Ex-senators did not fare as well. The 16 presidents who had been senators had an average net favorability ranking of 26.4, while the average for the 26 presidents without senate experience was 18.5. The difference in those means was significant, p < .05, that is, the difference in average ratings is probably not the result of chance alone.
This result may arise from the fact that 8 of the 10 lowest-ranked presidents previously served in the Senate, while only two of the Top-10 were former Senators. Or it may be due to the fundamental difference in the nature of the jobs. The Senate is "the world's greatest deliberative body" while the White House can be the world's "Action Central." Few people could move effortlessly from one position to the other, just as few college professors could transition easily to Fortune-500 CEO.
So the answer to Margaret's question, "Do Senators make good Presidents?" is, "Not necessarily. In fact, previous service in the Senate may actually diminish a president's effectiveness."
Does length of Senate service matter? No. The average tenure for presidents with service in the Senate was 6.125 years, with no correlation between length of service and later presidential effectiveness.
Ten Attributes of Good Presidents
Comparing the Top-10 and Bottom-10 presidents led me to several conclusions about the some of the key attributes of good presidents. Here I go beyond the data set to list these attributes as I see them.
1. They set bold objectives and achieve them. Whether the objective is to build a Panama Canal, win a war, rebuild a continent, or put a man on the moon, the best presidents think big. But big thinking is not enough: they then have to set the wheels in motion to achieve their goals. If they do not achieve those goals, or if they overpromise, vacillate, or bog down, history exacts a heavy penalty.
2. They perform well under pressure. The most successful presidents tended to have more top executive experience, either as a governor or a military commander. Personal setbacks and early career failures seem to help develop this ability. Good presidents know what it's like to be in the hot seat and seem to welcome the challenge. They are thoughtful people, however, and do not shoot from the hip.
3. They are good communicators and motivators. Good presidents communicate with their constituents and subordinates early, often, and well. They are credible, compelling, and persuasive speakers. The importance of credibility is hard to overstate: when a president loses credibility, he relegates himself to the nether regions of the list.
4. They know how to harness the federal bureaucracy. The US federal bureaucracy is one of the world's most complex organizations, with a $3.1 trillion annual budget. The ideas of the president are brought to life by the bureaucracy and he/she has to be able to harness and steer that behemoth.
5. They manage the purse carefully. Since Washington, paying for wars and domestic initiatives was a top presidential priority. In 1946, for example, gross federal debt was 121.7% of GDP. That figure declined steadily for the next 34 years, as a succession of presidents paid off the debt from WWII. Since 1980, debt-to-GDP has recklessly doubled, from 33% to 66% of GDP. It declined only during the Clinton years.
6. They do not allow themselves to be overtaken by events. Buchanan, for example, dithered and tried to maintain business-as-usual during the period leading up to the Civil War. Hoover, elected in the prosperity and optimism of 1928, was completely overtaken by the Great Depression. And Lyndon Johnson, for all his hopes for a Great Society, was stymied by Vietnam. This is one area where prior executive experience makes a huge difference.
7. They place partnership ahead of partisanship to get things done. Lincoln and Roosevelt offer compelling examples. Lincoln purposely recruited enemies and rivals into his cabinet to gain the advantage of their diverse opinions. And, despite mutual dislike, distrust, and even hatred between FDR and the business community, at the outbreak of WWII Roosevelt recruited a legion of experienced business executives to plan and oversee war production. He wisely understood that no party's interests transcend those of the country.
8. They have some experience in diplomacy. Diplomatic experience is not an absolute job requirement but better presidents tend to have more of it. Those without it gain the experience on the job, often with missteps along the way.
9. They are responsive to public opinion but they are not slaves to it. Good presidents must be attentive and responsive to the public mood without being as fickle as the public often can be. Good presidents try to shape public opinion, to "meet people where they are," and to lead them forward from there. Good presidents avoid pandering to or favoring selected constituencies – "special interests."
10. They avoid allegations of misconduct and get out in front of scandals. Scandals and misconduct plague every administration, from the Conway Cabal to oust Washington to the present firings of US Attorneys (to pick just one example). The next administration will be no exception. The best presidents deal with scandals forthrightly and honestly when they develop. Lesser ones tend to ignore, obfuscate, stonewall, or cover up. In fact, if we ranked the presidents on a scale from "I cannot tell a lie" to "I cannot tell the truth," the rankings would probably correspond well to the Rasmussen ratings.
