Politics Internal Link File

Michigan 7 Wk Jrs CHPS
Politics – Internal Links

POLITICS INTERNAL LINK FILE
There are three politics files you will need to use:

- politics internal links file
- politics links file
- politics scenarios file
Political Capital Key to the Agenda.........................................................................................................................3

Political Capital Key................................................................................................................................................6
Political Capital Key................................................................................................................................................7
Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes................................................................................................................8
Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes................................................................................................................9
Political Capital – Spillover...................................................................................................................................10
Political Capital Key – Limited.............................................................................................................................11
AT: Political Capital Key ......................................................................................................................................12
AT: Political Capital Key ......................................................................................................................................13
AT: Political Capital Key – It Can Only Help.......................................................................................................14
AT: Political Capital is Key to Vetos.....................................................................................................................15
Legislation Key to PC............................................................................................................................................16
Legislation Key to PC............................................................................................................................................17
Winners-Win..........................................................................................................................................................18
Winners-Win..........................................................................................................................................................19
AT: Winners-win ...................................................................................................................................................20
Winners-Lose.........................................................................................................................................................21
Winners-Lose.........................................................................................................................................................22
Losers-Lose............................................................................................................................................................23
Popularity Key.......................................................................................................................................................24
Popularity Key.......................................................................................................................................................25
Popularity Key to Political Capital........................................................................................................................26
Popularity Not Key................................................................................................................................................27
Popularity Hurts Agenda........................................................................................................................................31
Concessions Key....................................................................................................................................................32
Concessions Key....................................................................................................................................................33
Concessions Key....................................................................................................................................................34
Concessions Key....................................................................................................................................................35
Concessions Not Key.............................................................................................................................................36
Democrats Key......................................................................................................................................................37
Democrats Key......................................................................................................................................................38
Democrats Key......................................................................................................................................................39
Democrats Not Key...............................................................................................................................................40
GOP Key................................................................................................................................................................43
GOP Key................................................................................................................................................................44
1
Base Key to Agenda...............................................................................................................................................45
Base Key to Agenda...............................................................................................................................................46
Base Key to PC......................................................................................................................................................47
GOP Not Key to Agenda.......................................................................................................................................48
Moderates Key.......................................................................................................................................................49
Moderates Not Key................................................................................................................................................50
Moderates Not Key................................................................................................................................................51
1 Party Not Key.....................................................................................................................................................52
President Gets Blame.............................................................................................................................................53
Presidents Get Blame.............................................................................................................................................56
Congress Avoids Blame.........................................................................................................................................57
President Doesn’t Get Blame.................................................................................................................................58
Flip-Flopping Kills PC..........................................................................................................................................59
Flip-Flopping Kills PC..........................................................................................................................................60
Flip-Flopping Hurts Agenda..................................................................................................................................61
AT: Bottom of the Docket (You should obviously make theory args also)...........................................................62
Interest Groups Key...............................................................................................................................................63
Oil Lobbies Key.....................................................................................................................................................64
Oil Lobbies Not Key..............................................................................................................................................65
Environmental Lobbies Key..................................................................................................................................66
2
Political Capital Key to the Agenda
Political capital key to agenda

LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service
[Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p. 25-26]
The most basic and most important of all presidential resources is

Cal it push, pull, punch, juice, power, or clout – they all mean the same thing.
capital. Though the internal resources time, information, expertise, and energy all have an impact on the domestic agenda, the
President is severely limited without capital. And capital is directly linked to the congressional parties. While there is little question that
bargaining skills can affect both the composition and the success opf the domestic agenda, without the necessary party support, no amount of
expertise or charm can make a difference. Though bargaining is an important tool of presidential power, it does not take place in a neutral environment. Presidents
bring certain advantages and disadvantages to the table.
Capital is key to the agenda – other factors are nowhere near as relevant
[Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p. 34]
Though the internal resources are important contributors

In chapter 2, I will consider just how capital affects the basic parameters of the domestic agenda.
to timing and size, capital remains the critical factor. That conclusion will become essential in understanding the domestic agenda.
Whatever the President's personal expertise, character, or skills, capital is the most important resource. In the past, presidential scholars have focused on individual
factors in discussing White House decisions, personality being the dominant factor. Yet, given low levels in presidential capital, even the most positive
and most active executive could make little impact. A President can be skilled, charming, charismatic, a veritable legislative wizard,
but if he does not have the basic congressional strength, his domestic agenda will be severely restricted – capital affects both the
number and the content of the President's priorities. Thus it is capital that determines whether the President will have the opportunity
to offer a detailed domestic program, whether he will be restricted to a series of limited initiatives and vetoes. Capital sets the basic
parameters of the agenda, determining the size of the agenda and guiding the criteria for choice. Regardless of the President's personality, capital is the
central force behind the domestic agenda.
Political capital is key to settling Congressional disputes over the agenda, ensuring passage
LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service [Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p.16
Presidential priorities also involve more conflict, both inside the administration and out. And the greater the conflict, the more time, information,
expertise, and energy necessary to settle the disputes. “You’d be surprised how long it takes to iron out the differences,” a Johnson legislative assistant
argued. “Compromise doesn’t usually happen overnight. It takes a hefty investment of presidential influence and effort.” Once again, welfare
reform serves as an example. One highly placed Nixon observer maintained that “ the {Family Assistance} plan cold have been announced much sooner if there hadn’t
been such a struggle. With Bruns and Moynihan at odds, we couldn’t move. When one would attack, the other would counterattack. Sure, the issue was intricate, but it
could have been handled much faster without the in-fighting. As it was , there was a stalemate for thee months.”
Capital is key to the agenda

LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service [Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p.
155]//ZE
Just what is the President’s must list, and why is it important? From the staff viewpoint, the
must list constitutes a shortened version of the
legislative agenda and contains the critical priorities, the items that are considered crucial to the presidential
program. In 1961, for instance, Kennedy offered twenty-five specific requests for legislative action; there was, however, little hope that all
twenty-five would pass. “We didn’t have enough capital,” one aide reflected. “There was no way we could get it all. Instead, we felt
some pressure to tell Congress which items were most important, which ones had to pass, which ones the President felt he had to have.
Even then, it didn’t make much difference – we didn’t get much anyway.” Aid to Education, Medicare, area redevelopment, manpower retraining and youth
employment all became part of Kennedy’s must life, while agriculture, community-health facilities, saline-water conversion, food-surplus distribution and water-
pollution control were given lesser status.
3

Political Capital key to the agenda
LEE 05 The Rose Institute of State & Local Government – Claremont McKenna College – Presented at the Georgia Political Science Association 2005
Conference
[Andrew, “Invest or Spend?:Political capital and Statements of Administration Policy in the First Term of the George W. Bush Presidency,” http://a-
s.clayton.edu/trachtenberg/2005%20Proceedings%20Lee.pdf]//ZE
How does Congress gauge the credibility of a veto threat? Legislators would gauge the “political capital” of the president to determine the credibility of the threat.
According to political journalist Tod Lindberg (2004), political
capital is a “form of persuasive authority stemming from a
position of political strength” (A21). Political capital can be measured by favorability and job approval polling numbers because they signify
support for the president’s actions and agenda. For example, President Bush’s leadership after the September 11th terrorist
attacks increased his favorability and job approval polling, and thus his political capital. He subsequently was able to launch a war with
Afghanistan and Iraq. In such cases, the president’s high political capital would make a veto more credible. Congress must also
reckon whether the president will think an issue is worth spending political capital on. As Richard S. Conley and Amie Kreppel (1999) write, “Whenever the President .
. . act[s] to change the voting behavior of a Member, political capital is expended. It would not be logical to expend that capital in what was known ahead of time to be a
losing battle” (2).
Bargaining key to success, it’s the only way to get controversial legislature through Congress.
PIKA & MALTESE 04 (Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U of Delaware & Prof of Political Science at University of Georgia [Joseph A., &
John Anthony, The Politics of the Presidency, p. 207]) // THK
The need for presidential-congressional cooperation is cleat, but there are few ways of obtaining it other than through
consultation involving persuasion and bargaining. Presidents cannot command congressional approval of their proposals
any more than Congress can direct presidents in the exercise of their constitutional powers. The threat of government stalemate is always
present, and more often than not policy is an unsatisfactory compromise of presidential and various congressional
viewpoints. As the United States moves through its third century of operation, the relationship between the president and Congress will be
characterized - as it is today - by a degree of stability provided by the Constitution as well as by adaptations to social, economic, and political change.
4
Capital empirically determines agenda content

56-57]//ZE
Political Limits. Agenda size and content vary directly with the President's capital. Of the five presidential agendas, Johnson's must
certainly be regarded as the most extensive, and Ford's as the most limited. According to a former Bureau of the Budget official: “Johnson's program was certainly the
broadest of the four that I watched. In the first months of 1965 Johnson presented more than Nixon did during his entire first term. It was a massive amount of
legislation which won’t be matched for some time. There's no doubt that Johnson's program was the most extensive of the 1956-1974 period. Much of the program had
originated in the Kennedy term but had been delayed by Congress. Johnson had considerable leverage in 1965 and made the most of it. Neither Kennedy, Nixon, nor
Ford had the same political opportunities. Johnson’s legislative agenda was the fullest and the most detailed The main programs were all presented in the first and
second year; the rest were logical extensions of Johnson's successes.” How did Johnson's agenda compare with those of Kennedy, Nixon and Ford? “Kennedy, Nixon,
and Ford were all frustrated at one point or another. They had to restrict their programs to fit the political situation. Still, Kennedy was far more successful in scheduling
his program than Nixon or Ford. Kennedy hit some serious roadblocks, but he still presented a substantial amount of legislation-not as much as Johnson, but still up
there. Nixon, of course, was stopped by Congress. He was also unsure of what he wanted. Not much needs to be said of Ford. He was just starting up when I left. Even
then, it was obvious that he wasn't going to be able to charge forward. There wasn't much he could do given the circumstances of his inauguration. The OMB data
support the conclusions. Table 4 gives the total number of requests in each administration, as well as the number of “new” and "old" proposals. The
distinction
between new and old is quite valuable for this research, particularly when we turn to the discussion of policy content in chapter 5. Here, it helps us
evaluate the impact of capital on agenda size. New proposals involve requests for innovations in federal policy;
old focus on the modification and amendment of past programs. Kennedy’s request for Medicare, Johnson's proposal for Model Cities,
Nixon's revenue sharing, Ford's energy-independence program, and Carter's hospital cost containment are examples of new agenda items. Each involved significant
changes in the government's relationship to society (Campbell 1978). Most social security increases, minimum wage expansions, unemployment extensions and food
stamp extensions are examples of old agenda requests. Each involves simple changes in the existing framework.
Two conclusions emerge from table 4. First, Presidents
vary in their agenda activity. Johnson is at the top in both the number of total requests and
the number of new proposals. As one observer noted, "It makes sense that LBJ would look so strong. That’s nothing new. Johnson
had all the advantages;
had all the momentum. It would be very surprising if he didn’t come first among the recent Presidents- if Ford had
somehow come out first.” Second, Ford leads all five Presidents in the average number of old agenda items. In fact, he is the only executive to have more old proposals
than new. The Ford staff did not dispute the finding. "We were well aware of our position in Congress, and the problems following the resignation," one Ford assistant
noted. “That's not to say we didn't want our share of new initiatives. We were working on comprehensive welfare reform and national health insurance. We just read the
Congress, looked at the budget, and decided to hold off. We knew that the new programs would have to wait at least until 1977.”
5
Political Capital Key

The president needs capital to gain support on key issues – it is the most vital resource
Bond & Fleisher, professor in Political Science - Texas A&M and Professor in Political Science. Fordham - 1996 (Jon R. and Richard. "The President in
Legislation" p.221 -222)//ZE
The basis of the presidency-centered explanation rests with Neustadt’s (1960, 33) observation that "what the constitution separates our parties do not combine." Without
a strong party system to fall back on, Neustadt argues the president's
success depends on his ability to use available resources to
persuade other actors to do what they otherwise might not have done. This explanation emphasizes the president's
reputation among Washingtonians as being skilled at using the vantage points of the office and the president's
ability to reach beyond the Washington community and mobilize public support. Success, therefore, is a
function of what the president does or does not do. While the partisan and ideological composition of Congress may set broad limits, a
skilled and popular minority president can overcome the lack of a partisan majority and persuade Congress to
support his preferences. Similarly, an unskilled or unpopular majority president can squander the advantages of
party control.
Capital is key to check Congressional battles that would otherwise kill the agenda
181]//ZE
There is a clear relationship between presidential capital and staff conflict: as capital declines, conflict increases. As one Nixon aide reported, “It is a
hell of a
lot easier to get along with your enemies when you both can be satisfied. When it turns to a game with winners
and losers, the response is to drag out all the old weapons. There may be a truce at the beginning of the
administration, but it is broken very quickly." Thus, both domination and the garbage can are tied to conflict. As conflict increases, the staff either
engages in attempts at internal domination or collapses into organized anarchy. The rational system demands the greatest amounts of
capital in reserve. Under a comprehensive strategy, there must be enough capital to satisfy the range of potential
alternatives. Though rational choice can produce relatively "cheap" alternatives, the system must have a store of
capital in the event that the "best" alternative demands heavy amounts. Presidents obviously determine just what
"best" means. It is usually defined by the choice of questions to be asked of potential programs: the President can set a series of screens through which all
alternatives must pass. According to a Nixon aide, “There is a world of difference between saying you want the program that will work and the program that will pass.
The program that will work best might not pass; the program that will pass might not work as well. If the President wants the very best program, he might not be able to
get legislative acceptance. He will have the best program, but nowhere to go." Capital
is critical in the emergence of political domination.
As capital declines, there is a marked increase in domination. According to one OMB office, “The President and staff are going to be
much happier at the beginning of the term than at the end. There is an spirit de corps at the start that generally disappears by the end. It is simply impossible to maintain
a high level of camaraderie when tough choices have to be made.” Capital
and the consistency of participants are primary pressures in
the garbage-can system. Once again, as capital declines, conflict increases; as capital declines, the opportunities
for accommodation drop. When capital is coupled with low levels of staff consistency, organized anarchies may
evolve.
6
Political Capital Key

Capital is crucial in setting agenda priorities
161-162]//ZE
Policy windows involve the merging of political interests. Congress, the President, interest groups, and the executive
branch may come together at a critical moment. That was the case for national health insurance in 1974. The Democrats had decided to produce
a bill; organized labor was close to a compromise: Nixon had supported the concept of comprehensive coverage. The window opened briefly in the spring, but it closed
with Nixon’s resignation and labor’s willingness to wait for the 1976 election. According to the staffs, the
President’s priorities are a powerful tool
in such windows. As one Johnson aide suggested, “When the opportunity arises, the President has got to keep the pressure
on. Mention the program in a press conference, make a televised address, use the phone. The President has got to make it absolutely clear that the program is a
priority.” Policy windows will usually open at the start of the term: with the passage of time, the windows start to
close. As presidential priorities become a primary weapon in the struggle for legislative progress. The decision
to move an item to the top of the must list can speed legislative adoption; it can also open legislative windows.
Though Presidents are limited in the timing of the domestic program, the use of priorities remains an area where
expertise can have a dramatic impact.
High political capital makes agenda passage more likely
Conference
No single alternative theory can entirely explain the use of veto threats under President Bush’s first term. For example, the
president would not be able
to invest political capital without having the opportunity of increased legislation created by the legislative cycle.
It is more likely that a combination of these factors produced the data in the first Bush administration. During periods of high legislative activity, the Congress, divided
during the 107th Congress, anticipated more credible veto threats due to high political capital. Congress constructed legislation that was favorable to the president, and
the president invested his political capital by decreasing his veto threats and opposition to legislation. Congress
creates legislation that is more
favorable to the president, and the president supports Congress in order to invest his political capital. Ultimately,
this means that Congress and the president are inadvertently working to create agreeable legislation during times
of high political capital. Conversely, when political capital decreases, the president gradually increases his
opposition language.
Political capital is key to the agenda
LINDBERG 04 Editor of Policy Review Magazine, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute
[Tod, “Spending political capital,” The Washington Times, December 7. Pg. A21]//ZE
No, there is nothing automatic about getting a return on your investment of political capital, if by return you mean more of that selfsame political capital. But you
can indeed buy something by spending your capital: the end of the Saddam regime, or perhaps Social Security
or tax reform. Perhaps you get a return on what you spend in terms of enhancement of your political strength,
but perhaps you just end up weakened. Even so, you may think that what you are trying to accomplish is worth the price.
7
Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes

The President can use the power of the office to spin unpopular policies in his favor
FITTS 96 Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School [Michael A., “THE PARADOX OF POWER IN THE MODERN STATE,” University of
Pennsylvania Law Review, January, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 827] // DCM
< Finally, and relatedly, the modern presidency has become more centralized and personalized through its public media role - that is, its
"rhetorical functions." n40 Given changes in the press and the White House office, the president has become far more effective in setting the
agenda for public debate, sometimes even dominating the public dialogue when he chooses. n41 Economists would probably attribute the president's ability to
"transmit information" to the centralized organization of the presidency - an "economy of scale" in public debate. n42 At the same time, the president can
establish [*844] a "focal point" around preferred public policies. n43 This proposition can also be stated somewhat differently. As an institution
embodied in a single individual, the president has a unique ability to "tell" a simple story that is quite personal and understandable to the
public. As a number of legal academics have shown, stories can be a powerful mode for capturing the essence of a person's situated perspective,
improving public comprehension of particular facts, and synthesizing complex events into accessible language. n44 Complex institutions,
such as Congress, have difficulty [*845] assembling and transmitting information as part of a coherent whole; they represent a diversity - some would say a babble -
of voices and perspectives. In contrast, presidents have the capacity to project a coherent and empathetic message, especially if it is tied to
their own life stories. In this sense, the skill of the president in telling a story about policy, while sometimes a source of pointed
criticism for its necessary simplicity, n45 may greatly facilitate public understanding and acceptance of policy. n46 >
The president uses his influence to switch votes in Congress

Legislation" p.16)//ZE
Using these political resources to aid supporters is more likely. Edwards (1984, 191-92) reports that presidents
provide myriad favors for
members of Congress. The nature of these favors ranges from flattery and social contact with the president to
help with constituent problems and campaign aid. And presidential favors and attention go disproportionately to
members of the president's party (Covington 1987b).' Because most members of Congress can get reelected without the president's help, the effects of
this activity are limited. But doing favors for members of Congress at least creates a storehouse of goodwill that might increase support on some
key issues, and a few members might be influenced by these activities. Thus political parties serve to link members of Congress with one
another and to the president.
8
Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes

Capital is key to switching votes to gain support
138-139]//ZE
Congress is the most important factor in the calculation of political costs. Depending on the party composition
and the political mood of Congress, the “price” of specific alternatives can vary greatly. “You spend a great deal
of time just counting heads,” a Ford liaison office argued. “you have to be on guard for shifts in support. On one issue, you might be
able to find the right balance of votes; on another issue on the same day, you might not be able to get lunch.” For the staffs, congressional support
equaled party seats; that was your first line for organizing support. As one Nixon aide noted, “You turn to your party members first. If
we couldn’t move out own people, we felt the opportunities were pretty slim.” This is not to argue that the staffs considered each party member an automatic vote.
Indeed, the staffs argued that theparty tally could change for each successive issue. Rather, the staffs subscribed to a mild form of party
discipline. According to one Johnson assistant, “We told the party members that they should seriously consider coming along on
certain issues. It was in their best interest, as well as ours. The President has certain tools at his disposal to gain
party support, not the least of which is to cut off the social channel.” The battle for congressional support is one
reason why Presidents court congressional input on program development. Lyndon Johnson recognized the advantages and
attempted to reduce his political costs by including Congress in the drafting of major initiatives: “The trick was…to
crack the wall of separation enough to give the Congress a feeling of participation in creating my bills without exposing my plans at the same time to advance
congressional opposition before they even saw the light of day. It meant taking risks, but the risks were worth it. My experience in the NYA taught me that when people
have a hand in shaping projects, these projects are more likely to be successful than the ones simply handed down from the top. As Majority Leader I learned that the
best guarantee to legislative success was a process by which the wishes and views of the members were obtained ahead of time, and, whenever possible, incorporated
into the early drafts of the bill. As President I went one step further. I insisted on congressional consultation at every single stage, beginning with the process of deciding
what problems and issues to consider for my task forces right up to the drafting of the bills (in Kearns 1976, p. 232).” Johnson viewed the strategy as a method for
cutting political costs. “It was much easier to win if we could bring the Congress in early,” one Johnson legislative assistant reflected. “If we could forge some support
before the programs were drafted, we were halfway there.”
Capital is key to persuading vote switches

Legislation" p.30-31)//ZE
Third, the president must follow through and use the resources at his disposal to persuade members to support his
policy, or at least not to oppose it. President Johnson was fond of saying, "There is only one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is
continuously, incessantly, and without interruption" (quoted in Kearns 1976, 226). In his continuous dealings with Congress, the president
should use his intimate knowledge of Congress to anticipate reactions and to preempt problems before they
become unmanageable (Edwards 1980. 120). At the heart of the concept of follow-through are bargaining and the use
of the various carrots and sticks available to enhance the president's bargaining position. The president may
trade favors, supply members with services and personal amenities, and use personal appeals; he may enlist the
aid of cabinet members, other members of Congress, or influential individuals in a member's constituency. If
softer methods of persuasion fail, he may engage in arm-twisting by making implicit or explicit threats (Edwards
1980, 120, 128-73; Christenson 1982, 262-63; Jones 1983, 109). If these activities cannot convert potential opponents or undecided
members into supporters, the president may be able to convince them to "take a walk" and not vote against him
(Covington 1985). A final interpersonal skill is the ability to compromise. Because members of Congress have power independent of the president, he often must meet
them pan way in return for their support. But he must know when to compromise. If he gives in too soon, it may be seen as a sign of weakness, and he will lose more
than necessary. If he waits too long, he may be viewed as stubborn, and resistance in Congress will harden (Edwards 1980, 166; Christenson 1982, 266: Jones 1983.
110).
9
Political Capital – Spillover
Presidential Leadership spills over – capital is key to perception which insures success
Perceptions of presidential leadership affect how members of Congress and other participants in the process feel about the president. Unskilled
and
unpopular presidents are perceived as failures even if their success rate is fairly typical. Such a president may
score some significant victories, but his style so alienates the other players that even his supporters do not feel
good about the victory. And when such a president suffers the inevitable defeat, the failure tends to be
remembered because that is what participants' perceptions led them to expect.
Issues spill over to create more capital

58]//ZE
Initial legislative success has an impact on agenda size. If the president’s program is enacted quickly, there is a
limited opportunity to replace the enacted requests, to fill the empty space. Once again, Johnson was able to take advantage of the
opportunity to a far greater extent than any other recent executive. He was simply more successful in his early months. To a limit, the faster Johnson’s
programs were passed, the faster the agenda could be replenished. As congressional calendars reopened, Johnson had the
opportunity to move more legislation. This relationship was accentuated by the cycle of increasing
effectiveness. Johnson’s staff was more prepared to send a second wave of proposals than were the staffs of most first-term Presidents. The Johnson domestic
process was in full swing at the start of the Eighty-ninth Congress. As programs moved through the legislative process, Johnson’s staff was able to supply limited
replacements.
Political capital spills over– 107th Congress proves
Conference
The idea of investing political capital also supports the notion that the chief executive specializes in foreign and defense policy. The
president may
increase his domestic capital by cooperating on domestic legislation and then spend it implementing foreign
policies. In executing foreign policy, the president will not issue SAPs on his own foreign policy. For example, if the president signs a treaty, Congress may or may
not ratify it, but there is no opportunity for veto. Therefore, the president’s use of foreign policy is a spend maneuver, whereas
his domestic policy is an invest maneuver. The 107th Congress, during which the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
began, supports this theory. President Bush may have spent his political capital towards executing those wars
and attempted to invest his capital by cooperating on domestic legislation.
10
Political Capital Key – Limited

