This thesis describes the circumstances surrounding the presidential election of 1864, including the Civil war and the divided Republican party.

Thesis advisor: Marc Landy / By examining the interactions between the presidency and the other branches of government, research illuminates the causes and mechanisms by which the presidency, and its power, ebbs and flows. Due to the nature of the powers directly granted to the president within the Constitution, much consideration has been given to presidential power through the prisms of national security, international affairs, and times of national emergency. Yet the presidency consists of more than the roles of commander- and diplomat-in-chief. By looking beyond the more obvious considerations of presidential power, the complexity of the institution’s development is not only revealed, but more fully explained. Consequently, this dissertation analyzes the development of presidential power by looking at the less obvious. It considers the use of formal executive tools to implement congressionally delegated and supported authority in an area of domestic policy: the creation of federally protected public lands. Instead of seeking to understand how the use of presidential power impacted an area of public policy, this research flips that perennial question on its head by asking: how has public land policy contributed to the development of presidential power? The research presented here shows, through the analysis of five public land categories, that the consistent application of executive power within this policy realm, combined with Congressional acceptance of this application, enhanced the overall power of the American presidency. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

In this debate, Tim Russert moderated between Democrat Christopher Dodd and Republican Sam Brownback. The question: how each of the panelists' faith had influenced his individual public policies. Russert posed questions to each of the senators, including topics around the war in Iraq, gay marriage, and stem cell research. / moderated by Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press" / Conte Forum

This study explores the construction of the Indonesian Presidential candidates’ image during the 2014 presidential election from the perspective of Facebook users. I analyzed Facebook users’ comments derived from one of the candidate’s Facebook pages, Prabowo Subianto, by employing a thematic analysis to examine an official posting’s comments on June 19, 2014 where a group of celebrities supported Prabawo Subianto. Comments were extracted from June 20, 2014 to July 8, 2014, which was 20 days before election day. Results indicated that the construction of a candidate’s image involved the relationship between the perceived attributes of the candidate and national identity; the relationship between the candidate and his supporters; the perceived personality traits of the candidate, and the ability of supporters to identify with the candidates on a personal level. Moreover, there were also inferences related to political scandals, their treatment by other politicians, spiritual values, and the future state of the country. The study also showed how users tried to make sense of their political world by simplifying the complexity of a candidate through the use of particular themes.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a national survey to examine job satisfaction of community college academic deans as measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and an Individual Data Sheet (IDS) and to determine if academic deans will pursue the community college presidency in meeting the current leadership crisis. This study assessed the relationship of selected personal characteristics, unit-related characteristics, facets of job satisfaction, and career aspirations of academic deans. Six research questions directed this study. Four hundred community college academic deans were randomly assigned as participants and represented all 50 states. The usable response rate from the 400 participants was 50.5% (n=202) representing all 50 states. Demographic data pertaining to gender, age, ethnicity, degree status, tenure in position, gross annual salary, number of hours worked per week, major responsibilities, size of college, location of college, number of full-time and part-time faculty supervised, number of full-time and part-time staff supervised, and career aspirations were collected through use of the IDS. The 1977 Long-Form MSQ was used to measure general, intrinsic, and extrinsic job satisfaction. Appropriate summary statistics, correlations, and regressions were computed to answer all six-research questions. Community college academic deans were neither dissatisfied nor satisfied with an MSQ sample mean score of 3.828. The findings indicated that 55.5% (n=112) were neither dissatisfied nor satisfied. Only 76 academic deans or 37.5% stated that they were satisfied and three deans or 1.5% were very satisfied. Ten deans or 5% reported being dissatisfied and one or 0.5% dean reported being very dissatisfied. Only 15% or 30 deans reported that they had career aspirations to pursue the community college presidency within the next one to ten years. The results also indicated that those academic deans that do not desire to be a community college president are slightly more satisfied than those deans who want to be a president. The results of the survey indicate that academic deans with the lowest job satisfaction score desired to move along the academic leadership pathway, and the deans that were more satisfied wanted to move in another direction or stay a dean.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the factors and events associated with the derailment of presidents at public, Master’s level institutions. The research study was guided by three questions: 1) What factors are perceived to be associated with the derailment of public, Master’s level college presidents? 2) What events are perceived to be associated with the derailment of the president? 3) What relationship, if any, may be found between derailment factors emerging from previous Center for Creative Leadership research and factors emerging from this study? Data were collected from 19 in-depth interviews of current presidents, board members, faculty members, and vice presidents who were familiar with the derailed president. Field notes, media accounts of the derailment, and board minutes also served as sources of data. Findings of this study supported three of the enduring themes of derailment stemming from the Center for Creative Leadership’s research. Those include: failure to build and lead a team, problems with interpersonal relationships, and failure to understand and value the institutional culture (inability to change or adapt during a transition). Three unique factors emerged: failure to communicate effectively, the inability to work with key constituencies, and ethical failures. These findings suggest that college presidents must take time to understand and value the mission of the institution that they serve, as well as work hard to maintain effective communication with key constituency groups so if problems arise he or she will have social capital to draw on and help them avoid derailment. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this interpretive, multiple case qualitative study was to explore factors associated with presidential derailments in community colleges. The case studies involved interviews, document analysis, and observation. The population consisted of four community colleges in the United States. These distinctly different institutions produced the data for the investigation. The findings revealed five derailment themes among the four cases. These were: problems with interpersonal relationships, failure of the president to adapt to the institutional culture, difficulty working with key constituencies, failure to communicate, and a flawed search process. Two of the five themes from community colleges related directly to Leslie and Van Velsor’s (1996) derailment themes from the corporate sector. These were: problems with interpersonal relationships, and the inability to change or adapt to the culture of an organization during a transition (failure to adapt to the institutional culture). Finally, implications for preventing presidential derailments and for improvement in the presidential selection process are also presented.