Bear in mind that these ten attributes were derived by inspection, not by calculation. Their presence on the list, and their relative importance, are matters of judgment. You may well go through the same process and come up with a different list. In addition, not all attributes carry the same weight. You can weight them based on their importance to you.
Rick Wise is an industrial psychologist and retired management consultant. For 15 years, he was managing director of ValueNet International, Inc. Rick was a Vietnam-era Navy Hospital Corpsman.
Rick holds PhD and M.Ed. degrees from Penn State. His BS is from West Chester University. He completed post-doctoral work at Rensselaer, Northwestern, University of Colorado, and Harvard. A native of Pennsylvania, Rick now lives in New England.
just in case I have a hard drive crash, and refer to it all summer. Thanks, Rick.
Today, Rob Kall took on the knotty problem of taxes. It was well done, and I took the opportunity to piggyback with comments concerning John Linder's Fair Tax. My plea was to find a knowledgeable person to disect the cotton candy of the book just written by him and Neil Boortz. Do you have any interest in running that harebrained idea up the flagpole?
There was relevance in the question about Senators as presidents, I see. Some days, I think the Three Senators are talking to each other about some minor proposal. And I am out in the middle of nowhere--old, hooked on campaign fluff, and wondering whether anyone has "the vision thing" as the first Bush once remarked.
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Margaret Bassett (31 articles, 1959 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 1278 comments)
on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 11:56:42 AM
There was indeed relevance to the question, Margaret.Thanks for asking it.
I too get tired of the trivia, spin, false associations, out-of-context utterances, and mischaracterizations that have become hallmarks of presidential campaigns.Winning the presidency should be about a vision for a great country in an uncertain world.Instead, it’s about why the other guy is demented, deluded, dishonest, or all three.The presidency doesn’t go to the best person, it goes to the last person standing … and that’s usually the person with the most money.
Part of this is our fault.As citizens, we are not very demanding or discerning.We don’t insist that candidates articulate a vision for the country so we should not be surprised when they don’t.
My "vision" for the next four years is simple: clean up the mess made by the Bush administration.If any candidate would promise to end the Iraq war, fix the economy, repeal the Patriot act and all its vestiges, and balance the budget, he/she would have my vote in a blink.
That’s an agenda, not a vision.Your vision is never very good when you’re in a hole.It will take a good four years to get just than much done.Then we can begin to envision again.
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 5:29:14 PM
This little tidbit of research doesn't tell you anything about the current crop. What we know about the current crop of Senators is that since 2000 none of those currently running for President, as far as I know, has led a fight or advocated for the impeachment of the criminals who have been trying their best to shred the Constitution. If they didn't try or weren't effective in leading the fight in defense of the Constitution as Senators, how much confidence should we have that they would be any good at protecting and defending the Constitution as President... after all, the only promise a Senator or a President makes to the American people on taking office is that he or she will protect and defend the Constitution against all its enemies foreign or domestic? We don't need to review history to make a realistic assessment of what the future holds.
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Mark A. Goldman (81 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 243 comments)
on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 6:17:14 PM
I liked the article and thought the stats were interresting. Earlier presidents were trying to harness some basic common threads of hope from the colonists who came from oppression and came here seeking independence. You mentioned that good presidends had the ability to harness the corporate behemoths of their period.
These behemoths knew that they could suffer from regulation back then. Now they have our government working for them. Information is collected and diseminated within numerous inner circles, too often under cloaks of secrecy.
Our history has recognized that concentrations of wealth become souless preditory creatures that seek to expand not only on our soil, but they now are able to get our polititians on board to use our military to expand their interrest while they rape us wheneven we use their energy.
Only high fines to any corporate interrest that seeks to influence our politicians and restricting elections to the use of public money will get our government to even care about its people.
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Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 276 comments)
on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 7:09:04 PM
There may be a slight misunderstanding, Sleeper … I apologize for not being clearer.The behemoth that good presidents are able to harness is the federal bureaucracy.Not all presidents are able to do that.Down at the bottom of the organization, where the work gets done, there is a legion of bureaucrats thinking, “Been there, done that … I’ve gotten through five presidents and I’ll get through this one …”An example of inability to harness the bureaucracy is FEMA, which used to be a highly effective agency.FEMA has been reduced to a punch line.
