LAUSR

cludes that even this more modest form of opinion leadership is often more easily said than done. The conditions under which such efforts succeed and fail are clearly a fruitful ground for additional research. Predicting the Presidency also breaks new theoretical and empirical ground. Chapter 7 examines presidents’ success in shaping opinion among cross-pressured Americans. Recent cases offer some evidence that presidents can bring along members of their own party, even when their actions conflict with many copartisans’ prior policy preferences. However, even here the data suggest the limits of opinion leadership. For example, President Obama succeeded in rallying many Democrats behind surveillance policies that most Democrats abhorred under President George W. Bush. However, Obama enjoyed little luck in rallying Democrats behind aid to Syrian rebels or strikes against the Assad regime. Perhaps even more interesting is the case of crosspressured opposition party members. Can presidents build support from the opposition by pursuing policies in line with their preferences? Edwards finds only modest evidence that they can. While Obama enjoyed considerable Republican support for military action against ISIS, in both the surveillance and Syrian airstrikes cases Edwards finds evidence of a significant backlash effect. Despite considerable Republican elite support for Obama’s policies, he failed to secure substantial support from Republicans in the mass public. Chapter 8 examines the critical question of whether the rise of social media has bolstered presidents’ capacity to lead opinion and mobilize their supporters to influence the legislative process. Past scholarship has documented the decline of the golden age of presidential television, increasing competition between news and entertainment options, and the fragmentation and atomization of the media environment, all of which have conspired against presidents’ ability to reach and appeal to a mass audience. Social media and other new forms of communication may offer presidents a way to counter these trends. Has the rise of social media been a game changer? After carefully tracing President Obama’s many efforts to exploit various media to influence the public and mobilize his supporters, Edwards argues it has not. While social media paid significant electoral dividends for Obama, it did little to boost his legislative agenda. While future scholarship will undoubtedly paint a fuller picture, at first blush the same would seem to be true for President Trump. Finally, having shown presidents’ struggles to move public opinion, Edwards argues that they have little more success persuading members of Congress. Perhaps most tellingly, the partisan balance of power in Congress is more predictive of roll-call voting outcomes today than ever before. Interestingly, Edwards notes that perhaps President Obama’s biggest legislative victory in his second term dominated by divided government—enacting a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans (those earning more than $450,000 a year)—was possible only because of the sunset provisions in the original Bush tax cuts. In this case, congressional inaction would have led to the expiration of all of the Bush tax cuts, congressional Republicans’ leastpreferred outcome. This reality, not presidential persuasion, enabled bipartisan compromise. To this, one might add that President Obama’s greatest achievement of his first term—the passage of the Affordable Care Act—was made possible only because of Senate Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority (which disappeared in the midst of the legislative battle itself, requiring a creative use of reconciliation). Similarly, President Trump’s most important legislative victory to date—the massive corporate tax cut—was also possible solely because of the use of reconciliation to circumvent the need for Democratic votes in the Senate. Is there anything presidents can do in the absence of such conditions or major opportunities in the political environment? In the conclusion, Edwards argues that presidents may best serve their interests by eschewing public appeals and “staying private” in the hopes of fostering an “accommodating spirit” among swayable members of Congress. To be sure, Edwards acknowledges that such an approach is far from a panacea. Nevertheless, he contends that such an approach “is likely to contribute to reducing gridlock, incivility, and public cynicism” (p. 213). Dialing back the public posturing could conceivably increase the grounds for compromise. However, the conditions under which such strategies can succeed in an increasingly polarized polity are plainly a question for further research.