Capital is limited, only so many items can be passed
157]//ZE
Resources and the Need for Priorities. Priorities are central to the conservation of both internal and external resources. For the liaison staffs, the critical
resource was presidential capital. “The President cannot expect Congress to act on every proposal,” one Nixon assistant argued. “He must give
them a lead on the top items. Otherwise, he will spread his momentum over too many issues.” A second Nixon assistant agreed: “When you look at the situation
we faced, the need for priority-setting was even more important. We had a very slim electoral margin; we faced a hostile Democratic Congress; the
executive branch was not particularly interested in our ideas. Without a firm statement of priorities, we could not focus our energy. That was the primary reason for the
repeated reference to the Six Great Goals in 1971. It was an attempt to concentrate our political strength.” It is to the President’s advantage to provide some statement of
priorities. With increased competition for agenda space, the President must focus his scarce political support on the most valuable
proposals – at least that is what the liaison staffs believe. As on Carter assistant apologized, “I don’t mean to simplify a very complex process, but Congress no
longer offers that many opportunities for the President to set the agenda. Unless the President gives Congress a firm list of priorities,
the Congress will drift to other business. That was a lesson we learned quite early.”
Political capital diminishes – only by investing fighting and winning can the president get more
Conference
The prevalent theory of political capital focuses on its three uses: giving and receiving political capital, investing political capital, and spending political capital. Most
presidents constantly engage in one or more of these three uses because unused political capital diminishes (Edwards 2002; Lindberg 2004). In particular, a
president’s political capital usually decreases in the second term, usually through the standard measure of favorability and job approval
polling numbers.
To accrue political capital, the president may support a particular lawmaker’s legislation by issuing an SAP urging support, thereby giving
that legislator more pull in the Congress and at home. The president may also receive capital from Congress by winning larger
legislative majorities. For example, the president’s successful efforts at increasing Republican representation in the Senate and House would constitute an increase
in political capital. The president may also receive political capital from increased job favorability numbers, following through with purported policy agendas, and
defeating opposing party leaders (Lindberg 2004). Because political capital diminishes, a president can invest in policy and legislative victories
to maintain or increase it. For example, President George W. Bush invests his political capital in tax cuts which he hopes will yield returns
to the economy and his favorability numbers. By investing political capital, the president assumes a return on investment.
Political capital diminishes with time - Only investing political capital in popular issues can prevent its decay
Now, in the usual metaphor of political capital, presidents who have it often make the mistake of trying to "hoard" it. They put their
political capital in a safe place in order to bolster their personal popularity. They do not "risk it" in pursuit of political victories,
whether on their policy agenda or for controversial judicial appointments, etc. And therein, in the conventional application of the metaphor, lies
peril. For political capital, when hoarded, does not remain intact but rather diminishes over time through disuse. It "wastes away" - and
with it, a president's popularity and reputation.
Therefore, again in the conventional use of the metaphor, it is mere prudence for a president to "invest" his political capital. Only by seeking
political victories and winning them by such judicious investment can a president maintain and even increase his political capital. Who
dares wins.
This is, of course, a most mellifluous metaphor for the activists in the president's camp. It promises reward for ambitious action and warns against the
high price of a lack of ambition. In fact, it almost sounds like a sure thing: The president takes his political capital, invests it and reaps a mighty
return.
11
AT: Political Capital Key

Presidential capital isn’t significant – party support and divisions are key
Neustadt is correct that weak political parties in American politics do not bridge the gap created by the constitutional separation of powers. We
would add: neither does skilled presidential leadership or popularity with the public. In fact, the forces that Neustadt stressed as the antidote for weak
parties are even less successful in linking the president and Congress than are weak parties. Our findings indicate that members of Congress provide levels of
support for the President that are generally consistent with their partisan and ideological predispositions. Because party and ideology
are relatively stable, facing a Congress made up of more members predisposed to support the president does increase the likelihood of
success on the floor. There is, however, considerable variation in the behavior of the party factions. As expected, cross-pressured members are typically divided,
and when they unify, they unify against about as often as they unify for the president. Even members of the party bases who have reinforcing partisan
and ideological predispositions frequently fail to unify for or against the president's position. Our analysis of party and committee
leaders in Congress reveals that support from congressional leaders is associated with unity of the party factions. The party bases are likely
to unify only if the party and committee leader of a party take the same position. But party and committee leaders within each party take opposing stands on a
significant proportion of presidential roll calls. Because members of the party factions and their leaders frequently fail to unify around a party
position, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the outcome of presidential roll calls.
Political Capital is irrelevant – case studies prove

Legislation”)
In sum, the evidence presented in this chapter provides little support for the theory that the president's perceived leadership, skills are
associated with success on roll call votes in Congress. Presidents reputed as highly skilled do not win consistently more often than
should be expected. Even the effects of the partisan balanced Congress, the president's popularity, and, the cycle of decreasing
influence over the course of his term. Presidents reputed as unskilled do not win consistently less often relative to. Moreover, skilled
presidents do not win significantly more often than unskilled presidents on either important votes or close votes, in which skills have
the greatest potential to affect the outcome. Because of the difficulty of establishing a definitive test of the skills theory, some may argue that it is
premature to reject this explanation of presidential success based on the tests reported in this chapter. It might be argued that these findings by themselves do not deny
that leadership skill is an important component of presidential-congressional relations. Failure to find systematic effects in general does not necessarily refute the
anecdotes and case studies demonstrating the importance of skills.
Political capital is not key to the agenda
Striking it is, then, that Mr. Bush came in for only half of the metaphor: He believes he possesses political capital, but rather than invest
it, he proposes to spend it.I think this innovation may be an improvement. It removes the implicit expectation of an automatic return
on the use of political capital. Because in reality, one may spend one's political capital and lose it - specifically, if things don't turn out
the way you hope, namely, in glorious victory.
Little to no evidence supporting an effect of political capital

The evidence presented in this book provides little support for the theory that the president’s leadership skills and his popularity with
the public are strongly associated with success on roll call votes in Congress. These findings do not deny that presidential leadership
and popularity are important components of presidential-congressional relations. Failure to find systematic effects in general does not
necessarily refute the anecdotes and case studies demonstrating the importance of the president. Although we have raised questions
about the evidence in some of the literature, certainly there are occasions when the president’s standing with the public and what he
does (or fails to do) changes the outcome of a vote. Our analysis does suggest, however, that such cases are not representative of
presidential-congressional relations: in general, presidential variables have a very limited influence on the probability of success on
the floor of Congress.
12
AT: Political Capital Key

Capital can be borrowed – Bush proves
National Journal ’07 (National Journal’s Congress Daily, 1-26-07, lexis)
SoTuesday night, he did the only thing an unpopular yet still ambitious lame duck president without political capital could do:
He asked if he could borrow some. Bush began by complimenting the chief of the new hoarders of political riches, Speaker Pelosi,
congratulating her and noting how proud her dad would have been. Then, he acknowledged openly that the Democrats had stolen what was left of his booty: "Some in
this chamber are new to the House and the Senate, and I congratulate the Democrat majority," he said. And then, he asked them to share it. "Congress has changed, but
not our responsibilities," he said. "Our citizens don't much care which side of the aisle we sit on -- as long as we're willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be
done." After imploring his opponents to "cross that aisle" and drop off some political capital, Bush launched into a series of
proposals that might put them in a sharing mood, using comfortingly Democratic-sounding rhetoric that might lull them into
emptying their pockets. "A future of hope and opportunity requires that all our citizens have affordable and available health care," said Bush, describing his
plan to make health insurance more affordable for the poor and middle class through tax credits. On immigration: "We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting
pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals," he said, asking Congress to "resolve the status" of illegal immigrants. On energy: "Extending hope and opportunity
depends on a stable supply of energy that keeps America's economy running and America's environment clean," he said, seeking greater reliance on alternative fuels and
searching in vain across the House floor for a tree to hug. He even asked Democrats to support his Iraq policy -- though they had already demurred -- saying they
should join the decision-making process by consulting with him more and bringing their capital to a special advisory council on the war on terror. While asking
the Democrats to share capital -- presumably betting they thought they would get it back with interest on Election Day 2008 if
they passed some bills -- the president also pleaded for a loan from the viewers at home. All he was saying, to alter a line from John
Lennon, was give war a chance. "Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work," he said. Though his capital had been
squandered previously as Iraq deteriorated and he specifically declined to send more soldiers, now he was asking for a little collateral so he could send 20,000
additional U.S. troops into the country. The president might, indeed, get some of capital he wants to borrow. Some might find it difficult to begin
abandoning Iraq, and Democrats might not want to be on the receiving end of the "do nothing" label they tagged on the Republican Congress. And why
shouldn't the president try for a little loan? He'll be out in two years. He won't have to pay it back.
Capital does not guarantee agenda passage
Conference
Political capital is not equal in all policy areas. Commenting on President Clinton’s term, President George W. Bush said,
“I felt like he tried to spend capital on issues that he didn't have any capital on at first, like health care” (quoted in
Suellentrop 2004). In spending political capital, the president diminishes his political strength by initiating or pushing a
policy proposal with no intent on return. A president can spend capital for noble goals such as a balanced budget, the end of Saddam Hussein’s
regime, or to veto legislation. The theory of political capital as it relates to SAPs is that presidents are more likely to spend political capital through a presidential veto
because they have the power to do so. In times of increased political capital, the relative strength of SAP wording will also increase because the president has greater
flexibility to take stands on particular issues. This analysis is a case study of the first Bush term’s adherence to this hypothesis.
13
AT: Political Capital Key – It Can Only Help

Capital can only help the agenda
Conference
Congressional Anticipation. The last alternative explanation proposes that Congress drafts favorable legislation in response to the
president’s increase in political capital. In contrast to the investment explanation, where the president uses veto threats differently depending on his
capital and the legislation stays constant, this theory suggests that Congress changes its actions. The president’s use of the veto is constant, but Congress
changes its legislation depending on the president’s approval rating. In recent years, the majority leadership in the House has
aggressively used its power to control the agenda. If a measure seems likely to divide the majority party or face a presidential
veto, then it will probably not reach a House floor vote in the first place (Simendinger 2003). When the president’s
approval ratings increase, the Congress anticipates a stronger veto threat. This anticipation creates favorable
legislation rather than unfavorable legislation that will trigger a veto. Therefore, when the president’s political
capital is at its highest, the presidential veto will be least likely. In the current 109 Congress, however, there were signs of strain
th
between the White House and the House Republican Leadership, possibly caused by the president’s decrease in political capital (“Bush Vows Stem Cell Veto” 2005).
14
AT: Political Capital is Key to Vetos

Political capital does not influence veto threats
Conference
These alternative explanations change the traditional perception of political capital as a simple “receive and spend” concept. Presidents
do not just receive
political capital and spend it during periods of high approval. Presidents may invest it in preparation of the opportunity to use it. Indeed,
the evidence of the 107th Congress shows that the president was likely investing his political capital for the ensuing war in Iraq or in preparation for stronger legislative
battles. Additionally, Congress
did not give enough opportunity for the president to exercise his veto threat. In this respect,
the assumption that increased political capital leads to more veto threats fundamentally misses the decision
making of the administration. The Bush administration did not have the opportunity to issue veto threats, and
given the chance might not have done so. Future presidencies can learn from the first Bush administration’s use of SAPs. In times of high political
capital, future presidents should invest political capital to promote administration agendas, as President Bush did after September 11th and the Iraq War. By working
with Congress during periods of high political capital, presidents will be able to use all their available power.
15
Legislation Key to PC
Legislative success increase a president’s political capital
<First, with respect to the administration of the executive branch, centralized power, or at least the opportunity for the exercise of centralized power, is
thought to facilitate better development and coordination of national programs and policies. Because federal government programs
interrelate in countless ways, a centralized figure or institution such as the president is seemingly in a good position to recognize and
respond to the demands of the overall situation. n51 For similar reasons, as social and political change accelerates, the president may be well-situated to
foresee and implement adaptive synoptic changes - that is, to engage in strategic planning. One of the rationales for the existence of the federal governmentis the
national effect of its policies, which under this view can be reconciled most easily at the top. n52 To the extent that the president is successful in putting
together such programs, he should receive political credit, which would redound to his political strength. n53 Second, centralized power
facilitates greater political accountability by placing in one single individual the public's focus of government performance. If the public
had to evaluate electorally the activities of hundreds of different officials in the executive branch, its information about the positions, actions, and effects of government
behavior would be extraordinarily limited. n54 Only those most [*848] interested in a particular function would be likely to have information about its behavior or
attempt to influence that behavior through election, lobbying, or litigation. This is the standard concern with New Deal agencies captured by the so-called iron triangle
of Washington politics. n55 By contrast, placing overall political responsibility in one individual is thought to facilitate broader political
accountability. While this oversight can have mixed effects depending on presidential performance, it has the potential for strengthening the
president's political support and influence. n56 Because he is more likely to approximate the views of the median voter, n57 a unitary president is thought to
enjoy a clear majoritarian mandate, as the only elected representative of all "ThePeople." This democratic legitimacy should be, in turn, a major source of
his political strength. n58 As one commentator has [*849] argued: "Every deviation from the principle of executive unitariness will necessarily undermine the
national majority electoral coalition." Finally, on an elite political level, the existence of a single powerful political actor serves a political coordination function. n60 A
dispersed government with a decentralized political structure has a great deal of difficulty in reaching cooperative solutions on policy outcomes. Even if it does reach
cooperative solutions, it has great difficulty in reaching optimal results. Today, there are simply too many groups in Washington and within the political elite to reach the
necessary and optimal agreement easily. n61 A central and visible figure such as the president, who can take clear positions, can serve as a unique "focal point" for
coordinating action. n62 With the ability to focus public attention and minimize information costs, n63 [*850] a president can also be highly effective in overcoming
narrow but powerful sources of opposition and in facilitating communication (that is, coordination and cooperation) between groups and branches. n64 In technical
terms, he might be viewed as the "least cost avoider." n65 The budget confrontation between Clinton and Congress is only the most recent example of the president's
strategic abilities. n66 In this regard, it is not surprising that moststudies have found that the president's popularity is an important factor in his ability to
effectively negotiate with Congress. n67 For all of these reasons, many scholars, citizens, and politicians believe that the development of the rhetorical and
centralized presidency is an "unqualified blessing." n68 A president who is visible should be better able and more likely to garner public support
and should also have an incentive to marshall such support for programs that respond to public needs. His centralization and [*851]
visibility afford him the power to be effective, but, at the same time, these qualities increase his democratic accountability. And even though a modern
president is certainly not unitary in the strong sense of that word, the analogy presumes that future legal and structural evolution should move in that direction. n69>
Three different scholars of the presidency, writing in different traditions, have reached similar conclusions regarding the significance and
advantages of stronger presidential power, especially as compared to legislative influence. Presidential scholar Terry Moe has described the
influence of the modern president as follows: When it comes to building structures of control ... the battle between president and Congress is lopsided. The president is a
unitary decision maker, he can take unilateral action in imposing his own structures, his individual interests are largely congruent with the institutional interests of the
presidency, and he is dedicated to gaining control over government. Congress is hobbled by collective action problems, vulnerable to agenda manipulation by the
president, and populated by individuals whose interests diverge substantially from those of the institution. The result is an asymmetry in the dynamic of institutional
change, yielding an uneven but steady shift toward a more presidential system. n70 >>
16
Legislation Key to PC
Legislative success is key to a president’s momentum and political capital
Eshbaugh-Soha, 5 -- Ph.D., Texas A&M University; assistant professor of political science, UNT (Political Research Quarterly, “The Politics of Presidential
Agendas” ; 58: 257-268) // DCM
Past research holds that if presidents are to increase their success in Congress, they must set the policy agenda in their favor. But what
determines the propensity of presidents to propose or support different policies? Because presidents influence the agenda-setting stage of the policy process, presidents
develop their yearly domestic policy agendas in anticipation of each policy's success or failure in Congress. After all, presidents want to emphasize their
strengths to achieve their goal of policy enactment in Congress. From this assumption, I devise a typology of long-term and important presidential
policies, and argue that political limitations and fiscal constraints influence the president's yearly domestic policy agenda. I show that presidents
offer different types of policies as part of their yearly domestic agendas given Congressional makeup and the federal budget deficit. The president's agenda is of
immense importance to American politics. Several argue that presidents have substantial influence over the agenda-setting stage of the policy process
(Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Cobb and Elder 1983; Kingdon 1995; Schattsneider 1960). Others maintain that the way presidents package their agenda
explains much of their eventual success or failure in Congress (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Edwards 1989; Jones 1994; Light 1999; Neustadt 1990). The
implication of these works is that presidents anticipate the contextual environment and, when it is favorable, will be successful in Congress.
Edwards (1989: 146) argues that the president may be successful given a strategically packaged agenda and a favorable contextual environment, while the "the
president's greatest influence over policy comes from the agenda he pursues and the way it is packaged" (Bond and Fleisher 1990: 230).
Despite scholarly consensus that agenda setting is important to American politics and presidential-Congressional relations, previous research relies on the assertion that
agenda setting is important to presidential relations with Congress (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Edwards 1989), without providing empirical support for if
and how presidents strategically package their domestic policy agendas. Indeed, these works do not answer one important question: what determines the president's
propensity to propose or support different types of policies?
Two scholars have explored the determinants of the president's policy agenda. Light (1999) notes that information, expertise, and political capital are a
premium in the presidents agenda decisions, and that presidents have the most potential to shape the legislative agenda early in their
tenure. He shows how these factors influence the types of policies on the presidents agenda, without confirming his inferences through hypothesis testing (see King
1993). Peterson (1990) also studies the president's agenda. He analyzes the contextual environment and its impact on whether presidents prefer large or small, and new
or old policies. Although he finds that the Congressional environment is important in the presidents agenda decisions, seemingly relevant variables such as the federal
budget deficit are statistically insignificant.
The underlying premise of agenda-setting research is that the president should be able to package policy priorities so as to increase the likelihood of their adoption.
Doing so may require presidents to assess the probability that a proposal will be successful depending on contextual circumstances, such as Congressional makeup.
Nevertheless, Peterson (1990: 207-08) finds little impact of the contextual environment on presidential policies, bringing into question the conventional wisdom that
presidents can package their agendas strategically to increase their success in Congress (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Edwards 1989). With this in mind, I rely on agenda-
setting and anticipative reactions theories to argue that fiscal and political factors should affect the content of the president's yearly domestic policy agenda from 1949-
2000. Lacking any readily available data source to test this argument, I also advance a new policy typology that categorizes domestic policies across both time and
importance dimensions. I use the number of yearly policies for each policy type (major, minor, incremental, and meteoric) as dependent variables in four separate
analyses. To account for the yearly changes in the political environment, I offer a timeseries analysis of several hypotheses. I argue that presidents seek to
optimize their domestic policy preferences, and because their success depends on broad legislative cooperation, presidents anticipate
the reaction of Congress and support or propose different policies accordingly in their yearly domestic policy agendas.1
THEORY
Three areas of theory-presidential goals, agenda setting, and anticipative reactions-provide a useful framework for discussing the determinants of the presidents
domestic policy agenda,2 including a justification for why a time-importance policy typology is useful for assessing the presidents strategy in determining his yearly
domestic policy agenda.
Presidential Goals
The guiding force behind the presidents actions while in office is goal achievement. Presidents essentially have three goals-policy enactment,
reelection, and historical recognition (Light 1999)-that they hope to achieve while in office. Of primary concern to presidents when they submit their
domestic policy agenda is the enactment of that agenda. Although reelection and historical recognition may influence the policies
presidents propose or support, presidents need a policy record on which to run and be reelected, and by which they may be
remembered historically3 Reelection and historical recognition are also term-specific goalspresidents pursue reelection during their first term and strive for a
legacy in their second. Policy enactment pervades the presidents entire tenure and helps presidents in the achievement of their other goals. >
17
Winners-Win
Winners win – a win on one policy increases political capital
FORTIER & ORNSTEIN 03 studies politics, the presidency, continuity of government, elections, the electoral college, election reform, and presidential
succession disability & American Enterprise Institute Fortier - Ornstein - American Enterprise Institute. 2003 (John C. & Norman J.)
<http://www3.brookings.edu/press/books/chapter_1/secondtermblues.pdf>
George W. Bush has followed the motto that “winners win.” When he was given accolades for his initial policy successes as
governor, when he finally was elected to his first term as president (even in a controversial election), in the aftermath of 9/11, after
his victory in the 2002 midterm elections, and after the initial successes of the Iraq War, Bush used these victories to press for
more of his agenda. Whether it was a new school financing plan in Texas, tax cuts, or a Department of Homeland Security, Bush did not sit on his
laurels. It was this theory of political capital that informed his plans for a second term. Two days after his reelection, Bush said: Let me put it to you this way: I
earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is style. That’s what happened in the—after the 2000 election, I earned some
capital. I’ve earned capital in this election—and I’m going to spend it for what I told the people I’d spend it on, which is—you’ve heard the agenda: Social
Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror. Bush’s understanding of his own political capital was
astute. But it also relied on his always having been a somewhat popular governor or president. Before his 2004 reelection, Bush did not suffer the wild ups and
downs that Clinton did throughout his governor- ship and presidency. When Bush’s popularity began to drop significantly in 2005, the theory of political capital,
his grip on narrow Republican majorities, and the public’s perception of his strong leadership began to suffer.
Getting wins is key – the more unpopular the act the bigger return – capital evaporates
ORNSTEIN 01 Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
[Norm “How Bush is Governing,” May 15 – AEI event – online]
The best plan is to pick two significant priorities, things that can move relatively quickly. And in an ideal world, one of them is
going to be a little bit tough, where it's a battle, where you've got to fight, but then your victory is all the sweeter. The other
matters but you can sweep through fairly quickly with a broad base of support and show that you're a winner and can
accomplish something.
Bush did just that, picking one, education, where there was a fairly strong chance. Something he campaigned on, people care about, and a
pretty strong chance that he could get a bill through with 80, 85 percent support of both houses of Congress and both parties. And the other that he
picked, and there were other choices, but he picked the tax cuts.
What flows from that as well is, use every bit of political capital you have to achieve early victories that will both establish you as a
winner, because the key to political power is not the formal power that you have. Your ability to coerce people to do what they
otherwise would not do. Presidents don't have a lot of that formal power.
It's as much psychological as it is real. If you're a winner and people think you're a winner, and that issues come up and they’re
tough but somehow you're going to prevail, they will act in anticipation of that. Winners win.
If it looks like you can't get things done, then you have a steeply higher hill to climb with what follows. And as you use your
political capital, you have to recognize that for presidents, political capital is a perishable quality, that it evaporates if it isn't
used.
That's a lesson, by the way, George W. Bush learned firsthand from his father. That if you use it and you succeed, it's a gamble, to be sure, you'll
get it back with a very healthy premium.
Wins in Congress spill over for further legislative success

