Professional Documents
Culture Documents
r
~'
t
~;
t
1 Evaluating the Presidency
Michael Nelson
The Presidency
and the Political System First impressions are important, in politics as in everything else. Numerous stud
ies ofpolitical socialization have found that long before children have any real
knowledge ofwhat the federal government actually does, they already think ofthe
EIGHTH EDITION president in terms ofalmost limitless power and goodness. In this chapter,
Michael Nelson uncovers powerful traces ofthis first understanding in the later
impressions ofpolitically aware adults. Presidential scholars, White House corre
spondents, average citizens, members ofCongress, and civil servants working in
the federal bureaucracy-each ofthese important constituencies may seem at
Michael Nelson) Editor first blush to hold attitudes that are detrimental to presidential power. Closer
Rhodes College inspection, however, reveals that each group's surface judgments overlie more
fundamental orientations toward politics that exalt presidential power.
1
judges of the presidency: journalists, citizens, members of Congress, bureau procedures."6 It also animated the most influential book on the presidency of
crats? this period, Presidential Power. "A president's success" in maximizing power,
Answering these questions can tell us a lot, not only about the presidency's wrote its author, Richard Neustadt, "serves objectives far beyond his own and
evaluators, but also about the presidency itself. l Presidents, after all, want the his party's.... Presidential influence contributes to the energy of the govern
"verdict of history" that scholars eventually render to be favorable. In the short ment and to the viability of public policy.... What is good for the country is
run, they need to win the support of journalists, the mass public, andcongres good for the president, and vice versa.'"
sional and bureaucratic officeholders if they are to succeed. To do so, presidents Underlying the political scientists' model was a seemingly quasi-religious
must understand the standards of evaluation that these groups apply to them. awe of the presidency. Clinton Rossiter began his book The American Presi
dency by confessing his "feeling of veneration, if not exactly reverence, for the
authority and dignity of the presidency." He described Lincoln as "the martyred
Scholars: Strength Amid Confusion Christ of democracy's passion play" and quoted favorably the "splendid judg
Schlesinger followed his 1948 survey of historians with another in 1962. The ment" of the English radical political leader John Bright in 1861 that
results were strikingly similar: the same pair of "failures" and, with the excep
there is nothing more worthy of reverence and obedience, and nothing more sa
tion of Jackson, the same set of"greats." More important, historians in the late cred, than the authority of the freely chosen magistrate of a great and free people;
1940S and early 1960s appeared to be measuring presidents against the same and if there be on earth and amongst men any right divine to govern, surely it rests
two standards: strength and the desire to be strong. "Washington apart," with a ruler so chosen and so appointed. 8
Schlesinger wrote, "none of [the great presidents] waited for the office to seek
the man; they pursued it with all their might and main." Once in office, their Herman Finer was equally reverent, although in a polytheistic way. Finer
greatness was established because "every one of [them] left the Executive characterized the presidency not only as "the incarnation of the American peo
branch stronger and more influential than he found it." When dealing with ple in a sacrament resembling that in which the wafer and the wine are seen to
Congress, they knew "when to reason and to browbeat, to bargain and stand be the body and blood of Christ" but also as "belong[ing] rightfully to the off
firm, ... and when all else failed, they appealed over the heads of the lawmakers spring of a titan and Minerva husbanded by Mars."9
to the people." Nor did the great presidents shy away from confrontations with Thus strength and the desire to be strong, power and virtue, omnipotence
the Supreme Court. They were, to be sure, inattentive to administration of the and benevolence-all were tied together in what may be called (only half
bureaucracy, but this freed them, according to Schlesinger, for the more impor facetiously) the "Savior" model of the presidency. According to the model's un
tant tasks of"moralleadership."2 A 1968 survey by Gary Maranell not only con derlying rationale, the president is the chief guardian of the national interest,
firmed Schlesinger's conclusion that "strength" and "activeness" were important not only in foreign policy (because no one else can speak and act for the na
criteria in the historians' model of the presidency but also found that "ideal tion), but also in domestic affairs because of the pluralistic structure of govern
ism" and "flexibility" were not. 3 ment and society. Members of Congress cater to influential interests within
The historians' model was very much like that of the other group of schol their constituencies, scholars argued, but the president can mobilize the unor
ars who write and talk about the presidency, political scientists. 4 Their view in ganized and inarticulate and speak for national majorities against special inter
the 1950S and 1960s was summed up nicely in the title of an article by Thomas est groups.
