Presidency and Domestic Policy

Comparing Leadership Styles, FDR to Obama

Michael A. Genovese, Todd L. Belt, William W. Lammers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781612053011
• eBook ISBN: 9781317253587
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book systematically examines the first terms of every president from FDR to Barack Obama and assesses the leadership style and policy agenda of each. Success in bringing about policy change is shown to hinge on the leadership style and skill in managing a variety of institutional and public relationships. The second edition of this timely book adds chapters on George W. Bush and Obama and focuses on the significant domestic policy challenges of their respective times. The authors have reconfigured the analytical framework of the book to take into account the 'dynamic opportunity structure' that emerged during the George W. Bush administration. The Presidency and Domestic Policy provides unique insights into contemporary presidential leadership in a highly partisan age.

CHAPTER 1

STRATEGIES FOR ASSESSING PRESIDENTS

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.

—George W. Bush on his relationship with Congress, July 26, 2001

Presidents come to office promising great things, and citizens rightly expect results. Barack Obama rode a tide of hope into office with his promises of change. But his efforts were soon thwarted by unified Republican opposition in Congress. Despite formidable obstacles, citizens hold presidents responsible for a great many things beyond what they promise, including the health of the economy, the quality of the natural environment, the overall state of the nation, and even world peace. And like Obama, all occupants of the White House face a number of roadblocks that inhibit their behavior and make governing a difficult art.¹

Given their constituents’ high expectations and their own limited political resources, presidents must develop complex strategies to bridge this expectation–resource gap. If they fail to do so, they run the risk of political failure, voter disapproval, and electoral defeat. Presidents, then, face formidable obstacles, but they are not helpless. A wide range of options and opportunities are available to a politically astute, power-wise leader.²

This book attempts to understand the styles and strategies presidents employ in their efforts to govern successfully. In doing so, it examines four dimensions of presidential activity—approaches to advisory processes and decision making, administrative strategies, public leadership, and congressional leadership. All are analyzed in the context of the domestic policy agendas of modern presidents (Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama).³ The book also looks at how different opportunity levels (high, moderate, and low) have affected presidential leadership and how each president played the political hand he was dealt.

Level of opportunity is measured by extrinsic factors such as public demand, pro- or antigovernment sentiments, issue ripeness, available resources, competing issues, and the strength of the president’s party in Congress. Factors more centered on the presidency itself are the size of a president’s election victory, the issues over which the presidential contest was fought, and the president’s popularity. Opportunity levels set reasonable expectations—that is, high-opportunity presidents should achieve more than low-opportunity presidents (later, this chapter more fully develops the idea of “windows of opportunity” by relying on the writings of John Kingdon to help explain how opportunity levels are determined). What determines whether presidents achieve the political results their opportunity levels permit? Skill.

When presidents are divided along opportunity lines, it is easier to determine who the more skillful presidents are. We can also isolate which strategies and tactics employed to achieve their goals were the most successful. There is, however, one difficulty with this approach: although some objective indicators of presidential opportunity are available, ultimately the categorization is somewhat subjective.

If level of opportunity establishes a possible range of presidential performances, the leadership style employed by presidents helps determine the public face and interactions they present to the people, Congress, and other political actors. Presidents display tremendous differences in their leadership styles. Some seek to emulate the aggressive style of President Franklin Roosevelt; others choose less assertive approaches. Ronald Reagan, who admired Roosevelt’s speaking style and could even mimic his voice, adopted a public style based in part on FDR’s. George H. W. Bush’s lack of action found some of his aides actually making lists of “speeches not given” because of his reluctance to engage in a strong public role. Jimmy Carter often pursued positions he judged to be in the long-run public interest, whether popular or not, whereas Bill Clinton relied heavily on opinion polls in developing policies and shaping his messages.

