Question

1. There are various ways in which presidents can set the agenda, such as the State of the Union address, bully pulpit, etc. Identify an example of a president setting the agenda. Were they successful? Why or why not?

Answer 1

President Obama’s Early Efforts to Lead the Public on the Economy
Two key domestic issues dominated President Obama’s first term in office. Obama’s
focus on the economy, as will be seen, was primarily a response to the “Great Recession” crisis
and the overwhelming public concern for economic issues. The second key Obama priority was
clearly an effort on the part of the president to fulfill a critical campaign promise to reform the
health care system. On health care reform, while the president was ultimately successful in
setting the agenda and enacting landmark legislation (Bose 2016), his efforts to get the public
behind his policy failed to alter public preferences on health care. Rather, as Edwards (2012) has
shown, Obama’s efforts to lead the public on health care did more to solidify opposition among
the public than it did to alter preferences toward supporting the president’s proposals.3
In terms of the economy, while Obama’s initial efforts on the federal stimulus were
successful, in that they appear to have increased public support for the $787 billion stimulus plan
passed in February, 2009 (Rottinghaus 2010: 214-215), public assessments of his handling of the
economy (and, thus, his overall approval ratings) decreased steadily during his first few years in
office. On a range of economic policies, Obama was simply unable to move public preferences
toward his favored policy positions (Edwards 2012), although in many instances early on his
preferences were aligned with a plurality of voters (Canes-Wrone and Kelly 2013). Both of
Obama’s efforts to sell his major policies in 2009 met with little payoff in terms of shifting the
public’s policy preferences. In fact, this is unsurprising, given the inability of presidents to
persuade the American public to adopt the presidents’ policy stances (Edwards 2003; 2009;
2010). Does this mean, however, that going public is a defunct presidential leadership strategy, as
Edwards (2012) concludes?
Presidential efforts at public leadership may engender benefits with regard to influencing
the systemic agenda, i.e., those issues salient in the media and among the public. While the
president may be unable to demonstrably shift public preferences on an issue, his or her efforts
may place the issue onto the public and media’s agendas and have the effect of pushing others in
government (most notably Congress) to move on the perceived public problem. A corollary
benefit may come if it is evident that the president is responding to the public’s agenda, rather
than leading it. Here, the perception that the president is doing something about a perceived
public problem can serve to help the president move the rest of government to act on the
problem, where it otherwise may not.
It is evident that President Obama led the public’s agenda on health care and that this
success may have contributed to his ultimate legislative victory (Eshbaugh-Soha and Peake
2011). Less clear, however, is the degree to which Obama led on the economy, despite a
signature legislative success on the economic stimulus in February 2009. When he entered office
in January, Obama’s agenda was set for him due to the economic calamity that faced the nation
as a result of the financial collapse in late 2008. The “Great Recession” dominated news
coverage at the start of his term and 79% of the public cited some component of the economy as 4
the nation’s most important problem, according to the Gallup Poll. It is clear, then, that on the
economy, President Obama was responding to the public’s agenda, rather than leading it as he
was able to do later in the year on health care. Obama went public to show that he was tackling
job number one (the economy), making several trips spanning the nation pushing his economic stimulus and trumpeting his success following its passage in early February. His efforts had all of
the trappings of a typical “going local” effort (Cohen 2010).5
Despite Obama’s success on the economic stimulus, the economy remained the number
one priority of the American public. Media coverage also remained relatively high through 2010,
though at times other issues competed with the economy for attention from the news media.
Also, public concern for the economy increased markedly early in 2010 and again late in the
year. As unemployment continued its march upward, peaking at 10% in October 2009, public
concern for unemployment, as a specific economic problem, started to increase reaching a high
of 31% as a “most important problem” in the Gallup Poll. President Obama responded with
increased public relations and legislative efforts for the extension of unemployment benefits and
job creation during the remainder of 2010 and into 2011.
In April 2011 and later that summer, the federal debt became a critical issue in
Washington, despite not having registered higher than 11% in Gallup’s “most important
problem” question over the previous two years. Republicans decided to make funding the
government’s obligations and the debt ceiling a partisan issue, drawing Obama into a pitched
battle over the debt. The conflict over the debt increased coverage of the economy and public
concern for the economy increased markedly during the summer of 2011. Specific responses
regarding the debt as a “most important problem” also increased, hitting 17% during April and
August. This provided an important political opportunity for President Obama to emphasize
responsibility in tackling the debt (Canes-Wrone and Kelly 2013), while refocusing attention
back to an issue that remained high on the public’s agenda: unemployment.
Following the battle over the debt ceiling, Obama shifted his public efforts to pushing his
jobs plan. His public relations efforts on behalf of the jobs plan followed a similar pattern that
was used for health care reform in 2009, though on a smaller scale and with little legislative
success, as it was dead on arrival in the Republican controlled House of Representatives. During
August, 2011, Obama travelled to five different states pushing his jobs plan. He followed that up
with seven more “going local” trips and a national address before a joint session of Congress in
September and five more domestic trips in October. Obama’s focus on economic issues clearly 6
shifted from talk on the debt to talk on jobs during these efforts. The data indicate a similar shift by Obama toward unemployment during the
first half of 2012, as he geared up for reelection.
While the above discussion suggests Obama led on the economic agenda, determining
with some degree of certainty whether or not Obama’s public relations efforts on the economy
were largely responsive or constituted agenda-setting leadership requires more sophisticated
analysis.