1. Presidents and the Permanent Campaign

© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. contents Preface vii 1 Presidents and the Permanent Campaign 1 2 The residentP as Fundraiser-in-Chief 13 3 The residentP as Party-Builder-in-Chief 42 4 Strategic Travel and the Permanent Campaign 89 5 The volvingE Role of White House Staff in Electoral Decision-Making 122 6 The mplicationsI of the Permanent Campaign 149 Notes 173 Index 193 © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. preface The seed for this book was planted in 2003 when much was being made of the extensive amounts of time that George W. Bush was spending in the states of Flor- ida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The media’s focus was based on the assumption that political concerns were driving decisions about how the president allocated his time and where he bestowed his attention. This emphasis was reminiscent of press coverage of Bill Clinton’s presidency, with its focus on the purportedly political nature of his White House. While one could certainly find examples of presidential actions that had electoral implications, I wondered whether the so-called permanent campaign would be evident if I examined its key indicators systematically and objectively. As I considered the many potential ways to approach the question of whether the permanent campaign did or did not exist, I was first drawn to presidential travel. When it comes to presidential elections, geography is a paramount factor. At both the nominating and general election stages, certain states are critically important to an aspiring or incumbent president’s prospects, while others offer little or no electoral reward. As the president’s time is arguably his, and someday her, scarc- est resource, how he allocates it and where he chooses to travel can reveal a great deal about his priorities. Naturally, the incentives of our electoral system structure candidate strategies. Do they relate to the ways presidents behave in office too? Thus, this study began with painstaking efforts to build an original data set on presidential travel, which led to many hours spent poring over the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. As I did so, I was struck by how often recent presidents had headlined political fundraisers and thought that this was an important and understudied part of the story, since most research on campaign finance is based on contribution data, which campaigns are required by law to provide to the Federal Election Commission. The extent to which presidents commit them- selves to raise political funds had not yet been examined, in part because of the effort involved in collecting the data, which would involve not only examining the Public Papers but also reviewing thousands of newspaper articles on presidential fundraising to capture the substantial number of fundraisers that were conducted out of public view and did not end up in the Public Papers. Additionally, in the course of writing this book, I conducted archival research at several presidential libraries and drew on accounts by presidents and their aides in an effort to understand how decisions about electoral matters are made, and the ways in which the role of White House staff in these matters has changed over time. vii © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. viii preface I seek to address four principal questions in this book. To what extent do presidents respond to electoral incentives and tend to electoral concerns throughout their terms in office? How have these dynamics evolved over time? Why have these changes come about? And what are the implications of these dynamics for presidential leadership? My goal is not to disparage any particular president for a focus on electoral matters but instead to better understand the ways in which political actors respond to the institutional incentives of our electoral system. No political system is neutral. Each sets up a series of rules that help to structure the behavior of goal-oriented politicians. It has long been understood that the behavior of presidential candidates is shaped by the incentives established by the American campaign finance regime, the presidential nominating process, and the Electoral College. The evidence presented here demonstrates that these incentives relate to the way presidents behave throughout their terms in office as well. I would like to make clear what I do and do not focus on in this book. The permanent campaign is a term that is often used broadly to refer to a president’s ongoing efforts to win public approval, to sell his policies once in office in the same manner in which he marketed himself as a candidate in the campaign, or to measure public sentiment through extensive use of public opinion polling. The extent to which presidents bring these techniques of a political campaign to the practice of governing is important and worthy of study, but this is not the subject of this project. To give this book a clear focus, my study examines the president’s efforts that are related to electoral concerns and the ways in which decisions about these matters are made in the White House. The first area of focus is presidential fundraising, which is an unambiguously electoral activity that reveals the extent to which a president devotes time to financing his own reelection campaign and to support- ing the electoral efforts of his fellow party members. The second is the president’s disproportionate attention to states that are strategically important in both the nominating process and the Electoral College. I then examine the evolving roles of key players in and out of the White House who help to make decisions about these matters. I advance an argument about why we see these changing dynamics, and what they portend for the nature of presidential leadership. Readers may agree with or contest my interpretation of these elements of the presidency, but the heart of the book is the clear and important empirical evidence of the growing focus by American presidents on electoral concerns throughout their terms in office. I am deeply grateful for the support and advice that many people have generously provided me as I have worked on this project. As thanking them all properly might require doubling the length of the book, I hope that these brief words of grati- © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. preface ix tude will suffice instead. I owe special thanks to Nelson Polsby and Bruce Cain of the University of California, Berkeley. Both did much to teach me about conduct- ing scholarly research with practical political implications, and their leadership of Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies provided me with an academic home that was a vibrant hub of collaborative scholarship. Nelson, who passed away shortly after I completed graduate school, often claimed that he left no fingerprints on the work of his advisees. I respectfully beg to differ, as my research is infused with the thoughtful advice he offered me and is inspired by the example of his own carefully crafted scholarship. Bruce worked diligently to support my research on the West and the East Coast, providing me with invaluable feedback on my work as well as enlightening opportunities to collaborate with him on research and engage with other scholars both in the United States and abroad, all of which greatly aided my professional and personal development. At Berkeley, a number of other people kindly lent their time and assistance. Gordon Silverstein helped to frame my research in light of the all-important “so what?” question, and Terri Bimes taught me by example how one can conduct rig- orous and systematic research on the presidency. I am also grateful to Eric Schick- ler, Ray Wolfinger, Sandy Muir, Bob Kagan, Jack Citrin, Judy Gruber, Laura Stoker, Henry Brady, John Ellwood, and Jerry Lubenow, as well as my then fellow graduate students Melissa Cully Anderson, Dave Hopkins, Matt Grossmann, Iris Hui, Casey Dominguez, Darshan Goux, Megan Mullin, and Jill Greenlee, all of whom helped to shape this project at its early stages by providing specific feedback and general support. I owe an even earlier debt of gratitude to George Demko, who helped spark my fascination with political geography when I was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. His example as a teacher and scholar inspired me to pursue a career as a professor. When I moved to the East Coast near the conclusion of my graduate studies, the University of California Washington Center and the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center for Political Science and Pub- lic Affairs each provided a warm and welcoming community in which to do my work, for which I thank Bruce Cain, Jeff Biggs, Sean Twombly, and Veronica Jones. For the past five years, my colleagues at the U.S. Naval Academy have provided a supportive environment in which both teaching and research are valued. I owe particular thanks to my three department chairs, Ellie Malone, Gale Mattox, and Priscilla Zotti, as well as my colleagues in American politics, Howard Ernst and Steve Frantzich. Other people from across the country have generously shared their expertise at conferences, over coffee, and in various other venues. Jessica Gerrity kindly read the entire manuscript with a keen and skillful eye, providing me with insightful advice for which I am tremendously grateful. Dorie Apollonio, Hal Bass, David © University Press of Kansas.

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