Passive-Negative Presidents
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Passive-negative presents are usually "breathing spells".
| "Without Eisenhower as head of the Republican party, the venom that disgraced democratic politics in the closing years of Truman's presidency would have been rife in the nation. He purged national life of rancor. ANd by presenting himself continuously as standing at the moderate and reasonable center of American life, he was able to tune in on the deepest instincts of the people who, at this stage in their history, desired pause, comfort and repose; a mood which reflected the spectacular expansion o the middle class base of American life". |
They offer a time of recovery afte active -positive or active-negative presidents.
They tend to offer the public reassurance and legitimacy
they are motivated by a sense of duty
In the process however, the country usually drifts
| "The misfortune of Eisenhower's presideny is that a man of such immense popularity and good will did not accomplish more. All the domestic problems which confronted the nation in the 1960s--the unrest of the Negro, the decay of the cities, the mediocrity of the schools, the permanence of poverty--were bubbling beneath the surface in the 1950s, but the President never seemed quite sure that they existed or, if they did, that they were problems with which he should not concern himself". |
They are often "reluctant" presidents, ie. people who have been convinced that they should be President (generals) or those thrown into the presidency after presidential death, They may be a vanishing breed however, as the political landscape is now populated by people who aggressively pursue the presidency for years (a function of our selection process) and the lack of major wars means fewer popular generals emerging (Colin Powell, the exception?)
Coolidge rstored confidence in the legitimacy of his office after the scandals of the Harding administration; Eisenhower did the same following Truman's "mess in Washington." Each was valued for "character" in the sense of old-fashioned personal virtue and stability, and especially for his antipolitical honesty, for his apparent disdain of the calculated ploy....Eventually the people's hunger for straight talk comes through and produces a candidate who, whatever else he may be, seems honest.
The trouble with the passive-negative type in the Presidency is that he leaves vacant the energizing, initiating, stimulating possibilities of the role. He is a responder: issues are "brought to his attention"--and there are too damned many of them. Under the flag of legitimacy, the nation unites--and drifts. Presidential dignity is restored at the cost of Presidential leadership. As long as we have no king, this type may be necessary from time to time. But while we are restoring the national spirit in this way, the body politic lapses into laxness and the social order deteriorates as neglected tensions build up. Eventually some leader ready to shove as well as stand fast, someone who enjoys the great game of politics, will have to pick up the peieces". |
Active
Positives
1) a conviction of
capability
the president reaches the conclusion
that despite his weaknesses, he is fully able to meet the challenges of the job
2) investment without
immersion
he has interest in the issues
he learns what he needs to
there is some detachment in that he puts
distance between himself and his work
3) a sense of the future
as possible
the future is more important than the
past
the future is not set and mechanical
"principles" don't work
imaginative experimentation
4) a repertoire of
habits
uses all the stylistic approaches
(rhetoric, personal relations, homework)
5) the
communication of excitement