The American Presidency Powerpoint
I. Introduction
A. As Professor Dye argue (p373), Americans really do "look to their president for greatness." Usually a President of the United States (POTUS) becomes great in the eyes of Americans by being "associated with great events."
1. Washington was the general who helped (obviously not single-handidly) defeat the British Empire and, in the process, became the most important embodiment of the American revolution and arguably our most important founding father
2. Lincoln helped to save the union and free the slaves
3. TR helped to expand American interests overseas (Panama Canal), helped bust up concentrated corporate power, and helped to bring stability to financial markets (creation of the Federal Reserve)
4. FDR helped America emerge from the shadow of economic collapse and helped America to a victory in probably the most important war ever fought (my opinion)
B. I argue that politics is a credit claiming, blame avoidance business and people usually judge the worth of a POTUS based on the general "peace and prosperity" of the country during his/her 4 years. If things go well at home and abroad, the POTUS gets the credit; if things go badly (poor economy, unpopular war, scandal, etc) the POTUS/his party gets the blame
1. As you know from reading "The Year of Obama" the GOP has paid a high price the last two election cycles for how things went during the Bush years...
2. Dye (p 373) even argues that when most people think "government" they think of the POTUS...
3. When people want their problems solved, they look to the POTUS, not so much to Congress or their state law makers
4. In recent years, the POTUS has even become "the nation's leading celebrity" (Dye, p 373).
5. People expect a LOT of the POTUS (IMO, TOO MUCH...as I note below, the expectations are HIGH but the president's constitutional powers are not that grand which means the expectations never match up with their ability to achieve them)
a. Crisis Manager (when the shi_ hits the fan, we look to the POTUS to steer us in a safe direction...1 person in a country of 320M?)
b. Policy Leader (the POTUS is expected to lead and mobilize support for getting shi_ done...is "getting legislation through congress" even really in his constitutional domain?)
c. Economy Manager (we have a 14T economy free market economy...can one person/should one person really "manage" such a huge thing?)
d. Government Manager (federal bur. has almost 3M workers...its HUGE. Can one man control such a sprawling enterprise?)
e. Foreign Policy Manager (this is something the constitution says-POTUS makes foreign policy, conducts relations with other heads of state, conducts diplomacy etc...there's only one man elected by us all and it is the POTUS)
C. Question-who are the best US presidents? Who do you think should be on this list? I have added a few presidential experts lists to help you get started
D. In the end, the President IS the superstar of the Am. political system.
1. As noted above, he is the ONLY official—along w/the Vice-POTUS—elected by the entire country. As such, he stands as the representative of the federal govt and at times, a symbol of the whole country
a. Americans are of 2 minds about the presidency:
(1) One the 1 hand, they look to the presidents to use their powers to do good (look back at Lincoln, Washington, FDR with awe and reverence).
(2) On the other hand, Americans dislike concentration of power (our creed is “antigovernment, distrust of power, and suspicion of govt”) so the POTUS is almost ineluctably set up to struggle to remain popular, to get stuff done, and to achieve "greatness"...
