The president is the first political office children recognize. The president helps people make sense of politics. Congress is a tangle of committees; the bureaucracy is a maze of agencies. The president is one man trying to do a job – a picture much more understandable to the mass of people who find themselves in the same boat. Furthermore, he is the top man. He ought to know what is going on and set it right. So when the economy goes sour, or war drags on, or domestic violence erupts, the president is available to take the blame. Then when things go right, it seems the president must have had a hand in it. Indeed, the flow of political life is marked off by Presidents: the “Eisenhower Era,” the “Kennedy Years.”
We do seem to expect a lot from our presidents. Why is that? We elect them and give them a report card after their first 100 days in office. The expectation that they should be able to fix the economy or solve an international crisis in just a few days seems to be something dreamt up from a Hollywood screenplay.
Do you think we have too high an expectation for our presidents? Why do we expect our presidents to do so much? Do the journalists share the blame? Do the presidents themselves? When they run for the office they make sweeping promises that fail to consider the constrictions of the office, but then every candidate for every office does that – even the local dog catcher.
Where does Congress or the Courts fit into the public perception of the presidents’ power? Do different presidents’ have different powers? Furthermore, when we consider our expectations of the office, are we imagining a president living in an older era? If we factor in the new globally connected and socially connected world, must we re-evaluate our expectations as to whether presidents can accomplish their agendas? Is there anything that can be done to make a president more successful in achieving his promises?
Have we ever had a president who has successfully met the public’s expectations? Or does it take time out of office for the public’s opinion of the president’s performance to change? For example, people are re-evaluating the presidency of George H.W. Bush. The public and historians are concluding that the Bush I Administration was one of the better administrations in recent history.
