Monday, April 16, 2012
The Unpersuaded
So, this weekend I had to journey back briefly to NJ (I was home for all of 30 hours) and while hectic, among other things, it gave me a chance to pick up a batch of New Yorkers for which I've been to lazy to change the subscription address. On the return leg of my trip, I found this article in the March 19 issue, a fascinating piece about the true nature of the "Bully pulpit" and how much power of persuasion the president actually yields. Essentially, Ezra Klein (one of my favorites on the magazine's staff) explains that whether a piece of legislation in Congress will be a party-line vote or not, for him to take a stand and speak on the issue in an apparently misguided attempt to sway voters and reps alike, simply has the effect of polarizing the issue and often makes it harder to pass. In other words, trying to utilize the Bully pulpit hurts Heads of State more than it helps. A must read for any president buffs (looking at you, Wulderk) or anyone who thinks people actually listens when he talks (you too, Boole). Enjoy.
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2 comments:
Spent most my lunch reading this. Good call on targeting me to read it--I eat up anything on the presidency.
I wrote a research paper on presidents in divided government and a lot of the research was to the contrary of what Ezra's laying out. (I don't read the NYer often, but I know/like him from WaPo.) I definitely side with this school of thought, though.
There's virtually no incentive for the opposition party (which I'm just going to start calling the current GOP now) to cooperate with the President. I'm trying to convince myself this is just a phase, but there is nothing that could be more effective for leveraging power than this.
The article is right--the present situation owes a lot to a flaw in the Constitutional design. I'm hoping that once Obama is out of the picture the sides will level out a little.
Just an observation: it seems things are always much worse when it's a Democrat in the White House and a Republican Congress. Republicans are a much angrier, vocal, and impassioned opposition party. It always seems like they view their way of life as threatened. I'll give it to them though--they're very good at it. Governing? That's a different story.
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