The Presidential Character

. . . the best way to anticipate a President's character, world view, and style is to see how they were put in concert in the first place. . . I am not slightly to argue that once you feel a President's personality you know invariablyything. But, as the cases will demonstrate, the degree and quality of a President's worked up involvement in an bailiwick are powerful influences on how he defines the issue itself, how much attention he pays to it, which facts and persons he sees as relevant to its resolution, and, finally, what principles and purposes he associates with the issue.

barber's thesis is that character is organise in childhood, world view in adolescence, and style in early adulthood, and he therefore would turn to an analysis of the candidate in each of these periods as a way of ascertain these elements. He never succeeds in truly providing the method for accomplishing this depute with an unknown candidate, using instead a hindsight method for examining Presidents who establish already been in office and who have demonstrated their character. Barber can then look back on their career and point out where certain traits may have developed. such an exercise is interesting and may indicate both the sizeableness of certain character traits and how they might have been formed for a particular individual, but it does not serve to cr

Powers of the Presidency. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1989.

It seems that we have heard much more(prenominal) than usual nigh presidential character during the last resource and into the current administration, and character has come to be an issue that is discussed openly as a test of candidates. This trend can actually be traced back to the election in 1988 when there was a clash of values as the press followed Gary Hart and report that he was having an affair after he had claimed he was not. The contestation over whether or not the press should have through this became an argument over the "character issue," and that has been the phrase used ever since to refer to investigations that go beyond competence or questions of headmaster background.

Bill Clinton had a similar problem when allegations ere raised about a woman who said she had had an affair with him, just aboutthing he denied. date he seemed to put the matter to rest and did so sufficiently to win the presidency, doubts have remained and continue to make Clinton's character an issue with critics of his actions and his administration.

Barber delineates four types of presidential character he sees as be exemplified in those who have been in the office since Theodore Roosevelt (a time-line selected patently from the view that the Presidents of this century have more in car park with each other than they do with earlier Presidents). The types are set forth as baselines, or guides for defining Presidential types. They describe shipway in which the President applies his character in situations calling for some action: active-positive, active-negative, passive-positive, passive-negative. The active-positive type shows a congruence amidst being very active and the enjoyment of the process, indicating relatively high self-assertion and relative success in relating to the environment. Active-negative is a contradiction between relatively intense effort and relatively low worked up reward for that effort
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