What Can a President Do?

As ever, the economy looms large ahead of next week's elections. Forecasters are expecting incumbents to get tossed from their seats across the country, and voters say that the weak economy is the reason (A Newsweek poll actually puts the share of voters for whom the economy is the top issue about 20 points higher, but it's a pdf.)

The New York Times' David Leonhardt reminds us that when voters judge incumbents, policy positions take a backseat to perceptions of effectiveness. The early Spring Democratic strategy of complaining that Republicans were the "Party of No" highlighted the Democrats' inability to advance a centrist agenda over the objections of the minority party. Of course, the fact is that the Democrats achieved a large number of legislative goals in the 111th Congress. Compared to an average of 12 "major accomplishments" as picked by Wikipedia for a Congress since 1958, the 111th Congress has so far passed 22 major bills. That puts it as the second most productive Congress in the last 62 years, and the most productive under a Democratic president. However, the media narrative, driven by the "Party of No" strategy on the Democratic side never fixed on that data. The Republican contention that the Obama agenda has represented an unparalleled expansion of federal government power and spending implies efficacy of the Democratic majorities of Congress, but for some reason has not created a consensus that the 111th Congress has achieved much of anything. Only a third of Democrats think that this Congress has been more productive than recent ones, and that number goes down to one fifth of all American adults.