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An influential presidency is the central political fact of the American century. Yet of the eighteen presidents in this century, only a handful have succeeded. Why do some presidents succeed while others do not? What do presidents do to make themselves effective? Starting with the story of its traumatic transition to power and running through its unprecedented successes to its calamitous disarray, Making A Difference draws on the rich historical materials from the Johnson presidency to traces the administration's effectiveness.

In addition to memoranda, notes, and other archival materials, Making a Difference relies on two new kinds of historical records: data from confidential headcounts and recorded conversations of presidential persuasion. On every important legislative initiative, the Johnson administration personally contacted Representatives and Senators attempting to gauge their position, to persuade them to concur with the administration's proposal, and to orchestrate the necessary compromises. The book employs a little over 400 of these confidential headcounts to describe the bargaining process. For example, it assesses initial support for administration proposals and how that support changes through the bargaining process. It concludes that an effective administration presses the limits of its mandate, even presses its partisan allies, in order to extract the maximum that it can. Hence, an administration does not start the legislative process with a supportive majority coalition but, instead, must press one into service.

Mixing these data with a new approach to measuring presidential effectiveness, Making a Difference assesses a range of commonly held ideas about presidential influence. For example, many practitioners believe that an administration loses its influence over time, they conclude that they must "use it or lose it." Using these headcounts, the book concludes that the evidence does not support this "bank account" notion of the presidency. Presidential influence does not decline over time, though initial support levels do. Hence, it concludes that while presidential effectiveness does not decline it becomes more critical during the life of an administration - that as an administration becomes more skilled at using the presidency, its requires more of that skill in order to effectively lead.

The book exploits this headcount data in assessing the give-and-take of bargaining at the center of presidential influence. For example, developing a model of member predisposition, the book then demonstrates how an administration must face strategic bargaining by its supporters as well as sincere bargaining by those members it must convert in order to win. Making A Difference then uses these count data to measure how many members the administration converted to its cause on different kinds of bills. It reaches a number of conclusions about presidential effectiveness in this give and take. It demonstrates that because bargaining involves uncertainty about intentions, maintaining control over intelligence about member positions and their demands represents an important presidential advantage. Reliably knowing the positions of members pits an administration strength, centralized intelligence gathering, against a congressional weakness, decentralized power and leadership.

From the moment he took office in November 1963, LBJ carried on an unprecedented program recording his conversations; exchanges rich in the details of persuasion, of ploys, of maneuver and parry. These data present a picture of persuasion itself - blocking, counter-punching, appealing to party, to state, to commitment, to quid pro quo - where heretofore analysts could only guess at how politicians conduct business. They also clarify a range of issues rarely studied: how do presidents close in on member commitments, how do members avoid making such a commitment, how often do trades come into play? The book identifies a series of strategic advantages for the President in such conversations. Such control affords the administration leeway in what kinds of appeals it can make to persuade members.


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Section DescriptionsChapter Descriptions
INTRODUCTION
  1. The Dim Light of History - The Study of Presidential Power
TRANSITION TO POWER
This section uses the first week of the Johnson presidency to illustrate the challenges facing a modern president and the choices which presidents make. Each of these elements becomes a central characteristic of the more formal analysis to follow.
  1. Reins of Power
  2. Inheritor
PRESIDENTIAL EFFECTIVENESS
This section describes and analyzes a new model of presidential effectiveness. It begins by describing the president's formal powers and those of the congressional majority. It makes the case that persuasion has two components, one a structural component defined by bargaining and the other a behavioral defined by personal interaction.
  1. Presidential Position - Analyzing the President's Place in the Constitutional System
  2. Structured Bargains - A Model of Presidential Bargaining
  3. The Patterns of Sway - LBJ's Influence Over Members of Congress
  4. Opportunity and Duty - External Demands on Presidential Influence
  5. Get the Music, Hear the Words - Patterns to LBJ's Presidential Persuasion
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
This section describes three opportunities presidents have to use their discretion to shape effectiveness. It describes the development of the President's agenda, how the administration decided to make compromises, and how a President shapes the day to day routines of the administration. The section closes with an examination of the specific historical circumstances of the Johnson presidency.
  1. Reach, Compromise, and Routine - Presidential Discretion Over Policy Making
  2. How LBJ Mattered - Reflections on Presidential Power

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