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Leaders also must have the ability to bargain and compromise. One observer
noted, “To Senator Johnson, public policy evidently was an inexhaustibly bargain-
able product.”^19 Such leaders fi nd solutions where none appear possible. Leaders
also do favors for members to engender a feeling of personal obligation to the lead-
ership when it needs a key vote. Such favors include making campaign appearances,
helping with fund-raising, contributing to campaigns, helping members get desired
committee assignments, or guiding pet projects through the legislative process.
The party’s most powerful positive incentives are in the area of campaign
fi nance. In recent years the congressional campaign committees of both par-
ties and the national party organizations have been supplying candidates with
money and other resources in an attempt to gain more infl uence in the electoral
process. Party leaders may also help arrange a campaign stop or a fund-raiser
for a candidate with party leaders or the president. For example, President
Obama held dozens of fund-raisers for Democrats in 2010, earning him the label
“Fundraiser-in-Chief” from CBS News.^20 Such events typically raise $500,000
to more than $1 million.
Despite these positive reinforcements, members’ desire for re-election always
comes before party concerns, and leadership rarely tries to force a member to vote
against his or her constituents’ interests. For example, Democrats from rural areas,
where most constituents support gun ownership and many are hunters, would not
be expected to vote the party line favoring a gun-control bill. To be disciplined by
the party, a member of Congress must do something much more extreme than not
supporting the party on roll call votes; extreme moves would include supporting
the opposing party’s candidate for Speaker or passing strategic information to
the opposition. In such cases disciplinary measures might involve stripping the
member of all committee assignments or even expelling the member from his or
her seat. Despite occasional strong-arm tactics, party leaders have moved toward
a service-oriented leadership, recognizing that their power is only as strong as the
leeway granted by the rank-and-fi le membership.PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA WORKED
tirelessly as his party’s chief
fund-raiser and campaigner in
the 2010 midterm elections. He is
shown here at a campaign rally in
Nevada for Senator Harry Reid.