Skilled, popular presidents, in contrast, are perceived as successes even if they do not win more often than
should be expected given the political capital and conditions they inherited. But their style makes their
supporters feel good about supporting them and being associated with their programs, even though the president
probably would have received their support anyway. When a skilled president loses an important vote, the
perceived reputation causes the president’s excuses to be accepted. If the reputation begins to tarnish, it can
be restored by winning another “big one.” President Reagan appears to have successfully pursued this strategy, maintaining the so-called
Teflon presidency well into his second term.
18
Winners-Win
Winners win and losers lose – winning creates a perception of power
Ornstein 01 (Norman, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “High Stakes and an Overloaded Agenda”, Roll Call, September 10, lexis)
The compromise accomplished two ends. First, it changed the agenda base of the issue. Patients' rights went from an issue where the only
viable proposal was from Democrats (with GOP co-sponsors), which the President vowed to veto - to one where both Democrats and Bush are for patients'
rights and merely differ on the details. Two, it gave the President a victory on the House floor when all the pundits predicted defeat - a
major momentum builder. In a system where a President has limited formal power, perception matters. The reputation for
success - the belief by other political actors that even when he looks down, a president will find a way to pull out a victory - is
the most valuable resource a chief executive can have. Conversely, the widespread belief that the Oval Office occupant is on
the defensive, on the wane or without the ability to win under adversity can lead to disaster, as individual lawmakers calculate
who will be on the winning side and negotiate accordingly. In simple terms, winners win and losers lose more often than not.
Winners win and losers lose – losing makes Bush look weak
Barnes 03 (Fred, Executive Editor of the Weekly Standard, “The Path of More Resistance”, The Weekly Standard, March 24, lexis)
That Bush has persisted on Iraq in the face of sinking polls, diplomatic setbacks, and rising criticism argues against the cynical
view. Thomas DeFrank of the New York Daily News reported last week that Bush told friends nearly a year ago that he'd concluded Saddam Hussein must be
deposed. Since then, the president hasn't flinched. "He's using his political capital to take a reluctant nation to war," says a White
House official. It's not the other way around--Bush taking the country to war to build political capital.
Let's not exaggerate. Bush has lost some ground politically, but he's not in freefall. The latest Gallup Poll showed approval of his performance
dipped from 63 percent to 57 percent over the past two months. This brings Bush roughly back to where he was prior to September 11. The rally-around-
the-president phenomenon usually vanishes in seven or eight months. With Bush, it took 18 months to disappear, and it's likely
to return when war with Iraq begins.
The long road to war has created uncertainty about the future, and this is partly responsible for the weak economic recovery. Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan, among others, says so. The vote by Turkey not to join the war, the opposition of France, Russia, and Germany, the troubles at the U.N.--all have
shown the president as less than dominant. And not only have Bush's political opponents been emboldened, an antiwar movement has had time to mobilize,
though less effectively in America than in Europe.
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute has a theory that winners win. That sounds tautological, but it means that
winners create confidence in their ability to keep winning and thus improve their chances of doing just that. But lose or hit a
roadblock, and the opposite occurs. "If you're not winning, you look vulnerable," Ornstein says. Rebuffs by allies and the U.N.
"make Bush look less formidable. He looks not impotent but weaker."
There's something to this. Certainly Daschle and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic presidential
candidates act as though they believe it. Their criticism of Bush has become frequent and harsh.
Presidents that look like winners are more likely to secure agenda success
Finally, the
president’s professional reputation affects the leeway he has to pursue his policy goals. Presidents who
are viewed as unskilled are continually on the defensive. Their explanations of problems tend to become
excuses; compromises become “waffling.” Skilled presidents have more room to maneuver. When they suffer a
loss, as every president does, they still have leeway to pursue other items on their agenda or to try again to turn
the defeat into a victory. Reagan’s efforts to secure aid for the Contras in Nicaragua during the 99 Congress (1985-86) illustrate the point. After losing
th
several important votes by close margins on the House floor, the President eventually got a bill through the House giving him most of what he wanted, again by a thin
margin. It is hard to believe that Carter would have been able to prevail after so many setbacks. However, even Reagan was swamped by the political context. Reagan’s
request in the 100th Congress (1987-99) for additional aid for the Contras was defeated in the House by a narrow margin despite intense lobbying and appeals to the
public.
19
AT: Winners-win
Political capital will drop - every legislation decreases influence.
LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service [Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p. 36-37]
The impact of resources on opportunities can be best described as a problem of policy cycles. Certain resources
decline over the term, while others grow. “The more we seemed to learn about the domestic system,” one Nixon aide complained, “the less we
could do. We had out best shot at the start oaf the term but didn’t have the organization to cash in. By the time we had the organization, the opportunity was closed.”
This ebb and flow of presidential resources creates two basic cycles within the domestic policy process.
The first pattern might be called the cycle of decreasing influence. It is based on declines in presidential capital
time, and energy. Presidents can usually anticipate a midterm loss of party seats in Congress and a streaky erosion of public approval. At least for the past fifty years,
all Presidents, whether Democratic or Republican, have faced a drop in House party seats at the midterm election. Johnson lost forty-seven Democrats in the House in
1966; Nizon lost twelve Republicans in 1970. And at least since George Gallup first began measuring public approval, all President have experienced
some decline in their public support over the term. In the last twenty years, however the declines have been more severe. Today the President
can expect a near-linear drop in his approval rating in the first three years of office, with a slight rebound at the end of the term As one Ford aide remarked, “Each
decision is bound to hurt somebody; each appointment is going to cut into support. There’s really now way that the President can win. If he doesn’t make choices, he
will be attacked for being indecisive. If he does, he will satisfy one group but anger three others.
Declines in capital eventually bring the domestic process to a halt. Toward the end of each term, the
President must spend increasing capital just trying to unclog the legislative calendar. Unless the President
is highly successful with early requests, the agenda becomes dominated by the “old” business. Of the five most
recent Presidents, excluding Reagan, only Lyndon Johnson was able to sustain a consistently high level of agenda activity into the second an third year’s. The
other four President were force to begin repeating their domestic requests by the end of the first year in office. Even Johnson recognized the problem. As one
aide remarked, “You have to start backtracking almost from the first day. Unless the programs move off the agenda, you have to start investing your time
trying to bump them off. You have to devote your energies to the old items before replacing them with your new ideas.
Statistically, a win has no effect on further success

Presidency-centered variables, however, provide an even weaker explanation of presidential success. We found little support for the thesis that the weakness of
legislative parties increases the importance of presidential skill or popularity for determining presidential success on roll call votes. Our analysis
reveals that
presidents reputed to be highly skilled do not win consistently more often than should be expected given the
conditions they faced. Similarly, presidents reputed to be unskilled do not win significantly less often than
expected. The analysis of presidential popularity reveals that the president's standing in the polls has only a marginal impact on the probability of success or failure.
20
Winners-Lose
Winners lose – policies Bush wins don’t cause increased political capital
Lone Star Times 07 (“President George W. Bush: Failure?”, May 3, http://lonestartimes.com/2007/05/03/president-george-w-bush-failure/)
Honest assessment in public of President Bush’s efforts as chief executive can be difficult because of the rather strident nature of his opponents. It is
impossible, after all, to balance a ledger with those who will give no credit for anything to a man they hate. But what will Bush’s legacy actually be? It is a
valid question, and examining the record could be instructive. Let us try to take a level-headed look.
Economy
The economy is probably one of the President’s strongest suits. Despite terrorist attacks on the nation and a resulting recession, the American economy has
rebounded and remains strong years later. Mainstream liberal media may attempt to say otherwise, but very low unemployment and strong stock markets
indicate a generally healthy economic picture. There have been stumbles along the way, but Bush’s tax reductions remain a shining conservative
accomplishment. Compassionate Conservatism This initiative of the President must be regarded as a failure. Whatever the initial
reasons for the attempt, Bush’s plan to sell conservatism as “mean” and needing his brand of fiscal “compassion” largely
flopped. His efforts such as “No child left behind” and extensive reaching out to Congressional Democrats only resulted in
more and more spending and no political capital gained with his opponents. Some Republicans, and the President must be
numbered among them, continue under the delusion that hard-left Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi can be gotten
along with, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Winners lose – pushing legislation hurts public support

BRACE & HINCKLEY 92 Professors of Political Science, Government, and Public Affairs at U. of Illinois [Paul & Barbara, Follow the Leader, p. 174-
175]
Further, activity often works against popular support. In idealized portraits, presidents use their popular mandate in vigorous support of programs,
winning Congress and the public to their point of view. In reality, the choices are more complex and limited. In the first place, the size and success of the
legislative objectives are heavily controlled by factors the president cannot control. And when president do try to rally the nation for legislative
objectives, they risk a drop in the polls and a corresponding loss of success for their programs in Congress. Active position
taking on votes in Congress and domestic travel (rallying the congressional members’ own constituencies) hurt public support.
Tradeoffs are necessary. When presidents take positions, helping support their success in Congress, they lower their public approval.
But approval helps congressional success. Every 10 percentage point gain in public approval yields a 7 percentage point gain in
congressional success. Presidents thus face a delicate situation: in order to increase congressional success – by bolstering
approval – they must decrease the number of positions they take. As their positions decrease, their congressional success rate falls. Popular
presidents thus find built in limits, while their less popular peers confront the dilemma in which efforts to make headway with congress set them further behind
in the polls. The dilemma has no obvious solution, as presidents facing serious economic conditions know. With their polls at a low ebb they can least afford
bold new proposals; they can be criticized as ineffective and even less able to do their job. Since the polls fall with worsening economic conditions and with
dramatic international events, presidents are most able to provide legislative leadership when the country needs it least and are least
able to supply that leadership when domestic conditions demand it.
21
Winners-Lose
Winners Win doesn’t assume the plan – adding new initiatives can only hurt political capital
Pastor 91 (Robert, professor of political science at Emory University, Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy: Comparative Advantage or Disadvantage, The Washington
Quarterly, Autumn, lexis)
The third dysfunction in interbranch relations is the length of time and the amount of presidential capital needed to gain
approval of a major foreign policy law or treaty. When the president makes a compelling case that the national security of the United
States demands the approval of a particular bill or treaty, Congress rarely rejects him. This was true for the Panama Canal treaties and the
war in the Persian Gulf. But if the policy is unpopular, the president will almost certainly have to devote a much larger proportion of
his time and political capital to gaining approval for it, and he will have less time for and influence on other foreign policy
issues. Also, if he needs to ask Congress repeatedly to approve an unpopular policy -- such as contra aid -- he will deplete his
political capital and is likely eventually to lose the votes, as Reagan did. The increasing complexity of the world and its growing interdependence
with the United States means that the agenda will grow, the trade-offs between domestic and international interests will become more delicate, and the role of
Congress will increase proportionately. A few difficult issues -- like the canal treaties or contra aid -- can delay consideration of the entire
foreign policy agenda for prolonged periods. Given a fixed amount of time and a limited number of decision makers, this
systemic delay might be among the most important problems that stem from interbranch politics. The president must be very
conscious of his agenda and very selective in his approach. Carter filled his agenda with a host of controversial issues at the
beginning of his administration. Although he succeeded in gaining approval of the new Panama Canal treaties and new energy
legislation, both issues were costly, and ironically, his victories left him weaker politically. Reagan learned from Carter's
experience and selected a smaller, more manageable agenda. His victories -- the tax cut and the defense budget -- came more
easily in Congress, and he looked stronger as a result. To a certain extent, one's judgment of congressional involvement is colored by one's
assessment of the administration's policy. If one believes that an administration's policy on South Africa or the Middle East is correct, then congressional
intrusions are viewed more negatively than if one views the administration's approach as flawed. The congressional style of foreign policy making is
admittedly messy, public, and sometimes contradictory. But as Francis O. Wilcox, whose career spanned both branches, observed: "If Congress has frequently
seemed to be going in one direction and then in another, that is partly because it is a collection of poorly coordinated, strong-minded individuals. But more
importantly, it is because that is the way the White House and the Kremlin have moved as well." n27
Winners lose – next vote is against the President regardless of ideology or party support
MANN 93 Director, Governmental Studies program, Brookings Institution. Co-Director, AEI-Brookings Renewing Congress Project. Former Aid to Reagan
[Thomas, Beyond Gridlock: Prospects for Governance in the Clinton Years – and After. Editor James L. Sundquist, pg. 19]
Most representatives and senators do not feel beholden to any president, let alone one who ran behind them in the last election.
I am reminded of advice I received from former senator Jacob Javits of New York in his last year of life, when I was perplexed and trying to figure out a vote
that had just taken place in the senate. I asked him to explain why certain senators had voted a certain way. And with halting breath he said to me, “You must
always realize that senators vote in a priority order. First, they vote for their states; second, they vote out of institutional loyalty to the Senate; and, third, if they
have not decided on the basis of either of those, and president happens to be of their own party, well maybe they will gibe him a vote. But the state or the
district always comes first, the institution second, and only then the president.”
Another thing to remember is how important back home is. They used to call Reagan the great lobbyist not only in 1981, 1982, and 1983, but also in 1987 and
1988, and member after member would say, “Mr. President, I really want to support your package. The trouble is I am not hearing anything back from back
home.” The key was to make sure that we explained why things were important to the district, and why the district really would support what Reagan wanted.
The bad news also is that one the president gets a vote he wants, the immediate instinct of most members is to cast the next
vote to show their independence from the administration. This is especially true when you have asked them to vote a big package, in which most
provisions did not make sense for their districts but had to be swallowed as part of the overall package. Then their answer is, “I need the next vote to
show I am independent of the White House.
22
Losers-Lose
Losers lose – Congress abandons support

How does reputation affect presidential capital? According to Neustadt, professional reputation is a “cardinal factor in the President’s own power to
persuade”:
What me in government consider their relationships with him it does them little good to scan the Constitution or remind themselves that Presidents process potential
vantage points in excess of enumerated powers. Their problem never is what abstract Presidents might do in theory but what an actual incumbent will try in fact. They
must anticipate, as best they can, his ability and will to make use of the bargaining advantages he has. Out of what others think of him emerge his opportunities for
influence with them. If he would maximize his prospects for effectiveness, he must concern himself with what they think.
For Neustadt, the “greatest danger to President’s potential influence with [Congress] is not the show of incapacity he makes today but its
apparent kinship to what happened yesterday, last month, last year. For if his failures seem to form a pattern, the consequence is bound to
be a loss of faith in his effectiveness ‘next time.’”
Losers-lose – passage of an unpopular policy will prevent the passage of the president’s agenda
Brody 91- emeritus professor of political science at Stanford University, won the American Political Science Association’s 1992 Woodrow Wilson awards the best
Political Science book of 1991 (Richard, Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support, p. 22)
A spiral decline in presidential popularity could work as follows: after a brief “honeymoon,” presidential
policy missteps lead to increased public
disapproval. Incremental weakness in public support strengthens the opposition of political elites. For example, it reduces the president’s
capacity to persuade members of Congress that support for his legislative program is withheld at their political peril. It also
encourages foreign leaders to take actions that are contrary to the interests of the United States or , at least, the president’s foreign policy.
In turn, elite policy opposition increases presidential policy failure and, with it, increased public disappointment at the president’s
incapacity to fulfill expectations. This directly lowers public approval of presidential performance and sets into motion the next cycle
of strengthened elite resistance, faltering presidential program, and reduced public support.
23
Popularity Key
Public Approval is key to the success of a president’s agenda
Agendas” ; 58: 257-268) // DCM
<Public Approval. Presidential approval may also influence the content of the president's agenda. Despite evidence to the contrary (Bond and Fleisher
1990; Collier and Sullivan 1995), presidents, Washington insiders, and some researchers perceive public approval to be an important means of
achieving legislative success (Edwards 1997; Neustadt 1990; Rivers and Rose 1985). Given the pervasiveness of public opinion polling in the White House
(Edwards 1983) and high public expectations (Waterman, Jenkins-Smith, and Silva 1999), presidents are bound to be aware of their public standing.
More popular presidents should be inclined to offer more long-term and important policies than less popular presidents, if only because
they think that a stronger public standing gives them greater leeway to pursue such policies. In other words,
H3: Higher approval ratings will lead to a larger legislative agenda, including more major and incremental policies.
Approval is the yearly average of the presidents Gallup approval ratings.
The Honeymoon. The third component to the president's legislative calculus is when he advocates a policy. Timing is clearly important to presidential success in
Congress. A newly elected presidents arrival in Washington typically coincides with a perceived electoral mandate, goodwill from the public and media, and an air of
bipartisan cooperation (Dominquez 2002). Presidents know that their political capital is high upon taking office (Light 1999), so long as they "hit the ground running"
(Pfiffner 1988), they anticipate that their first years are most conducive to legislative success. The honeymoon also applies to a presidents second term. As presidents
become familiar with intricacies and peculiarities of the office, they learn how to manage more situations effectively. If presidents are reelected, Light (1999: 39)
claims, "The first days of the second term offer the greatest opportunity for presidential effectiveness." Therefore,
H4: Presidential agendas will be larger, and presidents will offer more major and incremental policies during their first years of both terms.
Honeymoon is a dummy variable: 1 for the first year of a presidents first and second terms and 0 otherwise.19
Budget Constraints
According to Kingdon (1995), participants in the agenda setting process must not only take advantage of limited windows of opportunity to secure agenda space for
their pet projects, but also acknowledge potential and existent constraints that could hinder their policies. One constraint noted by Kingdon (1995: 145), and one that is
particular to the 1980s and early 1990s, is fiscal resources. Budget deficits, for example, have constrained social welfare programs since the Reagan Administration
(Jones 1994: 179). Indeed, a prominent component to the presidents decision calculus is the surplus or deficit of the federal budget. Presidential agenda items fight for
scarce legislative agenda space. If that overall space is constrained by limited appropriations, presidents may offer fewer legislative proposals. Hence,
H5: Presidents will have a larger agenda and will advocate more major and incremental policies to the degree that the budget is in surplus.
Deficits measure the yearly federal budget deficit (a negative value) or surplus (a positive value) in constant dollars, as a percentage of the annual Gross Domestic
Product. Measuring the budget deficit proportional to GDP is logical because a large deficit in a booming economy may actually encourage presidential proposals,
whereas the same size deficit in a recession might discourage presidential proposals. Presidents will determine their yearly agendas based on the previous year's deficit
or surplus estimates.
The Impact of Other Policies on the President's Agenda
The propensity of presidents to support or propose different policies also depends on the other types of policies on the presidents agenda. In a policy environment
constrained by limited resources, presidents may have to ignore one policy type if they advocate another type of policy. An agenda replete with one type of policy may
limit the president's ability to propose or support other policies that share one policy dimension (major and incremental policies both share a longterm time dimension;
major and meteoric share an importance dimension; and minor policies share a short-term time dimension with meteoric and an unimportant dimension with
incremental policies). Hypothetically speaking,
H^sub 6^: Policies that share a policy dimension will be inversely correlated.
Presidents will likely try to optimize their chances for policy success by balancing an agenda replete with long-term or important policies with short-term and
unimportant ones. Presidents may therefore balance a heavily major or incremental policy agenda with several minor or meteonc policy programs (or vice-versa) to
ensure at least some policy success. Hence,
H^sub 7^: Policies that share neither dimension will be positively correlated.
To test these hypotheses, I control for the number of policies of other types proposed that year. For example, the major policy model controls for the number of minor,
incremental, and meteonc policies proposed or supported by the president for each year.20 (I model a dependent variablemajor policies-at time t with independent
variablesminor, incremental, and meteonc policies-at time t.)
The president's previous domestic policy agenda may constrain the propensity of presidents to support or propose new policies in a year. More repeated policies mean
that presidents have less agenda spaee and resources to devote to new policies. Hence, an agenda replete with past proposals limits the space that presidents may devote
to new policies of the same type. (The major policy model controls for major policies that the president proposes again at time t, which he had also proposed during
previous years of his term.)
The following discussion is based upon models of policy types-major, incremental, minor, meteoric, and total agenda items-as a function of Congressional makeup,
budget deficits, honeymoon, public approval, and other policy types. These series are all stationary and devoid of higherorder autoregressive or moving average
processes. Because of this, multivariate regression models are appropriate.
Major Policy
Several key variables significantly influence major policies (Table 2). First, a more liberal Congressional environment induces presidents to propose and support more
major legislation, as Congresses were typically liberal (Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder 1999) and advocated the expansion of government (Jones 1994) for most of this
time period. Indeed, a 10-point increase in ADA liberalism leads to nearly two additional major policies on the president's yearly domestic policy agenda. From another
perspective, one of the most liberal Congresses (1978) would encourage an additional four major presidential policies when compared with one of the most conservative
Congresses (1954), ceteris panbus. Second, previous year's budget deficit affects major policies, with a higher budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP) contributing to
fewer major policies. The president's approval ratings also increase marginally the number of major policies on his agenda. All else equal, a
president with an average approval rating of 60 percent, such as Nixon in 1969, is expected to offer about 1 more policy than a president
with an average approval rating of 40 percent (Bush in 1992). Finally, other policies affect the number of major policies: minor policies share agenda space
with major ones, while one additional incremental policy on the presidents yearly agenda contributes to slightly fewer major policies.>
24
Popularity Key
Bond and Fleisher are wrong- popularity is key to the agenda

Brody 91- emeritus professor of political science at Stanford University, won the American Political Science Association’s 1992 Woodrow Wilson awards the best
Political Science book of 1991 (Richard, Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support, pg. 21-22)
Bond and Fleisher reach the opposite conclusion. Looking at the components of the president’s program and his popularity, they conclude that “the president
does not win more votes nor does he receive higher levels of support when he is popular than when he is unpopular” (1982: 16). Rivers
and Rose reconcile these opposing findings: they argue that members of Congress recognize that they and the president share a common
political fate “based on their understanding of how the public holds government accountable for policy failure….[T]his connection
promotes congressional support for the program of a popular president” (Rivers & Rose 1985: 187). However, the president’s legislative program is
not fixed, and when “presidential support in Congress is high (for example, when he is popular with the public], presidents tend to submit
a large number of requests and to receive as a consequence lower [congressional approval ratings” (Rivers & Rose 1985: 194). Rivers and
Rose thus show us that Bond and Fleisher’s conclusion can lead to a misinterpretation of the role of public support in the politics of a
president’s legislative program. A president’s rate of success in Congress may be indistinguishable when his public support is high or
low, but these proportions may mask the fact that a greater number of the elements of his program are passed when a large share of the
public responds with approval to his overall policy performance.
Factual analysis concludes that agenda success increases as public support increases
Legislation" p.24)
Edwards (1980) was the first to test this theory systematically with quantitative data. In a study of presidential-congressional relations for the period 1953
through 1976 (Eisenhower through Ford), Edwards found high correlations between presidential popularity and congressional support. His most
important finding was that members of Congress are less responsive to the president's overall popularity and more responsive to his popularity
among subgroups in the public that are part of their own electoral coalitions-i.e., Democrats in Congress respond to the president's popularity
among Democratic voters, and Republicans respond to his popularity among Republican voters (Edwards 1980, 92-93). Based on this analysis. Edwards
concludes "that a president "should be concerned with his prestige among members of both parties, because all members of Congress respond to his
prestige, particularly his popularity among their electoral supporters" \ 109)
Rivers and Rose (1985) argue that Edwards's analysis understates the extent to which presidential success in Congress depends on the president's popularity with
the public. Their analysis suggests that there is a simultaneous relationship between presidential program formulation and success in Congress-- i.e
., success at one point in time tends to be associated with increased requests in subsequent years, which then leads to lower approval rates. Because of this
simultaneity, bivariate correlations between presidential popularity and success in Congress, as in Edwards's (1980) analysis, will understate the true relationship.
Controlling for simultaneity, Rivers and Rose (1985, 193-95) find that a 1 percent increase in public approval of the president leads to about a 1
percent increase in congressional approval of presidential requests. They conclude that public opinion is a more important source of
presidential success than indicated by previous studies.
25
Popularity Key to Political Capital

Popularity is key to capital, it’s the best way to cause vote switching
The belief that presidential popularity affects support in Congress is widely accepted among Washington insiders. President Johnson, for example, recognized the
importance of popular support. Shortly after his landslide victory in the 1964 election, he told one of his aides, "I keep hitting hard because I know that this honeymoon
won't last. Every day I lose a little more political capital" (quoted in Valenti 1975, 144). More recently, a Carter aide echoed the sentiment: "No president whose
popularity is as low as this president's has much clout on the Hill" (quoted in Edwards 1980, 87). The president's popularity may influence
congressional decisions to support his preferences for two reasons. First, the desire for reelection might lead
members to adjust their support for the president in response to his popularity -- i.e. members of Congress support
the president when it is in their self-interest to do so. Neustadt (1960,46) argues that "the essence of a President’s persuasive task with
congressmen ... is to induce them to believe that what he wants of them is what their own appraisal of their own responsibilities requires them to do in their interest,
not his” (emphasis in original). The president's "public prestige" affects those subjective calculations of self-interest
because “most members of the Washington community depend upon outsiders to support them .... Dependent
men must take account of popular reactions to their actions. What their publics may think of them becomes a
factor, therefore, in deciding how to deal with the desires of a President. His prestige enters into that decision;
their publics are part of his” (Neustadt 1960, 86, emphasis in original). Similarly, Edwards (1980,88) makes the point as follows: "Members of Congress
may choose to be close to or independent from the president. depending on his popularity, to increase their chances of reelection." Second, role theory
provides a plausible explanation of why a president's popularity might influence support for his preferences in
Congress (Edw ards , 19 , 88). Many members of Congress believe that their role as a representative is to reflect
80
constituency opinion. For example, Roger Davidson I 1969. 1 18- 19) found that about one-third of the House members in his study
agreed that "a representative ought to work for what his constituents want even though this may not always
agree with his personal views." Representatives who hold this role orientation should increase or decrease their
support for the president in response to changes in his standing with the public. Thus electoral self-interest and
role perception provide a theoretical basis for expecting that a president’s popularity will affect support for his
policy preferences in Congress.
26
Popularity Not Key

