Description: Presidential Legislative Activity explores the presidency and develops a typology that examines presidential activities. Using the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, this book explores the nature of presidential behavior. This analysis includes such factors as pre...
Review Quotes:
"The political reporting corner that produced the rich material for Benedetto's book started in Buffalo with his coverage of George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign and eventually brought him to Washington in 1982 to help launch the Gannett Company's USA Today and then serve as its White House and national political correspondent. Many of the vignettes that fill the book are drawn from the years in the White House covering President George H.W. Bush (with whom Benedetto jogged on occasion), Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and from his travels as a member of the White House press corps." --Mike Brown, U.S.
"This book presents new and promising evidence for presidential scholars. Students of the presidency have been limited by a shortage of useful indicators of presidential behavior. Cavalli aims to examine what presidents actually do day by day. He coded entries from daily presidential diaries from the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, covering the first four months of three years from each administration's first term. With this new behavioral evidence, the author examines patterns of presidential contact and success with Congress.... The author convincingly demonstrates that his evidence comports with earlier qualitative studies of the behavior of the presidents... this useful explanatory study opens a door to a new wealth of evidence about presidential behavior that presidential scholars should pursue.Summing up: RECOMMENDED. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty." --S.E. Schier, Carleton College, Choice Reviews