appeals are either recent or unconstitutional. Presidents and the People offers the first comprehensive study of presidential communication with the public on policy matters and of attitudes toward going public. Laracey demonstrates that the practice did not begin with Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, Kennedy’s televised press conferences, or Bill Clinton’s town meetings. Rather, historically, it has included earlier media such as presidentially sponsored newspapers. Tracing the sometimes thinly veiled exercise of public appeals through such newspapers, Laracey concludes that going public is not a modern manifestation, but rather the modern triumph of one view of the proper place of the presidency in the constitutional order.