# What would make for a good President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 19, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727 "2015-09-19T03:48:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/21 "2015-09-20T06:20:43Z")
1. Patriotism and love of country 2. American exceptionalism in world view 3. Cares about the middle class 4. Isn’t actually religious ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/22 "2015-09-20T06:30:15Z")
That would mean I could be President. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/23 "2015-09-20T08:22:13Z")
he’s another one: must have a college degree. Sorry, Scott. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/24 "2015-09-20T08:59:09Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > It seems really obvious but I don’t think it really is. No. It’s not. Indeed, it’s hard to get a straight answer from political scientists. > [@](#): > > Knowing the limitations of Congress and the limitations of the office, what would a presidential candidate have to do once in office for you to be satisfied with him/her? What would they have to do for you to look back and think, “You know, that Was a good run we had, I’m glad I voted for him/her”? Does somebody have to be truly exceptional to be “good” or “Not unfavorable?” Well there two questions here, one about what the job entails and one about performance evaluation. As for the first, I’ll turn the mike over to [Brad Delong](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/wllliam-black-on-geithner-and-obama.html): [INDENT][INDENT] I think I understand the President–you work 90 hours a week, 30 of which are ceremonial, 30 of which are coalition maintenance, and 30 of which are policy, of which macroeconomic and financial policy are only one of ten important issue areas. Thus if you are a president you spend three hours a week on macroeconomic and financial policy–about 30% of what we expect freshman taking “Principles of Economics” to spend. You can’t master any of the technical issues. You have to trust advisors. [/INDENT][/INDENT] You also have to evaluate your advisors and troubleshoot like a good manager. For coalition maintenance, it helps to be wired into Washington. Being a Senator or Rep will help with that, but Governors can be networked in as well. To properly hire and evaluate your advisors, you need to have immersed yourself in policy for a while. George Bush Jr. came from a political family and was tutored with the help of Cheney and Rice before the election. He still did an awful job with Katrina and Iraq. Bill Clinton ran in policy circles ever since becoming a Rhodes scholar and perhaps a little before. As for performance, Obama has been outstanding. Health care reform defeated 3 or more Presidents. Obama passed it. He faced the worst downturn since WWII and passed a stimulus package saving the country from a second depression. After being left with a financial system in shock, he passed Dodd Frank, which is working better than anticipated. GE divested itself of financial units so that it wouldn’t be Too Big To Fail. That’s what is suppose to happen: that they had a huge financing business at all was basically a dodging bank regulations. War mongers like McCain wanted us to take charge of Libya: Obama participated in its liberation but avoided ground troops and insisted on acting with a coalition. So while the country is now embroiled, it’s not another US quagmire. All of these accomplishments were secured in the teeth of the most vicious partisanship since WWII. McConnell even filibustered a bill that he had sponsored himself. This month the Republicans are planning another one of their governmental shutdowns: they don’t care whether they send the nation’ credit, reputation or economy down the toilet. Tantrums and hissy fits: it’s what they do. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/25 "2015-09-20T12:08:18Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > 1. American exceptionalism in world view That is one thing a good president **cannot** have. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/26 "2015-09-20T17:15:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That is one thing a good president **cannot** have. why not? America IS the freest, richest, most prosperous nation on the face of the earth that has freed a over a hundred million people. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/27 "2015-09-20T17:43:42Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > why not? America IS the freest, richest, most prosperous nation on the face of the earth that has freed a over a hundred million people. It seems that **BrainGlutton** is referring about disregarding the opinion and the support of the world in cases like going into a war like Iraq, with about a million people dead as a result of that (and counting, and many are now living under the boot of ISIS/Daesh) I have to say that exceptionalism is not an item a president should employ. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/28 "2015-09-20T19:11:42Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > why not? America IS the freest, richest, most prosperous nation on the face of the earth that has freed a over a hundred million people. Because [url=]American-exceptionalist thinking is not only fundamentally false, but leads in several highly undesirable directions, barely tolerable in the people and utterly intolerable in a POTUS. It leads to old-fashioned national chauvinism and contempt for foreign ways, which gets in the way of learning valuable lessons from foreign countries. It leads to thinking the U.S. is an idea-state like the USSR rather than an ordinary nation-state like France. It leads to thinking we have some kind of city-on-a-hill mission in the world, and that leads to ill-conceived neoconservative adventurism like the Iraq War. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/29 "2015-09-20T19:33:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, he doesn’t. He has to **have** experts on all those things, and listen to them. Such experts are not all that hard to find. That brushes over quite a lot of details. Experts in a given field don’t agree with each other. When a President picks Cabinet members and other official and unofficial positions and teams to advise him, he’s picking based on their positions as well as expertise. Dubya’s economic advisers held certain positions, while Obama’s held others. Further, even if the President picks a team of like-minded advisers, they tend to end up disagreeing with each other. Final authority rests with the President when it comes to decisions. He has to pick which advice to believe and follow, and which to ignore. This requires him to have expertise; listening to experts alone is not good enough. