UC Berkeley Working Papers Title Bill Clinton's presidential party leadership : a preliminary assessment Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cq522z5 Author Bass, Harold F. Publication Date 1993 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California ill Clinton's Presidential Party Leadership: A Preliminary Assessment Harold F. Bass, Jr. Department of Political Science Ouachita Baptist University Arkadelphia, Arkansas INSTITUTE OFI STO.OfP Working Paper 93-14 FEB 1 0 1994 UNlVERSiTY 0 = JJALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY Bill Clinton's Presidential Party Leadership: A Preliminary Assessment Harold F. jkass, Jr. Department of P<il~itical Science Ouachita Baptist University Arkadelphia, Arkansas Working Paper 93-14 Working Papers published by the Institute of Governmental Studies provide quick dissemination of draft reports and papers, preliminary analysis, and papers with a limited audience. The objective is to assist authors in refining their ideas by circulating research results and to stimulate discussion about public policy. Working Papers are reproduced unedited directly from the author's pages. BILL CLINTON'S PRESIDENTIAL PARTY LEADERSHIP: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT Harold F. Bass, Jr. Department of Political Science Ouachita Baptist University Arkadelphia, Arkansas 71998-0001 Prepared for delivery at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, The Washington Hilton, September 2-5, 1993. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. BILL CLINTON'S PRESIDENTIAL PARTY LEADERSHIP: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT Introductory Considerations and Analytical Framework This preliminary assessment of Bill Clinton's presidential party leadership both updates the author's abiding interest in that elusiye^ role^ and anticipates a subsequent, more considered, eyaluation of Clinton as party leader. As a concept and a phenomenon, presidential party leadership has been relatiyely neglected by presidential scholars. Neyertheless, seyeral noteworthy contributions haye been forthcoming.^ ' See, for example, Harold F. Bass, "The President and the National Party Organization," in Presidents and Their Parties: Leadership or Neglect?, ed. Robert Harmel (New York: Praeger, 1984) , 59-89; "The National Chairman Becomes President: George Bush as Party Leader," in Leadership and the Bush Presidency: Prudence or Drift in an Era of Change?, ed. Ryan J. Barilleaux and Mary E. Stuckey (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992) 115-32; "Comparing Presidential Party Leadership Transfers: Two Cases," Presidential Studies Quarterly 23 (Winter 1993): 115-28. ^ For recent examples, see James W. Dayis, The President as Party Leader (New York: Praeger, 1992), and Sidney M. Milkis, The Modern Presidency and the Transformation of the American Party System (New York: Oxford Uniyersity Press, forthcoming). Also see Harmel, Presidents and Their Parties? Roger G. Brown,"The Presidency and the Political Parties," in The Presidency and the Political System, ed. Michael Nelson (Washington: CQ Press, 1985), 313-34; Sidney M. Milkis, "The Presidency and Political Parties," in The Presidency and the Political System. 2nd ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington: CQ Press, 1988), 331-49; Thomas E. Cronin, "The Presidency and the Parties," in Party Renewal in America, ed. Gerald Pomper (New York: Praeger, 1980), 176-93; Peter H. Odegard, "Presidential Leadership and Party Responsibility," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 307 (September 1956): 66-81; Lester G. Seligman, "The Presidential Office and the President as Party Leader, with a Postscript on the Kennedy-Nixon Era," in Parties and Elections in an Anti-Party Aae. ed. Jeff Fishel (Bloomington: Indiana Uniyersity Press, 1978), 295-302; Roger G. Brown and Dayid M. Welborn, "Presidents and Their Parties: Performance and Prospects," Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Summer 1982): 302- 16; Austin Ranney, "The President a.nd His Party," in Both Ends of the Ayenue: "The Presidency, the Executiye Branch, and Congress in the 1980s, ed. Anthony King (Washington: AEl, 1983), 131-53. For considerations of specific presidents, see Sean Sayage, Rooseyelt: The Party Leader, 1932-1945 (Lexington: Uniyersity Press of Kentucky, 1991); and Cornelius P. Cotter, "Eisenhower as Party Leader," Political Science Quarterly 98 (Summer 1983): 255-84. Paradox pervades presidential party leadership. It is peripheral, yet central; divisive, yet integrative. While the role lacks constitutional grounding, it quickly developed with the appearance of national political parties in the 1790s. The status of the presidential nominee at the head of the party ticket thereby enabled the incumbent, first as nominee and later as president, both to claim party leadership and to have that claim generally acknowledged. Perennially at issue is the substance of that claim. Potentially, party leadership elevates the president's power position. For example, fortified by partisanship, the chief executive can presume to lead fellow partisans in the independent legislature. With the idea and organization of party bridging the constitutional chasm between the executive and legislative branches, presidential party leadership provides the foundation for presidential government. Similarly, partisanship directly connects the president with substantial elements of the general public. With this link, the president can both generate and rely on public support. However, the American polity presents profound cultural and structural obstacles to presidential party leadership. The political culture views partisanship with considerable suspicion, associating it with distasteful divisiveness and meanness of spirit even while embracing it. An inevitably constraining conflict exists between the presidential roles of party leader and head of state. The latter calls for an elevated, non-partisan, president of all the people, orientation. The constitutional principles of separation of powers and federalism set up structural barriers to responsible party government under presidential leadership. Burns has identified two general types of leadership; transactional and transformational. He categorizes party leadership as transactional, featuring bargaining and negotiation in exchange contexts, while ascribing to transforming leadership more complexity and potency, along with an elevating, even moralistic quality.^ Clearly, presidential party leadership involves diverse arenas of exchange, corresponding with various partisan components: organizational, governmental, and electoral. The former pertains to presidential relations with the membership of the party apparatus, the middle category with other public office-holders who share the party label, and the latter with partisans in the general public. ^ James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 4, ch. 12. Further, president-party relations are dynamic; they waver over time in response to shifting power balances between the two institutions. The exchange relationship developed out of mutual needs and expectations that continue to frame it. At minimum, aspirants to the presidency have traditionally required party nominations to legitimate their candidacies. Further, parties are expected to provide their nominees not only with initial electoral assistance but also subsequent support in achieving political and policy objectives. It turn, parties look to the White House for assistance in party building, a developmental enterprise with both organizational and policy components. The point is that both the inclinations and institutional capabilities of president and party to satisfy each other can and do vary over time. In seeking to characterize and evaluate presidents as party leaders, four factors demand consideration. The first is the attitude of the incumbent toward partisanship in general and the party in particular, developed through background and experiences, but always exercised in the context of presidential role conflict that typically subordinates party leadership. For purposes of comparison, a continuum can be established, with presidential attitudes ranging from positive to negative. The second is the immediate political setting surrounding the exercise of party leadership by a particular president. Obviously, environmental circumstances vary across and even within presidencies. Relevant but not necessarily consistent features include perceived presence or absence of an electoral mandate, distribution of partisanship in the electorate, party control of Congress, and vitality of party organization. These continua extend from favorable to unfavorable. The third is the tenor of president-party relations: organizational, governmental, and electoral. In the consideration of presidential relations with the party organization, partisans in the government, and their counterparts in the electorate, the variation runs from congenial to hostile. Finally, there is an ideological component of party leadership, involving values, visions, and agendas. This addresses the president's goals and objectives of party leadership, the ends to which it is directed. Herein party leadership could manifest itself not merely in transactions, but in transformations as well. At issue for comparative analysis are the extent to which such an ideological factor is present in the presidency under consideration and the success the incumbent has in establishing preferred values. Clearly, this classification scheme