Samuel Kernell makes the observation that the nature of the presidency has changed as those holding the office have tended to spend their time in office campaigning for the next election more than governing. There is always an element of campaigning in governance as those holding office know that their actions will have some effect, pro or con, on their chances in the next election. In the case of the President, the man holding the office knows that his actions will affect not only his own fortunes but those of his party. Kernell finds that the campaign mode that now affects the executive branch so severely has developed because of changes in the political environment and in the ways in which the President reacts to these changes:
Whether in exploiting favorable conditions to advance policy goals or in attempting to improve the incumbent's prestige, the strategic prescriptions of going public put the office on a campaign footing. Governing, according to a Reagan staffer, amounts to little more than an extension of the campaign that brought him into office.
The same trend has been noted for the Clinton administration, and indeed it has been highlighted by many commentators who find that Clinton's ability to govern may be impaired because he has been unable to escape from the campaign mode that brought him to office.
Kernell cites Sidney Blumenthal to the effect that candidates who are elected still have to deal with shaky coalitions held together by momentary moods rather than stable party structures. Blumenthal here places the blame in the deterioration of party control. When the political parties were stronger and could command loyalty, the resulting coalition was stronger and better able to govern without testing every move in the political realm to see if the public would accept or reject it. With the loss of party strength, though, the situation changed, as Blumenthal notes:
Once elected, candidates. . . must...