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

The influence of Presidential Power has been to teach several generations of scholars, journalists, citizens, White House staffers, and politicians¹⁶ that the president needs “to be as big a man as he can”¹⁷ and that this is to be accomplished through bargaining and persuasion. What matters are not formal powers of the president, but influence and personal power.

Certainly, some scholars, including Richard Pious,¹⁸ Louis Fisher,¹⁹ William Howell,²⁰ Kenneth Mayer,²¹ and Robert Spitzer,²² have examined aspects of presidential prerogative power, but they have tended to assume a context of broad political influence by the president. The historical record demonstrates that presidents have employed their unilateral powers (whether those explicitly granted in the Constitution or prerogative powers that reach beyond specific constitutional grants) to take action, to shape policy and events, and even to restore their political fortunes. Neustadt’s definition of power as influence through persuasion helps one to understand some aspects of presidential power but far too little of it. Furthermore, it cannot really help to understand those incidents when presidents have managed to govern—and even to prevail (in a political sense)—when they have lost most of the political capital needed to be influential. These facts suggest that students of the presidency need a better understanding of unilateral presidential power and the role it plays in the work of the chief executive.

Presidential Unilateralism

Despite Neustadt’s dictum that “[p]residential power is the power to persuade,” all presidents rely on a mixture of persuasion and command in their conduct of office. Even Franklin Roosevelt, one of the nation’s most persuasive chief executives, wielded unilateral power from the Oval Office. He employed the veto power extensively and was second only to Grover Cleveland in using the power to say “no.”²³ He also issued more executive orders than any other president, including 286 orders related to World War II issued between July 1939 and June 1942.²⁴ As Peter Sperlich observed,²⁵ no president can operate on bargaining alone.