When we talk about the increase of presidential power over time, we will point out that increasingly powerful media technology has allowed presidents to attempt to mobilize public opinion in his favor. The term used to describe this is "going public" and it refers to a type of presidential leadership that has developed in the past two or three decades and involves presidents making direct appeals to the public primarily rather than Congress, and event tries to use the public as leverage against Congress.
President Obama attempted to do so tonight with a speech from the White House. The NYT details the speech here.
The problem for presidents in the contemporary environment is that their opponents have the same ability to get their messages out. Going public may have worked best in a simpler media environment where it was difficult to get a message out. That's less the case in this age of Facebook and Twitter.