Popularity not key to the agenda- the public thinks of policies too generically
Brody 91- emeritus professor of political science at Stanford University, won the American Political Science Association’s 1992 Woodrow Wilson awardas the best
Political Science book of 1991 (Richard, Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support, pg. 16-17)
No well-informed observer would take seriously the proposition that the president is a slave to public opinion. Nor is there any reason why
he should be. The president and his party are electorally accountable for his performance. But the coupling between performance evaluation
and the vote is sufficiently loose to give him a great deal of latitude for policy choice. Presidents and their parties cannot ignore public response to policy
performance, but they need not live in fear of it. In any case, the vote is a decision based upon a comparison between the candidates (Kelley
& Mirer 1974; Brody & Page 1973). A incumbent whose job performance was responded to negatively by a large number of voters could still be more appealing than
the opposition candidate to enough voters to win reelection. Mass opinion on the president’s job performance is only one factor in the voter’s
voting decision. Because it is only one factor, it provides a forecast of the electoral outcome that has only limited utility. Mass opinion is
not much of an aid to those involved in the policy process either: the public thinks about most policy problems at a level of generality
that constrains the selection among detailed policy options only in the loosest degree- if at all. While thise is generally true of public opinion on
public policy (see Page, Shapiro & Dempsey 1986), it is doubly true of the ratings of presidential performance. The stimulus is vague and general
in the extreme. The response cannot contain any specific mandate for the president to follow a particular line of policy and exclude
other potential policy options. If we require than an expression of public opinion relate directly and simply to either electoral choice or
policy prescription, we are not going to be much concerned about the causes of presidential popularity ratings. But direct and simple
connections are not prerequisites for political consequences, and it is these consequences that command our attention.
The effect of popularity on agenda success has been found to be less than .5%
Legislation" p.25-27)
The empirical evidence presented by researchers seeking to demonstrate a strong relationship between public approval of the president and support
in Congress is mixed. Even those studies that purport to find a strong relationship have problems that raise doubts about the evidence. Although Edwards (1980)
reports some high correlations, as Rivers and Rose (1985. 184) observe, his results are "decidedly mixed." Edwards found some negative partial correlations,
yet he tends to ignore the inconsistent findings and to emphasize the strong positive relationships for his conclusion about the importance of
presidential popularity. Rivers and Rose (1985), however, also fail to provide convincing evidence that public approval is a more important source of presidential success than
indicated by Edwards (1980). They use highly sophisticated methods in 3D attempt to show that simpler methods fail to reveal the true (strong) relationship. A reexamination of
Rivers and Rose's results (1985, 192), however, reveals that they clearly overstate the importance of public opinion. They note that Edwards did not
report significance tests or standard errors. As result, we cannot judge the reliability of Edwards's parameter estimates. They correct this deficiency
and use the lack of statistical significance to conclude that some variables in their model are not important. Yet they argue that the president's
Gallup approval rating has a "substantial effect" on success in Congress (193), even though the coefficient for popularity is not statistically
significant. A significance level of .05, of course, is an arbitrary line . But Rivers and Rose argue that significance tests are appropriate criteria to
determine the reliability of parameter estimates, then fail to apply consistently the criteria they establish to interpret their results.
The evidence from the Ostrom and Simon (1985) analysis is also ambiguous. Their study also seeks to analyze the simultaneous relationships between public approval and presidential
legislative success. They use Gallup polls to estimate public approval each month from January 1953 to December 1980. The measure of presidential legislative success, however, is the
The summation of presidential success is
“cumulative proportion of of domestic policy votes…in which the position advocated by the president was victorious" (340).
restarted at the beginning of each new Congress (341 ). In the model of public approval, including the president's cumulative legislative success as
an explanatory variable makes theoretical sense: It seems reasonable to suppose that public approval of the president in a given month might be
influenced by his legislative successes in previous months. But analyzing the cumulative legislative success rate as a function of the current
month’s public approval makes little theoretical sense. It is hard to imagine how the level of public approval in December could affect the
cumulative rate of successes over the previous eleven months, because most of the victories occurred before the observation of popularity .
Consequently, it is unclear what Ostrom and Simon's analysis tells us about the effects of public approval on presidential success.
We see therefore that there are problems with the evidence from these studies purporting to show that public approval has a strong effect on
presidential success in Congress. Furthermore, other studies present evidence that the effect of presidential popularity is marginal at best. Paul
Light's analysis of congressional action on presidential proposals from Kennedy to Carter finds that popularity has a significant effect on congressional action. But
the strength of the relationship is much weaker than that reported by Edwards (1980). The correlations between presidential popularity and
congressional action on presidential programs are .28 for spending programs .27 for large programs, and .19 for new programs (Light 1981
-82. 731).
Similarly, our study of presidential support from members of the House between 1959 and 1974 (Eisenhower to Ford) reveals limited and indirect
effects for public opinion. We found that, controlling for ideological conflict between the president and a member of Congress, overall presidential
popularity is related to support, but partisan forces condition the relationship . Presidential popularity is directly related to support from members of the president's
party and inversely related to support from members of the opposition--that is, popular presidents tend to receive more support from members of their party but less support from members
of the opposition (Bond and Fleisher 1980, 75).
27
Popularity Not Key

Analysis concludes that popularity has no effect on agenda success
Thus the findings are consistent and clear: the effects of the president’s public approval on success in Congress
are limited. Our analysis reveals that the president does not consistently win more votes nor does he consistently
receive higher levels of support from the party factions when he is popular than when he is unpopular. This finding
holds regardless of whether one conceptualizes presidential approval as an interval level or a contextual variable. Similarly, presidential success on roll
call votes is not affected by the change in the president’s popularity over the previous six months. And contrary to the
major finding of Edwards’s (1980) research, we find no support for the proposition that partisan groups in Congress are more
responsive to the president’s popularity among their party identifiers in the public than to his overall popularity.
Moreover, this parent of weak relationships is not substantially different in the House or Senate, for domestic or foreign
policy issues, for important or less important votes, or (with the exception of President Johnson) for different presidential
administrations. These findings, of course, do not deny that for some individuals on some votes, the president’s popularity with the public is a crucial – perhaps
even deciding – consideration. The weak relationships do suggest that, as an empirical generalization, the conclusion that presidential popularity
is a major cause of legislative outcomes needs to be reconsidered.
Popularity does not directly affect agenda success, it only serves to redistribute votes among party lines in Congress
Legislation" p.29)
Thus studies of congressional behavior and Neustadt's theory lead one to expect that presidential popularity will have
only a marginal impact on voting decisions of representatives in Congress. Liberal Democrats, for example, did
not become solid supporters of President Reagan even at the zenith of his popularity. The expectation of marginal effects is
not to deny that for some individuals on some votes, the president's popularity with the public is a crucial-perhaps even deciding-consideration. But the available
evidence does suggest that, in general, presidential popularity is not likely to alter greatly the decisions of
individuals already in Congress. Instead, its effects are likely to be indirect, operating through the electoral
process to alter the distribution of partisan and ideological forces in Congress through changes in membership.
Almost no evidence to suggest a correlation between popularity and agenda success

Legislation" p.28)
In another study of presidential-congressional relations, analyzing votes rather than individuals, we

found further evidence that public approval
has only marginal effects on presidential success. Our analysis of conflictual presidential roll calls from
Eisenhower through Carter reveals that the president does not win more votes, nor does he receive higher levels
of support when he is popular than when he is unpopular. Similarly, presidential success on roll calls is not affected
by the change in popularity over the previous six months. And contrary to the major finding of Edwards's research, partisan groups
in Congress are no more responsive to the president's popularity among their party identifiers in the public than
they are to his overall popularity.' The pattern of weak (and sometimes negative) relationships is not
substantially different in the House and Senate, for domestic or foreign policy issues, for key votes or nonkey
votes, or for different presidents (Bond and Fleisher 1984).
28
Popularity Not Key

Popularity can’t help – it can only hurt – agenda fails when popularity drops – but it doesn’t increase when it rises

[Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p. 28-29]
Electoral margin may have a similarly impact on the presidential capital. If the President is elected by a slim percentage,
congressional support may be undermined. Yet, a decisive victory may result in only limited advances. As before ,the basis for political
exchange is the key. If the President does not have the seats in congress, electoral margin may have little effect. “Congress doesn’t want to trade
with someone who only made it by the skin of this teeth,” one Kennedy assistant argued. “if the president runs behind in your distrait, he becomes a liability. If the
president can’t help you, why help him?” A Johnson aide agreed: “It is the coattail that is important. If the congressmen are indebted to you for pulling them
in, you’re bound to have greater support. Hell, we had a whole group of freshmen in 1965 who owed their seats to the President.” Unless presidential coattails
appear, electoral margin rarely creates capital. By itself, the President’s electoral margin cannot turn a Democratic seat into a
Republican seat or transforms a minority coalition into a majority one. As one Nixon assistant lamented, “Nineteen seventy-two did not help us. It
was similar to Eisenhower in 1956. We had tremendous public and electoral support. But that and a dime couldn’t buy a cup of coffee. It was still a question for what
we didn’t have: what we didn’t have was enough Republican congressmen.”
Popularity is marginal and cannot be manipulated
PIKA & MALTESE 04 (Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U of Delaware & Prof of Political Science
at University of Georgia [Joseph A., & John Anthony, The Politics of the Presidency], p. 202)
It has been widely observed that a popular president

The prestige, or popular support, of presidents also affects congressional responses to their policies.
enjoys substantial leeway in dealing with Congress, and a president whose popularity is low or falling is likely to encounter
considerable resistance. Bond and Fleisher argue, however, that popular support is only marginally related to presidential success on
congressional floor votes.90 Similarly, Edwards finds that public approval is a background resource that provides presidents with
leverage, but not control, over congress.91
Although popularity is clearly, if marginally, related to congressional support for the president's legislative program and can be used as a tool of
influence, it cannot be easily manipulated . There are factors, such as the erosion of popular support over time and the economy's
condition, over which the president has no control.92 Presidents can take advantage of their popularity when it is high to influence congressional opinion, as
Johnson did in 1964 and 1965 and Reagan did in 1981 and, to a lesser extent, in 1985 and 1986 (his popularity then plummeted because of the Iran-contra affair).
George W. Bush sought to draw upon his strong approval ratings in this way in 2003 but had to retreat on the size and content of his tax-cut proposals and lost on the
issue of oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Popularity not key- only the president’s ability to control the agenda
Galen 07 (Rich, columnist and Republican strategist, “What Democrats need to learn about power”, Salon.com, 6-1-07, Lexis)
Also, the Clinton White House was

fighting to maintain the growth in a popular domestic program. The Bush White House is fighting to
maintain funding for an unpopular foreign war. Nevertheless, the Democrats in the House have surrendered on Iraq. They were permitted to save
face by tacking a minimum-wage increase onto the funding bill, and about half of the tens of billions of dollars of domestic add-ons they originally wanted, but there
will be no timeline for withdrawal. Despite the bluster and bother of Pelosi and her allies on the left, they could not defeat Bush on Iraq funding.
The issue is not the president's poll numbers, but his ability to control the national agenda. What disappointed Democrats should understand is
that even a weakened White House, one that is no longer aggressively on message, is still a more powerful political force in the United
States than the majority in the House, in the Senate, or both.
29
Popularity Not Key

Public support increases the probability of victory by a tenth of a percent at best
The effects of public approval are also weak and inconsistent. Popularity has a small impact in the House, but only for high-skilled
Presidents. If public approval increases from 50 percent to 60 percent, the probability of victory increases .07 for a high-skilled
majority president and .10 for a high-skilled minority president. At other skill levels, popularity has no effect.
Indeed, the probabilities of victory are slightly lower at 60 percent approval. In the Senate, increases in public approval have little or no effect
on the probability of success regardless of the president’s reputed skill.
Popularity can’t help – it can only hurt – agenda fails when popularity drops – but it doesn’t increase
when it rises
LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service [Paul C., the President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd Edition p. 28-
29]//ZE
Electoral margin may have a similarly impact on the presidential capital. If the President is elected by a slim
percentage, congressional support may be undermined. Yet, a decisive victory may result in only limited
advances. As before ,the basis for political exchange is the key. If the President does not have the seats in congress, electoral
margin may have little effect. “Congress doesn’t want to trade with someone who only made it by the skin of this teeth,” one Kennedy assistant argued.
“if the president runs behind in your distrait, he becomes a liability. If the president can’t help you, why help him?” A Johnson aide agreed: “It is the coattail
that is important. If the congressmen are indebted to you for pulling them in, you’re bound to have greater support. Hell, we had a whole group of freshmen in
1965 who owed their seats to the President.” Unless presidential coattails appear, electoral margin rarely creates capital. By
itself, the President’s electoral margin cannot turn a Democratic seat into a Republican seat or transforms a
minority coalition into a majority one. As one Nixon assistant lamented, “Nineteen seventy-two did not help us. It was similar to Eisenhower in
1956. We had tremendous public and electoral support. But that and a dime couldn’t buy a cup of coffee. It was still a question for what we didn’t have: what we
didn’t have was enough Republican congressmen.”
30
Popularity Hurts Agenda

Popularity is more likely to have negative effects on the agenda
Legislation" p.27)
Two considerations explain why presidential popularity might have little effect —or even negative effects--on the opposition. First,
popular and unpopular presidents may behave differently in their dealings with Congress. Feeling that they have the support of the
people, popular presidents may be less compromising. An unwillingness to compromise on partisan presidential proposals is likely
to lead to increased partisan voting in Congress and, hence, more support from the president's party and less support from the
opposition.
Second is the question of credit. Nelson Polsby (1986, 207) observes: “[M]uch of the sharpest kind of partisan conflict on Capitol Hill revolves…around
the question of credit. Members of the party in opposition to the President must ask themselves whether they can afford to support programs that help to perpetuate the
administration in office." Few voters have information about levels of presidential support in Congress. As noted above, the
primary determinants of the outcomes of congressional elections are the relative quality of the candidates and the vigor of their campaigns (Jacobson and Kernell 1983).
Members of the president's party tend to get credit for his policies even If they do not support them; members of
the opposition are not likely to receive credit even if they do. Consequently, members of the opposition are
likely to follow their basic partisan predisposition and oppose the positions of popular presidents because they
have little to gain from their support and much to lose if the president succeeds.
31
Concessions Key
Concessions are key to breaking Congressional gridlock.
Volden and Brady – Brady is a professor of political science and business, and Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the
Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and Volden is an assistant professor of political science at the Ohio State University -
06 (David W. Brady and Craig Volden, “Revolving Gridlock : Politics and Policy from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush,” Pg
35, Westview Press, 2006) // THK
More often, however, gridlock

is maintained through members from divorce districts who are very responsive to the electorate and thus at
odds with their fellow legislators. In these cases, gridlock can be overcome only through legislative compromise, and only when status quo
policies are outside the gridlock region. When a policy advocate suggests a change so major that supermajorities are difficult to achieve, the change will be stopped by a
filibuster or veto. To build the needed coalition for cloture or a vet override, compromises will need to be struck, often taking one of two
forms. First, the policy itself could be watered down. This was the main way that President Clinton overcame Republican filibusters in
1993 on issues like the job stimulus package, voter registration, and family and medical leave. A smaller change was more acceptable to moderate Senators.
A second possible compromise with these pivotal members needed to build a supermajority involves concessions not on the ideological position of
the bill at hand, but on other issues. Often these include distributive budgetary items, like roads, bridges, research labs, and targeted tax cuts. Riders attached to
budget bills add these benefits needed to smooth out compromises on earlier bills. Quite clearly, to the extent that budget concessions are needed to build
coalitions on all sorts of issues, gridlock is more likely when congress is confronting deficits than when it is ignoring them or facing surpluses.
Empirically, concessions are necessary to get bills passed: Clinton administration proves.
Robinson, 95 (Peter Robinson – Fellow at the Hoover Institute – “Can Congress be Fixed? (And Is It Broken?),” Pg. 4) // THK
Brady presented two examples of Clinton administration gridlock. The first was the 1993 Budget Reconciliation act. President Clinton first
submitted a budget proposal to Congress, Brady argued, that would have represented a dramatic break in policy, a decisive shift to the
left. The president’s proposal called for new taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners, higher taxes on corporations, limits on the deductibility of executive pay, and
new taxes on virtually all fossil fuels. The Democratic Congress rejected the Democratic president’s proposal outright.
Negotiations ensued. President Clinton made one concession after another, agreeing to deeper spending cuts and fewer new
taxes. In Brady’s words, the president was forced “to accommodate the moderate Democrats in Congress who could threaten to join the
republicans to defeat the measure.”
32
Concessions Key
Bush will have to make compromises to make the last months of his presidency successful.
The Columbus Dispatch, 7 (1-7-2007, “Harmonious discord;

Division of power between parties in Washington can help foster consensus,” Lexis-Nexis) // THK
Gridlock is not an inevitable consequence of a Democratic Congress dealing with a Republican president.
With the right dose of consensus, Congress and President Bush
could accomplish a lot in the final two years of his presidency. Regardless, the 110th Congress is likely to achieve more than the Republican-led
109th, which failed to act on a number of Bush's priorities, including Social Security reform and immigration.
Bush is right to extend his hand to Democrats, who will control both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years. In an opinion piece
on Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Bush wrote that if congressional Democrats take a conciliatory tone, "The next two years can
be fruitful ones for our nation."
Also necessary will be compromises by the Bush administration. And the new Democratic majority will have to be more inclusive of the
minority party than Republican leaders were during their years in power.
Among the inherent advantages of having the executive and legislative branches in the hands of opposite parties is that neither side can dominate the other.
Meaningful ideas then can emerge from the middle of the political spectrum, where consensus usually is built.
33
Concessions Key
Concessions on Democratic issues insure agenda success on other policies – past & present prove
The New Yorker, 2000 (Joe Klein, 11-20-2006, “Winners and Losers,” Pg. 35, Lexis-Nexis) // THK
<No matter the eventual outcome, the

next President will struggle to establish his political authority. Given the circumstances, there is
only one possible governing strategy: a quiet, patient, and persistent bipartisanship. This means that almost all the extravagant promises
made during the campaign just ended are now officially inoperative. There will be no $1.3 trillion tax cut, nor will there be a vast prescription-drug entitlement
for senior citizens, as the Vice-President proposed, unless it is accompanied by Medicare reform. There will be no extreme Supreme Court nominees, either. The
new Congress is divided so evenly that the passage of any legislation will require support from members of both parties. The
winning coalition is likely to shift with each vote, but each coalition will be built from the center out. Building and rebuilding
these coalitions will be a daunting political task, but also a potentially liberating one-political necessity will force the next
President to extricate himself, on occasion, from the influence of his party's traditional interests. The bullies and extremists who
have populated the congressional leadership of both parties-not just conservative ideologues, like Tom DeLay, of Texas, but also obdurate liberals, like David
Bonior, of Michigan-could find themselves abandoned by moderate backbenchers more willing to compromise. (Democrats like Calvin
Dooley, of California, and Republicans like Christopher Shays, of Connecticut, may emerge as leaders of the rational center.)
George Bush might seem better suited to this new political landscape than Al Gore. Bush
worked successfully with Democrats in Texas; he
insisted throughout the campaign that he intended to do the same in Washington. Gore ran a more divisive campaign and then reinforced his
partisan reputation by challenging the results in Florida; if he does win the Presidency, his ability to govern will have been severely compromised. But Gore has
shown signs that he understands the next President's dilemma. Just before the election, he distributed to members of his policy staff an article by Ronald
Brownstein, of the Los Angeles Times, about the perils of trying to govern after winning the election and losing the popular vote (a scenario that seemed possible
at the time). Gore's staff began thinking about specific programs-like Medicare reform-that might attract moderate Republicans into a bipartisan coalition. Bush
will have similar opportunities, if he chooses to pursue them; for example, if he moved quickly to support a popular staple of the
Democrats' wish list-a "bill of rights" for H.M.O. patients, including the modified right to sue, would be an obvious, relatively painless
concession-he might create the momentum and trust that would later enable him to negotiate more complicated pieces of
business (a budget, for example) through Congress.
In 1960, John Kennedy, after a very narrow electoral and popular-vote victory, acknowledged his tenuous mandate by creating, in effect,
a government of national reconciliation. His Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara; his Treasury Secretary, C. Douglas Dillon; and his national-security
adviser, McGeorge Bundy, were all Republicans. His Secretary of Defense, Dean Rusk, was a career diplomat perceived as apolitical. After winning less than
fifty per cent of the vote in 1968, Richard Nixon brought in Democrats-Daniel Patrick Moynihan and John Connally, among others-to run a very
successful domestic-policy operation. Bill Clinton, who probably should have followed this lesson earlier, eventually found that the appointment of a
Republican, William Cohen, as Defense Secretary was a valuable political buffer when he bombed Kosovo and Iraq. It seems obvious that the next President would
be wise to follow a similar strategy. Al Gore could do worse than invite people like Colin Powell or Elizabeth Dole or the former Republican senator Warren
Rudman to join him. Bush could easily retain Lawrence Summers at Treasury and Richard Holbrooke at the United Nations, and tap the former Democratic senator Sam
Nunn as his Secretary of Defense. >
34
Concessions Key
Concessions more useful than arm-twisting, which generates resentment in Congress and is counter-productive.
PIKA & MALTESE 04 (Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U of Delaware & Prof of Political Science
at University of Georgia [Joseph A., & John Anthony, The Politics of the Presidency, p. 199-200])
On their relations with Congress, presidents follow certain modes or patterns of

behavior: bargaining, arm-twisting, and confrontation. Bargaining is the predominant mode, and occasionally the president
bargains directly with members whose support is deemed essential to a bill's passage . In May 1981, for example, the Reagan
administration agreed to revive a costly program to support the price of sugar in exchange for the votes of four Democratic representatives from Louisiana
(where sugar is a key crop) on a comprehensive budget reduction bill. 78
Presidents usually try to avoid such explicit bargains because they have limited resources for trading, and the desire among
members for these resources is keen. Moreover, Congress is so large and its Power so decentralized that presidents cannot bargain extensively over most
bills. In some instances, the president may be unable or unwilling to bargain. Fortunately, rather than a quid pro quo exchange of favors for votes, much
presidential-congressional bargaining is implicit, generalized trading in which tacit exchanges of support and favors occur.
If bargaining does not result in the approval of their proposals, presidents may resort to stronger methods, such as arm-twisting, which involves
intense, even extraordinary, pressure and threats. In one sense, it is an intensified extension of bargaining, but it entails something more - a direct threat of
punishment if the member's opposition continues. Among modern presidents, Johnson was perhaps the most frequent practitioner of arm-twisting. When gentler
effort failed, or when a once-supportive member opposed him on an important issue, Johnson resorted to tactics such as deliberate embarrassment, threats,
and reprisals. In contrast, Eisenhower was most reluctant to pressure Congress. Arm twisting is understandably an unpopular tactic and, if
used often, creates resentment and hostility. Still, judicious demonstration that sustained opposition or desertion by normal supporters will exact
costs strengthens a president's bargaining position
35
Concessions Not Key

Prior political affiliation is most important: concessions have no effect. This fact is overlooked by their authors.
Smith - Director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy- 7, (Steven S., “Party Influence
in Congress,” Pg 56) // THK
Before turning to tangible incentives that party leaders can offer as incentives for cooperation, it pays to note a feature of
party life in Congress that scholars have recognized as important: Supporting the party appears to be a default voting strategy for most
legislators. Scholars Charles O. Jones (Jones 1961) and David Truman (Truman 1959), studying the mid-twentieth century Congress, observed a widespread
proclivity to support the party line when other significant pressures were not present, creating a baseline of support for the party. Studies offer at
least three distinct stories about the origin of this minimum level of partisanship.
First, many arrive in Congress with a strong psychological
identification with their parties. Many of them have long
experience working for and with their parties in their home states, state legislatures, and elsewhere. This is reinforced in everyday life
with their party collegues on Capitol Hill. A disposition to “go along” with the party position, in the absence of other influences, is the
product. Identification with party collegues created the opportunity for “peer pressure,” which political scientists may overlook but
legislators do not. Barber Conable (R-NY), once the senior Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means, observes that “peer
group pressure is of considerably greater significance that presidential blandishments.” Leaders exploit legislators’ predispositions by
frequently appealing to party loyalty when soliciting votes (Kingdon 1973; Ripley 1967)
Concessions are counter-productive – they alienate the base

