Pulping the bully approach to presidential politics, VI

Ezra Klein is replaying that whole paradox of power thing: When Obama comes out for a policy, the GOP will demonize it -- so if Obama wants to get anything done with a GOP House, how can he jump off his shadow?  This time, Klein brings Jon Favreau to bear, affirming the White House's not-at-all-surprising hyper-awareness of this conundrum:

Jonathan Favreau, who in February stepped down as Obama’s chief speechwriter, said that dealing with the Republican Party’s reflexive opposition is a pervasive reality in the White House. “People take a very realistic approach to it,” he said. “They’re not frustrated or upset. It’s more, ‘This is just the way things are and this is how we’ll deal with it.’ The strategy always comes to ‘What gives us the best chance to get something passed?’”

When the public supports the president's position...then what?

I have learned from political scientists including Brendhan Nyhan and Jonathan Bernstein that presidents generally can't sway public opinion via appeals from the bully pulpit.  National Journal report George Condon, relaying the thoughts of political scientist George C. Edwards III, encapsulates the accepted wisdom:

“It is true for all presidents. They virtually never move public opinion in their direction,” Edwards tells National Journal. Citing polling numbers for six decades and multiple presidents, he says, “It happened for Ronald Reagan. It happened for FDR. It happens all the time. You should anticipate failure if you’re trying to change people’s minds. The data is overwhelming.” What Edwards learned is that presidents succeed in rallying the public when the public already agrees with them.

With regard to Obama, however, Edwards' cited examples do not fit his categories. His analysis -- perhaps sharply abbreviated by Condon -- glides over the ambiguities involved in "rallying the public when the public already agrees":

What exactly is the danger for Obama in chasing the "liberal Reagan" mantle?

Yesterday, I offered a partial dissent from Jonathan Bernstein's contention that it's a myth that Ronald Reagan "defined an era" or, to borrow Obama's 2008 phrase, "changed the trajectory of America."  Reagan, I argued, did set the ideological mold that subsequently hardened into GOP dogma, not least by at least appearing to demonstrate that tax cuts can unleash economic growth.

I'd like now to probe a little deeper into exactly what Jon was warning Obama against. I'm not certain, but I suspect that the warning may pertain to a perceived flaw in Obama's current political strategy fingered by Ezra Klein and others. Eliding out the meat of Bernstein's debunking of the "transformative Reagan" myth, here's his advice for Obama:

Here’s the problem. Ronald Reagan wasn’t really the Reagan of everyone’s imagination. So aspiring to be a “liberal Reagan” is chasing a fantasy. Worse than that—it’s a fantasy that can easily distract a president from the real things that he should be doing....

A budget deal by hook but not by Crook

For two years I have wondered how Clive Crook can continue to lambaste Obama for pursuing policies that Crook agrees with.  In recent weeks the mystery has been solved. Crook thinks that Obama ought to be able to sell policies that please neither left nor right by sheer force of eloquence.  Late last month, he recommended that Obama predetermine the outcome of negotiations with Republicans and champion that outcome in advance. This week, he's urging the President to so overwhelm the electorate with his eloquence that they steamroll a Republican opposition that Crook himself recognizes as beyond reason:

Under present conditions, the administration’s tools for invigorating the recovery are limited, to be sure. However bold and decisive the president chooses to be, he cannot just decree faster growth. But if Democrats and Republicans moved immediately to raise the debt ceiling and promptly to clarify the medium-term fiscal picture – a task that cannot wait until 2013 – they would improve confidence and lessen the risk of a second recession.

The president can play a crucial role in this. Merely calling for unity achieves nothing. But the bin Laden operation gives him fresh political capital, though perhaps not for long. He should use it to impose himself – talking past a stone-deaf Congress to the electorate; advancing cold, clear choices about curbing long-term borrowing; thus making space, should it prove necessary, for renewed short-term stimulus. They call it leadership.

No, they call it fantasy.  Obama -- any president -- is about as likely to convince the American people to demand that their representatives pass his favored mix of tax hikes and spending cuts as he is to singlehandedly take out the rest of al Qaeda.

Please please please Mr. Crook, read a political scientist or two.  Presidents do not overcome a recalcitrant opposition by rallying the public from the bully pulpit; they do not convince the electorate to embrace tax hikes and spending cuts unless someone or group can orchestrate "everybody...[i.e., leaders from both parties] getting in that boat at the same time," as Obama has said he aims to do.  Presidents may seem to convince the public when conditions shift so that the public is willing to try policies they've long been advocating; they may gradually nudge public opinion in a direction toward which it's started to trend; they may, when they have a majority in Congress, push through unpopular policies that are later vindicated by events (or seem to be).  But when they"lead" in the way Crook envisions they suffer the kind of defeat that met Bush Jr. when he tried to privatize social security.