Congratulations, Mr. President, and Bon Voyage!
Congratulations, Mr. President, and Bon Voyage! -
Looking for President Obama over the next few years? You should start at the White House, of course, and then try Camp David. But if you can’t find him there, you’d be wise to look overseas.
According to new research, U.S. presidents—at least in recent decades—take far more trips out of the country during their second term in office.
“A liberated president tends to spend more time abroad,” according to scholars Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the University of Pennsylvania, Emily Jane Charnock of the University of Virginia, and James McCann of Purdue University. They outline their conclusions in a paper prepared for delivery at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.
The researchers looked at both domestic and international travel by two-term presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Not surprisingly, they found domestic travel peaked in Year Four of their respective administrations, as they campaigned for reelection.
International travel was a different story. The presidents barely left the country during their first year, and did so sparingly during their second, third and fourth years. (One exception: Bill Clinton, who made more than 30 overseas trips in his second year in office.)