Earlygame political capital expenditure determines end-game voting patterns

To the cynic, meetings between White House officials and congressional leaders offer little more than pageantry - an opportunity to portray legislative work, not to do it. And, to be sure, sometimes these interbranch exchanges entail little more than pleasantries and pictures. However, many close observers of the presidential-congressional relationship have long cited prevoting bargaining across Pennsylvania Avenue as being substantively important. For example, discussing President Eisenhower's legislative record in 1953, CQ staffers issued a caveat they have often repeated in the years since: The President's leadership often was tested beyond the glare spot- lighting roll calls....Negotiations off the floor and action in commit- tee sometimes are as important as the recorded votes. (CQ Almanac 1953,77) Many a political scientist has agreed. Charles Jones (1994), for one, wrote, "However they are interpreted, roll call votes cannot be more than they are: one form of floor action on legislation .If analysts insist on scoring the president, concentrating on this stage of lawmaking can provide no more than a partial tally" (195)' And Jon Bond and Richard Fleisher (1990) note that even if they ultimately are reflected in roll-call votes, "many important decisions in Congress are made in places other than floor votes and recorded by means other than roll calls ... " (68). Still, while citing earlygame processes as being potentially important, no one has yet shown how (or when) they are, much less integrated the earlygame and endgame within a unified framework. This is what I aim to accomplish here. Specifically, let me now uncover how, in addition to the familiar endgame lobbying option, presidents may also seek to exert influence in the legislative earlygame by implementing a two-pronged approach: mobilizing leading allies and deterring leading opponents.