Predictions of Presidential Behavior
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In his book The Presidential Character, James David Barber tries to accomplish what voters have been trying to do in America for over 200 years--set forth a way of predicting how a candidate would do in the White House. While this may seem a near-impossible task, Barber is clearly able to indicate the nature of the office being sought, the characteristics sought in a candidate, and the characters of a number of the men who have worked in the Oval Office. Barber uses these characteristics and his analyses of specific presidents as a way of determining after the fact what one might ask before the fact in deciding how a certain character trait will serve for good or ill in a man (or woman) in the White House. Barber himself refers to his work as a "strange book" that was written over a period of 25 years. Ultimately, it is a book that raises as many questions as it answers but that at least starts the reader considering the nature of the issues involved in selecting a President or a candidate for any other high office.Barber begins with a consideration of that elusive component so much discussed in the last election, character, as part of a pattern by which Barber believes we can judge how a given candidate will behave and perform in office: The burden of this book is that the crucial differences can be anticipated by an understanding of a potential President's character, his world view, and his style. Barber feels that a President's personality is patterned and that
. . .
nt types of character which can be effective and that there needs to be a fit between the character of the candidate and the circumstances of the time, meaning that one type of character might be effective under one set of circumstances and another type under a different set. Barber is clearer about what type he thinks different Presidents have been than about what type is most effective in different sorts of situation, another reason why his analysis fails as a predictive tool.
David S. Broder has written about Presidential style and character as well and decided in 1980 that a new generation was poised to take power and to change the way politics in America would be undertaken and applied. He was looking at the "baby boom" generation and determining how that generation was shaped by its experience, not unlike the way Barber examined the lives of specific Presidents. Broder found that this generation had grown up in an age of computerization and regimentation and that
they are all rebels against that kind of mass culture and huge institution. At a level much more fundamental than their reason, they yearn for a world where things are smaller, simpler and freer than they have known. The bipartisan drive for deregulation of
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1870
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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