Presidential Rhetoric on Crime and Public Opinion

Abstract

The theory of presidential influence over public opinion is used to predict the impact of presidential rhetoric on the public's concern for crime as the "most important problem facing the country." The more attention presidents give to the issue of crime, the more concerned the public becomes with crime. Utilizing a time-series regression analysis of data collected from the Public Papers of the President of the United States and the Gallup poll's "Most Important Problem" series from 1945 to 1994 and controlling for crime rates, unemployment rates, and media influence, presidential attention to crime is found to influence the public's perception that crime is an important issue.