Your Humble Blogger has for some years thought it was important to draw a distinction between candidates that wanted to be President and candidates that wanted to get something done that required them to be President to do it. I’m heightening the distinction, of course; anybody who gets the nomination of a major Party is ambitious enough, surely, to satisfy the first claim. I do think it’s a useful distinction, though, and says something about how the person uses the office.
I used to think that on the whole the distinction was a Party one, in recent times, anyway. Democrats, who believe in using the might of the federal government to protect those who need protection, tend to want to be President to institute some policy or other that protects some group or other. Republicans, who don’t believe in using that might, tend to want to be President because they are the right type of person.
I now think that’s wrong, and probably always was. Going backward, it seems likely that Our Only President had a vision of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and transforming the global balance of power that nobody else was going to accomplish, and that he wanted to be the person to accomplish anyway. Our Previous President, on the other hand, wanted to be elected President, which may well have been his primary accomplishment, and after that seems to have primarily wanted to run the place well (by his understanding of running an Executive office well). The fellow before him rather famously didn’t do the vision thing; he was Presidential but it wasn’t clear that he wanted to do anything with it. Ronald Reagan on one level just wanted the part, but on another wanted to be the Man Who Won the Cold War. Jimmy Carter didn’t appear to figure out what he wanted to accomplish as President until he had done it, and Richard Nixon just wanted to stop anybody else from being President.
As for those who got the nomination but not the office, I think Al Gore had a job in mind, but I don’t know that John Kerry did, other than winning the election. Bob Dole never seemed to have any particular tasks in mind, but neither did Michael Dukakis. Walter Mondale may have had some goal, but who would have listened long enough to find out?
As for our current crop, well, it will be easier with hindsight, but it seems to me that Barack Obama has a goal of transforming politics, a fairly nebulous goal, but I think he has some sense of what it means, and means to do it. Just as a comparison, Hillary Clinton clearly wanted to be the President Who Got Health Care Done; I think Sen. Obama would like to get health care done, but that’s not why he’s running. I also don’t get the impression that he is running to be First Black President; that’s surely a source of tremendous pride for him, but doesn’t seem to be what’s driving him, either. I rather suspect that like Bill Clinton, he really wants to be elected President, and that if he wins he will have to hunt around for something to get excited about accomplishing in office. Not that it’s such a terrible thing—I trust his priorities and instincts, so I think whatever he decides to focus on will be a Good Thing.
As for John McCain…why is he running for the office? He doesn’t seem to be enjoying the campaign in the way that Sen. Obama or Bill Clinton did, or even that the two ticket-sharers are enjoying themselves. He wants to reform Washington, and I think that’s real, but I don’t have any sense of what it means. Or, rather, I suspect that the bulk of it is paying back grudges against people who he dislikes. It’s obviously not reducing the influence of lobbyists. His experience changing the actual procedures by which policy and law gets made is not such that makes me think he has any interest in getting involved in actual reform, nor do his stump speeches about reform betray the kind of familiarity with the issue that makes a person think of a man itching to get to work.
Contrast here with, say, Rudy Giuliani, who was so obviously itching to get his fingers on the law enforcement and intelligence powers of the Executive, or with a Steve Forbes or a Jack Kemp.
Now, good Presidents don’t necessarily have to have gone into the job with a Big Goal, and Presidents who go in with a Big Goal don’t necessarily achieve that goal, or if they do, may regret it (or the rest of us might). There is always plenty for a President to do. Most of the job is not going to be taking care of the Big Goal anyway, and you never know what is going to come up and take center stage. So I don’t think it’s necessarily a disadvantage to a President to come into office having already achieved the height of his ambition, that is, of being elected rather than serving. Once you are there, your instincts and your priorities and your skills and your advisors will carry you along. I don’t like John McCain’s instincts, and I don’t like his priorities, and I don’t think much of his skills, and I abominate his advisors, but then, why wouldn’t I.
But I’m just wondering whether my view of the two candidates aligns, more or less, with yours, Gentle Readers. Do you think that Barack Obama has a Big Goal other than transforming politics, vaddevah dat means? Do you think that John McCain has a Big Goal in mind?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.