ABSTRACT
As their respective first midterm election campaigns neared their conclusion, both Presidents Clinton and Obama mulled over their connections with voters and their questionable success in communicating with them. Two days before the 1994 midterm election, President Clinton mused to journalist Ron Brownstein, “You are so far away from folks, and it is easy in this environment…for them to feel like they are out of touch with you.” Clinton added that he had worked on getting legislation passed without figuring out “how we keep the people in the process” (Brownstein 2010). Fast-forward to the end of October 2010, when President Obama had a similar observation for the same reporter. He told Brownstein that he had to take so many actions that he could not “communicate [his] agenda effectively to the public in any coherent way” (ibid.).
