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- Time and resources devoted to spending PC on items are finite and trade off with Obama’s legislative agenda
- Statistically proven
Ext. PC Finite – GeneralThere is spillover --political capital is finite and the time and energy necessary to pass the plan trades off with other priorities. Getting the plan makes Congress less likely to grant Obama other favors.Moore, 13 --Guardian's US finance and economics editor (Heidi, 9/10/2013, “Syria: the great distraction; Obama is focused on a conflict abroad, but the fight he should be gearing up for is with Congress on America's economic security,” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/obama-syria-what-about-sequester, JMP) Political capital – the ability to horse-trade and win political favors from a receptive audience – is a finite resource in Washington. Pursuing misguided policies takes up time, but it also eats up credibility in asking for the next favor. It's fair to say that congressional Republicans, particularly in the House, have no love for Obama and are likely to oppose anything he supports. That's exactly the reason the White House should stop proposing policies as if it is scattering buckshot and focus with intensity on the domestic tasks it wants to accomplish, one at a time. Most robust studies prove PC is finite and spills over- spending PC on controversial items hurts Obama’s legislative agenda- err neg- likely that we UNDERESTIMATE that impactAnthony J. Madonna¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia, et al Richard L. Vining Jr.¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia and James E. Monogan III¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia 10-25-2012 “Confirmation Wars and Collateral Damage:¶ Assessing the Impact of Supreme Court¶ Nominations on Presidential Success in the¶ U.S. Senate” We have argued that presidents are less likely to be successful enacting their policy proposals¶ and filling lower court vacancies when they are forced to expend greater relative effort on¶ a Supreme Court nominee. Using data on all presidential proposals from 1967 to 2010, our¶ results show that the more a president is forced to go public on a nominee's behalf, the less¶ successful he is at enacting important policy initiatives from his agenda in the U.S. Senate.¶ Additionally, data on all lower federal court nominations from 1977 to 2010 indicate that the¶ more effort a president dedicates to promoting a Supreme Court nominee, the less successful¶ he is at achieving senatorial consent to his district court nominees. All of this fits with the¶ broad idea that political capital is a valuable commodity for the president.¶ Furthermore, because we include presidential proposals and nominations only after the¶ president has made them, it is likely that we underestimate the collateral damage caused by¶ presidents' relative efforts on Supreme Court nominations. It seems likely that presidents¶ faced with a Supreme Court vacancy are slower in proposing agenda-items and vetting po-¶ tential nominees to lower federal courts. Indeed, Republican senators criticized President¶ Barack Obama for nominating potential judges more slowly than his predecessors. Respond-¶ ing to this, President Obama pointed to “other priorities," including the two Supreme Court¶ nominations.20 Future work should consider the effect of Supreme Court vacancies on the¶ executive branch's output.¶ Our analysis highlights the important role played by transaction costs and has important¶ implications for scholars who examine policy-making in either the U.S. Senate or separation¶ of powers context. There is overwhelming evidence demonstrating that once a bill or nomination is on the ¶ floor, its success or failure is in large part determined by the underlying¶ content of the measure (or the ideal point of a nominee) in relation to the ideological loca-¶ tion of key legislative pivots. But no legislative or nomination battle is fought in a vacuum.¶ The amount of time and resources devoted to the enactment of a given bill or nomination¶ directly influences the success of pending agenda items. This implies that the enactment of a¶ particularly salient piece of legislation or a lengthy battle over a controversial lower-court or¶ executive branch nomination likely has substantial consequences on the broader presidential or legislative agenda. Time and resources devoted to spending PC on items are finite and trade off with Obama’s legislative agendaAnthony J. Madonna¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia, et al Richard L. Vining Jr.¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia and James E. Monogan III¶ Assistant Professor¶ University of Georgia 10-25-2012 “Confirmation Wars and Collateral Damage:¶ Assessing the Impact of Supreme Court¶ Nominations on Presidential Success in the¶ U.S. Senate” When faced with aggressive opposition, presidents can spend large amounts of political¶ capital to secure victory (Johnson and Roberts 2004; Cameron and Park 2011). We argue¶ that this use of time and resources is not likely to be costless.10 A confirmation process in¶ which the president frequently engages the public reduces his personal resources and distracts¶ elites from other policy priorities. Thus, hard-fought wars over Supreme Court nominees can¶ cause substantial collateral damage to both the president's legislative agenda and his ability¶ to fill vacancies on lower federal courts. We hypothesize that presidents who expend more¶ effort, and thereby spend more political capital, to advocate confirmation of a Supreme Court¶ nominee are less likely to experience success in enacting legislative agenda items and getting¶ their nominees to lower federal courts confirmed than presidents who devote less effort to promote confirmation. This proposition is untested despite widespread speculation that¶ the confirmation process weakens the president's bargaining position in other policy areas¶ (Groseclose and McCarty 2001; Mackenzie 1981; Shipan and Shannon 2003). Controversies hurt Gerson 10– 12/19, Washington post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/16/AR2010121604039.html In some areas - such as education reform or the tax deal - Obama's governing practice is better than his political skills. But these skills matter precisely because political capital is limited. The early pursuit of ambitious health-care reform was a political mistake, as former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel internally argued. But every president has the right to spend his popularity on what he regards as matters of principle. Political risks, taken out of conviction with open eyes, are an admirable element of leadership. Yet political errors made out of pique or poor planning undermine the possibility of achievement. Rather than being spent, popularity is squandered - something the Obama administration has often done. Statistically provenBond & Fleisher 96 [Jon R. and Richard. professor in Political Science - Texas A&M and Professor in Political Science. Fordham "The President in Legislation" p.223] Presidency-centered variables, however, provide an even weaker explanation of presidential success. We found little support for the thesis that the weakness of legislative parties increases the importance of presidential skill or popularity for determining presidential success on roll call votes. Our analysis reveals that presidents reputed to be highly skilled do not win consistently more often than should be expected given the conditions they faced. Similarly, presidents reputed to be unskilled do not win significantly less often than expected. The analysis of presidential popularity reveals that the president's standing in the polls has only a marginal impact on the probability of success or failure. 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