Presidential Essays | Miller Center
These leaders, each of whom inspired me to emulate their words and deeds, moved with confidence through challenging circumstances without any visible indication that they were concerned with their own well-being, physical or professional. They did what they believed the circumstances called for and, as my Mama would say, “They let the hair go with the hide.” This selflessness inspired awe in me for a time, but I came to see it was natural for these few individuals. They were never careless with the lives of those entrusted to them and neither were they disrespectful toward authority. They simply did what they believed was right and moved on…end of story.
Later, when I was assigned outside our great Corps (then a Department) in Washington, DC, I saw the converse of this lesson a few times…individuals who had amassed enormous power, but were shackled to a pathological fear that if they did not test the winds carefully before speaking or acting, they would lose all their carefully assembled power and, most telling: the prestige they perceived accompanied their power.
How best to bring Congress and public opinion to your side? Speeches that do more to educate, rather than rally, will work to your advantage. Explain the various options you've considered and how you arrived at your decision. The public will appreciate it and may even be enlightened. George W. Bush's first nationally televised speech was to announce his policy on stem-cell research. He laid out the competing arguments in an even-handed way and the audience didn't know his position until the end. All speeches can't follow that modelâbut more can than typically do.
Essay Series on Presidential Principles and Beliefs
Some journalists may well give you the benefit of the doubt in the early days of your presidency, which will be helpful as you seek to shape public opinion. But many reporters will soon turn skeptical or hostile. When you know the inside story, you'll realize how much of what is reported is incomplete, misleading, or outright false. You and your aides will be frustrated and even angry. But donât let yourself or your team view the press as the enemy. It feeds an attitude of paranoia that can imperil a presidency.
In so doing, you further develop your own character. Do not expect to be loved or appreciated. You probably won’t suddenly be acknowledged as a leader, but you begin to become one precisely when you stop worrying about yourself and begin thinking only of the mission and those accomplishing it. In the process, you may find that, over time, you have become the sort of person other Airmen respect and, ultimately, want to emulate.
Even if that were not so: doing what you know is right and explaining that approach to others (Airmen and their commanders) is the very essence of what you and I do. This is a teaching requirement you take on, both as a member of the legal profession and as a leader. You’ve got to become comfortable telling others what you value and how those values affect decisions you make. Done correctly, this is neither self-righteous nor self-serving…it is a way to give others insight into the source of your own character and values. That insight can help them build powerful values of their own. But, you must be willing to constantly reassess your own values in light of new experience. My own values spring from my faith and they are as timeless as the lessons my parents taught me as a child, but I never want to become so complacent in my leadership that I don’t listen to a younger person who seeks to understand by challenging my beliefs. Show respect for the listener by actually hearing what he or she is saying, especially if it doesn’t match your worldview.
And, while I’m on that subject, I encourage disagreement and debate within my own staff, so that we can test each person’s ideas, especially my own. As you get more senior, the number of people willing to shake their heads while you’re talking plummets, as does your ability to get frank feedback…so you’ve got to let people know you value their honest, unvarnished views. When I was Commandant of our incredible JAG School, the faculty would assemble in that beautiful conference room downstairs and debate matters great and small…up to a point. When we left, I believed we were on one page as to the path forward. Consult others who were there on that unbeatable team to get their views on the process and make your own decision about how you want to work with your own staff.
Essay by the President in The Economist
Much had changed politically for Hoover and the Republican Party by the time convention delegates assembled in Chicago in the summer of 1932. The Great Depression that struck during the "Great Engineer's" presidency, and his inability to do much about it, had changed the national mood and its political temper. The word "Hooverize," which in 1917 carried positive images in the public mind, had undergone a similar transformation; by 1932, "Hooverville" had come to represent the dirty shacks in which the unemployed and homeless now lived, with "Hoover Flags" denoting the turned-out pockets of men's trousers as they stood in bread lines. All the things about Hoover that had sounded positive notes during the 1920s rang off-key in 1932. Words like "rationalize," "efficiency," and "technocrat" spoke of heartlessness and a cold-minded concern with an industrial process that had devastated the nation. Hoover's political problems during his term—his repeated failures to muster congressional support for his policies—did not help his chances for re-election, either. Hoover's reputation waned further, and his political future darkened, after General MacArthur routed the Bonus Army from its camps in Washington, D.C., much to the horror of the American public. (See Domestic Affairs section for details.)Few Republicans believed that Hoover could win in 1932, but the President was determined to defend himself. Both Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis were renominated on the first ballot. No disruptive demonstrations, rowdy parades, or outbursts of applause colored the convention hall in Chicago. No pictures of Hoover or Curtis hung from its rafters. The Republican platform praised Hoover's programs, called for a balanced budget and a protective tariff, and urged repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment—a reversal of its 1928 stance on Prohibition. Nothing was said about trade associations, technology, or the promise of prosperity. A sense of gloom-and-doom filled the air.
