Electoral College Consequences

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Electoral College Consequences

• Winner-take-all
• Battleground states
• Targeted in campaigns
• Policy benefits
• Depresses turnout
• Build broad geographical coalition
• Misfire?
• Bush 3.5 million popular vote margin
• Swing of 150,000 votes in Ohio

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Britains Division
Head of Government

• Head of State

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President wears many hats

• Chief of State
• Manager of the Economy
• Chief Executive
• Commander-in-Chief
• Chief Diplomat
• Chief Legislator
• Chief of the Party
• World Leader

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Constitutional Basics

• Normative ?-- Hamilton, Fed No. 70. Energy in
  the Executive
• one person office
• elected for a fixed term
• national constituency
• Vague formal powers from Constitution

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Constitutional DNA

• Hamilton
• Energy in the Executive
• One person office
• Fixed term
• National constituency
• Vague formal powers

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Few Formal Executive Powers

• Administrative head of government
• Commander-in-Chief of military
• Veto (or sign) legislation
• Nominate judges, cabinet secretaries
• Treaties, pardons, convene Congress

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Modern Presidency
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FDRs Legacy

• Wins World War II
• Ends the Great Depression
• Ends economic insecurity with Social Security
• Fights for working man (unions, minimum wage)
• Reduces agricultural poverty (farm supports)

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The Modern PresidencyWWII onward
The FDR Standard (1932-45)

• Emphasis on leadership bully pulpit
• National problems
• New role for federal government
• President as active leader
• Welfare state
• Expanded executive branch (budget)

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Paradox of the Modern Presidency

• President is 1
• Increased expectations of presidency
• Increased staff, resources
• Shift in quality and quantity of attention paid
  to president
• Chief policy-maker
• BUT
• No change in formal powers!

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New American President --Power of Clark Kent
--Expectations of Superman
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Going Public Strategy

• Presidents
• Marshall public support for their policies and
  actions
• Cultivate popular cultural image of themselves

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Public Approval of President

• Three general trends
• Declines while in office
• Economy
• Rally events and scandals
• Beyond Presidential Control

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The Current Incumbent
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Bush- Social Security Roadtrip
Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W.
Bush is handling Social Security (USA
Today/Gallup)
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What is George W. Bushs image?
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Macho

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Mission Accomplished

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Cowboy (not wimp)
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Compassionate Conservative
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Education President
?
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Likes Children and Baseball
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Patriotism
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Going Public
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Alternative Image?
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Institutional Presidency

• Jefferson in 1900 had 2 assistants
• Brownlow Committee
• The president needs help
• President not Congress should be in charge of
  executive branch

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Presidency is Many People
EOP OMB, NSC, CEA, czars, VP, and WHO WHO
close advisors, no Senate approval
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Where is the Power?

• Cabinet Officials
• Department of State
• Department of Defense
• Department of Treasury

• Exec. Office of Pres.
• White House Office (WHO)
• NSC
• OMB
• CEA

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Institutional Presidency I West Wing
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Institutional Presidency II OEOB
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Implications of Instit. Pres

• Radical change in system of government?
• Increased presidential control of policy making
  and centralization of the decision making
• Increases potential for screw ups
• Reduced accountability

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Transition from Historical to Modern Presidency

• Historic Presidency
• President is a clerk
• Congress 1
• Modern Presidency
• Increased popular expectations
• President 1
• No change in formal powers

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Modern Presidents Response

• Devote tremendous time and resources to
  manipulating public image
• Going public
• Have immense staff of political, policy, and
  partisan experts
• Institutional presidency
• Are presidents stronger YES, but expectations
  outstrip capacity

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Worlds Greatest Clerkship

• Neustadt, Presidential Power (Als prof)
• power of president do not flow from literary
  reading of constitution
• Decisions are not self executing JFK, Cuban
  Missile Crisis
• "The conditions that promote his leadership in
  form, preclude a guarantee of leadership in
  fact."
• presidential power is power to bargain

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Limited formal powersconstant bargaining

• President can
• Nominate judges, but
• Propose trade treaties, but
• Propose popular legislation, but
• Propose spending less on military golf courses,
• Will Presidents keep their promises?
• Constitutional odds are stacked against them!