Occasionally, a president takes a position that attracts support from cross-pressured members and from the
opposition. Such a strategy, however, may be counterproductive. As the president's position appeals to factions
further and further from his base-cross-pressured partisans to cross-pressured opponents to opposition party base-the risk of alienating
members of his party base increases. Polsby (1986, 194) observes that the president sits on the horns of an old dilemma: is it more effective to take
positions to "help thy friends or woo thine enemies?" Two empirical propositions follow from this conceptualization of congressional parties. First, if the interaction of
party and ideology creates varying predispositions to support the president, then the president should attract the most support from his party base and the least support
from the opposition party base. Although support from the two cross-pressured factions should fall somewhere in between, predicting which of the cross-pressured
factions will be more supportive is difficult. One could make a case that cross-pressured partisans have a greater incentive to support the president than do members of
the cross-pressured opposition. Despite the fact that congressional parties and party leaders are weak in comparison to their counterparts in most contemporary
parliaments, the formal party organization with elected leaders is likely to exert a stronger force on members' behavior than the relatively informal ideological voting
blocs, which lack a formal organization and leadership But given that cross-pressured members won election at least in part because
their ideological orientation appealed to their constituents, we may find that the pull of ideology is often as
strong as the push of party. The second proposition relates to party unity. Unity is low in American parties
because (1) the parties are ideologically diverse and (2) party leaders (including the president) lack authority to
control nominations and discipline members. While we can only speculate about what might happen if leaders had more authority, our four-
faction model permits us to observe the effects of reducing ideological diversity. If ideological diversity is the primary cause of the lack of
discipline in American parties, then the behavior of the more ideologically homogeneous party bases should be
closer to the responsible party model-that is, on most presidential roll calls. The president s party base should
unify in support of his preference, and the opposition party base should unify against. Failure to observe unified
behavior in the party bases would suggest that variables other than ideological diversity are more important
causes of party discipline.
36
Democrats Key
Democrats are key to agenda: historically, the biggest accomplishments in legislature have happened with a democratic
majority.
AP 6 (Laurie Kellman, “Gridlock need not be inevitable for Bush if Democrats control House of Representatives,” 11-3-2006,
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/51597.html) // THK
<Fresh opportunities abound if, as predicted, Democrats win control of the House –– and somewhat less likely the Senate –– next week, but success
will require both sides to suppress bitterness and payback urges. President George W. Bush's Republican party now controls both chambers.
Accomplishments over the next two years will require trust and good will, and not much of that exists in the toxic atmosphere of the election after President George W.
Bush's six years in office.
"White House officials do not expect that a Democratic-controlled Congress would work with them in any sincere or meaningful way," said George C. Edwards III, a
political science professor at Texas A&M University. "True or not, this perception could become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Democrats look at such a development as getting even for six years of being shut out of the final negotiations with the White House and majority Republicans on major
issues like homeland security, tax cuts and the prescription drug program for the elderly.
Recent interviews with some prospective committee chairmen preview the response the White House can expect if Democrats hold the gavels in the House when the
new Congress convenes in January.
"Whatever influence (Republicans) have, it will be more than they have over me," said Rep. Collin Peterson,, who would become chairman of the House Agriculture
Committee. "Because what they have over me will be zero."
Translation: legislative gridlock.
It was not always so. History is full of major breakthroughs in lawmaking during the four decades that Democrats controlled Congress and
Republicans floated in and out of the White House, starting with the Interstate highway program begun during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower.
President Richard Nixon signed into law major environmental protection policies negotiated with Democratic majorities in Congress. In
Ronald Reagan's presidency, a Democratic House passed legislation sustaining the government pension plan for another three decades.
A key deficit reduction program and the Americans With Disabilities Act became law when Democrats ran the Congress and Bush's father
was president.>
37
Democrats Key
Bush must cooperate with Democrats to push his agenda.
Chicago Tribune, 6 (Mark Silva, 11-8-2006, “Bush’s Tough Hand,”

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2006/11/bushs_capital_is_spent.html#more) // THK
<With his party’s loss of the House, experts say, Bush must fundamentally alter the way he approaches Congress for any hope of
salvaging his own "aggressive’’ agenda for the remaining two years of his presidency.
And with criticism for conduct of the war in Iraq mounting even within his own party, Bush and his embattled secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, are likely to
confront searing hearings in a Democratic-controlled House intent on exerting new oversight and challenging the course of the war.
This much is certain: The rules of the game have changed.
"It’s a real time for choice by President Bush,’’ says Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. "It really
becomes a question of whether he is really going to become ’a uniter, not a divider,’ in a way that has not occurred for the majority of his
presidency… Or drawing a line in the dust.’’
The White House, intent on fulfilling a domestic agenda that includes perpetuation of tax cuts won during Bush’s first term, is likely to seek some reconciliation – with
Bush planning to speak out Wednesday. During a campaign-closing rally, Bush promised: "For the next two and a half years, I’m going to sprint as
hard as I can.’’
The president could stumble for two years, experts say, if he does not demonstrate a new willingness to deal with Democrats.
The administration already has revealed a determination to prosecute the war as it is, with Vice President Dick Cheney insisting elections will have little impact: "The
president’s made clear what his objective is: It’s victory in Iraq, and it’s full speed ahead.’’
Any course change – including the removal of a defense secretary who has faced calls for resignation from retired generals and the editorial page of the Army Times –
could take some time.
"All those people heading to the polls hoping to change the policy in Iraq are going to wake up Wednesday and find out that won’t happen,’’ says Stephen Hess, a
Brookings Institution senior scholar.
As the focus of politics in Washington rapidly shifts to the next presidential election, leaders within Bush’s party could help chart a new war strategy as they seek to
regain the GOP’s footing for 2008.
"Staying the course’’ in Iraq is only likely to intensify the scrutiny of House committees whose new Democratic leaders have subpoena power to pursue questions they
have raised for the past few years.
It’s unlikely that any hearings will escalate to the level of impeachment that GOP leaders have warned of with a Democratic takeover, Democratic leaders say, but the
White House, Rumsfeld and others could face unrelenting interrogation.
On the war front and home front, Bush’s ability to make any headway during the rest of his term will depend on a willingness to work
with Democrats whom he has spent years marginalizing. Some say Bush could find quick common ground on immigration reform.
Not since his first year, when he secured his “No Child Left Behind’’ educational reforms with the assistance of Democrats, has Bush
demonstrated the full bipartisan spirit that he pledged campaigning in 2000 – running as "a uniter, not a divider.’’
His final two years may depend on a revival of that spirit.
"When Bush started out, the idea was, ’I am going to strike a balance here,’’’ says Ornstein, suggesting Bush must regain that balance
for any success from now on. "If he doesn’t move in that direction, it’s going to be a long and difficult two years.’’>
38
Democrats Key
Cooperation with Democrats is key to Bush’s agenda: he wants to cooperate on alternative energy.
The Salt Lake Tribune 7 (Robert Gehrke, 5-9-2007, “As presidency nears end, Bush reaches out to Democrats” Lexis-Nexis) //
THK
<President Bush reached out to a group of moderate Democrats, including Rep. Jim Matheson, on Tuesday, in an exchange aimed at
building bridges with Congress as Bush nears the end of his presidency burdened with sagging approval ratings.
"The president sat down and said, 'Look, I don't like the polarization in Washington. I think we need to work on getting things
done and I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about,' " said Matheson, D-Utah.
Bush and his senior staff met with 14 Democratic lawmakers for more than an hour, with the free-form discussion covering a dozen issues
ranging from Iraq policy, to energy production, to trade issues and renewal of the No Child Left Behind education law.
"I think [he's] someone who recognizes there are under two years left, that there are a number of domestic policy issues that need
to be addressed and this is a great opportunity to make a final push . . . and he recognizes it needs to be bipartisan," Matheson
said.
The gathering was the latest meeting the president has held with Democratic lawmakers, as he seeks to regain traction on Capitol Hill.
With Bush's approval rating as low as 28 percent nationally and Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, Bush will
have to rely on winning support from Democrats if he hopes to enact components of his legislative agenda in his last 20 months in
office.
Charles Walcott,
a political science professor at Virginia Tech University said Bush has little left to draw on, other than to try to
reason with the opposing party.
"It's a change in tactics, but the tactical situation has changed," Walcott said. "The president hasn't got much time left. There's no
way the White House is simply going to ram things down Congress' throat." >
39
Democrats Not Key

Democrats aren’t key – Bush’s veto and strong GOP support controls the agenda
AP, 07 (Charles Babington, 6-2-2007, “Democratic successes in changing government's direction prove fleeting,”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070602-0934-democrats-whatsdifferent.html) // THK
<
WASHINGTON – Under a portrait of George Washington and a sign proclaiming “A New Direction,” Democratic lawmakers boasted of their
accomplishments their first five months running Congress.
Their press release covered two pages.
Yet most people might be excused for hardly noticing, except maybe those who are paid the minimum wage or who live in hurricane-
ravaged areas.
Upon taking control in January, Democrats led efforts to increase the minimum wage for the first time in a decade and to force modest
spending increases in hurricane and drought relief, children's health care and a few other areas.
Beyond that, the

majority party has found it difficult or impossible to redirect federal policies, thwarted by a veto-wielding Republican
president whose congressional allies hold nearly half the Senate seats and a significant portion of the House.
To the frustration of their liberal base, Democrats

have been unable to mandate a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Nor have they
found a way to boost federal support for embryonic stem cell research, rewrite tax and spending priorities or force the removal of an
embattled attorney general.
Their promises to reduce student loan rates, overhaul lobbying practices and put in place recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission are works in progress, at best.
They have largely abandoned their push to allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices for the Medicare program in the face of Bush's opposition.
Democratic voters might be disappointed, but they should not be surprised, say congressional scholars and political strategists. While
Democrats can set the legislative agenda and investigate the Bush administration, they “don't have the power” to determine the results,
said Ronald Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland.
Lacking the two-thirds majorities needed in both chambers to override a veto, Democrats must make the most of their abilities to pressure the White House, hold
oversight hearings and drive the toughest bargains they can, Walters said.
“Democrats are in a negotiating framework consistently,” Walters said. “That's where they will be as long as the president has a veto pen.”
Even the Democrats' most clear-cut legislative victory – raising minimum wage to $7.25 from the current $5.15 over three years – has questionable impact. >
40
Democrats Not Key

Democrats can’t get anything done in Congress: either Bush vetoes or Republicans block bills.
Washington Post , 7 (Johnathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton, 5-5-2007, "Democrats' Momentum Is Stalling; Amid Iraq
Debate, Priorities On Domestic Agenda Languish", Lexis-Nexis) // THK
<In the heady opening weeks of the 110th Congress, the Democrats' domestic agenda appeared to be flying through the Capitol:
Homeland security upgrades, a higher minimum wage and student loan interest rate cuts all passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.But now that
initial progress has foundered as Washington policymakers have been consumed with the debate over the Iraq war. Not a single
priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the "do nothing" tag they
slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them."We cannot be a one-trick pony," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman
Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who helped engineer his party's takeover of Congress as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "People voted for
change, but Iraq, the economy and Washington, D.C., [corruption] all tied for first place. We need to do them all."The "Six for '06" policy agenda on which
Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets.
House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security
recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-
loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and
gas companies to finance alternative-energy research.The Senate struck out on its own, with a broad overhaul of the rules on lobbying
Congress.Not one of those bills has been signed into law. President Bush signed 16 measures into law through April, six more than were signed by
this time in the previous Congress. But beyond a huge domestic spending bill that wrapped up work left undone by Republicans last year, the list of
achievements is modest: a beefed-up board to oversee congressional pages in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, and the renaming of six post offices, including
one for Gerald R. Ford in Vail, Colo., as well as two courthouses, including one for Rush Limbaugh Sr. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.The minimum-wage bill
got stalled in a fight with the Senate over tax breaks to go along with the wage increase. In frustration, Democratic leaders
inserted a minimum-wage agreement into a bill to fund the Iraq war, only to see it vetoed.Similar homeland security bills were passed by
the House and the Senate, only to languish as attention shifted to the Iraq debate. Last week, family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in
Washington to demand action."We've waited five and a half years since 9/11," said Carie Lemack, whose mother died aboard one of the planes that crashed into
the World Trade Center in New York. "We waited three years since the 9/11 commission. We can't wait anymore."House and Senate staff members have begun
meeting, with the goal of reporting out a final bill by[card continues…no break] Memorial Day, but they concede that the deadline is likely to slip, in part
because members of the homeland security committees of both chambers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the two intelligence committees all
want their say. The irony, Lemack said, is that such cumbersomeness is precisely why the Sept. 11 commission recommended the creation of powerful umbrella
security committees with such broad jurisdiction that other panels could not muscle their way in. That was one recommendation Congress largely
disregarded.The Medicare drug-negotiations bill died in the Senate, after Republicans refused to let it come up for debate. House
Democrats are threatening to attach the bill to must-pass government funding bills.Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has proposed his own student-loan legislation, but it is to be part of a huge higher-education bill that may not reach the
committee until June.The House's relatively simple energy bill faces a similar fate. The Senate has in mind a much larger bill that would ease bringing alternative
fuels to market, regulate oil and gas futures trading, raise vehicle and appliance efficiency standards, and reform federal royalty payments to finance new energy
technologies.>
41
Democrats Not Key

Democratic support is insufficient – Republicans can still block
Boston Globe 7, (Rick Klein, “Democrats' aggressive agenda stalls in Senate GOP thwarting a range of bills,” 2-1-07, Pg A2,
Lexis-Nexis) // THK
<WASHINGTON - The aggressive agenda that Democrats pushed through with great fanfare in the House has become bogged down
in the Senate, where Republicans have used various stalling strategies to thwart Democratic momentum on issues ranging from
healthcare and homeland security to a resolution opposing President Bush's troop "surge."
None of the bills approved in the first 100 legislative hours in the House of Representatives last month has passed the Senate.
The only one close to passing - an increase in the minimum wage - has consumed more than a week of floor time, and
Republicans succeeded in attaching a series of small-business tax breaks favored by the White House.
On the Iraq war, Senate

Republicans have so far blocked Democrats from offering a resolution that would express Congress's
disapproval with Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Republican leaders are pressuring GOP senators who have expressed misgivings about the troop escalation to nonetheless vote against a resolution, contending
that nonbinding statements would be motivated by politics and could harm troops' morale.
"It accomplishes no constructive purpose," said Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who strongly supports the increase in troops. The Democrats'
proposals amount to "nonbinding words that don't stop anything in terms of troop movement, troop funding, but that do clearly hurt our morale, turn off our
allies, and embolden the enemy."
The Republicans' stalling tactics have frustrated Democratic leaders. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has
accused the Republicans of prolonging debate on the minimum wage mainly to keep a war resolution off the Senate floor for as
long as possible.
Still, Democrats say they will eventually succeed in passing their main priorities, including a strong message of disapproval with the president's war strategy.
"It's always frustrating to watch this sort of thing, but we're working our way through it," said the Conference secretary of the Democratic Caucus, Senator Patty
Murray of Washington. "We will have a debate for the first time in four years on Iraq. I think the public deserves that, and we ought to have it. So we're getting
there."
Republicans counter that they are preserving the rights of the minority party, in a body that's designed to move slowly. Republicans have not yet used the ultimate
Senate blocking tool, the filibuster, despite the fact that Democrats made it part of their legislative playbook when they were in the minority, said Senator John
Thune, a South Dakota Republican. >
42
GOP Key
Republicans have momentum to influence Congress
The Examiner, 7 (Bill Sammon, “GOP base re-energized by Dems actions”, 06-29-07,http://www.examiner.com/a-
806734~GOP_base_re_energized_by_Dems_actions.html)
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - After the defeat of the immigration reform bill and a string of Supreme Court rulings in their favor,
conservatives are celebrating what may be their best week since the demoralizing loss of Congress to Democrats last November.
The once-dispirited GOP base is suddenly galvanized, thanks in part to widespread outrage over Democratic proposals to rein in conservative talk radio. And although
the long-term political environment remains challenging for Republicans - the immigration defeat may have doomed President Bush's domestic
agenda - many party members see a glimmer of hope in the historically low approval ratings of the Democratic Congress.
Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group, acknowledged that conservatives are on a roll.
"I don't blame them if they do rejoice a little bit this week - I would too," she said. "It's been a banner week for them."
Isaacs called this week's batch of Supreme Court rulings "a disaster." The high court weakened campaign finance laws, strengthened Bush's faith-based initiative and
embraced a colorblind system of public school enrollment.
Meanwhile, rallied by talk radio, conservatives mounted a massive lobbying campaign to scuttle an immigration bill that would have granted legal status to illegal
immigrants.
"Big government was insulting its citizens in the immigration debate, telling them they didn't know what was in the bill, calling them racists, bigots and nativists, when
in fact citizens knew more about the contents of this legislation than many of the Senators voting on it," said radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, one of the most
influential conservatives in America.
Seeking to capitalize on their momentum, conservatives quickly turned their attention to heading off Democratic proposals to revive
the Fairness Doctrine, which would force AM radio stations, currently dominated by conservative talk show hosts, to air liberal political views. The House voted
overwhelmingly Thursday to block the Democratic move.
"The Fairness Doctrine question and the Supreme Court decisions are great victories for First Amendment advocates," said David Keene, chairman of the American
Conservative Union. "The immigration victory is a demonstration of what grassroots power can do."
He added: "The whole week's accomplishments really give a shot of adrenaline to the conservative movement."
Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation agreed.
"Even when things seemed to be going bad for conservatism, there were those conservatives who stuck to their principles, who believed that they should conduct policy
based upon certain basic principles," said Edwards, a historian of the conservative movement. "And that has paid off this week."
43
GOP Key
GOP support is key – Bush needs his party’s support in order to get his agenda passed
Agendas” ; 58: 257-268) // DCM
<The first component of the presidents policy decision calculus is the Congressional environment. Anticipative reactions theory says that the presidents
expectations about how Congress will react to his policy agendas will shape his agenda decisions (see Arnold 1979: 73). Indeed, presidents
have a greater likelihood of success when a majority of legislators support their policies.
Congressional Makeup. Two determinants of presidential success in Congress are ideology and party. Presidents are more successful in Congress under
conditions of unified than divided government (see Edwards, Barrett, and Peake 1997). After all, presidents can count on support from same-
party legislators about two-thirds of the time (Edwards 1989), regardless of the content of their policy agendas.
H1: Presidents will offer more major and incremental policies and have a larger agenda when their party controls Congress.>
GOP unity key to success – first term proves – they will desert him
Bush: Unity Republican Party unity in the Bush administration has swung wildly from the Dr. Jekyll–like
reflexive loyalty of the
first term to the Mr. Hyde–like declared congressional independence from the White House in the second term. Few who studied
the Bush administration would have predicted that congressional Republi- cans with such a small majority would be able to hold together as regularly as they
did in Bush’s first four years. The unity was extraordinary. For Republicans to win on a party line vote in the House of Representatives in 2001, they could
only afford five defectors from their ranks. The Senate began with a 50-50 tie, broken by the vice president, but soon turned to a one-seat Demo- cratic
majority when Senator Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) left the Republi- can Party. In all of the forty years that Democrats controlled the House, they never had a working
majority as slim as the 2001–02 Republican Congress. And Bush more or less relied on his Republican majority. After the initial No
Child Left Behind Act, which was passed with significant support from key Democratic leaders, most of Bush’s agenda was
accomplished along partisan lines, sometimes attract- ing some Democratic votes but often relying on arm-twisting of key
Republican House members to achieve one-vote majorities on important issues. The reasons for the unity on the Republican
side were many. It was the first time Republicans had controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress since the
1950s. Sep- tember 11 added to the sense of national purpose. House leaders were extremely skilled in counting votes and
pulling out close votes, sometimes with tough tactics such as holding open votes for long periods or cutting generous deals to
sway wavering Republi- cans. Also, significantly, the two political parties have become extremely polarized over the past
thirty years. Where once there were many conservative southern Democrats and liberal north- eastern Republicans, today there is nearly perfect separation
between the parties, with few moderating voices. This was different from the situation Governor Bush faced in Texas, where he had to govern with a
legislature partly controlled by conservative Democrats and where he often worked across party lines. The unity of the first term makes the dissent
of the second even more striking. Democratic opposition was stiffer to Bush as political allegiances hardened, and
Democrats began to make many of the arguments that Republicans had made in the final days of their minority status. Still,
despite their unity, Democrats had little input, especially in the House, where Republicans governed with their own narrow
majority.
44
Base Key to Agenda
The base is key to majority building in Congress and thus the agenda
Legislation" p.14) //ZE
Partisan forces also serve to link the president and members of Congress. Previous research on presidential-
congressional relations reveals that members of the president's party in Congress are more likely to support his
policy positions than are members of the opposition (Edwards 1984. 180-84). Paul Light's interviews with members of previous presidential
administration confirm the importance of party as a Source of Support. According to a member of President Johnson's liaison staff, "You can cajole
Congress and try to buy the votes, but if you don't have your party on board there isn't much hope," Similarly, a Carter
aide noted, "We can always find support in Congress, even when we are under fire in the polls. The Congress is still a party institution, and we can count on a few votes
by bringing out the party standard" (quoted in Light 1983, 27). Partisan
support is important to explaining the policy success of both
majority and minority presidents. Having members of their own party in Congress provides all presidents with a
base upon which to build majority coalitions in support of their policy preferences. Majority presidents have an
advantage because their partisans are more numerous and they control the committee structure and leadership.
But minority presidents frequently achieve victories on the floor in part because they do not have to build a
majority from nothing. Members of the president’s party are predisposed to support his policy preferences for
several reasons. First, because members of the same political party must satisfy similar electoral coalitions, they share
many of the same goals and have a wide range of policy preferences in common. For many members of the president’s party,
constituency interests and presidential support are not in conflict. Although the strength of presidential coattails may have decreased in recent years (Ferejohn and
Calvert 1984), V.O. Key’s (1964, 658) observation remains valid: “When a president goes into office a substantial number of legislators of his party stand committed to
the broad policy orientation of the president.”
Base unity is the key starting point for ensuring agenda passage
Legislation" p.120) //ZE
For majority presidents, unity
in the party base is a key ingredient of success. When a majority president's base is unified,
the chances of victory approach certainty. If the base is split, the probability of victory drops considerably. And
the base is frequently split. In parliamentary systems, partisan control of the legislature virtually assures victories; in the United States, having more
members in Congress who are predisposed to support the president is an advantage, but one insufficient to
guarantee victories.
45
Base Key to Agenda

Base unity causes the probability of success to rise higher than 90%
Unified support countered by unified opposition is a more interesting condition. If a majority president takes a
position that generates a party split, then the probability of winning increases to above .90. And the probabilities are about
the same regardless of whether the party split involves only the party bases unifying against each other, or the president's party coalition (base plus the cross-pressured
faction) unifying against the opposing party coalition. Opposing
ideological coalitions are not as effective for majority presidents.
When this condition occurs, the president wins about three out of four times, only slightly better odds than
under the condition of no unity. Thus majority presidents can increase their chances of success if they take
positions that unify their partisans, especially members of their political base, who have the greatest
predisposition to agree with the president. And even if unified support from one or both factions of the president’s
party is countered with unified opposition from the opposition party factions, the probability of success is
still better than .90. The situation for minority presidents is different.
The base is key – it’s the starting point for building a majority
Yet few would go so far as to argue that majority status is irrelevant to presidential success . Certainly Lyndon Johnson's success in winning
passage of the Great Society from an overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress and, at the other end of the continuum, Gerald Ford's
frustration at having to resort to the veto as the only effective strategy for dealing with a Congress dominated by the opposition party are
images that most observers remember. Previously we noted that shared partisan interests serve to link the president and members of Congress. Congress is a
partisan institution, and according to Paul Light, party support "is the chief ingredient in presidential capital; it is the 'gold standard' of
congressional support" (Light 1983, 27). A member of President Johnson's legislative liaison staff noted, "The President's legislative success starts with party.
It's that simple" (quoted in Light 1983, 27).
46
Base Key to PC
Base key to capital
Party support is the chief ingredient in presidential capital; it is the “gold standard” of congressional support. Among the White House staffs,
congressional parties are viewed as much more stable than public approval. Even if the President is slipping in the polls he can count
on support in Congress, particularly from his own party. Though congressional support does not guarantee victories on crucial votes, the President and
the staff certainly believe that such support is a more consistent advantage than is public approval. Like public approval, congressional
support usually drops over the term; however, it rarely drops as far or as fast. As one Carter assistant suggested, “We can always find support in Congress,
even when we are under fire in the polls. The Congress is still a party institution, and we can count on a few votes by bringing out the party standard. “
Further, Presidents and staffs tend to view party support as critical in the day-to-day conduct of domestic affairs. Public approval can be used
to sway congressional votes, but with only limited success. “Everyone has a poll,” one aide noted. “You can find any number of groups which can present a pool to
support a given proposal. Depending upon how you word the questions and how you select the sample, you can get a positive result. Congress is fairly
suspicious of polls as a bargaining tool, and public approval ratings are too general to be much good. Public opinion is important over the
term; it affects both midterm losses and the President’s chances for reelection. Yet, public opinion is not easily converted into direct influence in the
domestic policy process. Most often it is an indirect factor in the congressional struggle. Presidents cannot afford to ignore public opinion, but in
the clowed world of Washington politics, the party comes into play virtually every day of the term. Party support thereby becomes the central component
to the President’s capital.
The base is key to political capital
Mr. Bush also enjoys more political capital for the gains that Republicans made in the Senate and the House. It's
not just the bigger majorities, but also majorities won with Mr. Bush at the head of a wide-ranging Republican
victory. Mr. Bush also gains from the defeat of the top Democratic leader in Washington, Sen. Tom Daschle.
47
GOP Not Key to Agenda