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/30 "2015-09-20T19:45:34Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > That brushes over quite a lot of details. Experts in a given field don’t agree with each other. When a President picks Cabinet members and other official and unofficial positions and teams to advise him, he’s picking based on their positions as well as expertise. Dubya’s economic advisers held certain positions, while Obama’s held others. > > Further, even if the President picks a team of like-minded advisers, they tend to end up disagreeing with each other. Final authority rests with the President when it comes to decisions. He has to pick which advice to believe and follow, and which to ignore. This requires him to have expertise; listening to experts alone is not good enough. I’m not a scientist, but I have enough basic scientific literacy to know how the scientific method works, how the peer-review process produces scientific consensus, how to tell science from pseudoscience, and where to look for reliable expert advice from scientists. It is not impossible for one person to have a commensurate level of “expertise” in all the fields a POTUS has to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/31 "2015-09-20T19:57:12Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > why not? America IS the freest, richest, most prosperous nation on the face of the earth that has freed a over a hundred million people. Yes. And “Raymond Shaw is the bravest, kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known.” ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/32 "2015-09-20T22:27:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Bear in mind that the situation JFK faced in Vietnam arose only because Ike disregarded the Geneva Accords and refused to allow all-Vietnam elections. The CIA-sponsored coup in Iran also happened on his watch – it overthrew an independent-minded prime minister who wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, and installed the Shah as an absolute monarch, and that came back to bite us later. No, Ike was not the greatest at “avoiding mistakes.” Beat me to it. I think this really underscores how much a president’s legacy is dependent on the specific and unique circumstances that he faces while in office. FDR is remembered as a “good” president by most Americans and historians because he successfully guided the country through the Great Depression and most of WWII. In an alternate universe in which FDR is elected in the 1970s in a country facing an oil crisis and with a generally low national morale, it is likely he would have been remembered as a less than good president. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/33 "2015-09-21T00:19:29Z")
> [@dofe](#): > > Beat me to it. > > I think this really underscores how much a president’s legacy is dependent on the specific and unique circumstances that he faces while in office. FDR is remembered as a “good” president by most Americans and historians because he successfully guided the country through the Great Depression and most of WWII. In an alternate universe in which FDR is elected in the 1970s in a country facing an oil crisis and with a generally low national morale, it is likely he would have been remembered as a less than good president. I dunno about that – conservatives (including Democrats) have been chipping away at the New Deal social contract since 1981, and that has not turned out to be a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/34 "2015-09-21T00:31:13Z")
They would need a cooperative congress. Two of the best presidents in my view like LBJ and FDR both had congresses they could work with. I don’t know who was a good president who had a lack of support in congress. ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/35 "2015-09-21T01:23:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I dunno about that – conservatives (including Democrats) have been chipping away at the New Deal social contract since 1981, and that has not turned out to be a good idea. I agree with you, but FDR still generally ranks among the top 5 presidents in modern polls. My point was that FDE was able to get the New Deal programs through Congress largely because the country was facing such unprecedented levels of crisis. Put him in a different set of circumstances–say, 1995 with a booming economy–and I wonder if FDR would be remembered as a great president. He would probably be considered “good” but not great, simply because he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to sign significant legislation. ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/36 "2015-09-21T01:36:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I dunno about that – conservatives (including Democrats) have been chipping away at the New Deal social contract since 1981, and that has not turned out to be a good idea. Depends on who’s paying… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/37 "2015-09-21T01:40:52Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > Depends on who’s paying… Doesn’t, actually; we all have to live in the resulting society. ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/38 "2015-09-21T02:33:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Doesn’t, actually; we all have to live in the resulting society. True, but when those programs were implemented, it probably wasn’t expected that half of us would end up supporting the rest. In any case, the next President will surely face more foreign policy challenges than domestic issues. Might be a good time for a retired General as President… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/39 "2015-09-21T02:37:45Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > They would need a cooperative congress. Two of the best presidents in my view like LBJ and FDR both had congresses they could work with. > > I don’t know who was a good president who had a lack of support in congress. Clinton did just fine. Reagan, we probably disagree on whether he was a good President, but like Clinton he was certainly able to be popular without a Congress of his party, and got some useful things done(tax reform, immigration reform, treaties). Bush 41 was also considered pretty effective. Carter and GWB had Congresses of their party and were failures. So overall, I don’t think a President needs Congress to do his job well. That’s just a crutch for failed Presidents who don’t want to admit that the problem is them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727/40 "2015-09-21T04:05:25Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > True, but when those programs were implemented, it probably wasn’t expected that half of us would end up supporting the rest. :dubious: Nor is it so expected now, nor has it been so expected at any time since, **as you very well know.** > [@inscrutable](#): > > In any case, the next President will surely face more foreign policy challenges than domestic issues Might be a good time for a retired General as President… That is entirely false. All the important issues that now face Americans are domestic, and those not domestic are not military. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-make-for-a-good-president/731727.md?page=3)