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

adverse situations “tough times for the president,” and they can give us insights into the office and its powers.

We have suggested what kinds of circumstances (see figure 2) are least favorable for the president. But for purposes of identifying the cases we will study, we need more precision. Table 1 (“Presidents in Adverse Circumstances”) summarizes several dimensions along which political adversity can be measured:

*Unelected—Successor presidents lack the same electoral base as those elected in their own right (this condition is indicated by an X).

*Margin—The president’s margin of victory in the last election is a form of political capital; a president chosen by a narrow majority, plurality victory, or a minority of the popular vote finds this situation to be a political impediment.

*Divided—If one or both chambers of Congress are controlled by the other party, the president will have a harder time influencing the agenda and outcomes of the legislature (a loss of control of one or both chambers by the president’s party is indicated by boldface). Neustadt does not include party support in Congress among the “vantage points” that affect presidential influence, but the consensus among politicians, journalists, and scholars is that having the president’s party in the majority in one or both chambers is an important form of political capital.

*Seats gained or lost—The loss of seats in midterm congressional elections impedes presidential influence (Lyndon Johnson gave it as a reason that the president is weaker in the third year of a term), especially when the loss is large and most especially when the president’s party loses control of one or both chambers (what Charles Jones refers to as an “unmandate”³³).

*Polls—Low presidential approval ratings (defined here as near or below 50%) impede the president and are taken by other politicians as a sign of trouble for the chief executive.