This dissertation examined the presidential elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000 for the narrative tools used to persuade Latino voters. Using Walt Fisher's narrative theory, I evaluated the various parts of the American Dream myth, looking specifically at the characters and settings used in the candidate's narrative. Then, I evaluated the values in those narratives through the lens of the Plan of Delano, specifically looking for ways these candidates actually reinforced important Latino values. The new tellings of the American Dream myth valued specific characters- characters that had been blessed by the American Dream. Clinton's 1992 character had to work to gain success, but he was also blessed. George P. Bush (George W. Bush's nephew) was another character blessed by the American Dream. As a first-generation American, he represented the hope that brings many to America; the idea that their children could have opportunities the parents could not. The settings of the American Dream story were also important. These settings varied greatly-from the decrepit and desolate to the fanciful and idyllic-but they represented all the different places where the American Dream is possible. Hope, Arkansas is not a place where much hope seems to exist. But even a community as impoverished as Hope can be the birthplace of a President, because of the amazing ability of the Dream to permeate even the darkest corners of America. The barrios of the Southwest appear to be hopeless, but as Clinton's telling of the myth reminded Latinos, even people growing up in the barrios should have hope-because the American Dream can exist anywhere. These values, these characters, these settings have added to the rich rhetorical history of the American Dream myth. These presidential candidates expanded the places where that hope could reach, and the people who could be blessed by the Dream. All of this culminated in a story that Latinos could relate to, that they shared in and that rhetorically persuaded them to believe in these candidates.

Shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Saturday Night Live, and even South Park represent an underresearched subfield of discourse about political communication and persuasion. These shows manage to reach audiences not traditionally known for high levels of political engagement and draw them in with their comedic framework. This thesis investigates the impact of televised political satire on public perceptions of presidential candidates and campaign issues and the direct result these impacts may have on presidential elections. This thesis first gives some background in the types of communication and personalities of the front-men and women of these shows and then moves into a historical account of how the exigence for this recent explicit hybridization between comedy and news emerged. It then analyzes how these comedians view their own role within media and politics. It provides a thick account of the liberalizing force televised political satire has been for the American political climate so far, and where it will likely lead us in the near future with the growth of new communication technologies.

During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush achieved the rhetorical success that had escaped his prior speaking endeavors. If the aforementioned assessments regarded Bush’s Gulf War rhetoric as a rhetorical triumph, in light of prior damning criticism of his rhetorical abilities, then an explanation for that triumph is in order. Bush’s rhetoric differed from his Presidential predecessors by virtue of two factors. First, as the first U.S. president of the Post-Cold War era, Bush’s rhetoric faced different rhetorical constraints than those faced by his predecessors, as he no longer had the narrative framework of the Cold War to explain U.S. foreign policy action. Second, Bush rhetorically juxtaposed American exceptionalism and realism within his rhetoric itself. This differed from the rhetoric of his immediate predecessor, Ronald Reagan, whose rhetoric employed American exceptionalism without reference to realism, although that rhetoric was strategically geared toward achieving realist foreign policy ends. Bush’s success was also considerable in that he faced significant rhetorical constraints created or exacerbated by Reagan. Reagan’s reputation as the “Great Communicator,” contrasted with Bush’s less-than-stellar reputation as an orator, makes Bush’s rhetorical success particularly worth understanding. President George H.W. Bush relied on three particular arguments to facilitate a U.S. military victory during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These arguments differed considerably from foreign policy arguments offered by the Reagan administration with respect to the manner in which they addressed issues concerning the United Nations and the Vietnam War. First, Bush promoted U.N. diplomacy as a subsidiary of U.S. foreign policy. For Bush, the U.N. served as a venue where world opinion could be galvanized and action serving United States interests would not be constrained so much as legitimized. Second, he compared and contrasted U.S. action in the Gulf to the Vietnam War. In doing so, he combined the moral urgency of prior foreign policy efforts with the hindsight necessary to avoid a repeat of the American experience in Vietnam. Third, in retrospectively assessing the Gulf War, Bush depicted the conflict as a discrete foreign policy event in which he narrowly defined victory. Bush defined victory as the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, in an attempt to shape a historical consensus on the significance of U.S. action.