This book began with a puzzle. Why are presidents going public so much more than in the recent past if doing so has proven ineffective as a method of mobilizing public support? The answer to this puzzle begins with distinguishing between going national and going narrow. In going national, presidents aim at moving national public opinion. In going narrow, presidents target segments of the political order, in particular their party base, interest groups, and localities. Because of the rise of polarized parties and fragmented media, going national is no longer as effective a leadership strategy as it once was. In place of going national, presidents now use a going narrow leadership approach. The research in this book demonstrates the effectiveness of this strategy – presidents seem to be able to move or influence narrow groups. Of course, the research presented here is limited, demonstrating these effects primarily for readers of local newspapers. One direction for future research would be to see if other narrow targets of presidential leadership efforts similarly respond.

Along the way to the conclusion that going narrow may be an effective strategy, the research presented herein made several other contributions. First, I offered and tested a theory of presidential news management. Second, in conjunction, I conducted a large content analysis, which has implications for how we understand and study media bias. Third, I offered a context theory of presidential leadership, which tells us why presidents replaced the going national approach with going narrow.