Tough Times for the President: Political Adversity and the Sour ...

c. Foreign policy initiatives and actions—Did the president engage in foreign policy initiatives and actions that circumvented the constraints of political adversity?
d. Organizational changes—Did the president make any changes in the structure of the White House and the administration, including personnel changes, reorganization of the staff or decision-making processes, or the use of special or innovative organizational actions?
e. Going public—To what extent did the president employ public politics, even in the context of a political campaign, to seek a stronger political position?
f. Unconventional actions—Did the president employ any unconventional actions to seek a stronger political position or to advance a goal?

3. Outcome and assessment
a. Did the president’s actions make any difference (such as election outcome, significant shift in polls, etc.)? If so, how? If not, why not?
b. How did adversity limit what the president could do or accomplish?
c. Did adversity open opportunities in any way (including unconventional action)?
d. What powers did the president retain despite adversity, and how did the president exercise them in a relevant way?

The Case Studies

The chapters that follow present case studies of presidents facing situations of political adversity. The eleven cases were selected using the dimensions in tables 1a–1c.

Chapter 2 examines four cases in which presidents faced unmandates in midterm congressional elections that is, occasions in which the president’s party lost control of one or both legislative chambers. These midterm setbacks were followed by periods in which the chief executive faced