Cronin: "Superman: Our Textbook President."s After reviewing dozens of Scholars' normative preference for presidential strength in the 1950S and
American government textbooks written in those two decades, Cronin found 1960s had more to it than their value judgments about the proper distribution
that political scientists typically characterized the presidency as both omnipo of power among the branches of government. It was rooted in their liberal
tent and benevolent. The idea that strength and goodness go hand in hand policy preferences as well. Democratic historians outnumbered Republicans
shone through, for example, in James MacGregor Bums's textbook assessment by two to one in the Schlesinger samples, for example. One of the reasons
that "the stronger we make the Presidency, the more we strengthen democratic they found the strength of the presidents they labeled "great" so appealing was
2 Nelson
Evaluating the Presidency 3
"
psychologically unhealthy need to dominate others. is When active-negatives en
that, as Schlesinger put it, each of these presidents "took the side of liberalism
counter serious challenges to their power, as all presidents eventually do, they
and the general welfare against the status quo:' 10 William Andrews observed a
react rigidly and aggressively. Such was the case with Johnson and Nixon. The na
similar partisan and ideological bias among his fellow political scientists, many
tion survived their presidencies, but considering the nature of modern nuclear
of whom had worked in liberal Democratic administrations. When it comes to
weaponry, Barber argued, even one more active-negative could be one too many.
the presidency, he concluded, "the constitutional theory follows the party
flag:' 11 Other scholars looked to the office to explain why presidential strength was
likely to be destructive. Cronin claimed that the "swelling of the presidency"
In sum, argued scholars of the Savior school through the rnid-1960s, presi
the sheer growth of the White House staff-had turned it into "a powerful
dential strength and ambition would serve the national interest. How, then, to
inner sanctum of government isolated from the traditional constitutional
explain the nation's subsequent experience with Lyndon B. Johnson and
checks and balances:'16 George Reedy suggested that "the life of the White
Richard M. Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970S? In foreign affairs the power
House is the life of a court:' in which the president "is treated with all the rev
of these presidents sustained. a large-scale war in Vietnam long after public
opinion had turned against it. The power of the president as "chief legislator:' erence due a monarch:' He explained,
in Rossiter's phrase, prompted such hasty passage of Great Society social wel There is built into the presidency a series of devices that tend to remove the occu
fare programs that the programs' flaws, which might have been discovered in pant of the Oval Office from all of the forces which require most men to rub up
bargaining between the president and Congress, were not found until later. against the hard facts oflife on a daily basis.... No one interrupts presidential con
Many of these flaws were in administrative design and implementation, the templation for anything less than a major catastrophe somewhere on the globe. No
very areas of activity that the Savior model had encouraged presidents to avoid. one speaks to him unless spoken to first. No one ever invites him to "go soak your
Finally, in 1972 and 1973 the host of abuses of presidential power known as Wa head" when his demands become petulant and unreasonable. 17
tergate occurred, forcing Nixon's resignation in August 1974.
Ironically, no sooner had the Satan model of a powerful but dangerous pres
The flawed presidencies of Johnson and Nixon convinced many scholars
idency taken hold among political scientists and historians than events again
that presidential strength and the general welfare, far from being synonymous,
intruded in the form of the unusually weak administrations of Gerald R. Ford
were now more likely to appear as opposites: Satan to the earlier model's Sav
(1974-1977) and Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). The immediate response of presi
ior. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. had helped to create the Savior model with his
dential scholars was not unlike that of the ancient Israelites when Samson
glowing biographies of Jackson, Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, especially in
transgressed and had his strength cut away: They beheld the new weakness and
eulogistic passages such as this one from A Thousand Days: "Thinking of the
were distressed by it. The Samson model of the presidency---others called it the
young Roosevelts, lost suddenly in middle age, and of the young Kennedys, so
"imperiled" or "tethered" presidency--came in startling contrast to those that
sure and purposeful, one perceived an historic contrast, a dynastic change, like
had preceded it. 18 The model ruefully portrayed a large and growing gap be
the Plantagenets giving way to the Yorks." In 1973 Schlesinger came back with a
book berating the "imperial presidency."12 Marcus Cunliffe called the office a tween what presidents can do and what they are expected to do.
