It seems like the whole “whether-you-feel-like-you-could-sit-down-and-have-a-beer-with-the-fella” thing didn’t turn out to be such a great idea.
I don’t know that the election coverage helps all that much either. I really don’t think that a candidate kind-of-almost-getting-choked-up after a question from a supporter has much bearing on their effeciveness in leading a nation. And I don’t think a debate format that focuses on “he said / she said” exchanges gets to the heart of the matters either.
Experience should be a factor, but Cheney and Rumsfeld had decades of experience and they kind of screwed the pooch with that whole Iraq War thing. So now I start to wonder if there’s such a thing as too much of the wrong kind of experience putting a person in a kind of “Washington bubble” in which you start to lose your grip on the real world.
Campaign promises are treated with a grain of salt by voters, having been stung by promises from “No new taxes” to “I’m a uniter, not a divider.”
And anyway, President’s don’t make laws, they can only sign or not sign laws that are brought before them by Congress. And isn’t it folly to expect any President to have expert knowledge on ALL the matters of state? That’s what the cabinet is for, right? It seems to me that the main thing is that the chief actually appoints experts in their respective fields instead of old drinking buddies from college, right?
Here’s a few things you seem not to have considered. It’s worth remembering that POTUS has near complete control over three things: judicial appointments, key aspects of foreign policy, and the executive branch.
All of those are really important.
On judicial appointments, the obvious one is the Supreme Court. A President needs Senate consent, but denial is pretty rare. Bush got Alito and Roberts. Only Miers was shot down, and that was because she wasn’t conservative enough! This also includes lower federal judges. Even easier to get through than justices, and very influential. The President shapes the judicial branch. Incrementally, sure, but 8 years of increments can make a big difference.
On foreign policy, consider how much our posture toward Iran, North Korea, the United Nations, etc., have mattered in this last administration. Remember John Bolton? A President must have sound judgment on these matters because he or she has complete control in times of crisis. All the advisors in the world don’t change that.
On the executive branch generally, the President influences every department by appointing its head and issuing executive orders. The Bush DOJ is vastly different from the Clinton DOJ–just ask the people in the civil rights division. Same for EPA, Labor, etc. Much of the influence the federal government exerts over people’s lives flows through the administrative agencies and the President has great power to bend those agencies to his or her will.
All of these things require true leadership, political savvy, judgment, etc. I happen to agree with your choice of candidate and I think vision and integrity are important too, but don’t for a moment underestimate the job of President. Policy priorities matter. Experience matters. Political savvy matters.
I know that the President has the power of appointment (and for that matter is the Commander in Chief of our military). But I considered the appointments a president makes part and parcel of their vision.
Fair enough, vision is a pretty broad term. Even if you’re an excellent judge of character, you still need an effective plan for what you want to do with, say, the FDA.
And it isn’t just appointments. Executive orders, diplomatic negotiation, snap military judgments…there’s a lot the President must handle on his/her own.
Vision is an almost meaningless term, when spoken during elections. I suppose if you have an executive that is the same party as the Congress, you can do what you want, but I wouldn’t call it “vision,” in the sense of seeing something beneficial for the country that others can’t see.
The term comes up when a relatively younger candidate comes along (“Oh, he’s younger, he must see something no one else can.”) But to get elected, and then actually function as the executive, you have to play by the same rules as the older folks.
Obama is playing the “vision” card. His policies are not that different from Clinton’s, but when he speaks, he talks vaguely of “change,” etc. I’d be okay with him as president, but his learning curve would be steeper than Clinton’s, and he’d have to choose his people very carefully.
Of course, the people of the U.S. should base their decision for president on policy, but they usually are influenced by much more superficial things–essentially, image. Maybe that’s because policy changes so easily. Remember when Bush said he wasn’t about nation-building? Talk about flip-flopping.
The President writes laws all the time. Constitutionally you wouldn’t think this, but the real practice is much different from the Constitution.
Staff from the White House work out their text for a legislative package that the President wants to get through Congress. Then some congressman that agrees with the legislation puts it in the House or Senate and it starts to go through the legislative process (works its way through committees, has floor votes, gets sent to the other House, gets amended, gets sent back, amended some more, finally both Houses have the same version hammered out and it gets sent to the White House)–so while the President isn’t personally submitting legislation for approval (since he can’t) in practice President do this continuously throughout their Presidencies.
If you’ve ever paid attention to the State of the Union, what that speech really is is the President’s laundry list of legislation he’d like to see Congress pass in the upcoming year. Most Presidents get at least some portion of their legislation passed–even the really bad Presidents leave a legislative mark.
But maybe I’m being a bit myopic. I’m sure the Teeming Masses have a thought or two on the matter. So how about it?
By what criteria should one choose a president?
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Not to worry, folks…it seems that the decision has been taken out of our hands. The mainstream media have assumed the burden of choosing our President. We get to sit back and just enjoy the horse race.
So what if we end up with candidates who are looking more and more alike…and all created more and more in the image of the status quo powers-that-be who own them? “We The People” have been dumbed down enough to see no problem with this arrangement.
Sure, we get to cast our votes for one or the other ‘approved’ candidate…just as we get to choose between Coke and Pepsi. In the end it doesn’t matter…any candidate who threatens to rock the boat or to bring genuine ‘change’ have already been eliminated.
“It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.”
What often gets forgotten (but which has been at least alluded to in this thread already) is that a President has to be a good judge of people. He (or she) has to appoint his own cabinet/advisors/staff, appoint judges and ambassadors, and deal with other world leaders face to face.
Wisdom is important: the ability to know what’s good for the world, the nation, and particular groups within the nation; to know how best to bring those good things about, and to be able to learn what he doesn’t already know.
I don’t necessarily want a president who agrees with me on all the “issues,” but I want one who’s smart enough and well-intentioned enough that, if he and I differ, there’s a good chance that he’s the one who’s right (or at least partly right). So, I want a president I can trust to do the right thing, and to know (as well as anyone could know) what the right thing is.
I agree that the term “vision” gets thrown around a lot, but (at least in my case) I use it to mean policy + values; meaning "here’s what we ought to do (policy), and this is the reason why (values).