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This study looks at the structural and rhetorical changes in the state of the union address from George Washington to Bill Clinton. The author finds that beginning with early-twentieth-century presidents, the length of address drops significantly and the president increasingly attempts to identify himself as one of the public in the speech. Among other things, the findings suggest three distinct periods in the evolution of the state of the union address: a founding period, a traditional period, and a modern period. However, although early-twentieth-century presidencies may exhibit change in delivery and style of the state of the union address, it is unclear whether this can he credited to a specific modern rhetorical innovation or whether the traditional/modern paradigm may necessitate reevaluation.
Keywords: modern presidency; traditional presidency; state of the union address; Jeffrey Tulis; rhetorical presidency
He [the president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.
-U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section III
More than the founders ever envisioned, the presidency is at the center of policy debates. From "going public"1 to achieve his plans and goals as described by Samuel Kernell (1997) to bargaining with the public and Congress as observed by Richard Neustadt (1960), the modern president uses his rhetorical opportunities for many different purposes. After all, "a president who wishes to lead a nation rather than only the executive branch must be a loquacious president. . . . Speeches are the core of the modern presidency" (Gelderman 1997, 8-9). But as seen in Jeffrey Tulis's The Rhetorical Presidency (1987), this was not always the case. In the past, speech making, as well as public appeal in the content of speeches, was not only infrequent but discouraged due to precedent and technology.
Other scholars, such as Halford Ryan (1993), Smith and Smith (1994, 1985), Colin Seymore-Ure (1982), Richard Ellis (1998), Ellis and Kirk (1998), Greenstein (2000), Laracey (2002), and Lim (2002) have further examined the rhetorical past of the presidency to discover clues about how it began, when it changed, and the implications of this institutional shift for our political process. Indeed,
The presidency over time has become larger and more...