James David Barber's Pulse of Politics
Not only do we need to know the character of the person who occupies the office but we need to
know about the public mood
Barber posits a recurring series of themes in elections
1) conflict
2) conscience
3) conciliation
Conflict: people ready for action and struggle
Conscience: people question the "morality" of action
Conciliation: people demand a respite
| CONFLICT |
CONSCIENCE |
CONCILIATION |
| 1948
Truman/ Dewey |
1952
Eisenhower/
Stevenson |
1956
Eisenhower/
Stevenson |
| 1960
Kennedy/ Nixon |
1964
Johnson/ Goldwater
"A choice, not an
echo" |
1968
Nixon/
Humphrey
"Bring us together" |
| 1972
Nixon/ McGovern
Vietnam |
1976
Ford/ Carter |
1980
Reagan/ Carter |
| 1984
Reagan/ Mondale |
1988
Bush/ Dukakis |
1992
Clinton/ Bush/ Perot |
| 1996
Clinton/ Dole/
Perot |
2000 |
|
The Match Between Personality and Mood
Table
The Reagan Prediction
Climate of Expectations:
"dominated by the tide of reaction against too long and hard a time of troubles, too much worry, too much tension and anxiety....Reagan came on as a friend, a pal, a guy to reassure us that the story was going to come out all right"
Power situation:
"fragile...having won in an election with the lowest turnout in 32 years".
Style:
"dominated by rhetoric, with little interest in homework on the issues and little tasye for the charms of personal negotiation...particularly if they involve an element of disagreement or confrontation. Further, his rhetoric is essentially ahistorical and apolitical . He is bound to contribute to the ever widening gap in American politics between speech and meaning".
Worldview:
"despite various attributions of ideology, would be simpler than supposed: He is a Republican millionaire and hangs around with those folks...As long as Reagan's business friends are happy with moderation, he will be, too".
Character:
"Passive-positive. That meant he would be definitely no Nixon--not a rigidified compulsive. Rather the danger was in his type's tendency to drift, particularly with forces in the close-up environment. The danger is confusion, delay, and then impulsiveness".
Time analysis
"Thus if there were those who stepped into the Reagan years expecting him to be the rigid ideologue his opponents had described him to be, or a withdrawn, philosopher-king President like his hero Calvin Coolidge, or a go-get-'em results achiever like the Roosevelts, they were wrong. They had significantly misdirected their attention to the wrong clues because they had begun with the wrong questions. Reagan was a passive-positive linked through his extraordinary rhetorical style to a public ready, for the moment, for just such a hopeful and reassuring personality. That combination would turn out to be the simplist and the most significant thing to point out as the world rolled over towards 1984'.
"...understanding the "institution" of the Presidency tells you far less than you want to know, and provides only the shape of the stage and the arrangement of the furniture on and around which the action will take place. Theory which fails to reach the person of the Presient will fall short of useful prediction and into the ga will stop whatever speculations politicians can generate, as they struggle to bring power to bear on urgent problems".
The Presidential Power Equation
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