The subject of presidents’ relations with corporate America could be the subject of many books, and probably is. Jackson and the banks, Teddy Roosevelt and the railroads, Harding and Sinclair Oil (Teapot Dome), Franklin Roosevelt and business generally, Truman and the steel industry, Ike and the “military-industrial complex,” Reagan and deregulation, Bush and the oil industry, and government’s role in pay and benefits (especially executive compensation, health benefits, and the minimum wage) all come to mind.There’s about nine chapters right there and I haven’t even thought about it.
I agree with you that it’s time to get corporate America back on the right road … at least those corporations that serve some strategic public interest.Management’s job is to build value for its company’s stakeholders: shareholders, bondholders, employees, suppliers, and customers.Government’s job is different: it’s to see that the corporations serve the larger public interest and play by the rules as they go about their business.Government’s job is not to aid and abet management in nefarious schemes that maximize profit and minimize risk.We have seen the outcomes when government fails in its oversight responsibility.
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 11:08:37 AM
Funny twist, pft, but it actually doesn't matter whether a president was a good senator. Buchanan was a good senator and a mediocre president. Truman was effective in both roles. Harding was a dud as senator and as a president. And JFK had a so-so record in the senate but is widely seen as a good president. As they say in every prospectus, "Past performance is not a guarantee of future results."
It's becoming clear to me that presidential effectiveness is as much about the person in his/her times as much as it is about the person in some absolute sense. At some other time, Truman may have been just another chair-warmer but in his time, he was a great president.
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 11:26:12 AM
Thanks for your comments, Mark.I did not get into the question of which of the current candidates will make the best president for three reasons:
·It went too far beyond the question I was looking into (arguably I went too far with the ten attributes);
·The data set I was working with was not extensive enough for anyone to attempt a credible answer;
·If I could credibly answer that question, I sure wouldn't be posting it here for free!
I do think it's possible to compare the candidates across the ten attributes and form a defensible opinion as to who has the best prospects.That will at least cause you to focus on relevant information and allow you to make apples-to-apples comparisons based on that information.
If the piece accomplished just that much, it would be an improvement over the way we consider information now.Imagine this conversation:
"Obama's a terrific speaker, an uplifting presence."
"Yeah, but Hillary's healthcare plan is more realistic."
"But what about Bill?"
"Forget Bill.What about Rev. Wright?And who's this Rezko guy?"
Is that any way to consider who the next President of the United States should be?Rhetorical ability and personality have nothing to do with healthcare, and Wright and Rezko have nothing to do with anything.
You mentioned impeachment.Here are a few thoughts:
We seem to move toward impeachment when three conditions obtain:
·The president and the Congressional leadership are of different parties;
·The president does several things the leadership disapproves of, and the leadership finds an excuse to impeach;
·There's little else, like a war, to keep the Congress busy.
In Andrew Johnson's case, the reason that sounded good was that he flouted the Tenure of Office Act when he fired Edwin Stanton, a Radical Republican (different meaning than today).Johnson was a War Democrat, Congress was dominated by Radical Republicans, and The Civil War was over.
Richard Nixon did the right thing when he resigned. The "third-rate burglary", by itself, probably did not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" but Nixon by his actions and the cover-up surrendered the moral ground a president needs to lead.The same conditions existed, though: Congress of the opposing party, actions that drew widespread disapproval, and no war going on.And people hated Nixon.
The same thing happened with Clinton.The actions may not have risen to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," but the Congress was of the opposite party, Clinton handed Congress a loaded gun with Monica and the perjured testimony, and there was no war or other crisis to keep the Congress occupied.
In my view, nobody ever more richly deserved impeachment than George W. Bush.He should have been impeached, convicted, removed, and then prosecuted domestically and internationally.But for six years, the Congress was Republican and there was a war on.So it was not going to happen then.After 2006, the war was still on.So the three conditions never converged.
As to the three Senators' lack of action on impeachment, there was little they could do.Impeachments have to start in the House.Maybe they could have spoken out for it but McCain wasn't going to do it, he's a Republican.Obama wasn't going to do it; he was a back-bencher for two years and then started running for president.And Clinton was wise not to speak out due the appearance it would create.
If your point was that all three were active participants in a do-nothing Congress so how will they make things happen as president? ... that's a fair question.
To your comment, "We don't need to review history to make a realistic assessment of what the future holds."I disagree.Besides, you can't know whether such a review was useful until after you do the review.I do think it's unwise to ignore history, as Santayana (or Edmund Burke, or whoever) famously pointed out.
