American President and the Public & Understanding and Evaluating Presidents
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The President and the Public
Theodore Roosevelt changed the public’s perception of the presidency by asserting the centrality of the office in American government. The president is chosen by the whole nation, not just a district or state, and therefore the office of the president is the most important office in the federal government. Roosevelt’s stewardship theory of the presidency claimed that the president has the right to do whatever the nation needs, within the limits of the law.
The President’s Constituents
The president has a number of different constituencies. The most obvious constituency is the citizens of the United States: He or she is the president of all people in the United States, not just those who voted for him or her. But the president also has constituents in the political party, members of the opposing party whose cooperation the president needs, as well as interest groups. The Washington community—a term used to describe the government officials, pundits, and columnists in Washington, D.C.—is an often unwanted constituency but one that has influence because of its impact on public opinion.
Presidential Approval
A presidential approval poll measures the degree to which Americans approve of the president’s job. The president’s popularity affects presidential power because a popular president is much more likely to persuade reluctant members of Congress or the public than an unpopular one. A high approval rating—60 percent or above—makes a president very strong, whereas a weak rating—below 50 percent—weakens a presidency. Presidential approval sometimes changes dramatically during the president’s term.
Example: George H. W. Bush’s approval rating hit extremes that few other presidents have reached within a single term in office (1989–1993). Bush’s approval rating peaked at 89 percent after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He was defeated in his bid for reelection only eighteen months later, however, after his approval rating dropped to 29 percent at the end of July 1992. He left office with an approval rating of 56 percent.
When a president first takes office, he is often given what is called a honeymoon period: For a few months, the public, the media, and members of Congress tend to give the president the benefit of the doubt and treat him well. However, this honeymoon period is usually fairly short and often gives way to opposition and hostility.
The Permanent Campaign
Recent presidents have sometimes been accused of running a permanent campaign, meaning that the president and his staff always operate as if they are running an election campaign. This includes the use of campaign tactics—such as immediate response, staying on message, and photo opportunities—to govern.
The President and the Media
Presidents often use the media to speak to the American people directly in order to generate public support for their policies. Since World War II, presidents have increasingly used the media to gain popularity and leverage in their relationship with Congress. This strategy has been dubbed going public.
Example: At the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, President George W. Bush and his aides decided to “go public.” Bush made many speeches in support of going to war in Iraq, and he convinced many, many people to support the war. Perhaps as a result, support for Bush surged in the spring of 2003.
Changes in Media Coverage
Reporters covering the president today are very different from their counterparts a few decades ago. Journalists today are much more likely to report anything that the president does, including things that could hurt the president’s image. Many White House correspondents knew, for example, that FDR needed a wheelchair and that John Kennedy cheated on his wife, yet no one reported those facts. It’s hard to imagine something like that happening today because media scrutiny is much more intense.
Understanding and Evaluating Presidents
Understanding and evaluating presidents poses problems for political scientists because only one president serves at time and since each president faces very different challenges. Political scientists call this the one-n problem. Because the circumstances of a presidency have a tremendous impact on the success and failure of that presidency, determining whether a president was good or bad is difficult, particularly when we start comparing presidents. Only Franklin Roosevelt was president at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, for example, and only Abraham Lincoln was president during the Civil War. How can one judge, then, how Lincoln would have handled Pearl Harbor or FDR the Civil War?
Factors Contributing to Success and Failure
Many factors affect how successful a president will be:
- Strong leadership: The ability to rally people behind him
- Congress: The ability to control or persuade members of Congress
- Popularity: The ability to convince others to do as he wishes
Decision-Making Analysis
Decision-making analysis explores the methods and circumstances under which key decisions are made. Graham T. Allison’s Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971) is a famous example. Allison sought to understand the decisions made by the inner circle of the Kennedy Administration (and to a lesser extent, by the Soviets) during the crisis in 1962. He devised three models, all of which explain parts of the decision-making process:
- The rational actor model: Decision makers act in a rational manner: They gather all the evidence, weigh their options, and make an informed choice.
- The organizational process model: The structure of organizations shapes how decisions are made.
- The bureaucratic politics model: Leaders of different organizations are in competition with one another, and that affects how decisions are made.
Another decision-making model—known as the groupthink approach—examines how group dynamics can affect decision outcomes. According to this model, under some circumstances, group members reinforce one another’s faulty reasoning, leading to disastrous decisions.
Psychological Analysis
Psychological approaches seek to understand the inner workings of the president’s mind and how they affect decision-making. Some psychological accounts are simplistic, but others are serious studies of presidential character. James Barber’s bivariate typology is a prominent example. Barber argues that presidents should be evaluated based on how active a role they should play in initiating policies (active or passive) and how they view themselves and their status as president (positive or negative). Combining these two variables, we get four categories of presidents: passive-positive, passive-negative, active-positive, and active-negative. Barber claims that active-positive presidents are likely the best, whereas active-negative can be disastrous.
| Active | Passive | |
| Positive | Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy | Ronald Reagan, William Howard Taft, James Madison |
| Negative | Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson | George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush |
Historical Comparison
Some scholars compare presidents by the role they play in history. For example, some see FDR as particularly significant because he framed the terms of debate in the United States for decades to come. Other studies examine the lasting impact a president had by studying how much of what he did survived their presidencies. Again FDR is significant under this criteria because his New Deal still exists.
The Best and Worst
Scholars and historians debate about the best and worst presidents in American history. Although there is no consensus, there is a general agreement as to who should be considered great. This list includes Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt.
