More “Leadership” Can Be Counterproductive

Politico reports on the growing discontent with Barack Obama in Spanish-language media:

Univision’s Jorge Ramos, an anchor on the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network, says Obama broke his promise to produce an immigration reform bill within a year of taking office. And Latinos are tired of the speeches, disillusioned by the lack of White House leadership and distrustful of the president, Ramos told POLITICO.

“He has a credibility problem right now with Latinos,” Ramos said. “We’ll see what the political circumstances are in a couple of years, but there is a serious credibility problem.”

As readers will recall, I’m generally skeptical of claims that lack of presidential action is the cause of legislative non-outcomes. In the case of immigration, there was a bipartisan congressional coalition behind reform and the key Republican members of that coalition decided to defect. The president can’t perform inception on Mitch McConnell and make him want to do this.

But on this specific issue, I think there’s reason to believe that presidential leadership would actually be counterproductive. In Beyond Ideology, Frances Lee assembles some evidence—best read about on Ezra Klein’s blog—that when Presidents insert themselves into legislative debates, that induces partisan polarization. Immigration has always been an issue that scrambles both parties coalitions, and I don’t think that’s changed today. A more polarized dynamic is only going to make reform harder to achieve. Of course the president would have a role in pushing a bill over the finish line, but success requires a starting baseline of genuine cooperation on the Hill.

I think the problem here is largely one of over-promising. Something like “as President, I’ll try to play a constructive role in any immigration reform compromise that may or may not arise in the course of congressional negotiations!” isn’t much of an applause line.