DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
AND
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Posc 105
THE PRESIDENCY
- THIS MORNING:
- Explaining presidential performance
- Film: "What Happened To Bill Clinton"
- ASSESSING PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PERFORMANCE:
- The expectations gap: difference between
public wants and what a president can
do.
- Americans expect presidents to be all
things to all people.
- How do we explain presidential performance.
- The American way of judging merit
- Roles versus incumbents: recall the
discussion of "roles"
- I think a case can be made that people confuse a role such as the
presidency with an incumbent such as President Clinton.
- We think that the office has all sorts of
powers and expect to a president to
deal with any and all of our national problems.
- Consider the rhetoric of politics:
- The "Clinton" tax increase
(decrease)
- The "Clinton" failures
(successes) in lowering crime,
reducing unemployment, ending inflation,...
- "Who lost _________?!" (Fill in the blank.)
- Presidents themselves feed these
expectations, both while campaigning for
the office and after occupying it.
- When expectations are disappointed
we look to the person-his character,
background, skills, leadership qualities-for the answers.
- The film, "What Happened to
Bill Clinton?" illustrates this type of analysis.
- Look incidentally for explanations of
his behavior in the Monica
Lewinsky matter.
- Another explanations looks at the
interplay between events and the institutional
capacity.
- It argues that many of presidential
failures can be attributed to weaknesses
in the office and that many successes are either the product of
circumstances and luck or skillful "public relations."
- NEXT TIME:
- The strengths and weaknesses of the presidency.
- Reading:
- Patterson,
We the People, Chapter 12 as needed.
Go to Notes page
Go to American Political System page
Go to H. T. Reynolds page