American Government: Presidential Character

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At a White House dinner party a guest made a large bet that she could get President Calvin Coolidge to say three or more words at one time. As the evening wore on it seemed increasingly likely that she was going to fail. In desperation she turned to the president, told him about the bet, and asked him to help. His response--"You lose." Whether or not the story was true, Calvin Coolidge had a reputation of a no-nonsense, quiet president. Indeed, when told that Coolidge had died, social satirist Dorothy Parker asked, "How could they tell?"
These stories about Coolidge raises the issue of how presidents conduct themselves and how they are viewed. Being a good president is not merely about using the formal powers of the presidency, it's also about setting an agenda, convincing others to follow it. Consider the words of political scientist Stephen Skowronek from his study of the president. "Successful political leaders do not necessarily do more than other leaders. Successful leaders control the political definition of their actions, the terms in which their places in history are understood."
In the U.S. this means understanding that the presidency is largely what the president makes of it. Another political scientist, Richard Newstat, has famously written that the power of the president is the power to persuade. It's the power to persuade cabinet officials, presidential staffs, members of Congress, government employees, and the public, that they want what the president wants. Now, presidents have lots of tools at their disposal, from media attention and the bully pulpit, to an aura of presidential authority. But it's how presidents use these tools that matters most.
What do Americans look for in their president? Well, we know the framers wanted a strong president, but they were concerned about the abuse of power. They wanted a president both above politics and involved enough in it to check the other branches. Perhaps our first president, George Washington, epitomized these skills better than anyone else. The George Washington of myth at least, was a wise, moderate, dignified, non-partisan leader of everyone. He was widely trusted and respected, a kind of father figure. Today we want a more involved president, an activist leader who will get things done, yet sometimes we accuse presidents of being too active, of acting in an imperial manner. We want our president to have moral character, a grasp of history, a sense of proportion, a sense of humor, foresight, and personal strength. An ideal president might have the judgment of Washington, the intellect of Jefferson, the courage of Lincoln, the style of Kennedy, and the optimism of Reagan, all rolled into one. Of course, the demands of the presidency make this an unobtainable ideal.
Consider the words of John Steinbeck, the novelist, about the presidency. He wrote, "We give the president more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him, eat him up. He is ours and we exercise the right to destroy him."
Now, how do presidents deal with the constant pressure on them to succeed? They do, in part, by adopting a style. A style is an image that represents who the president is. And, of course, different presidents have different styles, and there's no one right presidential style. A style that works in one period may not work in another. Steven Skowrownek emphasizes the different challenges presidents face, and this underlies the need for different styles with different effects. Let's consider some examples. Take President Jimmy Carter. In the wake of the Watergate scandal he portrayed himself as a person of honesty, integrity, and high moral standards. This may have helped him win the presidency in 1976. But then in his administration, when responding to crisis such as the energy shortage, he was unable to convey a sense of optimism and opportunity. He came across as pessimistic, moralistic, and preachy. He lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan with his infectious optimism under the slogan, It's morning in America."
Another example is Harry Truman. He was a senator from Missouri when Franklin Delano Roosevelt picked him as his running mate in 1944 having dumped the sitting vice-president, Henry Wallace. Roosevelt died in 1945 and Truman became president. He was seen as way in over his head, and the played upon that. He asked the country to pray for him. He adopted the image of an underdog. He presented himself as a straight shooter and a no-nonsense decision-maker. There was a famous sign that sat on President Truman's desk. It said, "The buck stops here." He ran for re-election in 1948, attacking what he called the "do nothing" Republican Congress, and the slogan his supporters shouted was, "Give `em hell, Harry." Truman was re-elected. Now, as his administration came to an end and he thought about General Eisenhower coming to power, he remarked as follows: He said of Eisenhower, "He'll sit there and he'll say, `do this, do that,' and nothing will happen. Poor Ike, it won't be a bit like the Army."
Now Eisenhower adopted a more restrained style. He played the role of the distinguished general above the fray. He wasn't particularly active, either personally or politically, and was criticized as a "do nothing" president. But that seemed to please the country, because he was comfortably re-elected in 1956.
A final example here might be John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who followed Eisenhower. He created an image of youth and vigor. He was a swinging guy. There were lots of photographs of him doing active things--playing football with his family, sailing, jogging on the beach--and he used this image to urge the country to move forward after years of stagnation under Eisenhower.
Now, another way to examine how presidents approach the presidency is to look at presidential character. This notion has been most developed in the work of a political scientist by the name of James David Barber. Barber suggested two key variables that capture what he said were the differences among presidential character--their activity and the enjoyment of the job. What he meant by activity was political activism. How energetic and assertive they are as leaders. You can look here at this chart. Were they active or were they passive? He also suggested that enjoyment of the job was important, whether presidents have a sense of gusto and optimism about politics and government, whether they took a positive or negative approach to the problem. And with these two variables you could make a four-celled table as pictured here. Well, in one cell we have active/ positive presidents--people like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and perhaps Jimmy Carter. These were presidents who were exciting and dynamic, future-oriented, who were able to avoid problems. Now, another category is known as active/negative, and here we have people like Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson. Now, active, negative characters as presidents, Barber suggested, were dangerous. They would have personal tragedies that would lead to national catastrophe. They would persevere with policies despite strong evidence that these policies were counter productive and not supported by the American people.
We also have passive presidents along this dimension. These were unassertive presidents. Barber suggested there's a danger of drift. You could start with the passive/positive presidents, and these were presidents who are not particularly energetic or assertive, but they enjoy politics, and in this category Barber put presidents like Taft and Harding and Ronald Reagan. Now, there's a final set, passive/negative presidents, presidents like Coolidge and Eisenhower, who are neither assertive nor optimistic. They tended to be withdrawn, avoid conflict and detail.
Let's think about President Clinton. Where would he be put? Well, he's most likely an active/positive president, up here, as he brought energy and assertiveness to the presidency and had a sense of optimism. He conveyed a style of intelligence and knowledge, but he was branded as a womanizer. Indeed, during the 1996 presidential election there was a survey and it turned out that more than 80 percent of Americans told pollsters that Clinton was either extremely well or quite well described as intelligent and knowledgeable. However, barely 40 percent of the respondents thought him either extremely well or quite well described as honest, and less than 40 percent described him that was a moral.
What about President George W. Bush? Well, it's too early to tell, but he appears to be a classic passive/positive type, kind of an image of a down-to-earth guy, in somewhat over his head, perhaps, a fun-loving frat boy. Now, before you go analyzing all political leaders in these terms, you need to note that these are pretty squishy categories. It's not clear exactly what they mean. It also seems that they're ideologically based. Active/positive presidents all seem to be liberal democrats, and Jimmy Carter might illustrate these problems. When he was running for president he invited James David Barber to meet with him. He told Barber that he had read his book and enjoyed it and that he thought he would be an active/positive president, and when Barber didn't disagree with that, he ushered him out to a press conference where he explained to the waiting press corps that the famous professor Barber expected him to be the same kind of president as FDR, Truman, and Kennedy.
When complimented for being a good politician and knowing what the people were going to think, President Teddy Roosevelt replied that he didn't know how the people were going to think. He said this. "I simply made up my mind what they ought to think and then did my best to get them to think it." This illustrates the point that how the president approaches the job plays a key role in his success. Being president is about power and ambition and policy, but being a successful president is also about character and style.
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