In a story this weekend about Barack Obama’s ubiquity, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s expert opinion about whether he’s overexposed in the media. She said no: Obama’s “target audience is that vast swath in the middle,” Jamison explained. “The audience that’s able to be persuaded is the ESPN audience, the Leno audience and the national audience that watches him in prime time.… If he’d had Internet and cable, Reagan would have done the rest of what Obama is doing.”
As we’ve noted, Jamieson—a coauthor of Presidents Creating the Presidency—is no stranger to broad exposure herself. On the heels of her expert election commentary on the NewsHour, among dozens of other outlets, she’s now turned to illuminating Obama’s presidency and the issues his administration faces. This weekend alone, her wisdom appeared not only in the Post-Gazette but also in the National Journal‘s assessment of Obama’s economic message and on “On the Media,” where she reflected on the “War on Terror.”
As the new president continues to use rhetoric to shape the presidency, Jamieson’s Presidents Creating the Presidency holds more timely insights about the continuing re-creation of the nation’s highest office.