A Review of “Party Position Change in American Politics: Coalition Management”
reform legislation. Instead he offered general principles of reform, leaving Congress to work on the details of health legislation. Far from “managing” Congress, Obama appeared somewhat aloof, allowing Congress to find its own way to fulfill his principles. Perhaps another lesson learned from the Clinton failure. As the Health Reform Act became identified with an increasingly unpopular Clinton the hopes of passage declined; every time Clinton went “public,” he did his opponents a favor. Maybe Obama had received advice from a fellow Chicago politician, the late Dan Rostenkowski. I interviewed Rostenkowski several years ago in Chicago. He offered that he had counseled President Clinton to pursue this strategy: Clinton should tell Rostenkowski what he wanted in the bill and let him produce a bill that the president could live with. Rostenkowski reckoned that Clinton’s failure was a result of ignoring his advice. No one could “manage Congress” with the same skill as Lyndon Johnson. The chapter in this book on Medicare beautifully captures Johnson’s personality and his mastery of the institution. It is the chapter on Johnson—and Obama’s recent success—that makes Rostenkowski’s point: It is best to point Congress in the direction that the president hopes to go and then attempt to direct traffic from behind the lines, keeping “his fingerprints off the process” (185) in order to succeed. If the Obama example is instructive, the key is to “go public” strategically; it should be seen as a means to sometimes gently pressure, sometimes prod Congress toward a defined end goal. The scope of this study, the ambitious approach of the authors, and their deftness at story-telling, result in a book that sets a standard for the study of the presidency and of health policy. I sincerely hope that Blumenthal and Morone will combine their talents once more to tell the story of Obama’s Affordable Care Act and its passage. If they choose not to, whoever does take on that task can ill-afford to ignore this very important book.
Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics
The Description for this book, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics, will be forthcoming.
FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
'For the Rest of your life' is a new TV game show. Contestants play to win money every month for a specified amount of time. This article analyses the possible strategies that could be used and identifies the strategy that optimises the probability of winning the most money.