Popularity with base constituencies is trivial
Our analysis of levels of support from the four party factions indicates that members of Congress are no more responsive to the
president’s popularity with the relevant partisans in the public than to his popularity with the public overall (see
table 7.3). Although there are a few instances in which support from a party faction is related slightly more strongly to the president's popularity with the relevant
partisans in the public, partisan popularity generally performs less well than the president's overall popularity. Indeed, under
minority presidents, support from cross-pressured members of the president’s party correlates most strongly with his popularity among voters of the other party. The
differences in correlations, however, are trivial.
Multiple warrants for the decline of base necessity to the agenda

The weakening of parties as a linkage agent in the electorate profoundly affects their ability to serve as a linkage agent in government. Although party voting in
Congress is a function of both the partisanship of the electorate and the powers and skill of party leaders, Melissa Collie and David Brady (1985,
283) present evidence that a partisan electorate is the more salient force. Their analysis suggests that despite weak congressional leadership, with a
partisan electorate, members of Congress will vote with the president and with their party because "their electoral fate is linked to their
president's and party's fate." Similarly, Morris Fiorina (1984) argues that the insulation of congressional incumbents from national tides and
presidential coattails has resulted in a Congress that is less responsive to party leadership, less subject to presidential leadership, and
less accountable for the failure to govern. And Thomas Cronin ( 1982. 295) notes that changes in the electorate that enhance incumbents'
reelection chances reduce the connection between the president and his partisans in Congress because they are "less dependent on the White
House •• and less fearful of any penalty for ignoring presidential party appeals." Over the past three decades, there has been a
decline in "party unity" roll calls in Congress-i.e., votes on which a majority of one party vote in opposition to a
majority of the other party." William Crotty (1984, 253) summarizes the trend: "Party votes fell from 46 percent in the 1960s to 43 percent the 1960s to
39 percent in the 1970s.” Democrats, of course, have long had difficulty maintaining unity because southern Democrats are consistently less likely
to support the party leadership. But it appears that northern Democrats also have become less predictable. Barbara Sinclair's (1981.207) analysis of -, roll
call votes in the House during the Carter and Reagan presidencies reveals that "northern Democrats could no longer be relied upon to provide a solid bloc of support. Junior members,
especially those elected from previously Republican districts, defected from the party position fairly frequently." For the president and his party's congressional leaders, these trends mean that
the task of building winning coalitions on the House and Senate floors has become more uncertain and difficult. Although
a president whose party controls Congress
continues to have an advantage, the benefits associated with party control are limited. Furthermore, the increase in split ticket voting has
increased the likelihood that a president will face a Congress controlled by the opposition (Fiorina 1984; Jacobson 1987,150-51; Asher 1980. 78,. The
declining impact of party in Congress led a frustrated Joseph Califanoo (an advisor to Presidents Johnson and Carter) to conclude that "the
political party IS at best of marginal relevance to the performance of the Oval Office” (Califano 1975, 146). Califano, of course, overstates the
point. Nonetheless, his understandable frustration with American political parties suggests that presidents, who seek to provide policy leadership in a system
of separated powers and weak parties must find other ways to link their preferences with those of members of Congress
President can’t get his agenda passed because he lacks base support– 2nd term is dooming
Party Infighting Party unity suffers in second terms. Successful first-term presidents—for example, those who can win reelection—are able to secure the consistent
support of their party in Congress, getting factions to muffle their differences, to be team players in order to get things done, and to win reelection. The president’s partisans are
made to see that their fate, and the fate of the president, is inextricably linked—if he succeeds, so will they; if he fails, so will they. At the same time, a successful president is able to
keep his party’s ideological base inside the tent by convincing the base to cut him some slack so he can win reelection. A second-term president faces a very different dynamic.
His supporters know that this may be their last chance to get what they want, so there often is impatience with presidents,
which is heightened by unrealistic expectations. His partisans in Congress realize that his fate and theirs are now separated—
they are up for reelection in the coming midterms, which are historically deeply damaging to the president’s party, while he will
not be up for election again. The willingness to get distance from the president—and to intensify that distance if he suffers public
disapproval—increases geometrically. The ideological base, at the same time, calls in its chits now that the president no
longer has an excuse to move away from its priorities or issues. With these difficulties, it is not surprising that second-term
presidents are less legislatively successful than first-termers. Of course, legislation does get passed; Congress has its own agenda to work on, and there
have been notable second-term breakthroughs such as the 1986 tax reform act for Reagan mentioned earlier. But, generally, a second-term president is less
legislatively successful and, more important, less in charge of the legislative agenda.
48
Moderates Key
Moderates key, they control swaying votes
Bangor Daily News, 6 (Lauren Smith, “Moderates Still Wield Power in Congress” , 11-30-06,
http://www.bu.edu/washjocenter/newswire_pg/fall2006/conn/Moderates.htm)//SV
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 —Despite the ouster of many moderate Republicans in the midterm elections, politicians and political experts still
expect moderates to play a pivotal role in the upcoming Congress.
“Nearly 45 percent of Americans describe themselves as moderates and I think that speaks volumes about what the people want, what Maine people want: an
independent voice building a political center,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who won reelection with almost 75 percent of the vote.
The Democrats will enjoy a 31-seat majority in the House come January. In the Senate, Democrats will have a slim two-seat majority in combination with the two
independents who have said they will be caucusing with the Democrats.
“Because of the Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to get any major bill passed,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “That means the
moderates on both sides of the aisle will be the ones who determine whether or not legislation is approved.”
The slight majority in the Senate could put Republican moderates in a powerful position.
“The few moderate Republicans that exist in the Senate are in an influential position,” said Richard Powell, political science professor
at the University of Maine, Orono. “They still control the swing vote in such a narrowly divided Senate.”
Because of the rules in the House which allow the majority party to control the flow of legislation, Republicans in the House will have less influence, said Powell.
But the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate and conservative House Democrats, of which Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) is a member, hopes to reach over to the Republican side of the
aisle on at least some issues, said Eric Wortman, the coalition’s spokesman.
“I think you will see a rise in bipartisanship. The leadership of the House has made that clear,” Wortman said.
The recent election brought a number of new Blue Dog Democrats to the House but took a particularly hard toll on the already endangered New England Republican.
Rep. Chris Shays is not only the last Connecticut Republican in the House, he’s the only Republican left in the chamber from New England. The state’s other two GOP representatives, Nancy
Johnson and Rob Simmons, viewed as moderates on most issues, lost to Democratic challengers.
“This is just the latest in a long line of elections in which the number of moderate Republicans has been declining in both the House and the Senate,” Powell said. “The trend has been
underway for quite some time now.”
New Hampshire’s two Republican House members, Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley also were defeated by Democratic challengers.
In Rhode Island, moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chaffee was ousted from his position. In Massachusetts, a Democratic governor was elected for the first time in 16 years, putting the
statehouse in line with the state’s entire congressional delegation.
“It is not healthy for Republicans to have such a small presence in an entire region of the country,” Shays said. “Competition makes everyone perform better. It would be better for the
Republicans, the Democrats and the country to have two strong parties in New England.”
Shays said he would be happy to travel in New England to help rebuild the moderate wing of the party in the Northeast.
“Moderates in both parties have an important role of reaching across the aisle to get things done,” Shays said. “Most Americans are
not red or blue, they are purple.”
Moderates key to political balance

Heritage Foundation, 6 (Michael Fran, “Moderate House Democrats Hold Key to GOP Agenda in 2006”, 01-31-
06,http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed013106a.cfm)
moderate Democrats comprise the single largest obstacle to the conservative vision of a smaller and smarter
This review suggests that
federal government. The challenge seems to lie in convincing them that their preferred solution -- spending restraint coupled with the
same level of personal and corporate taxation on Americans that hobbles economies in France, Germany and most of Western Europe
-- would undermine the American economy and extinguish the American Dream of intergenerational upward mobility. Their embrace
of other free-market policies suggest that this effort could bear fruit.
Moderates contain all political influence

Washington Post, 5 (Christine Todd Whitman, “The Moderates’ key Moment”, 06-01-05,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053101604.html)
It's risky to predict what current events will become historical turning points, but I'm willing to take a chance on this one. Years from now, students and analysts of
American political life will point to May 23, 2005, as the day "radical moderates" took a stand and began to recapture the sensible center of U.S. politics. The 14
Republican and Democratic senators who came together to avert the detonation of the "nuclear option" over judicial nominations are owed a much greater debt of
gratitude than many people yet realize.
By uniting in defense of America's historical commitment to consensus on issues of great national importance, they proved that
moderates possess political muscle and are not afraid to use it judiciously and effectively. As a result, President Bush's judicial
nominees will get the up-or-down votes they deserve, and the Senate can turn its focus from procedural matters back to the important
challenges facing our country.
Predictably, those whom I call "social fundamentalists" -- the vocal minority who would purge from the Republican Party those who don't meet their narrow ideological
litmus tests on a handful of social issues -- have gone to Defcon 2, just short of a nuclear launch, in their reactions.
Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, called the compromise a "sellout"; the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, accused the
seven Republicans of lacking "backbone" and "fortitude"; and James C. Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, spoke of his "disappointment, outrage and sense of
abandonment." Outraged talk radio hosts are vowing to help defeat the seven GOP senators in their next primaries.
History one day will reflect that the high-water mark of the "social conservative" movement in this country came two months ago with the Terri Schiavo case, when a
vocal and organized minority persuaded Congress to intervene. Most Americans did not support that intrusion. History also will record that the tide began to turn just
eight weeks later, as radical moderates flexed their political muscles to return the sensible center in American politics to its rightful place.
49
Moderates Not Key

Moderates are not key – 110th congress has the fewest moderates since the 19th century
Washington Post, 6 (Zachary A. Goldfarb, “Democratic wave in Congress further erodes moderation in GOP”, 12-07-06,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp
dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120601954.html)
Iowa Rep. Jim Leach (R) seemed a natural to weather voters' antiwar sentiment this fall. His independent streak and moderate views had engendered the allegiance of
his Democratic-leaning district for the past 30 years, and he broke with his party and President Bush in October 2002 by voting against the Iraq war.
Yet on Election Day, voters in Iowa's 2nd Congressional District ousted him in favor of an untested Democrat, a college professor -- a testament to the vulnerable
position that Republican moderates found themselves in all year. Voters in Leach's district said that they respected him but that his party affiliation kept them from
voting for him this year.
"He's a good guy, and he has integrity, and I think he has done a great job -- but he's still a Republican," said Jeremy Jackson, an Iowa City novelist.
With the defeat of Leach and several other Republican moderates Nov. 7, the Democrats' victory in the midterm election accelerates a
three-decade-old pattern of declining moderate influence and rising conservative dominance in the Republican Party. By one measure, the GOP is more
ideologically homogenous now than it has been in modern history. The waning moderate wing must find its place when the Democratic majority takes over in January.
"The irony of this election is that the public, in seeking change, has . . . weakened the center," Leach said recently. "In a sense, what has occurred is the strengthening of
the edges of the parties."
Eight of the House's 20 most moderate Republicans lost their seats: Rob Simmons and Nancy L. Johnson (Conn.); Jeb Bradley and Charles Bass
(N.H.); Michael G. Fitzpatrick and Curt Weldon (Pa.); Sue W. Kelly (N.Y.); and Leach. Also, moderate GOP Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (N.Y.), is retiring, and he will
be replaced by Democrat Michael A. Arcuri, the Oneida County district attorney.
On the Senate side, the defeat of Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.), a critic of the war who declined to vote for Bush's reelection in 2004, underscored the same trend.
By one measure, the 110th Congress will have the fewest moderates since the 19th century. This finding is based on an analysis of voting
records by Keith T. Poole, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, and Howard Rosenthal, a New York
University politics professor.
For the purpose of the study, a moderate is defined as someone whose votes consistently fall near the middle of the political spectrum on both fiscal and social issues.
The decline in moderates has had a greater impact on Republicans than Democrats. According to Poole's calculations, almost half of House
Republicans were moderates 30 years ago, compared to well under 10 percent today. The professors argue that the decline of moderates in Congress has increased
polarization.
To some moderate Republicans, the message of the Nov. 7 election was clear: The only path back to the majority is through the political center. With a small and
shrinking membership, however, it is unclear whether the moderate wing will have much influence over the future direction of the GOP.
"There's a faction in the Republican conference that believes we lost the majority because we were never fiscally conservative enough,
we were not socially conservative enough," Bass said. Indeed, over the last 12 years, the increasing conservative dominance in the GOP has mirrored growing
Republican dominance in Washington -- first in Congress, then the White House.>
50
Moderates Not Key

Moderates are not key – the midterm elections ended them
Washington Post, 6 (Dan Balz & Jim VandeHei, “GOP Moderates’ Ousters widen house divide”, 11-10-06,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/09/AR2006110901856.html)
<Tuesday's electoral upheaval wiped out many of the few remaining Republican moderates in Congress, further cementing the geographic
partitioning of the House and potentially widening the ideological divisions that have contributed to partisanship and gridlock on Capitol Hill.
At a time when President Bush and congressional leaders in both parties are preaching the importance of bipartisanship, the structural realities of where the two parties
now get most of their House votes may create enormous obstacles to greater harmony and cooperation.
Prospects for legislative action may hinge on whether Bush decides to seek accommodation with Democrats and to build any victories with a truly bipartisan coalition
or whether House Republicans, now a smaller and more ideologically homogenous caucus, press vigorously for a reassertion of conservative policies and initiatives.
Tuesday's election results accelerated the geographical realignment of the House that began with the 1994 landslide, which was fueled by the transformation of
congressional districts in the South from Democratic to Republican. Republicans picked up 20 seats in the South that year, shifting the geographic center of the GOP to
a region where the party was dominated by religious and social conservatives.
What happened this week was, in the eyes of many political analysts, an almost inevitable backlash after a decade of Republican rule in Congress, during which many
of the leaders came from Southern states, and GOP policies designed to appeal to the party's most conservative elements.
This year, Democrats made big gains in the Northeast and Midwest, helped by opposition to the war in Iraq. Exit polls showed the president and the Republican brand
more unpopular in the Northeast than anywhere else in the country. The party lost roughly a third of its 36 House seats in that region -- and came close to losing several
more.
Of the 28 House seats that Democrats picked up in the midterm elections, 10 were in the Northeast and 10 more were in the Midwest. They added five seats in the
South and three in the West.
The results produced a historic shift in the balance of regional power in Congress. The majority party in the House is now the minority party among Southern states for
the first time since the 83rd Congress in 1953-1954. The same holds for the new Democratic-controlled Senate, except for a brief period in the 1980s.
"With one two-year blip, for the last 50 years, the majority party in the South has been the majority party [in the House and Senate], and that just changed in one
election," said Thomas F. Schaller, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can
Win Without the South."
The most prominent House Republicans who lost their seats were among the chamber's best-known moderates, including Rep. Jim
Leach (Iowa), a veteran legislator who was not seen as endangered by either party; Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (Conn.), who won her first election to the House during
what was otherwise a Republican shellacking in 1982; and Rep. Charles Bass (N.H.), who suffered in a historic wipeout of his party at all levels in the Granite State on
Tuesday.
The consolidation of the Northeast and the shifts in the Midwest will echo in the 110th Congress -- and potentially longer if Democrats can consolidate their gains in
those two regions in future elections.
Republicans will have a difficult time recapturing many of the seats they lost, because the districts are dominated by Democrats and independent swing voters and
because incumbents enjoy a tremendous edge in campaigns.
"My sense is the 2nd District [Bass's seat] is going to be very tough for Republicans to win back," said Tom Rath, Republican national committeeman from New
Hampshire.
Other Northern or Midwestern seats that switched this week may prove more difficult for Democrats to hold. Among them are the 2nd District in Kansas, where Rep.
Jim Ryun (R) was defeated, even though Bush carried the district with 59 percent of the vote in 2004, and Ohio's 18th District, which Bush won with 57 percent but
which fell to the Democrats on Tuesday largely because of the corruption conviction of former representative Robert W. Ney (R).
The elimination of GOP moderates could push House Republicans farther to the right. By Schaller's analysis, 10 of the 28 most liberal
members of the Republican conference were defeated. With fewer moderates, Republicans are less likely to feel pressure to bow to the
wishes of moderates, especially on fiscal issues.>
Most of the leading candidates for GOP party leadership are promising a return to conservative principles, especially on fiscal issues. Few are calling for more
compromise. "We did not just lose our majority -- we lost our way," Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a candidate for minority leader, wrote to his colleagues.
Whether a likely shift to the right within the House GOP caucus will be offset by a move toward the center forced by the new crop of freshman Democrats is a matter of
debate inside the Democratic Party. Centrists see the new crop of Democrats enhancing their ranks, but progressives say they will have even more new allies.
Newcomers such as Democrat Brad Ellsworth of Indiana are social conservatives, opposed to abortion and gun control. They have told leaders that they will lose their
seats in 2008 if the party moves too far to the left. But most of the Democrats who won favor abortion rights, and an analysis by the liberal Campaign for America's
Future concludes that skeptics of free trade agreements will replace advocates of such pacts in 15 districts.
The new House map also presents potential problems for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), expected to become the speaker in the 110th Congress. Democrats won power
by sweeping the Northeast, a region with a large number of liberal voters but also by picking off less liberal districts in the Midwest and other regions.
"We have to constantly remind everybody that members-elect have about 24 hours to celebrate, and then they are targets," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.). "They
have to defend their seats, and they cannot do that unless they have performed for their constituents," who are not as liberal as many of the party's activists.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said: "If you look at the folks who were elected around the country, we were contesting swing districts. By definition, candidates in swing
districts lean to the middle. They ran in districts that clearly had Republicans" in large numbers.
Both the president and the new Democratic leadership will find the House a test of their leadership skills.
51
1 Party Not Key

No one party is key to the agenda – must win base and opposition votes
PIKA & MALTESE 04 (Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U of Delaware & Prof of Political
Science at University of Georgia [Joseph A., & John Anthony, The Politics of the Presidency, p. 201 - 202])
Support in Congress depends heavily on the size and cohesiveness of a president's party strength there. George Edwards has shown that from
1961 through 1986, three Democratic and three Republican presidents consistently received strong support on roll call votes from
their parties' congressional members.
John Kessel notes that presidents' partisans have recently provided higher levels of support: from 1953 through 1980, presidents received support 66 percent of the time
from fellow partisans in the House and Senate; that level rose to 75 percent from 1981 through 1996.8t Edwards and Jon Bond and Richard Fleisher have found,
however, that support may vary by issue. Republican presidents receive stronger support overall on foreign policy legislation than on domestic policy issues, primarily
because of increased backing from liberal Democrats on foreign issues.
It is interesting to note that partisan support for presidents in Congress apparently owes little to the storied effect of presidential coattails. The ability of presidents to
transfer their electoral appeal to congressional candidates of their parties declined steadily from 1948 to 1988.83 Even in 1984, when Reagan won a landslide victory
over the Democratic candidate, Walter Mondale, the measurable coattail effect was weak, though it was stronger than in 1980 and 1988.84 Edwards attributes the
decline to increased split-ticket voting, the reduced competitiveness of House seats, and the electoral success of incumbents since 1952. "Despite the shortening of
coattails in presidential election years, some presidents have sought to improve their chances of success by campaigning for candidates from their own party during
midterm elections. Such efforts are usually unsuccessful, but George W. Bush demonstrated that it can be done. (See chapter 3.) Bush sought to transfer his own
relatively high public approval to Republican candidates by personalizing the election. By doing so, he could claim partial credit for bucking the historical trend in
which members of the president's Party lose seats in the midterm election, a trend violated over the past century only in 1934 and 1998.85
Because presidents cannot rely on full support from their own party members, they must build coalitions by obtaining support
from some opposition members.86 Coalition building is especially important when the opposition controls one or both houses-the situation for most
presidents since 1969. Several factors other than party membership influence congressional voting decisions, including constituency pressures, state and regional
loyalty, ideological orientations, and interest group influences. On many occasions, presidents have received crucial support from the
opposition. Eisenhower successfully sought Democratic votes on foreign policy matters; Republicans contributed sizable
pluralities to the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s; conservative Democrats, mainly from the South, often supported the domestic
policy proposals of Nixon and Ford; conservative Democrats in the House were essential to Reagan's 1981 legislative victories; Clinton depended on Republican
support for the passage of NAFTA and GATT; and George W. Bush received critical, though limited, support from Democrats on his tax-reduction and education-
reform proposals.
Despite continuing instances when presidents assemble bipartisan coalitions to achieve legislative goals, there is evidence that over the past two decades the
opportunity to build bipartisan coalitions has sharply declined. Internal congressional reforms and heightened unity among partisans in Congress have made the task
of winning in Congress much more difficult.
In summary. congressional support for the president is built primarily on fellow partisans, but party affiliation by itself is seldom a sufficient basis for the
enactment of the president's program. Constituency, regional, and ideological pressures reduce the number of partisan backers, and the
president must try to attract support from opposition members on the basis of ideological orientations and constituency and regional interests. Thus a
president's legislative success "is mainly a function of the partisan and ideological makeup of congress."89
52
President Gets Blame

The President gets the blame for congressional actions – this hurts his agenda
This Article takes issue with some important elements of this analysis. I argue that the structural changes that appear to enhance the power of the
president under public choice approaches and unitary executive principles can, at the same time, actually undermine the president's
reputation, his ability to resolve conflicts, and ultimately, his political strength. As a result, formal attempts to strengthen the presidency may have
"diminishing marginal returns" and perhaps even negative effects, at least in some contexts. The reasons are complicated but straightforward: the individuality,
centrality, and visibility of the "personal unitary presidency," which is seen as an advantage in terms of collective choice and public debate, can be a disadvantage when
it comes to conflict resolution and public assessment. By using the term "mediating conflict," I refer to the way in which a political leader or institution overcomes the
social and political costs of resolving distributional and symbolicdisputes. n19 Due to his singularity and enhanced visibility, [*836] a unitary,
centralized president may be less able to mediate many of these conflicts. At the same time, he may be politically evaluated more often
under personal (rather than institutional) criteria and subjected to an overassessment of government responsibility and error. This
combination of effects can undermine not only the popularity and perceived competence - what I will call "legitimacy" - of the person who holds
the office, but indirectly, the president's political influence as well. What the institution of the presidency seems to gain in strategic power
from its centralization in a single visible individual, it may lose, at least in some contexts, as a result of the normative political standards
applied to individuals.
Presidents can not escape blame for unsuccessful legislation

Pennsylvania Law Review, January, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 827]
< A unitary visible president, I suggest, often finds himself in an analogous situation to the torts defendant facing stochastic error: he cannot possibly avoid
legal or political mistake, at least as judged ex post. As noted above, the president is formally and informally responsible for a broad array of
decisions for which he has little information - the list covers minor decisions involving environmental regulations all the way to document decisions on
Whitewater. At the same time, the lack of information about these judgments often makes it difficult for the public to determine ex post
whether or not the president was literally "negligent" - in a political sense - when he made a particular decision that led to a mistake. To
frame the issue in torts terminology, it is difficult for the public to determine whether the president was following "the appropriate level of care," and whether the failure
was simply a matter of inadvertence or reasonable time demands. The factual demands of assessing the president's position in these cases make such evaluations
extraordinarily difficult. n175 Indeed, our inability to judge the balancing of multiple policy factors has led the courts to apply the committed-to-agency-discretion-by-
law exception to analogous decisions on resource allocation by government officials. n176 Here, as in the presidential context, as the number of factors to be weighed in
decisionmaking increases, the inability ex post to review the decisionmaking increases. This effect may be especially salient in the many factually complex areas of
criminal and ethical liability, where the line between proper and improper behavior is inherently ambigu ous. n177 Although the examples in this context are necessarily
[*879] charged politically, they are apparent on all sides. Were Carter, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton "negligent" when they failed to take preventive
action in the various scandals that enveloped their presidencies or in the foreign policy crises, such as Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Bosnia,
that occurred during their administrations? Often, all the public really knows ex post is that a mistake was made and that the president
seems to be the most obvious person to assume responsibility. n178 Because the public cannot put itself in the position of the president
facing all of these different time demands and issues, it frequently cannot say whether the mistake was unforeseeable ex ante.> n17
53

