Overview Chapter

The presidency has become a more powerful office than the Framers envisioned, primarily because of two features of the office--national elections and singular authority--which have enabled presidents to make use of changing demands on government to expand the presidential leadership role. This chapter explores this development and then examines the presidential selection process and the staffing of the modern presidency, both of which contribute to the president's prominence in the American political system. The chapter concludes with an examination of the presidential role in policymaking and some factors that contribute to success or failure in that realm. The main ideas of the chapter are these:

• Changing national and world conditions have required the presidency to become a strong office; underlying this development are the constitution's flexibility regarding the presidency and the public support the president acquires from being the only nationally elected official.
• The modern presidential election campaign is a marathon affair in which self-selected candidates must plan for a strong start in the nominating contests and center their general election strategies on media and a baseline of party support.
• The modern presidency could not operate without a large staff of assistants, experts and high-level managers, but the sheer size of this staff makes it impossible for the president to exercise complete control over it.
• A president's election by national vote and his position as sole chief executive ensure that others will listen to his ideas; to succeed, however, the president must get others to respond to his leadership.