Chapter Two: The Candidates
The candidates, of course, are the star players in the presidential election. They get all the attention, and they select the issues they’ll focus on and the messages they’ll convey to voters. They also determine how their campaigns will be run—though the candidate’s campaign managers, pollsters, and other advisers usually play major roles in these decisions. How they’ll go about their fund-raising, how many debates they’ll participate in, how they’ll work the Internet, whether they’ll “go negative” in their advertising, and how much information they’ll provide about their policy positions: These are all aspects of the campaign the candidate must address.
Campaign Strategy, Part I: The Candidates and the Issues
Deciding what issues to focus on—and how to do that—is a major decision for the candidates as they weigh how best to connect with American voters. To be taken seriously by the media and the public, candidates need to define in simple terms why they are running and project ideas that connect with key concerns of the electorate. Many candidates, in fact, select just one or two high-profile issues that will differentiate them from the other contenders in their party. Standing out is key in the early going, when a candidate may face ten or more possible competitors for the party’s nomination. In the 1996 contest for the Republican nomination, Steve Forbes set himself apart from his opponents by advocating a “flat tax” that would establish one low tax rate for all Americans. One of his opponents, broadcast commentator and former White House speechwriter Pat Buchanan, chose the issue of U.S. jobs going overseas; Buchanan’s remedy was higher tariffs on imported goods.
More often than not, unique or unusual proposals such as Buchanan’s and Forbes’s are crafted as much to attract attention to the candidate as to provide a preview of how he or she would govern. After all, any major policy proposal that a presidential candidate suggests would require the support of the Congress after the election. And the more dramatic or radical the proposal, the less likely it is that Congress will agree to it.
As a result, these sorts of far-reaching ideas should be thought of as a candidate’s neon signs. They beckon you in so you can check out the candidate and what he or she stands for. When the final platform is hammered out at the party convention, most of the more extreme ideological statements are usually removed or softened at the request of the party.
Campaign Strategy, Part II: Dividing the Electorate
Similarly, many candidates seek to differentiate themselves by making direct appeals to specific segments of the party faithful. On the Republican side, individual candidates often battle for the support of the Christian right by staking out hard-line positions on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Recent examples of such candidates include Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson and, in the 2000 race, Gary Bauer, the former head of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group.
On the Democratic side, there is often an early fight to gain the support of the most liberal wing of the party. Democrats who have positioned themselves as the “progressive candidate” in recent elections included Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. In 2004, Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean both appealed to the left wing of the party by taking strong stands against the Iraq war. Often, the candidates making these targeted appeals understand from the start that they have very little hope of winning the presidency. Instead, their goal is to introduce their issues into the campaign, to demonstrate support for their ideas, and, hopefully, to have some influence on the party’s stands during the general election campaign and beyond.
The front-running candidates in both parties, by contrast, rarely propose controversial goals or policies that might alienate significant portions of their party’s voters and prove a liability during the general election. Rather, the front-runners’ goal during the early going and beyond is to get the mainstream of the party behind them as consensus candidates and to demonstrate “electability,” or the ability to attract the support of the majority of American voters—Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike—come November.
The President: A Powerful CEO
One reason so many Americans are attracted to the presidency is that the Constitution, from the earliest days of the republic, set up a system of government with a strong chief executive officer. Article II of the Constitution, titled “Duties and Powers of the President,” gives the president a job description that includes the following:
• Commander in chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia (National Guard) when the guard is called up for federal service;
• Can grant pardons and reprieves;
• Can appoint judges of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, ambassadors, and other high U.S. officials, with the “advice and consent” of the Senate;
• Can veto legislation passed by Congress* (though a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate can override a veto);
• Can make treaties, with the consent of two-thirds of the Senate;
• Shall report to Congress on “the State of the Union” and recommend laws for Congress to consider;
• “Shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Beyond these official powers named by the Constitution, the president in fact has other important powers, including being head of his or her political party, and being the spokesperson for the country, which gives the president a great deal of media exposure and informal influence over the nation’s political agenda.
*Note: the veto power is described in Article I of the Constitution.
The Perks of the Office In addition to getting to ride in Air Force 1, the president receives a salary of four hundred thousand dollars a year, plus a fifty-thousand-dollar nontaxable expense account, and retirement benefits. The president also lives in the White House rent-free. The work of the president is supported by the federal government’s vast executive branch and its approximately 2.7 million civilian employees, as well as 1.7 million military employees. Immediately serving the president are the White House staff; executive offices such as the Council of Economic Advisors and the National Security Council; and the members of the cabinet, which is composed primarily of the heads of the fifteen executive departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.
From the book, Choosing the President 20008: A Citizen’s Guide to the Electoral Process.Copyright 2008 by the League of Women Voters. Used by permission of Globe Pequot Press, www.globepequot.com
