Support and Opposition for Invading Iraq: Did the President's Speech Make a Difference?

Abstract

Utilizing data from the annual San Antonio Survey, this research addresses the issue of support and opposition to invading Iraq among respondents randomly selected from Bexar County, Texas. Data were collected prior to and after President Bush addressed the nation on October 7, 2002, seeking broad citizen support for his plan, allowing us to ascertain whether or not his speech impacted the attitudes of potential voters. Our results indicate that the President's speech, along with the extensive media coverage about it, was effective in gaining support for his proposal to invade Iraq. A multivariate logistic regression analysis also displayed that the speech still had a significant impact even after controlling for confidence in the president, political orientation, race, ethnicity, nativity, and socio-demographic context. The findings suggest support for earlier research indicating that the impact of presidential speeches could boost the approval of a policy, in particular, if the speech occurred during his first term of office, was considered a “major” speech, was devoted to one important topic, and its primary focus was on foreign policy. Under these conditions, such a speech portrays the president as a strong leader.

Keywords:

• Iraq invasion
• media impact
• presidential speech
• public opinion
• survey research

Notes

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16. Unless noted as “Before Speech” or “After Speech” data include complete sample results. Results labeled “Before Speech” include only those surveyed before the speech or during the evening he was speaking. Results labeled “After Speech” include only those surveyed on days after the speech.

17. Results for African Americans/Blacks are illustrative, but should be treated with caution because few cases were part of the sample collected before the President's speech (6 cases). Differences are statistically significant in both cases (p = 024; p = .006) and strong to moderate (.288 to .185), but comparisons before the speech should be treated with caution.