Models of Presidential Power

I apologize for this somewhat political post, but I hope that you will useful and un-biased. if you don’t want this you can use my Political Opinion Avoidance Filter in the future.

It is nearly impossible to avoid politics, especially in this season. I find it a fascinating time to learn more about how the government of the United States works (and doesn’t work). There’s lots of interesting subtleties in the game of electing a new president.

In an effort to understand a bit more about the Power of the President, and to try to understand how much the President really can affect the issues that are important to me, I found this little bit informative and especially helpful. Presidential Power seems to come in different flavors–and there are visible difference in each of the current candidates which indicate how they might run their presidency. I don’t know that any one of them is worse, or better than the other model, but it may make a difference on how you look at each candidate.

This comes from the Wikipedia article on the President of the United States.

James M. Burns, noted presidential scholar, has categorized presidents into three categories based on how each enacts policy:

Madisonian Model: The president relies on Congress to lead in setting policy. The president mainly administers policies set by Congress.

Hamiltonian Model: The president should be heroic and above partisanship. He or she should rely on the Constitution and public opinion for support. The president should lead in all areas and ignore Congress if necessary.

Jeffersonian Model: The president should lead through his or her party. He or she should act similar to a Prime Minister in a Parliamentary System. The party, influenced and lead by the president, sets policy. The president assists the party with getting their platform enacted.

I could be mistaken, but it seems to me that Obama leans toward the Jeffersonian Model, and McCain leans toward the Hamiltonian model, with each candidate showing elements of the latter two. What seems to be happening is that we have a “Hamiltonian” running a campaign like he’s a “Jeffersonian” in order to gain his party’s support and a “Jeffersonian” running his campaign like he’s a “Hamiltonian” to get support from those not from his party.

If I’m looking at Obama, I need to be looking closely at the Democratic Party and its platform. A vote for Obama is a vote for the Democratic Party.

If I’m looking at McCain, I might need to look more closely at McCain himself than I need to look at the Republican Party and its platform. A vote for McCain isn’t necessarily a vote for the Republican party.

If I’m looking somewhere else, I might be wondering: “where are the “Madisonians?”

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