The Modern Whistle Stop Campaign: Examining Regional Diversity in George W. Bush’s 2002 Campaign Speeches.

The paper examines George W. Bush’s fundraising and campaign-oriented speeches during 2002. Through a careful qualitative content analysis of Bush’s words, word choices, and speech content, this paper puts forward the idea presidents regionally aim rhetoric to appeal towards specific constituencies. Conventional wisdom assumes the president maintains a coherent platform across the country. Evidence in this paper suggests the president presents both a national and regional platform when appealing to audiences. Historic whistle stop campaigns encouraged speakers to customize messages to better facilitate an affinity between the president and audience. Traditional assumptions about ‘going public’ imply the president maintains a national stance to pressure voters. The modern whistle stop campaign approach allows the president to address many regional audiences without sacrificing communication or contact with Washington, D.C. The paper’s content analysis demonstrates though some topics appear in most speeches given in the United States, others only occur within certain regions suggesting George W. Bush often goes to the public in a directed fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]