11-19

The president as a national leader
1) Presidents carry into office a broad political vision that reflects their ideology and priorities
A) Lyndon Johnson for example saw government as a true force for promoting justice equality. Once in office, he tried to give life to that philosophy with great society programs
B) Ronald Reagan came into office seeing government as part of the problem rather than solution. He tried to promote freedom by pursuing policy that would reduce the role of government in American life.
2) The presidents central role in our political system guarantees that he can always command attention for his agenda through congress. However, this doesn't guarantee success in Congress.
3) Thus the president is the “chief lobbyist” as well as an agenda settler. Presidents spend considerable time working to get legislation passed in the form they want it in
A) He might:
I) use the media to draw attention to his legislative program
II) Remind his legislators of his high public approval
III) Make use of a partisan majority if his party controls the congress
IV) The president has a legislative liaison staff to help him with lobbying legislators
B) The white house will also work directly with interest groups to try to get them to activate members and to get their Washington DC representative to lobby congress directly
4) Part of the president’s job is to lead his party
A) Because parties are relatively weak in the US this is an informal duty (not specified in the constitution) with no prescribed tasks
B) the president has become “fundraiser in chief” for his party, largely because it is in his best interest to have more members of his party in congress
The president as a world leader
1) For nearly forty years the president’s priorities as world leader was to contain communism
2) American presidents are now entering a new era in which there is more emphasis n managing economic relations with the rest of the world
A) Trade relations are particularly important yet incredibly complex
B) The case of designing china as normal trading partner reveals the difficulty president face in balancing specific domestic interests the national interest as a whole and, international interests
3) Periodically the president faces a grave situation in which conflict is imminent or a small conflict threatens to explode into a larger war
A) How a president handles such crisis can be critical to the success of the presidency. He must exercise good judgment
B) It is different to go beyond rather general advice in trying to design an ideal procedure for handling crisis. Almost by definition each crisis is a unique event
Presidential character
1) A president’s actions in office reflects something more than his political views. They also reflect the inner forces that give rise to his basic character.
2) Personality characteristics clearly have an important effect on the president success or failure in office. However, character is only one of a hundred of factors that go into making a successful president.