The president will get the blame for all unpopular actions due to public perception
<Three other factors may complicate and exacerbate this effect. First, the
public's perception of presidential error may increase if the president faces
unique issues and a highly changing environment. To the extent that we live in a world of increased presidential responsibilities,
changing conditions, and unique problems, the number of presidential "bad outcomes" necessarily increases, at least when viewed in
hindsight, simply as a result of the better information we invariably have. This is true even if there is no reason to believe that actual
mistakes in judgment, as viewed ex ante, have increased or that the world has become a worse place. Needless to say, a president who must deal
with problems like Bosnia or Kuwait proceeds upon uncharted waters, and the public may be in a poor position to evaluate his efforts. n180 In the torts context, changes
in new sectors of the economy often lead to strict liability as a result of our inability to foresee the nature of change. n181 Courts make the producers of a new product
[*880] strictly liable because the producers are in the best position to determine whether it is cost-justified. n182 As philosophers of science have pointed out, in
situations of rapid change, there may be no rational way to judge whether or not a person has been negligent because one never knows how the future will differ from
the past. This is one explanation for why the legal system sometimes makes those in the best position to judge mistakes and predict the future strictly liable.
Unfortunately, if the public assumes that the president occupies this position in the political context, he may be subject, as the instigator
of broad social changes, to an analogous overassessment of "error." A second factor that may exacerbate this effect is the incentivestructure of the
special counsel law. n183 Under the current standard, the mere possibility of a violation of a legal norm provides thebasis for extraordinary legal and political scrutiny: a
public preliminary investigation in the Department of Justice and later the appointment of a special counsel. n184 Thus, the president's proximity to a potential error with
legal ramifications provides the basis forextra investigation and scrutiny. n185 In this environment, it [*881] canbe quite difficult for a president to demonstrate his
competence. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these structural incentives may also intensify to the extent that a "culture of distrust" exists in the United
States - that is, a social/psychological tendency to believe that failures are avoidable, and thus explainable, in terms of improper
behavior. Long ago, Richard Hofstadter identified a "paranoid style" in American politics. n186 In recent years, a broad spectrum of commentators has gone on to
suggest that a pervasive cynicism exists in American society that creates a presumption that bad events must have a malevolent or
negligent cause. n187 Many commentators blame the press for this development. n188 While any conclusions regarding the significance of a "culture of distrust" are
beyond the scope of this Article, n189 such skepticism, to the extent that it exists, would undermine presidential decisions more than [*882] other
federal institutions. A skeptical public might disproportionately assume that bad government outcomes are the result of mistakes in
judgment, given that the president makes decisions in an uncertain factual environment that too often cannot be assessed directly. n190 . >
Normal means is the president puts the issue on the agenda
PIKA & MALTESE 04 (Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U of Delaware & Prof of Political
Science at University of Georgia [Joseph A., & John Anthony, The Politics of the Presidency, p. 190])
Individual members of Congress still introduce a multitude of bills independently of the president, but the chief executive is in a position to
substantially influence, if not dominate, the congressional agenda. In a comprehensive review of how presidents helped set the
congressional agenda from 1953-1996, George C. Edwards and Andrew Barrett drew important conclusions: (1) "The president can
almost always place potentially significant legislation on the agenda of Congress"; (2 about one-third of "the total number of
significant bills on the congressional agenda," ranging from ) the president generates a high of 68.6 percent under Kennedy in 1961-1963 to a low of
0 percent under Clinton in 19951996; (3) White House initiatives constitute a larger percentage of the congressional agenda under unified government than
under divided government; and (4) "presidential initiatives are more likely than congressional initiatives to become law," with the success
rate nearly twice as high under unified, rather than divided, government.
54

The President gets blame for all government acts for 4 reasons – visibility, psychological needs, overstating, and unitariness
< In this situation, one can easily understand the perceived value of a modern, more unitary presidency. As noted above, there is merit to an institution that has greater
power to take action and, at the same time, to be held more systemically responsible - that is, to serve in somewhat the same role as strong parties. n202 Modern [*886]
presidents, however, still operate in a complicated political environment in which numerous actors within all branches contribute to policy outcomes. Even with a
unitary president, the public's ability to determine who is responsible for what policy outcome, and the extent of any mistakes, remains
limited. In this context, the centralization and visibility of the unitary president, which is viewed as an advantage under theories of collective action, can
also contribute to the public's overestimation of presidential responsibility and power. First, the greater visibility of the unitary
president can make the presidency seem more powerful to the public than other institutions that work their will more informally, such
as Congress. This is partially a result of psychological factors. As a number of political scientists and psychologists have documented,
the public often manifests a heuristic bias toward overestimating the causal significance of readily accessible factors. n203 In this case, the
public's easy access to information about a unitary and visible president's exercise of power can make him seem more influential. There
may be pure instrumental reasons as well. When multiple actors exist, the public has a rational tendency in evaluating governmental responsibility to converge on a
focal point - the most visible actor. n204 From the perspective of individual voters and the press, who attempt to understand and respond to
government activity, focusing on the most visible participant - the president - simply reduces search costs. n205 [*887] Second, the
perception of greater presidential influence may also have a normative explanation: the public may simply wish to believe that there is
a "flesh and blood" actor responsible for government policies. As commentators on the mass media have frequently observed, it may be simpler for
the press to focus on a single individual as the embodiment of government action and for the public to conceptualize and accept public
events on those terms. Conflict and causal responsibility thereby become much more politically understandable, and perhaps even morally acceptable. n206
Third, the president may contribute to this effect, at least over the short run, by overstating his causal significance. As noted above, part of
the power of a unitary president is his ability to focus attention on problems and galvanize action - that is, to serve as a focal point of change.
n207
Indeed, this has occurred at significant moments of the modern presidency, such as the passage of the New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, and major tax and budget
reforms. n208 Yet the president's ability to serve as a focal point is often dependent on overstating the importance of a problem and of his
role inbringing about change. This is what galvanizes public attention and action, helping to overcome the rational ignorance that often
impedes government action. n209 [*888] Finally, the public may hold the president more responsible simply because individual
members of Congress are less likely to be held responsible. As many political scientists have observed, public perceptions of members of
Congress seem to present a classic collective action problem, in which no one individual member appears to have a significant effect
on collective government action. In this context, it can be quite easy to avoid individual responsibility for collective decisions because each representative faces
a prisoner's dilemma in effecting change. n210 No one is a "but for" cause of an event. Even if the result is not literally collective, moreover, the information problems
faced by the public in assessing the individual contribution of a representative in a body such as Congress can be overwhelming. n211 Where constituents do not
surmount this prisoner's dilemma, individual members of Congress who avoid responsibility enjoy a structural advantage. n212 This is one explanation for the
well-known "incumbency effect" that members of Congress enjoy, in which they avoid responsibility for nationally contentious issues
and claim it for locally favorable results. n21 A modern, more unitary president, on the other hand, seems to come out on the other end in this process, due to
the increased authority and visibility he has within the modern government structure. The assessment of joint causal responsibility can present [*889] intractable
moral and game theoretic problems. n214 Yet, to the extent that power is viewed as a zero-sum game, avoidance of responsibility by individual
members of Congress can lead naturally to a public overassessment of presidential responsibility; the president may be the only person
who can reasonably be assessed responsibility for collective decisions. While a number of scholars have explored the legislative effect described
n215
above, few have analyzed the executive contrapositive: overassessment of presidential responsibility.>
55
Presidents Get Blame

Presidents are solely held responsible for government actions – individual accountability proves
Stuckey, 99 – associate professor at University of Mississippi, received Ph.D. from University of Notre Dame, writes extensively on presidential rhetoric (Mary,
“Power, Policy, and Accountability” in Presidential policymaking: an end-of-century assessment, ed. By M. Stuckey and S. Shull, p. 264-66) // DCM
<Indeed, in an important sense, accountability is policymaking: “in its simplest form, accountability refers to an authoritative relationship in
which one person is formally entitled to demand that another answer for – that is, to provide an account of – his or her actions; rewards or
punishments may be meted out to the latter depending on whether those actions conform to the former’s wishes.” That is, governments and the individuals
who operate them are held accountable for what they do , which is to produce policy. But policy is not produced in a vacuum. Indeed,
in a democracy, policymaking in theory is directly connected to the will of the public (see Cohen and Collier chapter herein). But in practice, of
course, this connection is neither simple nor is it completely linear, as demonstrated by Ragsdale and Rusk’s chapter. Presidents are often held individually
accountable for systemic actions; demarcating the difference between the individual temporarily “in charge” of a large set of
bureauatic and separate institutions and those who actually perform the tasks required by those institutions is no easy task, as revealed by James E. Anderson’s
chapter. But such demarcation is necessary if controls are to be placed on either the individuals or the institutions themselves. This dilemma is at
the heart of the problem of accountability. >
Presidents receive blame for legislation rather than gain credit

Segura and Woods, 2 (Presidential Approval and the Mixed Blessing of Divided Government Stephen P. Nicholson, Gary M. Segura & Nathan D. Woods, The
Journal of Politics, Volume 64 Issue 3 Page 701-720, August 2002) // DCM
<Lau (1985, 119) defines negativity bias as the "greater weight given to negative information, relative to equally extreme and equally likely positive information in a
variety of information-processing tasks." Under divided government, then, presidents should benefit far more from sharing blame than they lose by sharing credit.
Not surprisingly, research on presidential approval shows that negative information has a greater effect than positive information. For
instance, finding that economic downturns hurt approval ratings while upswings do not have the opposite effect, Mueller (1973)
concludes that for presidents "there is punishment but never reward." Similarly, Goidel and Langley (1995) found that media coverage of negative
economic conditions had a discernibly negative effect on public evaluations. Coupled with the routinely unfavorable media coverage of presidents (Brody 1991;
Groeling and Kernell 1998; Gross- man and Kumar 1981; Patterson 1996), negative evaluations should figure prominently in judgments of
presidential performance. From our standpoint, we are agnostic as to the basis for the asymmetry between credit and blame in evaluating presidents.5 Rather,
we proceed from the assumption, well established in the literature, that such a negativity bias exists. Thus, we believe that the information implications
of divided government for the president have a greater effect on assigning blame than credit. >
President can’t avoid the blame due to the centralization of the presidency
< Centralized and visible power, however, becomes a double-edged sword, once one explores the different ways in which unitariness and visibility can undermine an
institution's informal influence, especially its ability to mediate conflict and appear competent. In this context, the visibility and centralization of the presidency can
have mixed effects. As a single visible actor in an increasingly complex world, the unitary president can be prone to an overassessment of
responsibility and error. He also may be exposed to a normative standard of personal assessment that may conflict with his
institutional duties. At the same time, the modern president often does not have at his disposal those bureaucratic institutions that can
help mediate or deflect many conflicts. Unlike members of Congress or the agencies, he often must be clear about the tradeoffs he
makes. Furthermore, a president who will be held personally accountable for government policy cannot pursue or hold inconsistent
positions and values over a long period of time without suffering political repercussions. In short, the centralization and
individualization of the presidency can be a source of its power, as its chief proponents and critics accurately have suggested, as well
as its political illegitimacy and ultimate weakness.>
56
Congress Avoids Blame

Congress can avoid the blame – decentralized nature of the institution insures it
< Under this analysis, the decentralized and multimember structure of Congress can be - ironically - an advantage, at least where political divisions
become serious and conflict mediation becomes important. On a strategic level, members of Congress can always claim to be working for their
constituents and their constituents alone. If they cannot satisfy all of their constituents' wishes, they can blame the institution's neutral
processes, such as the rules committee and voting rules, which were put in place before any [*864] specific controversy arrived. Thus,
the collective action problem becomes a mediation advantage because the institution, not the individual politician, is held responsible
for the lack of institutional mediation. n122 The complexity and size of Congress also allow the leadership to exercise agenda control, thereby permitting the
institution to avoid reaching definitive decisions in difficult cases or to resolve divisive issues at an optimal moment. n123 At the same time, when it does "decide" an
issue, Congress can speak in complex legislation with different voices, taking inconsistent positions and thereby avoiding some conflict. Thus, in legitimating
negative or controversial outcomes, members of Congress can rely on their precommitment to certain institutional rules and
procedures and the ambiguity of collective action. In this sense, the frequent criticism of Congress that it is inefficient and universalistic
can have a silver lining - its decentralization can avoid open divisions and conflict. One well-documented result is the high incumbency rate in
Congress - members can blame the institution for collective failure, avoid taking stands on controversial issues that may divide their constituency, and take credit for
more narrow legislative action. n124>
The President gets the blame – Congress can avoid it

What are the long term effects of this perception on the president's legitimacy and power? While the consequences are obviously quite complex,
there is reason to believe it can undermine the support for and influence of the president in some contexts. First, the perception of presidential influence may simply
exacerbate the problems of presidential visibility described above. The perception of presidential power increases public scrutiny. This makes the
president even more central to the resolution of symbolic and moral disputes in government, ranging from the placement of his children in
private schools to affirmative action. Second, at the same time, the asymmetry in visibility creates an environment that is conducive to strategic
behavior by other actors in government, for which the president may be forced to take responsibility. To the extent that a system exists
that holds one actor responsible for the actions of others, free-riding members have a clear incentive to act strategically. n216 This may
explain why individual members of Congress are often accused of being less concerned with collective results. Opportunities for
strategic behavior can arise in a variety of situations, including international affairs, such as Haiti, the Mexican bailout, Kuwait and Bosnia, as [*890]
well as in domestic areas, such as the budget deficit. As a result, it may be difficult for a president to elicit cooperative behavior from members
of Congress.>
57
President Doesn’t Get Blame

Divided government means the President will not take the blame
<Divided government provides ambiguous and conflicting information about which branch of government to hold accountable for
government performance. The implication for presidents, who are easy targets of blame, is that they are less likely to be held
accountable for government's failures during periods of divided government because the public has a plausible alternative for affixing
responsibility: the U.S. Congress. Because presidents are punished more heavily for negative outcomes than they are rewarded for favorable ones, we argue
that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government. At the
individual level, using data from the 1972-1994 National Election Studies we show that divided government increases the probability that respondents approve of a
president's job performance. This effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government. Examining approval at the aggregate
level from 1949 to 1996, we find further evidence that divided government boosts presidential approval ratings.
Scholars have devoted much energy toward unraveling the mysteries of presidential influence in Congress. The central finding in this literature is that the number of
members in Congress who share the president's partisanship is the most important predictor of whether presidents pass their programs (e.g., Bond and Fleisher 1990;
Edwards 1989). Simply put, presidents with large legislative majorities typically enjoy the most success in dealings with Congress, while presidents with a minority of
co-partisans will experience fewer legislative accomplishments.1
Given the predominance in the last half century of divided government- split party control of the executive and branches-the resource of large legislative majorities has
been unavailable to presidents. Yet at the same time, divided government may present an opportunity for presidents to help themselves in the
arena of public opinion. In this environment, citizens encounter greater difficulty trying to assess blame and credit. Because blame is the
more salient consideration (Campbell et al. 1960; Cover 1986; Mueller 1973), presidents can point to the opposition Congress as the source of
all problems, and divided government could be a president's best friend when attempting to avoid blame. Furthermore, since citizens perceive
Congress as the most powerful branch of government (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1995), it is not a hard sell for presidents to blame Congress.
Given this dynamic, we believe presidential approval ratings may vary systematically with partisan control of government. Specifically, we demonstrate in this effort
that presidents are likely to have higher approval during periods of divided government and lower levels during periods of unified government. >
President won’t get the blame – divided government prevents the public from holding the President accountable
<The more general question we ask regarding divided government and mass political attitudes is an important area of inquiry in itself. Divided government has
become a fixture in contemporary American political life. In contrast to studies of the causes of divided government that examine political behavior of the electorate
(Alesina and Rosenthal 1995; Fiorina 1992; Jacobson 1990; Segura and Nicholson 1995), research on its consequences focus on public policy (Fiorina 1992;
Mayhew 1991) and the strategic behavior of politicians in the legislative arena (Ginsberg and Shefter 1990; Kernell 1991). However, research on the consequences of
divided government has seldom asked how the presence of unified or divided government affects political behavior or attitudes among the citizenry (for exceptions,
see Bennett and Bennett 1993; Leyden and Borrelli 1995; Nicholson and Segura 1999). We seek to fill this lacuna by exploring the question of whether citizens are
more, or less, likely to approve of the president based on partisan control of the presidency and Congress.
We argue that the partisan division of government has such a significant and negative impact on the quality and availability of political
information that the public is less able and/or less willing to hold the president accountable for policy performance.3 Controlling for
economic effects and important political events, as well as partisan and ideological effects, we test whether divided government helps presidents' approval ratings at
both the individual and aggregate levels of analysis.
We argue that divided government muddies the informational waters by offering citizens two potential targets of blame for policies, events,
and outcomes they do not like.4 In the alternative, only one political party can be held responsible for unsatisfactory performance, and the president bears the full
weight of negative evaluations in a unified government context. The result is that the president enjoys higher levels of approval when the weight of
these negative evaluations is divided, and blame attribution becomes more difficult. It is not necessarily the case, however, that citizens "like"
presidents more under divided government. More likely is it the case that citizens "dislike" a president less when their disapproval of government can be parceled
across both the executive and Congress. Underlying all of this is the crucial, if well-established, assumption that blame is more critical than credit in determining
presidential evaluations. In this section, we will elaborate on the assumption we make concerning blame attribution, then turn our attention to a more explicit
explanation of our theory and the hypotheses it suggests. >
58
Flip-Flopping Kills PC
Flip-flopping crushes political capital – Presidents are forced to take consistent positions
< But as the president becomes increasingly able to perform these functions, that is, as he becomes more modern, unitary, and formally and informally powerful, he can
become less able, as a structural matter, to perform many of the mediation and agenda control functions described above. The reasons for this development are related to
his visibility and singularity, which can undermine the president's ability to avoid issues, control the agenda, and mediate conflict. Unitary, visible presidents have
greater difficulty claiming that it is the "administration" or some neutral precommitment process of decisionmaking that led the executive branch to a particular
position. n126 Under the theory of the unitary presidency, he alone must bear responsibility. For the same reason, the president may be less
able to take inconsistent or vague positions on different issues or to refuse to take positions on the ground that inconsistencies should
be left to stand. n127 While the president's singularity may give him the formal ability to exercise agenda control, which public choice
scholars see as an advantage of presidential power, his visibility and the influence of the media may also make it more difficult for him to
exercise it. When public scrutiny is brought to bear on the White House, surrounding such issues as gays in the military or affirmative action, the
president must often take a position and act. n128 This can deprive him of the ability to choose when or whether to address issues.
Finally, the unitary president may be less able to rely on preexisting congressional or agency processes to resolve disputes. At least in theory, true unitariness means that
he has the authority to reverse the decisions or non-decisions of others - the buck stops [*866] with the president. n129 In this environment, "no politician can
endure opposition from a wide range of opponents in numerous contests without alienating a significant proportion of voters." Two types
of tactics illustrate this phenomenon. First, presidents in recent years have often sought to deemphasize - at least politically - their unitariness by allocating
responsibility for different agencies to different political constituencies. President Clinton, for example, reportedly "gave" the Department of Justice to the liberal wing
of the Democratic party and the Department of the Treasury and the OMB to the conservatives. n131 Presidents Bush and Reagan tried a similar technique of giving
control over different agencies to different political constituencies. n132 Second, by invoking vague abstract principles or "talking out of both sides of their mouth,"
presidents have attempted to create the division within their person. Eisenhower is widely reported to be the best exemplar of this "bumbling" technique. n133 Reagan's
widely publicized verbal "incoherence" and detachment from government affairs probably served a similar function. n1Unfortunately, the visibility and singularity of
the modern presidency can undermine both informal techniques. To the extent that the modern president is subject to heightened visibility about
what he says and does and is led to make increasingly specific statements about who should win and who should lose on an issue, his
ability to mediate conflict and control the agenda can be undermined. The modern president is supposed to have a position [*867] on
such matters as affirmative action, the war in Bosnia, the baseballstrike, and the newest EPA regulations - the list is infinite. Perhapsin
response to these pressures, each modern president has made more speeches and taken more positions than his predecessors, with Bill Clinton giving three times as
many speeches as Reagan during the same period. n135 In such circumstances, the president is far less able to exercise agenda control, refuse to take
symbolic stands, or take inconsistent positions. The well-documented tendency of the press to emphasize the strategic implications of
politics exacerbates this process by turning issues into zero-sum games. n136 Thus, in contrast to Congress, the modern president's
attempt to avoid or mediate issues can often undermine him personally and politically. >
59
Flip-Flopping Kills PC
Flip flopping destroys a president’s legislative success and political capital
<Yet, the ability of the president to justify actions through claims of "democratic legitimacy" has diminished in many ways. While the president could rely in the past on
his popular election to legitimate his current position, today, public opinion polls and instant communication can bolster virtually any opposing
political leader who claims popular support on a particular issue. n146 A president Clinton who is elected on a pledge to [*870] reform health care, for
example, must confront polling data that shows his plan does not enjoy popular support. At the same time, the narrowness of many of the issues faced by a modern
unitary president and the decline of party identification more generally reduce the president's ability to rely on a past broad electoral mandate to legitimate particular
decisions. n147 Modern leaders do not run on the basis of a clear platform. In this environment, the president's ability to lay claim to the democratic or party mantle has
declined; he must often piece together a divergent coalition, bargaining, like other politicians, with individual political actors and groups who hold positions of
influence in our divided government. This process of keeping members of a coalition together and prioritizing issues depends much more on conflict mediation skills
than the traditional reliance upon party loyalty and claims of democratic legitimacy. In light of this shift, what should a unitary president do to maximize his influence?
Under this analysis, his position demands a subtle balancing of roles. As the sweep of history has shown, the institutional power of the president is derived in part from
his ability to rise above existing incremental relations and plot a new course for the country - that is, to solve the collective action problemof systematic change,
whatever the direction. n148 As [*871] Robert Inman and I have argued, n149 and as the literature describing a strong presidency suggests, n150 when confronted
with the collective action problems of congressional and public action, the president's clarity of position and toughness in the face of
adversity may be a precondition for effective leadership. The story of a president engaged in successful high visibility and high stakes
politics has marked our vision of presidential leadership over the years. n151 Unfortunately, there is another side to the story, which emerges when the
president is unsuccessful, or not involved, in such high stakes politics. As this Part indicates, the president's role as a visible focal point - so dependent
on his singularity and clarity - can also create a conflict that, once unleashed, hinders the modern president's ability to mediate effectively as a
single individual. n152 In areas such as social security or health care reform, the president may be poorly positioned to resolve conflict or to take the political heat if he does not. To
paraphrase the language of law and economics, his virtue (in minimizing transaction costs) can be his vice (in mediating conflict over the public benefits or "surplus" produced by
minimization). n153 [*872] III. Individual Moral Assessments A second and related way in which the visibility and centralization of the presidency may undermine and frustrate the exercise of
presidential power is by leading the public to evaluatethe president according to a standard of moral assessment appropriate for individuals, rather than for institutions. A greatdeal has been
written over the years about the significance ofpresidential "style." Usually, the endless proliferation of relevantvariables in this literature limits the generalizability of the analyses. Every
individual president has a unique style that can explain - although only in hindsight - his success or failure. My argument, however, is more generic: The presidential personality, whatever the
style, can undermine the institution. In this sense, the presidential personality may produce a less valuable political "brand name." At first, this claim might seem unusual; as noted above in the
description of the modern president, the public personality of politicians is usually perceived as a political advantage. Politicians routinely attempt to create public personae as warm, caring,
and principled individuals who will do all they can to help their constituents. This image creation is one of the benefits of constituency servicing, public posturing, and the family stories that are
so frequently planted in the press. To the extent that a politician simply presents herself as a "good and responsive person," her personality is usually thought to be a win-win issue, especially as
compared to her actual positions on more divisive programmatic issues. n154 For members of Congress, personal connections may also complement quite well their roles as advocates for
specialized constituencies in their districts. n155 [*873] For the president, however, this type of familiarity can create two problems. First, part of the power of the presidency is its mystique
and its ability to project general abstract symbols. The fact that "it is not just an office of incredible power but a breeding ground of indestructible myth" strengthens the president's authority.
n156
We seem "to look to presidents for symbolic identification." n157 To tap into this resource, presidents have relied on the "royalty" of their position to garner broad support. n158 Yet a highly
visible personal presidency is less able to invoke the grandeur of the office. Who is awed by the sight of a president jogging in running shorts or commenting on each public issue? n159 "Just as
Second, the focus
putting too much money in circulation causes inflation and diminishes the value of a currency, too much presidential talk cheapens the value of presidential rhetoric." n160
on individual presidents and their personalities can create greater tension with the president's pursuit of normal political activities. More
than individual members of Congress, the unitary president is necessarily in a position to balance personally the interests of groups within his
constituency as well as to change his individual position publicly over time, especially as he moves from the primaries, to the general election, to the
presidency, and to the advancement of legislation through Congress. In order to be an effective leader, a president must, in other words, be less than
candid to different constituencies and appear confident about positions that are subject to doubt or change. But balancing interests and
changing positions in different institutional contexts can be in tension with his persona as a caring [*874] and principled individual. As
discussed in Part II, institutions are expected to mediate and evolve in this manner; individual politicians who are supposed to have strong moral
convictions may not be offered that luxury. The modern personal presidency thus can be caught between the different normative standards frequently applied to
individual and familial relationships, on the one hand, and political institutions, on the other. Commentators have pointed out this distinction in moral approaches in
other contexts as well. n161 While we apply the personal standard to our friends, family, and extended family, whom we expect to be trustworthy, truthful, and caring, the
president must often act impersonally toward individuals and the public. This detachment is often needed for public institutions and officials to balance competing
interests and overcome the collective action problems that permeate government. n162 As a result, a single and visible president must act not only with impunity toward
many individual constituents, but also strategically in order to balance their competing interests. What are some illustrations of this tension? On the one hand, the
qualities that allow a politician to exercise power effectively in the political game have conflicted with the attitudes and normative values that will satisfy private
normative standards. Reagan, for example, was constantly asked to reconcile his public concern for family values with his lack of concern for his own family. n163
Similarly, Clinton has been forced to reconcile his support for women's rights with his marital infidelity. n164 Carter may have had the opposite problem: a model
personal life, but a seeming inability to engage in instrumental political behavior. [*875] On the other hand, and more importantly, this tension can subject a
president's public political behavior to private standards of morality. Clinton and Bush, for example, found that their attempts to mediate conflict on taxes and health
care through evolving but inconsistent statements were not considered acceptable instrumental political methods, but rather a sign of a lack of character and moral
conviction. Making "speeches that play to public opinion" tends to "create new discontinuities between past proclamations and present
ones," n165 even though politicians may simply be attempting to keep up with evolving political forces. Good individuals with strong moral values are not
supposed to change positions in light of changing political coalitions, although political institutions and parties can and should do so. n166 Caught in
this predicament, politicians easily fall subject to characterizations such as "tricky Dick" (in the case of Nixon), "slick Willy" (in the case of Clinton), or someone who
"runs under so many identities it [is] hard to keep track of who he [is] from day to day" (in the case of Bush). n167 The problem is especially difficult because, as studies
on leadership have found, "the ultimate impact of [a] leader [often] depends most significantly on the particular story that he or she ... embodies." n168 The personal
story of a modern president attempting to respond to changing political forces can be in tension with that role. n169 [*876] >
60
Flip-Flopping Hurts Agenda