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 9:51:12 AM
Sorry Teddy R. was the most over-rated of all .. anti- trust good .... invading Cuba , Puerto Rico and the Philipines ... very BAD. Hoover is blamed for Coolidge's policies even though in 1927 he took only THREE DAYS to find tents and food for the Mississippi flood victims as Sec of Commerce. We could have used him after Katrina!!! Carter was blamed for inflation. Does anybody remember FORD's WIN buttons? WHIP INFLATION NOW! Carter straightened out the economy by bringing in Paul Volker ( who Reagan kept on!) Carter also had a plan to produce 20% of power from Solar energy and even put panels on the White House! Reagan of course took them down. Why Obama is different .. he has lived in Hawaii .. INDONESIA... visited his family in Kenya ... worked as a community organizer in Chicago.. more qualified by life experience than the other two H*****s !!
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paulocurry (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 5:28:24 PM
As I said, I don’t agree with all the ratings and I can see you don’t either.As I recall, McKinley, not TR, had the reins during the Spanish-American War and the annexation of the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.Roosevelt was his VP and became president when McKinley was assassinated in 1901.
I don’t know about tents for Mississippi flood victims in 1927.That seems more like a job for Interior than Commerce (back then) but you may be right.It’s true that Hoover was not exactly cut out to be a “first responder.”
You’re right, it was Ford who brought forth those ridiculous WIN buttons.He was well-intended but did not really appreciate that, outside government (where he spent his whole career) , nobody is going to leave money on the table, which is what WINning required.
That’s the same reason Obama is now “O-bomb-a” on Wall Street.His “economic speech” was, if nothing else, good for a guffaw from “the Street”.Consensus was, “Lightweight … nothing to worry about here.”We’ll see if they are right.
Carter did bring in Paul Volcker and that was a good move.In so many ways, Carter was a man ahead of his time, but he did not have the public persona a president needs. I really admire him.I wrote an article about him for OpEdNews back when Coretta Scott King passed away.
What does H*****s mean?
Rick
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 6:39:35 PM
I think a Senator can do some amazing image repair for the American Dream. Global Commerce currently owns our government and "We The People" suffer from the deception and the never quite come to realize that we are meant to be held down and stripped of any power just as much as any opposition in any of the current Wars.
There is no free speach. There is aid and opposition and any opposition is the enemy. Any candidate that will restore responsivenes to the people of the U.S. will be a God Send.
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Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 276 comments)
on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 3:17:16 PM
These are good points, sleeper.You’re right, an ex-Senator can, as President, do a lot of good to repair our image abroad.Heaven knows we need it.Either of the Democratic candidates can do that; I doubt McCain can.
A point I should have made clear in the article is this: service in the Senate does not necessarily cause someone to be a sub-par president.But the skills one needs for success as president are not the same skills he/she needs for success in the senate.
Global commerce does not own us quite yet, but the trend is something to keep an eye on. Non-US interests already own about 10% of the United States (mostly in government bonds and commercial real estate) and that foreign-interest ownership stake is growing each year. It has been since 1978.
Essentially, we are consuming 7.3% more than we produce each year and importing the difference.It’s like making $40,000 a year and spending $43,000 a year.And the debt just keeps getting added to the foreign-ownership tab.
Some economists say this is really no problem given the size and power of our economy. That’s true as long as productivity growth exceeds growth in the trade deficit.But what happens when the national debt increases, housing values decline, and equities markets turn unstable?We may suffer a temporary decline in national wealth.Foreign powers then sense more risk in US investments and devalue our currency accordingly.
That is happening before our eyes. The present situation is not good, and it could have been avoided with closer regulation of financial markets and better management of the federal budget.It will be hard to grow out of our current predicament.
You write, “(W)e are meant to be held down and stripped of any power …” and, “There is no free speech.”That’s the way it looks to me, too.And the most galling aspect of all this is that in the Constitution, THE PEOPLE give the government its powers and responsibilities while reserving many rights for ourselves (in the Bill of Rights).
Now the government is telling US what our rights are.Rights come from the people, not the government.It seems that our most fundamental principle – “consent of the governed” – has been turned on its head in just a few short years.And any president who can turn that principle right again will indeed be a God-send.
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Richard Wise (25 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 4:29:02 PM
There is no perfect government and ours has the means to right itself, but it takes self sacrifice not only from the masses, but also from our leaders, who do a terrible job of policing themselves. Instead they throw too many in jail for nothing and let the bigger criminals go free. In one of Bob Dylan's songs he says, "steal a little and they throw you in jail steal alot and they make you king" and that fits the pirates that are in charge now.
by
Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 276 comments)
on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 4:11:49 PM
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