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Presidential power persuasion

• Formal powers are minimal
• Can propose legislation, C in C
• Dependent on other institutions
• Informal powers are crucial
• Presidential power is power to persuade
• Presidents have to bargain

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Informal Powers

• Professional reputation
• Electoral results
• Bargaining
• Carrot and the stick
• Marshalling public opinion (going public)

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The Stick and Senator Shelby

• Dem criticizes Clintons Budget
• Space Shuttle to TX
• No Tickets for Bama Celebration at WH
• Shelbys response?

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Unsuccessful Persuasion

• Clinton Campaign Promise
• Allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in
  military
• Congress
• Sam Nunn (D-GA) on the submarine
• Dont ask, dont tell in Family Medical Leave Act
• C in C of Military
• Cruising chat rooms and gay bars

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Success of Dont Ask/Dont Tell

• Source CNN Special Report

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Truman and Marshall Plan

• Trumans prospects for Aid to Europe
• Un-elected president
• Very unpopular
• Large GOP majorities in Congress
• Memory of Great Depression
• Increasing Isolationism

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Ranking Presidents

• Will history judge Bill Clinton as a great
  president? George W. Bush?
• Why or why not?

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Ranking Post WW II Presidents

• Good/Great
• Truman
• Eisenhower
• JFK
• LBJ
• Reagan
• Clinton
• Why such variety?

• Bad/Failures
• Nixon
• Ford
• Carter
• Bush (41)

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Greenstein

• Executive branch reflects the character and
  personality of the president
• highly personalized nature of modern American
  Presidency
• Presidential success Characteristics of
  Individual President

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Effectiveness as Public Communicator

• Bully Pulpit

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Organizational Capacity

• Loyalty
• Candid discussion
• Prevent group-think

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Political Skill

• Establish reputation as skilled operator
• Opposes, then Signs
• Corporate Responsibility Act
• Homeland Security
• Public opposes
• Tax Cuts
• War in Iraq

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Vision Thing

• Possession of a set of overarching goals
• Over-rated?

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Cognitive Style

• Presidency not a multiple choice test
• Reagan vs. Carter

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Emotional Intelligence

• Disturbed
• Nixon
• LBJ
• Risk-takers
• JFK
• Clinton

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Skrownek

• Presidents in Historical Time
• Times affects nature of skill

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Political time as a resource for or constraint on
a president
Regime strength Presidents Party Affiliation Opposed Affiliated Presidents Party Affiliation Opposed Affiliated
Vulnerable regime Reconstructive president Disjunctive president
Resilient regime Preemptive president Articulator (Faithful Son) president
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Political Time

• The idea that at any given time there is a
  dominant ideological regime, connected to, but
  even broader than party.
• A presidents partys relationship to the
  dominant partisan regime LIMITS or EXPANDS a
  presidents legitimate authority to change
  national policies

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Politics of Reconstruction

• Greatest potential for leadership
• New ideological commitments
• Create new political coalitions

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Politics of Preemption

• Constrained by dominant ideological regime
• Era of big government is dead NAFTA, Welfare
  reform, balanced budget
• Focus on creative political leadership
• V-Chip, New Covenant
• Danger or personal political isolation

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Politics of Articulation

• Normal situation
• Deliver on Regimes unfulfilled policy agenda
• Tax cuts, deregulation, moral issues
• Partial birth abortion, abstinence education, gay
  marriage
• Maintain Political Coalition
• Prevent Moral-Economic split

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Is a strong president good?

• Framers
• Can a president represent an entire nation
• Woodrow Wilson/Teddy Roosevelt critique

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Presidential Power- 2 views

• It is not only the presidents "right, but his
  duty to do anything that the needs of the nation
  demanded unless such action was forbidden by the
  Congress." T. Roosevelt
• The president can exercise no power which cannot
  be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific
  grant of power .. either in the federal
  constitution or in an act of Congress. There is
  no undefined residuum of power which he can
  exercise because it seems to him to be in the
  public interest. William Taft 1916.