Flip flop has political repercussions, hurting the agenda
< Centralized and visible power, however, becomes a double-edged sword, once one explores the different ways in which unitariness and visibility can undermine an
institution's informal influence, especially its ability to mediate conflict and appear competent. In this context, the visibility and centralization of the presidency can
have mixed effects. As a single visible actor in an increasingly complex world, the unitary president can be prone to an overassessment of
responsibility and error. He also may be exposed to a normative standard of personal assessment that may conflict with his institutional duties. At the same
time, the modern president often does not have at his disposal those bureaucratic institutions that can help mediate or deflect many
conflicts. Unlike members of Congress or the agencies, he often must be clear about the tradeoffs he makes. Furthermore, a president who will be held
personally accountable for government policy cannot pursue or hold inconsistent positions and values over a long period of time
without suffering political repercussions. In short, the centralization and individualization of the presidency can be a source of its power, as its chief
proponents and critics accurately have suggested, as well as its political illegitimacy and ultimate weakness.>
FLIP FLOPS HURT AGENDA – attacks on presidential candidates prove

Reuters, 6 / 10 / 0 7 (Steve Holland, “It’s the year of the flip-flop in U.S. politics”, June 10, 2007, http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08360557.htm)
In what has become the year of the flip-flop, U.S. presidential candidates have been accusing each other of switching positions on
policy issues as often as they change their clothes.
Campaign researchers are leaving no stone unturned in their search for information on rival candidates, hoping to duplicate President George W. Bush's successful
charge in 2004 that Democrat John Kerry voted for Iraq war funding before he voted against it.
The most famous examples this year are Republican Mitt Romney's shifting position on abortion and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's move from hawk to dove on
Iraq.
But is changing positions, or flip-flopping, all that bad?
"Most of the people who we regard as our greatest presidents have made massive turnarounds in their careers," said Bruce Schulman, a
political history professor at Boston University, who has studied flip-flops.
A prime example would be Abraham Lincoln. He ran for president in 1860 with no intention of doing anything about slavery in places where it existed, only to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation banning slavery in 1863.
But there is a difference between changing your mind to reflect changing circumstances and naked pandering for votes, which many analysts say is driving this year's
cross-fire.
Romney's switch from governing the fairly liberal state of Massachusetts to presidential candidate seeking support from the Republican conservative base has left him
exposed to months of criticism from, in particular, Arizona Sen. John McCain.
First Romney was in favor of a woman's right to choose an abortion, but now he is against it.
CONSISTENCY, RELIABILITY, PREDICTABILITY
"There are several things people are interested in when they're picking somebody to be president -- consistency, reliability and
predictability," said a McCain senior adviser, Charlie Black.
"You can't be sure what he's going to do when he's president when he has a history of changing positions," Black said of Romney.
The Romney campaign is tired of McCain's attacks.
"They can keep doing it if they want, and Romney just keeps getting stronger and stronger in the polls," said his adviser, former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent. "I've got to
tell you, I'm a Romney guy, but I don't think it's working, these people making all these accusations."
It seems that every major candidate has faced charges of switching positions based on the political winds.
Besides her stance on Iraq, New York Sen. Clinton is accused of opposing government supports for ethanol, a big issue in the corn-growing and key
presidential caucus state of Iowa, before she was for them.
One of her Democratic opponents, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, is accused of having voted for and against storing nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and believed Americans were safer against terrorists, but now thinks they are not as safe.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who has only been in the Senate for two years, in May voted against a $100 billion Iraq war funding bill,
saying it was time to change course in the war. But in April he vowed not to cut funding for U.S. troops.
Schulman said the reason flip-flops are of such great interest is because U.S. political campaigns are now more personal.
"In this modern world there is such an interest in the personality of the candidate that looking for chinks in the armor, looking for
inconsistencies and playing gotcha has become much more prevalent," he said.
61
AT: Bottom of the Docket (You should obviously make theory args also)
This takes out solvency – If they win plan goes to the bottom of the docket, 9,000 bills would be debated ahead of it which
ensures congress never gets to the plan and it dies at the end of the session
NAACP accessed in 07
[NAACP WASHINGTON BUREAU FACT SHEET: What happens to bills when the Congress ends?, accessed October 18,
http://www.naacp.org/pdfs/Advocacy_Tools.pdf]
A very small number of bills introduced actually become law. In

the 107th Congress, which ran from 2001 to 2002, 8948 bills were introduced
in the US House and Senate. Of these, 377 laws were enacted. This means that just over 4% of the bills introduced in the 107th Congress
actually became law. In the United States, a “Congress” or congressional term lasts two years. Most recently, the 108th Congress began on January 7, 2003, and will
adjourn before the end of 2004. Each Congress is comprised of two sessions; the first session, which encompasses the first year, and the second session, which is
comprised of the second year. At any point when Congress is in session, a sitting member of Congress may introduce legislation: members of the House of
Representatives introduce bills in the House and Senators introduce bills in the Senate. This legislation can cover almost any issue conceivable. Once
a bill has
been introduced, it is alive and may be considered at any time during the Congress. Once a Congress adjourns,
however, at the end of its two-year cycle, all bills that have been introduced in either the House or the Senate that have not
made it through the entire legislative process and signed into law are dead. This includes bills that may have passed both the House
and the Senate but were never finalized and sent to the President for his signature; bills that passed one house (either the House or the Senate) but not the other; bills
that were the subject of committee or subcommittee hearings but were never considered by either house; and bills that never got more action after being introduced.
62
Interest Groups Key

Interest groups are able to exert influence on Congress and the president – lobbying and media coverage prove
Pika, 99 – professor of political science at the University of Delaware; Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin; coauthor of Politics of the Presidency and The
Presidential Contest (Mary, “Power, Policy, and Accountability” in Presidential policymaking: an end-of-century assessment, ed. By J. Pika and S. Shull, p. 59-60) //
DCM
<Interest groups have long been viewed as an integral part of the congressional and bureaucratic policymaking processes but have
only recently been recognizes as significant actors in presidential stages of the policy process as well. Since the presidency of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, the conduct of relations between presidents and interest groups has been transformed. Once the province of party leaders and agency officials, interest-
group liaison has now been brought into the presidency with responsibility given to members of the White House and Executive
Office staffs. In this way, presidents have ensured that they can be more attentive to the programmatic needs and demands of organized
interests and can also enlist groups as members of their electoral and governing coalitions. Starting with FDR, staff assistants developed
increasingly well-defined responsibilities for interest-group liaison until a separate staff unit for public liaison (Office of Public Liason) emerged during the Ford
administration to take its position next to the congressional relations and the press offices as specialized links to outside constituencies. Since Ford, each
administration has maintained such an “outreach” capability for interest groups, although the status of the unit has varied. The courtship has not
been totally one-sided. Some groups, especially those who represent historically unorganized interests, turned to presidents because they had no place
else to go with their problems. More established groups found that as policymaking increasingly came to be centralized in the
Executive office of the President, the inability to influence presidential initiatives or to know the details of their gestation placed them at a disadvantage. It was
advantageous, if not essential, to include the presidency on their list of targets to influence while continuing to pursue their traditional connections in Congress and the
bureaucracy. Interest-groups opportunities to exercise leverage over presidents also grew during the past four decades: social movements took
advantage of national media coverage to dramatize their concerns, and important changes in the campaign finance law enables established
interests to influence elections in new ways. Just because the conduct of these relations has been changed however, does not mean the relationships
themselves have been transformed. As in the past, more analysts use an exchange framework to illustrate and analyze the past, most analysts use an exchange
framework to illustrate and analyze relations with interest groups, the same framework used to study interactions between presidents and other centers of power in the
American political system. Nonetheless, some scholars have argued that there has been a qualitative change in the president’s connections with interest groups. As
Stephen Skowronek suggests, the “political universe” faced by twentieth-century presidents ‘is in every way more fully organized and more densely inhabited” than it
was previously. As a result, presidents needed to negotiate more actively with congressional committees and bureaucrats while “directly
soliciting support from major client groups in the society at large.” This macroperspective takes one beyond the day-to-day political exchanged that
constitute the activity of the interest-group relations to emphasize more fundamental implications for the larger political system.>
63
Oil Lobbies Key

Big Oil is extremely influential in Congress – lobbying, funding, and political support prove
Mayer, 7 – Money-in-politics reporter for Center for Responsive Politics (Lindsay Renick, PBS, “Big Oil Big Influence” 11-23-2007
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil-politics.html )
<During his first month in office, President George W. Bush appointed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a task force charged with developing the
country's energy policy. The group, which conducted its meetings in secret, relied on the recommendations of Big Oil behemoths Exxon Mobil,
Conoco, Shell Oil, BP America and Chevron. It would be the first of many moves to come during the Bush administration that would position
oil and gas companies well ahead of other energy interests with billions of dollars in subsidies and tax cuts—payback for an industry with
strong ties to the administration and plenty of money to contribute to congressional and presidential campaigns.
During the time that Bush and Cheney, both of whom are former oil executives, have been in the White House, the oil and gas industry has spent $393.2
million on lobbying the federal government. This places the industry among the top nine in lobbying expenditures. The industry has also contributed
a substantial $82.1 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 80
percent of the industry's contributions have gone to Republicans.
This support has not gone unrewarded. In 2005, Bush, who has received more from the oil and gas industry than any other politician,
signed an energy bill from the Republican-controlled Congress that gave $14.5 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas, nuclear power and
coal companies. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was based on recommendations by Cheney's energy task force, also rolled back
regulations the oil industry considered burdensome, including exemptions from some clean water laws. All of this transpired only one year after Congress
passed a bill that included a tax cut for domestic manufacturing that was expected to save energy companies at least $3.6 billion over a decade.
"Political action committees, lobbyists and executives do not give money to politicians or parties out of an altruistic support of the principles of
democracy," says Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. "They are savvy investors expecting a return on their investments.
Politicians routinely deliver on campaign contributions that are provided to them... [by] giving goodies to the industry." And the size of
those contributions matters. In comparison, environmental groups and alternative energy production and supply companies, which didn't see
similar benefits come out of the Republican Congress's legislation, have made paltry contributions. Environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club,
League of Conservation Voters and the Nature Conservancy, which often push for policy that is punitive to Big Oil, have given nearly 11 times less than the
oil industry since 2001. The disparity is not a strategic difference, but the financial reality for these smaller competing interests. Exxon Mobil, for example,
reported the largest annual profit on record for a U.S. corporation in 2006, bringing in $39.5 billion. Comparatively, the nonprofit Sierra Club Foundation—which funds
organizations in addition to the Sierra Club—reported income in 2006 of $29 million.
With members of Congress paying special attention to Big Oil, the policy that elected representatives have developed does not reflect
the interest of the public, which wants "affordable, reliable, clean sources of energy," Slocum says. A 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center found a majority
of Americans across the political spectrum want an energy policy that emphasizes renewable and alternative sources of energy.
"Energy companies have a right to have a say in energy policy. Do they have a right to dictate energy policy, to be the only people at the table? Absolutely not. That was
the main problem with the Cheney task force—[the industry] was the only one at the table," says Slocum.
To keep its prominent seat, the industry spends big sums of money on hiring the top lobbyists in Washington to push its agenda on a
variety of issues, not just related to energy but on issues ranging from education to real estate. After a few years of declining lobbying expenditures, the industry
spent $63.3 million in 2005, most of which was probably related to the energy bill. (Lobbying reports don't require lobbyists to itemize their spending related to specific
bills or amendments). In 2007, with a new energy bill in the pipeline, the industry's lobbying expenditures are on track to exceed last year's total of $73 million. Big Oil
has spent seven times more than environmental groups on lobbying since President Bush took office. Marchant Wentworth, a lobbyist for the environmental advocacy
group the Union of Concerned Scientists, says money buys access. "I've been working in the public interest environmental business for 30 years and 90 percent of the
time I'm talking to staff," Wentworth said. "The oil and gas industry talks to the members themselves. That is a huge difference. Access is an important thing." "With a
new energy bill in the pipeline, the industry's lobbying expenditures are on track to exceed last year's total of $73 million."
The energy companies that spend the most on lobbying the federal government also tend to be those that give the most to politicians
for their campaigns. Since 2001, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil, Shell Oil, Chevron and BP America—many of which provided guidance to Cheney's task force—
have spent the most among energy companies on lobbying. Exxon Mobil and Chevron, in addition to El Paso Corp and Koch Industries, have been among the most
generous campaign contributors within the industry during Bush's time in office. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry in Washington,
declined to comment for this story, and a spokesman from the national trade group the Independent Petroleum Association of America was unavailable for comment.
Lawmakers, who live in areas that depend on oil production for their economy, are likely to be among the largest recipients of
contributions from the oil and gas industry—and to vote in favor of legislation that helps it. The top three members of Congress to
receive money from Big Oil during the Bush administration are all Republicans and are, not surprisingly, all from oil-rich Texas. The big
names include Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both of whom have supported subsidies for gas and oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Also is Rep. Joe Barton, who sponsored the 2005 energy bill and was chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee at the time. Fellow
Texan Tom DeLay, who was the House Majority Leader in 2005 and was instrumental in pushing the energy bill through, also ranks among the top to receive money
from the industry during Bush's two terms. Of the 50 members of Congress who have received the most contributions from oil and gas companies since 2001, only six
are Democrats.>
64
Oil Lobbies Not Key

Oil lobbies are weak and unable to stop environmental groups– Democratic control of Congress and failure to influence past
policy proves
<Campaign contributions don't always get the oil industry desired results. Many of the oil industry chieftains, who were pushing to
open ANWR for exploration, were disappointed when the 2005 energy bill came out of conference committee without that provision.
Nor, do campaign contributions always get the industry's favorite candidates elected. Four of five of Big Oil's most favored candidates
—all Republicans—lost their re-election races in 2006, despite hefty campaign contributions from oil and gas employees and PACs that cycle. The losers
included Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Conrad Burns of Montana, George Allen of Virginia and James Talent of Missouri. With Democrats now in
control of Congress, the oil and gas industry is finding that it's getting less for its money on Capitol Hill. Other industries with
competing interests and far less cash to spread around, such as environmental groups and alternative energy producers, are now
finding more support for their legislative goals. For example, the Clean Energy Act of 2007 seeks to repeal the 2004 and 2005 tax breaks to Big Oil and re-
direct the money to renewable energy efforts. Because of the change in power, the oil industry faces the possibility of stricter oversight and
fewer goodies from Congress. The industry "definitely has to be worried that there will be anti-oil legislation of all types, and also
possibly regulations, depending on who takes over the White House," says David Victor, a law professor at Stanford University and a
senior fellow on the Council for Foreign Relations. Victor was part of the council's task force on energy security.>
Environmental lobbies are powerful due to Democratic control – oil lobbies will have little effect
<Environmentalists, who had very little influence in Congress when Republicans were in control, are now seeing the lawmakers
seriously consider their positions. This includes environmentalists' support of fuel efficiency standards, a mandate for electric utility
companies to produce 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources and their opposition to coal-to-liquid fuel development. Nowhere is this change in tides
more evident than in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is heavily involved in energy legislation. California Sen.
Barbara Boxer, considered one of the environment's biggest champions, has chaired the committee since her party assumed control of
the Senate in the 2006 election. Boxer replaced Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who has received $572,000 from the oil and gas industry since
President Bush took office—more than all but three other members of Congress. Since 2001, Boxer has received less than $13,000 from the industry and
nearly 69 times more from environmental policy groups than Inhofe.
"The oil and gas industry, like almost every other industry, will shift some donations from Republicans to Democrats," says Eric Smith, a political scientist who
researches environmental policy at the University of California-Santa Barbara. "It's clear that the industry strongly prefers to have Republicans in power, but
industries generally focus on short-term advantages. In the short term—now and presumably after the 2008 elections—Democrats hold congressional majorities. So to
win the short-term battles, the industry must try to persuade Democrats in Congress to go easy on them."
Big Oil, which has always contributed heavily to Republicans, isn't likely to defensively switch its contributions to favor Democrats.
But so far this year, 27 percent of the industry's contributions have gone to Democrats, up from 18 percent in the 2006 election cycle, when Republicans were still in
power. In the presidential race, the Democrats' share is even higher—Democratic hopefuls for president have so far received 30 percent of the industry's contributions.
Among Republicans, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has so far collected the most from the industry, while presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raised the most
from the industry among Democrats.>
******* this card is also on the environmental lobbies strong page
65
Environmental Lobbies Key

The Environmental Lobby uses funding to influence Congress
Grigg, 5 -- senior editor of The New American magazine and author of several books from a Constitutionalist perspective (William Norman, The New Ameican,
“Behind the Environmental Lobby: it may seem stranger than fiction, but it's a documentable fact: the eco-socialist movement is financed by the super-rich as part of a
comprehensive agenda for global control” 04-04-05 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_7_21/ai_n25107026) // DCM
Tax-exempt foundations are continuing their diligent application of the "scissors strategy." According to the 2000 edition of the authoritative
Environmental Grantmaking Foundations directory, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which controls roughly one half-billion dollars in assets,
lavishes millions on eco-agitators with the goal of "broadening and deepening the national environmental constituency and reinforcing
its ability to act effectively." That is, to use tax-exempt donations "from above" to create political and institutional pressure "from
below."
Environmental lobbies are powerful due to Democratic control – oil lobbies will have little effect
Environmentalists, who had very little influence in Congress when Republicans were in control, are now seeing the lawmakers
seriously consider their positions. This includes environmentalists' support of fuel efficiency standards, a mandate for electric utility
companies to produce 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources and their opposition to coal-to-liquid fuel development. Nowhere is this change in tides
more evident than in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is heavily involved in energy legislation. California Sen.
Barbara Boxer, considered one of the environment's biggest champions, has chaired the committee since her party assumed control of
the Senate in the 2006 election. Boxer replaced Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who has received $572,000 from the oil and gas industry since
President Bush took office—more than all but three other members of Congress. Since 2001, Boxer has received less than $13,000 from the industry and
nearly 69 times more from environmental policy groups than Inhofe.
"The oil and gas industry, like almost every other industry, will shift some donations from Republicans to Democrats," says Eric Smith, a political scientist who
researches environmental policy at the University of California-Santa Barbara. "It's clear that the industry strongly prefers to have Republicans in power, but
industries generally focus on short-term advantages. In the short term—now and presumably after the 2008 elections—Democrats hold congressional majorities. So to
win the short-term battles, the industry must try to persuade Democrats in Congress to go easy on them."
Big Oil, which has always contributed heavily to Republicans, isn't likely to defensively switch its contributions to favor Democrats.
But so far this year, 27 percent of the industry's contributions have gone to Democrats, up from 18 percent in the 2006 election cycle, when Republicans were still in
power. In the presidential race, the Democrats' share is even higher—Democratic hopefuls for president have so far received 30 percent of the industry's contributions.
Among Republicans, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has so far collected the most from the industry, while presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raised the most
from the industry among Democrats.
******* this card is also on the oil lobbies weak page
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Michigan 7 Wk Jrs CHPS

Politics – Internal Links

There are three politics files you will need to use:

Political Capital Key to the Agenda.........................................................................................................................3

Political Capital Key to the Agenda

Political capital key to agenda

The most basic and most important of all presidential resources is

Though the internal resources are important contributors

Capital is key to the agenda

Political Capital Key to the Agenda

Political Capital Key to the Agenda

Capital empirically determines agenda content

Political Capital Key

Political Capital Key

Political capital is key to the agenda

Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes

The president uses his influence to switch votes in Congress

Political Capital Key – Can Switch Votes

Capital is key to persuading vote switches

Political Capital – Spillover

Issues spill over to create more capital

Political capital spills over– 107th Congress proves

Political Capital Key – Limited

AT: Political Capital Key

Political Capital is irrelevant – case studies prove

Political capital is not key to the agenda

Little to no evidence supporting an effect of political capital

AT: Political Capital Key

Capital does not guarantee agenda passage

AT: Political Capital Key – It Can Only Help

AT: Political Capital is Key to Vetos

Wins in Congress spill over for further legislative success

Statistically, a win has no effect on further success

Winners lose – pushing legislation hurts public support

LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service

Bond and Fleisher are wrong- popularity is key to the agenda

Popularity Key to Political Capital

Popularity Not Key

Popularity Not Key

Almost no evidence to suggest a correlation between popularity and agenda success

In another study of presidential-congressional relations, analyzing votes rather than individuals, we

Popularity Not Key

LIGHT 99 Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service

Popularity is marginal and cannot be manipulated

It has been widely observed that a popular president

Also, the Clinton White House was

Popularity Not Key

Popularity Hurts Agenda

More often, however, gridlock

The Columbus Dispatch, 7 (1-7-2007, “Harmonious discord;

With the right dose of consensus, Congress and President Bush

<No matter the eventual outcome, the

On their relations with Congress, presidents follow certain modes or patterns of

Concessions Not Key

Concessions are counter-productive – they alienate the base

Chicago Tribune, 6 (Mark Silva, 11-8-2006, “Bush’s Tough Hand,”

This much is certain: The rules of the game have changed.

His final two years may depend on a revival of that spirit.

Democrats Not Key

Their press release covered two pages.

Beyond that, the

To the frustration of their liberal base, Democrats