The last few weeks of an outgoing president’s term present unique rhetorical opportunities. So begins the verbal juggle of legacy and legislation, of image bolstering and, as this essay argues, image repair.

Josh Compton, ELizabeth Craig, & David Mirfin

The interregnum or “lame duck” phase of a presidency—and specifically, the periodbetween the election and inauguration of a new president—reveals distinctrhetorical goals. Building from the image restoration typology advanced by WilliamBenoit, we conducted a content analysis of presidential texts transcribed as part ofThe American Presidency Project of the University of California-Santa Barbara,comparing interregnum rhetoric of Bill Clinton (November 1, 1999–January 19,2000) and George W. Bush (November 1, 2008–January 19, 2009)using unitizationand coding rules outlined by Krippendorff (2004). To offer nuance to the analysis, exemplar segments and commentary of the presidential rhetoric of PresidentsClinton and Bush are provided. The paper concludes with a discussion of how thecurrent analysis of interregnum presidential rhetoric offers a new way ofconsidering the rhetoric of this distinct phase of a presidency.

Compton, J., Craig, E. A., & Mirfin, Jr., D. (2009, November). Image restoration strategies in presidential interregnum rhetoric [paper presentation]. National Communication Association, Chicago, IL, United States.