The Samson model traced the presidency's apparent incapacity to two
"Frankenstein monster:'u Nelson Polsby noted that the careers of most of the i sources: the office's constitutional dependence on other political institutions
"great" presidents were tied up with total war. 14 !
I for support and the recent decline in the ability or willingness of those institu
The new task for presidential scholars was to explain why strength in the
presidency was likely to be harmful to the nation rather than helpful, as they
! tions to provide it. According to Samson theorists, parties had grown too weak
to help, Congress too decentralized to bargain with, the bureaucracy too frag
previously had thought. Their search carried them into two primary areas: the
person and the office.
ft mented and powerful to lead, and the media too adversarial for its spotlight to
be an asset for the president. Among the public, single-issue groups harshly
The expedition into personality as a source of presidential pathology was led
critical of government were proliferating, even as those parts of the population
by James David Barber. Barber identified a presidential character type, the
supposedly most inclined to support the president-the less educated, religious
"active-negative:' whose efforts to maximize power are born of a deep-seated and
"Concern for the average citizen;' "honest;' and "had confidence of the people" "rescued" the merchant ship Mayaguez; and Carter added twelve points to his
were the only often-mentioned qualities that were not clear synonyms for rating as a result of the Camp David summit that brought Israel and Egypt to
strength.49 As for Congress, the only times that a majority of the respondents gether. Reagan enjoyed a number of such boosts: from 45 percent to 53 percent
have approved of its performance in several decades of Harris and Gallup sur after the Grenada invasion in 1983 and from 62 percent to 68 percent after the
veys have been when Congress was most responsive to strong presidential lead 1986 bombing of Libya, for example. In early 1991 Bush's approval rating soared
ership.50 higher (89 percent) than any previous president's after the U.S. victory against
Americans can also be described as emotional presidentialists. Almost all of Iraq in the Gulf War. His record was broken by his son, George W. Bush, after
their political heroes from the past are presidents.51 When candidates run for ~ he launched the war on terrorism in September 2001. The younger Bush's pop
~
v
!
~-
Until the cold war ended in the early 1990S, these issues were overshadowed memoirs: "Our findings ... pointedly portray a social service bureaucracy
by the worldwide conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The dominated by administrators hostile to many of the directions pursued by the
ongoing war on terrorism that Bush launched in 2001 has overshadowed them Nixon administration in the realm of social policy."?'
once again. For members of Congress to pursue an interest in foreign policy But far from proving Nixon's point, Aberbach and Rockman actually laid
much further than their constituents' interests is to tempt electoral fate. In one the groundwork for a later study that appears to have refuted it. In 1976 Richard
recent period, three consecutive Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairs Cole and David Caputo conducted a similar survey and discovered that most
were defeated in reelection bids by opponents who charged that they cared
more about world politics than about local concerns. ! high-level bureaucrats, including Democrats and especially independents, by
then supported Nixon's policies. "We find the 'pull' of the presidency to be very
strong:' Cole and Caputo concluded.?5
What accounts for the apparent willingness of career bureaucrats to respond
Bureaucrats: Strength Amid Careerism
to strong presidential leadership? In part the stereotype of bureaucratic self
Career civil servants may seem to be the group whose favorable evaluations interest has been overdrawn. As Fesler noted, most careerists feel obliged "to
presidents need the least. In civics book theory, they are part of the president's serve loyally the people's choice as president. Because senior careerists have
executive chain of command and perform purely administrative, not policy been through several changes in administration, this is a well-internalized
making, functions. In practice, however, Congress and the courts, not just the lt commitment."76 Presumably, the stronger a president's leadership, the easier it
chief executive, have a rightful say over what bureaucrats do. And in modem t is for loyal bureaucrats to follow.
society, bureaucracy increasingly has involved those who implement policy in J A more important explanation may be the president's capacity to redefine the
i
the making of it.
