The tone of the president's immigration rhetoric.

We examine the tone of the president's immigration policy speeches as a function of the political context, policy characteristics, and individual presidents in two ways. First, we describe the tone of the president's immigration rhetoric using DICTION software and its five global categories of tone. Second, we hypothesize that commonality and optimism, two categories of tone expressive of immigration policy, will co‐vary by political context, policy characteristics of immigration, and a president's approach to rhetoric. To test our expectations, we collected presidential mentions of immigration since 1953 from the Public Papers of the Presidents. Key variables, like the president's honeymoon and the post‐9/11 era, increase a president's commonality tone, and the president's approval ratings encourage greater optimism. Individual presidents also shape presidential rhetoric, indicating the importance of presidential style to immigration tone, especially for optimism. We conclude with implications of our work for the systematic study of presidential tone and the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Presidential Studies Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)