 Politics and fiat  Public and/versus congressional perception  Perception of and tradeoff between issues  Spin—who controls perception of the plan, and thus shapes public/congressional reaction ◦ Media ◦ Opposition Party ◦ White House ◦ Members of president’s party

 Does ‘normal means’ require congressional involvement/action  Obama tends to get credit and blame ◦ Visibility ◦ Psychological needs of the electorate (leadership) ◦ Overstatement of importance in policymaking ◦ Perceptual unitary nature of presidency vs. other branches  Teams often use alternate agents (agencies, congress, courts, states) to avoid politics links  Key Question—who will the hurt/benefitting groups blame

 THESIS: gestures that appeal to the other party increase the probability that other legislation will pass  Bipart: Plan fosters cooperation, this spills over to other issues  Olive Branch: Plan is a sop to the GOP, invites horse-trading  Logrolling: Passing one policy “breaks the logjam” that prevents other policies from passing… fosters momentum that transfers between legislative initiatives

 THESIS: Presidents lose credibility when they are seen to change positions on important issues  Most ‘flip flop’ links describe Bush’s rolling of Kerry in the ‘04 presidential campaign: “I voted for war funding before I voted against it”  Has weaknesses as an internal link argument—easier to challenge uniqueness

 Is the GOLD STANDARD of politics internals— most internal links can be explained and described in terms of political capital  Describes the president’s overall ability to get their way with Congress—twist arms, offer favors, issue threats  Key considerations include ◦ Is it limited? ◦ Does it cross over between issues? ◦ Is it replenishable

 THESIS: Presidents with high poll numbers are more likely to get their way with congress— congress is afraid to challenge popular presidents  This is backed up by a ton of social science- esque research (Edwards et al.)  Argument applies to both the POLICY and the PRESIDENT  Interest groups can shape public reaction to a policy

 THESIS #1: Winners Win—presidents that push through contentious policies as being successful (winners), decreasing the chance that congress will challenge them in the future  Health care reform (ACA) is a decent example  Thesis was originally proposed by Norman Ornstein  Argument also works in reverse—presidents who lose have a more difficult time forcing congress into line on future votes

 THESIS: The reactions of like-minded lawmakers to the plan influence the chance of passage of future legislation  At the most basic level ◦ Democrats (unity) ◦ Republicans (cooperation)  Other groups ◦ Dem moderates ◦ Blue dogs ◦ New Democrats ◦ GOP moderates

 McConnell (GOP senate leader)  Boehner (GOP house leader)  Reid (Dem senate leader)  Pelosi (Dem house leader)  Brown, Collins, Snowe (GOP senators, centrists)

 THESIS: organized groups react to the plan in ways that impacts the future political process  This can include rewarding or punishing politicians through the use of campaign funding, directing advertising, and other means of exerting influence  Are VERY powerful link arguments, especially because the media and academics like to talk about their relative power  Are KEY on this topic because public reaction to most cases will be pretty minimal

 Key lobbies include: ◦ Airlines & airplane manufacturers ◦ Automobile manufactures ◦ Environmentalists ◦ Industry lobbying groups affected by particular plan actions or changes in modes of transportation ◦ Oil/fossil fuel interests ◦ Unions (public and private)

 Link arguments are generally about the reaction of different segments of the public to the plan  Link arguments need to be about groups who will either swing (vote switch) or not vote  Internal link arguments focus on the importance of those voting blocks, especially in swing states (CO, FL, IA, MI, NH, NV, OH, PA, VA, WI)  Winning an elections disad is largely about controlling top level (who wins now) and link uniqueness

 Differences in the Obama and Romney legislative agendas are tempting areas for elections impact work  PROBLEM: the Senate filibuster rule  The strongest elections impacts involve those policies that the president can change unilaterally ◦ China-U.S. relations ◦ EPA’s CO2 regulations ◦ Mexico City policy/gag order ◦ Russia-U.S. relations ◦ U.S. stance towards Iran and its nuclear program