Making of Presidency

Making of Presidency

How the office has changed in more than 250 years. How has the institution of the presidency evolved since George Washington took office in 1789?

How has the presidency changed over the years?

It was created by Washington, who was very conscious that he was the first president, and that everything he did would create a precedent.If there hadn’t been a strong figure in the beginning, the office would not have evolved the way it did. The president was known then as the Great White Father.

With the exception of Washington and Lincoln, most people didn’t know what the president looked like during the 19th century. With the exception of Lincoln, the president was not the center of news until Teddy Roosevelt’s time. The institution has been accentuated by television. There is hardly a television broadcast that isn’t done from the driveway of the White House. Teddy Roosevelt was the first to put the White House on his stationary.

The creation of the presidency was discussed at the Constitutional Convention, but the details were an afterthought not formally voted upon. The term of the office wasn’t even decided. At the beginning of the 20th century, the president became known as the head of party, head of government, and chief of state.

The president also has assumed an enormous legislative role. There was less legislation during the 19th century, largely because this was before the enlargement of the country. The Montesquieu model of the Founding Fathers was seen as compartmentalized, but it didn’t work that way. We do not really have the vaunted separation of powers.

New York, Broadway. Photo by Elena

Have there been times when the president was less important?

There was a lack of preeminence in presidents between Madison and Lincoln, and during the post-Civil War period, with the exception of times of real crises in the country. Now we’re in a similar situation, but we’re not at all geared to it. Today we have a press and electronic media that are completely geared to covering the presidency and maintaining expensive staff at the white house, but it’s almost irrelevant, because all the action is in Congress. Whoever wins the election, he or she finds great frustration. The job is really not all the important, not as it has been. It’s not a question of personality.

What distinguishes the presidents of our century?

In the 20th century, the president has been expected to have a program. The New Nationalism of Teddy Roosevelt, the New Freedom of Wilson. The New Frontier, The New Deal, the Fair Deal, Prior to the 20th century, the vision thing was not something presidents were expected to have.

What influences a president’s ability to succeed?

It doesn’t not have much to do with their characteristics. It has more to do with crises and whether the president can convince the country that there was a crisis in health care. Franklin Roosevelt, on the other hand, was more successful in persuading people of the need for social security. And Teddy Roosevelt was able to convince the country that there was a crisis in conservation, so he accomplished a lot.

It also takes something else that’s lacking today: money in the bank. Eisenhower was a successful president, a builder. But not since Eisenhower have we run the kind of surpluses we ran at that time.

What makes a good president?

A president has to be both extraordinary ad ordinary in all dimensions: in his political performance, in his personal performance, in his family performance, in his television appearances. It is difficult to do. On television, he comes across as too ordinary, when he is reclusive, he is seen as too distant.

Power of articulation, believeability and credibility, and an ability to show concern are very important. Basic honesty. Does character matter? I think it does. Washington, Grant and Jackson are examples of soldiers who have been successful. Indecisiveness certainly is a great weakness in the White House. That applies to everyone.

 Presidential Statistics

    Male of the species – 42 (100.0%)

    Protestant – 38 90.5%

    Married – 41 97.6%

    Studied law – 28 – 66.5%

    Owned dogs – 22. 52.4%

    Over Six Feet – 18. 42.9%

    From Virginia – 8. 10.0%

    Named James – 6. 14.3%

    Had a beard – 5. – 12.0%

    Went to Harvard – 5. 12.0%.

    Owned pet raccoons – 2. 5.0%.

Park Avenue, New York. Photo by Elena

Electoral College

Who Really Elects the President

Just in case you forgot how the Electoral College works

The authors of the American Constitution devised the Electoral College to act as a kind of buffer between the masses and the ultimate process of selecting a president. The voter would choose electors for their state on a predetermined election day and then those individuals, along with electors from other states, would then take it upon themselves to choose the president.

Today, the Electoral College is a body of 538 people. Each state receives a number of electoral votes equal to the number of senators and representatives in its congressional delegation, and Washington, D.C., which has no congressional representation, gets three votes. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes, slightly more than a majority, to be elected president. The candidate who wins a majority of a state’s popular vote wins all of its electoral votes. As a result, the electoral vote tends to exaggerate the popular support of the winner.

If no candidate receives a majority of the votes of the Electoral College, the election will be decided by the House of Representatives. This has only happened once, so far, when in 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular vote in a four-way race but John Quincy Adams was elected president by the House. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote but won the presidency bu a single electoral vote