Leadership styles encompass strategic choices. Some presidents have sought to “hit the ground running”; others have been characterized as “hitting the ground stumbling” or even “marching in place.”⁴ In their public leadership, some presidents have sought to “go public” to build support for legislation.⁵ Bill Clinton’s enthusiasm for Theodore Roosevelt’s use of the presidency as a “bully pulpit” to elicit public support for his programs led him to take to the road as president in a continuation, as it were, of his election campaign. Other presidents have sought less visible means of achieving their goals. That may explain why top-level negotiations (known as bipartisan summits) between administration leaders and congressional leaders have been used with increasing frequency. In another strategic choice, presidents frequently engage in policy shifts in the third year of their terms to reshuffle personnel and reshape the direction of their administration—and their reelection prospects.

In choosing a leadership style, presidents are influenced by a variety of factors, including their own personalities and prior career experiences. Many presidents rely on their historical favorites for views of how the president should lead. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt are high on this list, but “silent” Calvin Coolidge rates only occasional mention. Some presidents have deliberately chosen a leadership style that contrasts with that of their predecessor. John Kennedy, for example, sought more assertive public leadership than that provided by Dwight Eisenhower. Carter strove to do away with the trappings of the “imperial presidency” and be a “man of the people.” Reagan’s short answer was to be the mirror image of Carter as he pursued a more optimistic persona and a more focused approach to his first-year agenda. George H. W. Bush showed an aversion to Reagan’s limited attention to detail, and Clinton sought to have a more robust domestic agenda than his predecessor. George W. Bush promised to restore honesty and integrity to the White House following the Clinton years, and unlike his predecessor he delegated a great deal of policy-making responsibility to his advisers, particularly his vice president. Obama promised to have the most open and transparent administration in history, eschewing the secrecy of his predecessor and placing himself at the center of the decision-making process. The combination of presidential wishes to be different and the public’s tendency to seek leaders who compensate for the problems of their predecessors has contributed to sharp swings in leadership styles from president to president.

The readily observed differences in leadership styles have not produced agreement among political scientists on how much these differences affect public policy.⁶ Those who believe individual skill has a limited impact on policy outcomes have emphasized the extent to which presidential actions are shaped by other factors. These include the opportunities produced by power relationships in Congress, economic conditions, and levels of public support for new policy initiatives, among other things. Indeed, as his second term began, Clinton lamented that his time in office thus far had not presented opportunities for achievements comparable to those experienced by presidents who had left large legacies.

In view of the uncertainty surrounding the impact of individual presidents on policy, it is time to take a harder look at the ways in which leadership styles and strategies have actually shaped policy outcomes. Far too often, passage of major legislation has been attributed to presidential leadership when it actually may have had little influence. During Franklin Roosevelt’s years in the White House, for example, he frequently received credit for congressionally driven achievements. Of course, the ideal way to determine presidential influence on policy would be to place different occupants of the Oval Office in the same circumstances and measure the various outcomes. Such a study would reveal, for example, how much more legislation Lyndon Johnson could have achieved than a possible second-term Kennedy administration, or how various presidents might have taken advantage of post-9/11 popularity to achieve domestic policy goals.

While no two presidents serve under identical circumstances, a comparative approach can offer valuable insight into the extent to which leadership can make a difference. Such an approach requires assessing presidents’ leadership styles and the strategies they pursued, as well as how well they were able to meet challenges and use opportunities effectively. The differences revealed can then be used to examine the impact of leadership styles on policy. The next section sets the stage for these analyses by describing the key concepts of leadership style, challenges and opportunities, and policy legacies.

Leadership Styles

In 1960 presidential scholar Richard Neustadt published a seminal study of presidential leadership.⁷ The wide audience for the ideas he developed in Presidential Power included presidents themselves. Moreover, John Kennedy and several of his predecessors sought Neustadt’s personal advice in organizing their presidencies. The lasting interest in Neustadt’s ideas stems from his perspective of looking at presidential leadership from the vantage point of the presidents.

Neustadt’s analysis was grounded in the view th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Strategies for Assessing Presidents
• Part I The High-Opportunity Presidents
• Part II The Moderate-Opportunity Presidents
• Part III The Low-Opportunity Presidents
• Part IV Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors