Examine The Claim That The President S Power Is To...

Examine the claim that ‘the president’s power is to persuade’. (45 marks)

Many such as professor Neustadt claim that the president’s power is the power to persuade. This is because there is little that the president can actually achieve without the approval of Congress and that of the Supreme Court. Any power that the president does have is checked by congress and can only be activated through his power of persuasion. This is due to the founding father’s fear of Tyranny and wanting the three branches of the federal government to cooperate together, rather than enabling the executive branch to do as it wishes. Therefore each branch is limited and has its own powers, the president’s power being that of persuasion.

One of Obama’s presidential promises was to ensure a fast recovery of the American economy. His frustration came about by the slow recovery of the nations economy after the new stimulus package “American Jobs Act” was sitting before congress. Obama eager to encourage the rate of approval for the legislation decided to show his support for the Act by delivering a speech on prime to a joint session of congress. In order to do this, the president had to persuade the Republican Speaker to authorize this, of which he was unsuccessful to do, and had to wait until the following day of which Boehner gave permission for his speech to take place. The president was unable to take any further action to further his cause, and the following day, of which he was expected to deliver his speech, it was the opening of the NFL season, which took much attention away from his speech. Being unable to address congress at his will, or help push forward the Act, suggests that without being able to persuade congress the presidents is very much ineffective. Of which it is neither necessarily always effective nor successful.

Furthermore the fact that the president will tend to choose his vice president from congress suggests that he wishes too use his power of persuasion through other people. The last 6 vice presidents have been former members of congress. For example Bush’s vice president was Dick Cheney, having spent 10 years as a member of the House, he had many political relationships with the members in the house and he was widely likes by both chambers. The vice president also having an office in the senate gives the president more power in congress as he is able to use his vice president as a persuasive tool for support, also he not only uses the vice president but also members of the of the Office of Legislative Affairs, who work as full time lobbyists for the president. It is through the his executive team that the president is able to exert a stronger force of persuasion and lobbying congress members in his favour to be able to support his policies.

Another theory that supports the claim that the president’s only power is persuasion is that all his powers are strictly checked by congress. The presidential appointments, negotiations of treaties, declaration of war are all checked by congress as they can choose to reject any of the president’s proposals. For example after the resignation of Hilary Clinton Obama had to seek congress’s approval for Joe Biden of which he had to persuade congress. Similar to this is the START treaty between Russia and America, Obama had to ensure that congress were kept up to date with the negotiations and were informed on its benefits, to ensure that congress did not reject the treaty. This suggests that president’s power is only to persuade and that it is really congress that takes action and is the leader, as the president must always ask congress’s permission, for example at times of declaring war, otherwise being known as bargainer in chief.

However, in recent years it could be argued that president has taken a step towards the imperial

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