Like members of Congress, career civil servants, who comprise virtually 99
! self-interest of career bureaucrats. Cole and Caputo reported that the Nixon ad
ministration played an unusually purposeful and active role in the job-promotion
percent of the federal workforce, often are motivated by self-interest. "The prime process within the upper reaches of the civil service. Civil servants sympathetic to
commitments of civil servants," wrote Erwin Hargrove, "are to their career, the administration's policies received special favors. This group included not only
agency, and program. The markers of success are autonomy for their bureaus and Republicans but also many independents and some Democrats, who recognized
expansion ofbudgets:'71 Such self-interested commitments make life difficult for that the administration meant business and therefore adapted their views to fur
the department secretaries and other political executives whom the president ap ther their own careers.
points to manage the bureaucracy in pursuit of the administration's policies. Nixon's successors have enjoyed even greater resources for influencing the
The stance of presidents and their executive appointees toward the career bureaucracy than he did. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which was
bureaucrats, observed James Fesler, includes "an assumption that the bureau passed at the request of President Carter, created a seven-thousand-member
cracy is swollen, a doubt of careerists' competence, and an expectation of their corps of senior civil servants--the Senior Executive Service-whom the presi
unresponsiveness to the adrninistration."72 This view of the unresponsive bu dent may transfer or demote more easily than in the past. Reagan, according to
reaucrat seemed to be validated by Joel Aberbach and Bert Rockman in their Terry Moe, made "explicidy political use of the Senior Executive Service, usu
1970 study of the political beliefs of high-ranking civil servants in several social ally by removing career officials from important slots and filling them with
service agencies.?' Large majorities of the bureaucrats whom they interviewed partisans. He also used reductions in force as a legal means of eliminating
disapproved of President Nixon's policies to reduce the social agencies' pro whole bureaucratic units staffed by careerists."77 Subsequent presidents have
grams and budgets. This was especially true of the 47 percent who were Dem followed suit. George W. Bush successfully insisted that presidential appointees
ocrats, but the bulk of the 36 percent who were independents also opposed in the new Homeland Security Department be granted much greater control
the president. These data seemed so supportive of the stereotype of the self over the department's civil service employees than prevails in most of the bureau
interested bureaucrat resisting the policies of the elected president that Nixon cracy. At the beginning of his second term, Bush insisted that each cabinet mem
actually quoted the authors' American Political Science Review article in his ber spend several hours a week in the White House, meeting with presidential
I
pin their hopes for chief-of-state-like symbolic leadership and chief-of tem. Their problems really begin only when the concern for appearing strong
government-like political leadership on one office, the presidency. Members of distracts them from the business of being president.
Congress view the White House through constituency-colored lenses, judging
the presidency mostly by the narrow standard of personal reelection ambitions. Notes
Tenured civil servants, whose working life is committed to the bureaucracy, also 1. Some of the themes in this chapter are discussed in more detail by Erwin C.
tend to evaluate the presidency in terms of their own careers. Hargrove and Michael Nelson in Presidents, Politics, and Policy (New York: Knopf, 1984).
Each of these assessments, although true in part, is superficial. Underlying 2. Arthur Schlesinger, "Our Presidents: A Rating by 75 Historians;' New York Times
the scholars' confusion is an implicit appreciation that significant policy Magazine, July 29, 1962, 12ff.
