Out of Touch: The Presidency and Public Opinion. By Michael J. Towle. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. 176p. $37.95.

Public support is vital to the governing strategies of modern presidents. Although presidents, White House staff, and presidency scholars take this for granted during the “permanent campaign,” little is known about how administrations react to and interpret information about the public's support for the president. Michael J. Towle asks, How do presidential administrations interpret their wealth of public-opinion polling data? He observes that interpretation of these data by the Truman, Johnson, and Carter administrations varies by the president's own public standing: The more the president's public support declines, the more “out of touch” he becomes with the public.