The theory of presidential influence over public opinion is used to predict the impact of presidential rhetoric on crime over the public’s concern for crime being “the most important problem facing the nation.” It is hypothesized that the more attention presidents give to the policy area of crime in the their State of the Union Addresses, the more concerned the public becomes with crime. Utilizing a time-series regression analysis of data collected from a content analysis of presidents’ State of the Union addresses on the Gallup Poll’s Most Important Problem series from 1946 to 1996, the analysis demonstrates that presidential mention of crime seems to elicit a public response, thus influencing public opinion of crime with a decay effect of approximately 1 year.
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