3. Gary Maranell, "The Evaluation of Presidents: An Extension of the Schlesinger
change, whatever its ideological direction, requires a strong president. The ca Polls," Journal ofAmerican History 57 (June 1970): 104-113.
reer needs and worldviews of journalists lead them, too, to exalt presidential 4. A study of how social scientists rated presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt
strength. Citizens apparently want to have the contradictions in their expecta through Richard M. Nixon found economists' rankings to be similar to those of politi
cal scientists and historians. Malcolm B. Parsons, "The Presidential Rating Game;' in
tions resolved through presidential actions that are strong and appear to be
The Future of the American Presidency, ed. Charles Dunn (Morristown, N.].: General
unifying. Legislators and bureaucrats realize, albeit reluctantly at times, that Learning Press, 1975), 66--91.
their career interests can be served by strong presidential initiatives. 5. Thomas Cronin, "Superman: Our Textbook President," Washington Monthly, Oc
On the whole, the underlying admiration for and celebration of presidential tober 1970, 47-54.
6. James MacGregor Bums, Presidential Government: The Crucible of Leadership
strength by scholars, journalists, citizens, members of Congress, and career bu
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 330.
reaucrats should be a source of comfort to presidents and to all who have fret 7. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics ofLeadership (New York: Wiley,
ted in recent years about a decline in the authority of the presidency. But two 1960). The theme of Neustadt's book is that, although presidents can do little by direct
command, they can and should wield great power through skillful bargaining and per
cautionary notes need to be sounded.
suasion.
First, strength means different things to different people. Scholarly celebrants 8. Clinton Rossiter, The American Presidency (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
of a strong presidency have traditionally dismissed the president's administra World, 1960),15-16,108.
I
122-140·
57. Jong R. Lee, "Rally Round the Flag: Foreign Policy Events and Presidential Popu ington Post, March 27, 2005.
larity;' Presidential Studies Quarterly 7 (Fall 1977): 255. 79. Francis Rourke, "Grappling with the Bureaucracy;' in Politics and the Oval Office,
58. Marc J. Hetherington and Michael Nelson, "Anatomy of a Rally 'Round the Flag' I ed. Arnold Meltsner (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1981), 137·
Effect: George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism;' PS: Political Science and Politics 36, Il 80. Polsby, "Against Presidential Greatness."
no. 1 (January 2003): 37-42.
59. Rossiter, American Presidency, 16-17.
60. See Morris Fiorina, Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment, 2d ed.
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),37-47; and David Mayhew, Congress: The Elec
toral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
61. Fenno, Home Style, 31.
62. Calculated from data presented in Vital Statistics on American Politics, 200r2004.
ed. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2003), 53--55.
In that same period, more than 90 percent of the representatives and nearly 80 percent
of the senators who ran were reelected. Data for the 2004 election is in Gary C. Jacobson,
"The Congress: The Structural Basis of Republican Success;' in The Elections of 2004,
ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2005), 163-186.
63. Morris Fiorina, "Congressmen and Their Constituents: 1958 and 1978," in The
United States Congress, ed. Dennis Hale (Chestnut Hill: Boston College, 1982), 39; and
Davidson and Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, chaps. 4 and 5.
64. Fiorina, Congress, 41-49.
65. Mayhew, Congress, 49.
66. Kenneth A Shepsle, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle: Democratic Committee Assignments
in the Modern House (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); and Roger Davidson,
The Role of the Congressman (New York: Pegasus, 1968), 121.
67. For a study of the complex relationship between presidential popularity and leg
islative success, see Mark A Peterson, Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol
from Eisenhower to Reagan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), chaps. 4 and 5.
68. Michael Nelson, "George W. Bush and Congress: The Electoral Connection," in
Considering the Bush Presidency, ed. Gary 1. Gregg II and Mark J. Rozell (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 141-159.
69. George C. Edwards III, At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
70. Edwards, Public Presidency, 219-220.
71. Erwin C. Hargrove, The Missing Link (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1975),
114·
72. James Fesler, "Politics, Policy, and Bureaucracy at the Top," Annals 466 (March
1983): 32.
73. Joel Aberbach and Bert Rockman, "Clashing Beliefs within the Executive Branch:
The Nixon Administration Bureaucracy;' American Political Science Review 70 (June
1976): 456-468.
74. Richard Nixon, RN (New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1978), 768.
75. Richard Cole and David Caputo, "Presidential Control of the Senior Civil Ser
vice," American Political Science Review 73 (June 1979): 399-412.
26 Nelson
Evaluating the Presidency 27