As we wait to see whether “President Obama emerges heroic”:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52782.html from the current budget standoff, we at the Monkey Cage bring you at slightly longer term perspective with our second presentation in our “How’s Obama Doing?”:https://themonkeycage.org/2011/04/hows_obama_doing_part_i.html series. Today’s contribution is from “Professor David Lewis”:http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~david.lewis/ of Vanderbilt University:
bq. Two years in to Obama’s presidency it has turned into a Rohrschach test. Indeed, while Obama’s approval ratings are higher than those for Reagan or Clinton at comparable points in their terms, support for Obama is as polarized as it has ever been for any recent president. Democrats and Republicans seem to be observing different presidencies. Left-leaning ideologues hoping Obama would be the liberal lion have been disappointed since Obama advocated a surge in Afghanistan, failed to close Guantanamo Bay, dropped the public option on health care, and extended the Bush tax cuts. Moderate supporters hoping for a post-partisan pragmatist watched as the president pushed through policies such as health care and the stimulus that were supported by less than half of the public on partisan lines.
bq. Why the different opinions about Obama? Perhaps it is because Obama has learned the leadership lessons of the modern presidency better than any other president. Many factors have shaped Obama’s actions, including the context of his presidency and the Republican resurgence but he is working from a playbook written by the late Harvard presidency scholar Richard Neustadt. Following the advice of Neustadt frustrates ideologues, confuses pragmatists, and can energize the opposition.
bq. As Neustadt advised, Obama started with a clear agenda but sequenced his legislative initiatives effectively so as not to overload Congress. As Lyndon Johnson explained, Congress is like a whiskey drinker. If you try and force too much down their throat at once, they’ll throw it up but if you get to drink sip by sip you can get them drunk. Careful sequencing of legislative initiatives means that some people are going to be disappointed, usually those supporters who have been led to believe the president will make everything (or at least the issue most important to them) better right away.
bq. President Obama also began his presidency with vivid demonstrations of his tenacity and deal making ability. These demonstrations are necessary, in Neustadt’s reckoning, to prove to the Washington community that the president is not someone to be trifled with. There are costs to opposing the president and benefits to siding with the president and what the president says he will accomplish, he will accomplish. The reputational benefits of such early demonstrations pay off later in the president’s tenure. This helps explain the president’s dogged persistence early in his term on some big ticket items that were not particularly popular and passed largely on party-line votes. Where is the compromising pragmatist?
bq. Fundamentally, Neustadt advised that presidents make decisions today with an eye toward tomorrow. President Obama has protected the power of the presidency, most noticeably by continuing to use signing statements. The president has also issued notable executive orders on topics such as gay rights and abortion and centralized power in the White House via czars. In public appearances Obama has sought to generate support for the president and his brand as much as for his programs. Where Obama is criticized for vagueness and a refusal to engage, one explanation may be that people misunderstand the purpose of his public activities. The president wants to generate support but prefers to be less specific in order to protect his bargaining flexibility down the road.
bq. The modern president who is a good student of the office may be a Rohrschach president.