Because of the power-fearing drafters of the U.S. Constitution, the president's tools for influencing Congress are quite limited. Presidents have had to look beyond the formal powers of the office to push a legislative agenda. In Between the Branches, a book of unprecedented depth, Kenneth Collier traces the evolution of White House influence in Congress over nine adminstrations, from Eisenhower to Clinton. It will enlighten students of the presidency, Congress, and all those interested in American politics.
This report examines the operations of the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Bush Admin. It finds that the White House used the Political Affairs office to orchestrate an aggressive strategy to use taxpayer-funded trips to help elect Republican candidates for public office. From Jan. 1, 2006, until the mid-term elections on Nov. 7, 2006, cabinet secretaries and other senior officials traveled to over 300 events recommended by the Political Affairs office. All of these events were held with Republican candidates, and in most cases, the travel costs were paid for with fed. funds. Charts and tables.
The relation of White House assistants to the president, their appropriate role in the governmental process, and the most effective means for organizing and managing the White House have been subjects of both public concern and academic dispute. White House Operations addresses these and related questions by providing the first thorough analysis of how the thirty-sixth president managed his staff. By grounding their study in original documents from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the authors lift the veil of secrecy that clouds the inner workings of the White House. The result is an insightful elaboration of the complex, extensive, and diverse roles of White House aides—and av fascinating look at such key White House figures as McGeorge Bundy, Joseph Califano, Bill Moyers, George Reedy, Walt Rostow, Lawrence O’Brien, and Johnson himself. This exploration of Johnson’s highly personalized White House operations provides far-reaching implications for the nature of effective presidential management. The comprehensive analysis of the range of work done under Johnson and the unique nature of White House assistance leads the authors to a strong and vigorous assertion for a positive role for the White House staff that clashes sharply with the thrust of many recommendations for reorganizing the presidency. Redford and McCulley convincingly demonstrate that management of the White House staff and other parts of the president’s advisory system will remain crucial for successful presidential performance. The book is the fifth volume in a series designed to provide a comprehensive administrative history of the Johnson presidency. The book will be of interest to the informed general reader, presidential scholars, political scientists, U.S. historians, and students of public management and will be an important addition to academic library collections.
In the days after Donald Trump’s unexpected victory on election night 2016, The New York Times, CNN, and other leading media outlets reached out to one of the few pundits who had correctly predicted the outcome, Allan J. Lichtman. While many election forecasters base their findings exclusively on public opinion polls, Lichtman looks at the underlying fundamentals that have driven every presidential election since 1860. Using his 13 historical factors or “keys” (four political, seven performance, and two personality), Lichtman had been predicting Trump’s win since September 2016. In the updated 2024 edition, he applies the keys to every presidential election since 1860 and shows readers the current state of the 2024 race. In doing so, he dispels much of the mystery behind electoral politics and challenges many traditional assumptions. An indispensable resource for political junkies!
Winner, 2008 Richard E. Neustadt Award, Presidency Research Group organized section of the American Political Science Association Political scientists are rarely able to study presidents from inside the White House while presidents are governing, campaigning, and delivering thousands of speeches. It’s even rarer to find one who manages to get officials such as political adviser Karl Rove or presidential counselor Dan Bartlett to discuss their strategies while those strategies are under construction. But that is exactly what Martha Joynt Kumar pulls off in her fascinating new book, which draws on her first-hand reporting, interviewing, and original scholarship to produce analyses of the media and communications operations of the past four administrations, including chapters on George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kumar describes how today’s White House communications and media operations can be at once in flux and remarkably stable over time. She describes how the presidential Press Office that was once manned by a single presidential advisor evolved into a multilayered communications machine that employs hundreds of people, what modern presidents seek to accomplish through their operations, and how presidents measure what they get for their considerable efforts. Laced throughout with in-depth statistics, historical insights, and you-are-there interviews with key White House staffers and journalists, this indispensable and comprehensive dissection of presidential communications operations will be key reading for scholars of the White House researching the presidency, political communications, journalism, and any other discipline where how and when one speaks is at least as important as what one says.
Established in 1939, the Executive Office of the President (EOP) consists of a group of federal agencies immediately serving the President. Among the oldest of these are the White House Office, where many of the President's personal assistants are located, and the Office of Management and Budget, which was established as the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 and by transfer became one of the original EOP units in 1939. Entities have been placed within the EOP by both presidential action and congressional determination. Some components have endured; others have been brief experiments. Some have been transferred to other quarters of the executive branch; others have been abolished with no successor. In large measure, the tenure and durability of an Executive Office agency is dependent upon its usefulness to the President -- as a managerial or coordinative auxiliary, a national symbol, or a haven of political patronage, among other considerations. This report reviews the particular circumstances of the creation of, and underlying authority for, the Executive Office of the President, and provides profiles of the entities that have been, and still are, located within that enclave.
This study of presidential administrations from Nixon through Clinton discusses how and why the White House has become the dominant player in the domestic policy process, relegating the departments to implementation, rather than design, of key initiatives.
Shrouded in anonymity, protected by executive privilege, but with no legal or constitutional authority of their own, the 5,900 people in 125 offices collectively known as the "White House staff" assist the chief executive by shaping, focusing, and amplifying presidential policy. Why is the staff so large? How is it organized and what do those 125 offices actually do? In this sequel to his critically appraised 1988 book, Ring of Power, Bradley H. Patterson Jr.—a veteran of three presidential administrations—takes us inside the closely guarded turf of the White House. In a straightforward narrative free of partisan or personal agendas, Patterson provides an encyclopedic description of the contemporary White House staff and its operations. He illustrates the gradual shift in power from the cabinet departments to the staff and, for the first time in presidential literature, presents an accounting for the total budget of the modern White House. White House staff members control everything from the monumental to the mundane. They prepare the president for summit conferences, but also specify who sits on Air Force One. They craft the language for the president to use on public occasions—from a State of the Union Address to such "Rose Garden rubbish" as the pre-Thanksgiving pardon for the First Turkey. The author provides an entertaining yet in-depth overview of these responsibilities. Patterson also illuminates the astounding degree to which presidents personally conduct American diplomacy and personally supervise U.S. military actions. The text is punctuated with comments by senior White House aides and by old Washington hands whose careers go back more than half a century. The book provides not only a comprehensive key to the offices and activities that make the White House work, but also the feeling of belonging to that exclusive membership inside the West Wing.
In September 2003, seven former heads of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs gathered for the first time ever to compare their experiences working for every president from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton. For two days, these congressional liaisons, charged with moving their respective presidents’ legislative agendas through an independent—and sometimes hostile—Congress, shared first-hand views of the intricacies of presidential-congressional relations: how it works, how it doesn’t work, and the fascinating interplay of personalities, events, and politics that happens along the way. Hosted by noted presidential scholar Russell Riley and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, this seminar also featured a number of invited scholars of American politics, including the eminent Richard E. Neustadt, who appeared just before his death a month later. As explained by Riley, “. . . these discussions enlighten in two ways: they provide us a revealing glimpse into the inside, usually hidden, business of Washington, and they afford us the considered reflections of a thoughtful group of political veterans.” What makes these exchanges especially compelling, however, is their bipartisan cast, with Republicans Max L. Friedersdorf, William L. Ball III, and Frederick McClure joining Democrats Frank Moore, Charles M. Brain, John Hilley, and Lawrence Stein in thoughtful and friendly conversation.
