Description
Book SynopsisPresidential Legislative Activity explores the presidency and develops a typology that examines presidential activities. Author Carl D. Cavalli uses samples from the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon administrations to explore questions about presidential behavior. The data confirms much of the heretofore descriptive and anecdotal evidence on such things as levels of presidential activity and travel, but dispute the popular conception of presidents being legislators. One advantage to this approach is the ability to explore commonalities across presidencies, instead of uniquely labeling each administration. Another advantage is the ability to empirically explore the president''s relationship with Congress. A regression analysis of activity determines that contact with individual members of Congress is driven by their status within the hierarchy and secondarily by partisan concerns. Finally, there is also some evidence that contact with Congress varies directly with a president''s legislative success.
Trade ReviewThe political reporting corner that produced the rich material for Benedetto's book started in Buffalo with his coverage of George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign and eventually brought him to Washington in 1982 to help launch the Gannett Company's USA Today and then serve as its White House and national political correspondent. Many of the vignettes that fill the book are drawn from the years in the White House covering President George H.W. Bush (with whom Benedetto jogged on occasion), Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and from his travels as a member of the White House press corps. -- Mike Brown * U.S., Mayor *
This book presents new and promising evidence for presidential scholars. Students of the presidency have been limited by a shortage of useful indicators of presidential behavior. Cavalli aims to examine what presidents actually do day by day. He coded entries from daily presidential diaries from the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, covering the first four months of three years from each administration's first term. With this new behavioral evidence, the author examines patterns of presidential contact and success with Congress.... The author convincingly demonstrates that his evidence comports with earlier qualitative studies of the behavior of the presidents... this useful explanatory study opens a door to a new wealth of evidence about presidential behavior that presidential scholars should pursue.Summing up: RECOMMENDED. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty. -- S.E. Schier, Carleton College * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Acknowledgements Chapter 3 Presidential Leadership Chapter 4 Power and Influence: Normative Studies of Power; Measures of Influence Chapter 5 Categorizing Legislative Activities: Type of Activity; Dimensions; Amount of Activity; Discussion of Type and Amount Chapter 6 Gathering the Data: Sources of Presidential Activity Data; Coding the Data Chapter 7 Coding the Data—Some Detailed Examples: Typical Coding; Persuasion; Inducement; Organization; Emphasis Chapter 8 Considerations of Validity and Reliability: Some Initial Notes on the Samples Chapter 9 Results I: Organization Over Time; Strategy and Legislative Experience; Cyclical Effects; Legislative Experience and Activity; Other Possibilities Chapter 10 Results II: Contact Data; Contact Data and the Case of Wilbur Mills; Contact Data Analysis; A Consideration for Future Exploration; Summary Chapter 11 Discussion: What Has Been Learned?; Presidential Leadership in the American System; The Bottom Line Chapter 12 "Quantitative Biography" and the Future: Cliometrics; Applying Cliometrics to Presidential Studies; The President and Future; Some Thoughts About Future Research; Some Hypotheses for the Future Chapter 13 Bibliography Chapter 14 About the Author Chapter 15 Index