the Presidency: Essays by Stephen Hess
The Democratic convention met in Chicago as well, but in an entirely different atmosphere. The party faithful and their leaders were certain that the 1932 presidential election would bring the first Democratic victory since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor of New York and the man who had twice nominated Al Smith, held the lead among convention delegates. But Smith wanted to try again, and other Democrats, notably powerful House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas, also sought the nomination. Roosevelt's floor managers managed to convince Garner and key supporters, such as California senator William McAdoo, to back Roosevelt's candidacy rather than let the convention deadlock. Garner acceded and Roosevelt won on the fourth ballot. Roosevelt then flew to Chicago to deliver his acceptance speech in person, a maneuver that defied tradition. It was a politically necessary one, however, because FDR needed to show the electorate that while his body had been ravaged by polio, he was still a vigorous and energetic leader. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt pledged "a new deal for the American people" and was cheered wildly by the delegates.
Essay on how presidents succeed or fail at promoting change
Religion and Prohibition quickly emerged as the most volatile and energizing issues in the campaign. No Catholic had ever been elected President, a by-product of the long history of American anti-Catholic sentiment. Vicious rumors and openly hateful anti-Catholic rhetoric hit Smith hard and often in the months leading up to election day. Numerous Protestant preachers in rural areas delivered Sunday sermons warning their flocks that a vote for Smith was a vote for the Devil. Anti-Smith literature, distributed by the resurgent Ku Klux Klan (KKK), claimed that President Smith would take orders from the Pope, declare all Protestant children illegitimate, annul Protestant marriages, and establish Catholicism as the nation's official religion. When Smith addressed a massive rally in Oklahoma City on the subject of religious intolerance, fiery KKK crosses burned around the stadium and a hostile crowd jeered him as he spoke. The next evening, thousands filled the same stadium to hear an anti-Smith speech entitled, "Al Smith and the Forces of Hell."A consistent critic of Prohibition as governor of New York, Smith took a stance on the Eighteenth Amendment that was politically dangerous both nationally and within the party. While the Democratic platform downplayed the issue, Smith brought it to the fore by telling Democrats at the convention that he wanted "fundamental changes" in Prohibition legislation; shortly thereafter, Smith called openly for Prohibition's repeal, angering Southern Democrats. At the same time, the Anti-Saloon League, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and other supporters of the temperance movement exploited Smith's anti-Prohibition politics, dubbing him "Al-coholic" Smith, spreading rumors about his own addiction to drink, and linking him with moral decline. A popular radio preacher put Smith in the same camp as "card playing, cocktail drinking, poodle dogs, divorces, novels, stuffy rooms, dancing, evolution, Clarence Darrow, nude art, prize-fighting, actors, greyhound racing, and modernism."The Republicans swept the election in November. Hoover carried forty states, including Smith's New York, all the border states, and five traditionally Democratic states in the South. The popular vote gave a whopping 21,391,993 votes (58.2 percent) to Hoover compared to 15,016,169 votes (40.9 percent) to Smith. The electoral college tally was even more lopsided, 444 to 87. With 13 million more people voting in 1928 (57 percent of the electorate) than had turned out in 1924 (49 percent of the electorate), Smith won twice the number of voters who had supported the 1924 losing Democratic candidate, John W. Davis. Hoover, though, also made significant gains, tallying nearly 6 million more Republican votes than Coolidge had four years earlier. Smith's Catholicism and opposition to Prohibition hurt him, but the more decisive factor was that Hoover ran as the candidate of prosperity and economic growth.