The rhetorical presidency / Jeffrey K. Tulis ; with a new foreword by Russell Muirhead and a new afterword by the author.

First published by Princeton University Press in 1987. Now with new foreword and a new afterword.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction: The rhetorical presidency -- 2. The old way: Founding and forms -- Constitutional Principles -- Official rhetoric -- 3. The old way: Developed and expressed -- "Unofficial" presidential rhetoric -- The great exception: Andrew Johnson -- 4. The middle way: Statesmanship as moderation -- Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act -- Conditions of success -- The old way revised -- 5. The New Way: Leadership as Interpretation -- Reinterpreting the constitutional principles: Woodrow Wilson's statecraft -- New standards, new forms -- Comparing rhetoric: Old and new -- 6. Limits of Leadership -- The problem of credibility: Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations campaign -- The breakdown of deliberation: Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty -- 7. Dilemmas of Governance -- Crisis politics and normal politics -- Campaigns, wordsmiths, media -- Ronald Reagan, the great communicator -- The rhetorical prerogative.

"Modern presidents regularly appeal over the heads of Congress to the people at large to generate support for public policies. [This book] makes the case that this development, born at the outset of the twentieth century, is the product of conscious political choices that fundamentally transformed the presidency and the meaning of American governance. Now with a new foreword by Russell Muirhead and a new afterword by the author, this...work probes political pathologies and analyzes the dilemmas of presidential statecraft."-- Back cover.