Gone Public

Abstract

Since the publication of Samuel Kernell’s Going Public in 1986, many political scientists have accepted the theory of going public; yet, few scholars have tested the effectiveness of this presidential strategy. This article provides the first large-scale quantitative test of going public to determine whether this strategy increases the president’s probability of success in the legislative arena. In particular, this study is based on a content analysis of thousands of presidential remarks from the PublicPapers of the Presidentsfor the years 1977-1992regarding 186 significant pieces of legislation. Based on this analysis, going public is a successful legislative strategy for presidential initiatives and other bills supported by the president.