Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond by Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson

politics and policy on questions of race seem to be legislative and bureaucratic efflorescences of a brief moment of presidential success in the 1960s. In broader terms, signaling as a research strategy imposes a series of constraints of which it is important to be aware. One of the basic premises of signaling is its focus on speech acts themselves and their repetition rather than content (other than positive or negative cues). Thus, for example, if one were to analyze Abraham Lincoln from a signaling standpoint, the effort would turn on the number and direction of his comments on civil rights. The Second Inaugural could be categorized as both a strong enforcement signal (slavery “having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove”) and a lenient one (“with malice toward none, with charity toward all”). A comprehensive signaling approach to the presidency would thus have to take into account a myriad of signals such as mixed ones, unclear ones, deceptive ones, and tentative ones (the “trial balloon”) and incorporate how each is received and under what conditions. Thus, a research strategy that promises parsimony may actually expand to hermeneutic excess. In fairness, the author seems aware of the complexity of signaling as a political act. He asks at the close of the book: “Is signaling as unidirectional as I present it? Do presidents simply talk about policy and influence it?” (p. 169). Nevertheless, The President’s Speeches is an innovative and responsible attempt to recast the “going public” option in presidential politics.