Both candidates are putting a heck load of effort in just to win one postion.
Why’s it so special? What special powers does the President have?
Wouldn’t it be better to spend the money getting more of their mob elected to the US parliament and senate?
Is it mostly for bragging rights?
The main power the president have isn’t legally binding in any way – he can abuse the media (“bully pulpit”). When a random congressman says something, it doesn’t mean much – but when the president comments on his favorite type of tuna every news outlet will report on it in 20 minutes, this can affect everything from elections to policies if it fires enough people up. Possibly the most powerful thing the president can do is schedule an important news conference the same time an opposite-party representative is going to stage one about an issue that undermines the president’s views – it doesn’t work as well in the Internet age, but it still overshadows their limelight pretty handily.
Please correct that to “The main power the president has…”, “The main power that presidents have aren’t…” or any other phrase with a similar meaning that makes that sentence actually grammatically correct.
The president single handedly controls on of the three branches of government - and it is very likely that who ever is elected for 2012 will be appointing another justice to the supreme court. If it Romney - he will likely have a great deal of say in 2/3rds of the branches of govt.
Pretty much you can’t (effectively) go to war without the president. Any type of world conflict involving the US is almost totally in the hands of the president (within reason).
The President is commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Fores.
I hear he can bench press 350…
He can pardon himself for tax evasion, or illegal acts.
Granted a sitting US president has alot of business to take care of, but s/he has virtually unlimited resources to do it with. He also has alot of influence over a bunch of people who have real power to make things happen.
He can appoint people to jobs with alot of policy making power over lower level issues in the form of his cabinet.
Picking a SCOTUS justice can influence US law for decades after.
As powerful as** we** let him be. **We **primarily means the congress, but also includes the rest of government and the will of the people. IMHO, LBJ set the high water mark for presidential power because of his influence in the congress and the beaurocracy. Nixon attempted to wield that same power, was not as successful as LBJ, and got called out for overstepping. Ever since we’ve vacillated between giving more power to presidents and taking it away.
The US Parliament is my favorite body of government :-p
The President issues Executive Orders (technically subject to Congressional delegation or approval, but in practice often unilateral).
Among thousands of such orders, famous orders include the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the Japanese American Internment Order of 1942, Truman’s 1948 Order prohibiting discrimination in the Armed Forces, G.W. Bush’s 2007 Executive Order 13440 - Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, and Obama’s 2009 Order rescinding 13440.
He can crush the hopes and dreams of 59 senators and 289 congressmen with the stoke of a pen.
If a party could they could maintain a super majority in both houses they wouldn’t need the Presidency. It’s a lot easier to win the presidency.
The president nominates Supreme Court justices, as well as judges in lower courts.
The president nominates cabinet members, who run all the departments of the executive branch. These include the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and the attorney general. He can also fire cabinet members. This means that the president has an enormous influence over foreign policy, military decisions and the enforcement of federal law.
The president can veto legislation.
It really is a very powerful position.
Are you refering to the presidential veto of new laws?
Very powerful. In summary:
he leads the branch of the federal government that includes every government agency. The bureaucracy is his, and he selects the leaders (his cabinet) and sets domestic and foreign policy, issues pardons, signs or vetoes all federal legislation, and has other executive powers that allow for all sorts of neat tricks.
he is the commander of the entire U.S. military. Besides the implications for the typical wars and so-called police actions and such, this appears (there is some real debate here) to give him the right to have certain undesirable folks killed without trial, including troublesome U.S. citizens.
he appoints (with the Senate’s consent) the members of the supreme court, which is a lifetime gig for the appointees.
his vice president serves as the president of the senate – which essentially means he breaks any ties in the senate.
he has great sway over the national – and in some cases, international – dialogue. This, of course, isn’t a consituational power, but it is a power nonetheless considering the economic and military power as well as cultural influence of the country he leads.
he leads his party, which is meaningful in a country with a (substantially) two-party system.
I’m leaving out a few things, but this is a start.
I think the more important question is, if you took each of the first ladies at their physical prime and put them in a bracket of one-on-one knife fights to the death, which one would emerge as the ultimate champion?
According to an elderly uncle of mine (who has never forgiven Nixon for quitting), presidents who fail to get re-elected can declare themselves dictator before the new president is sworn in.
He has no explanation why this has not been done in the past but assures me it will happen this time…
Well anyone can declare themself dictator at any time. The declaration is the easy part. Staying alive is the hard part.
Sounds like a sure way to trigger an immediate impeachment (there’s enough checks and balances to make an American dictatorship just laughable).
Thanks for the information,
Just to clarify, I thought commander-in-chief was an honoury position, has a sitting president ever overruled a general or parliament when it comes matters of war.
On the subject of conflict, is it true that he has the sole authority to launch nuclear weapons?
It’s not honorary in any way. The president is the commander, all the generals work for him (as long as his orders are constitutional). Their advice is extremely important, but there have been many occasions where the president has overruled his generals. Sending in the team to kill Bin Laden is one such example; his generals recommended an aerial assault.