Samuel Popkin on Candidates Running for President and Vice President of the United States

In his book Hardball, Chris Matthews discusses the useful strategies for getting ahead in politics that he observed during his time working in Washington, D.C. He breaks up his observations into chapters with different lessons. Three of the most important lessons are “It's Not Who You Know; It's Who You Get to Know,” (Chapter 1) “All Politics is Local,” (Chapter 2) and “Dance With the One That Brung Ya.” (Chapter 4). These chapters illustrate how important making and keeping connections and relationships is in Washington. The “game of politics” is played by using these relationships to gain favors, votes, support, etc. According to Matthews, the people who get ahead are the ones who make and keep these important connections and relationships with other politicians and the public.

When considering the options for leadership today, it is easy to wish that more intelligent and educated people would attempt to run instead. However, getting into politics is and should be a choice. When one looks at photos of an American president before his term began and compares it to photos of the president after his term ended, there are almost always far more gray hairs and wrinkles on his face at the end of the term. Leading a country cannot be an easy job, and if one is to run, one should be aware of the repercussions. A scholar could

Wilson Q. James. American Government, Brief Version. 11th ed. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. 2009, 2012, 2014.

Across time, political leaders have often been remembered for their greatness by how they faced challenges than with what particular skills or abilities they had during their time in office. This statement is known to be true as political leaders are often expected to solve certain issues or challenges when in office and if their contributions benefit the state or country. Additionally, history books, records, and scholarly journals will take note of a leader’s response to challenges, how they are handled, and if the issue is solved more than whether they adequately used certain skills and abilities to solve the problem. In short, challenges, when faced, allow the political leaders to be remembered more so than their talents.

Presidential transitions mark the beginning of a new era in the presidency, and are crucial for the success of policy agenda for each president-elect. While there are many responsibilities during this time frame, it seems that using campaign rhetoric causes policy to be more popular during the early years of the presidency. Despite the contemporary use of this style by presidents, it is not clear where this methodic governing originated. Using historical analysis and case studies, this paper attempts to discover the origin of campaign-style governing during the transition period of the presidency.

“Presidents may be active or passive in terms of the effort invested in their jobs; they also may be positive or negative about their positions (Maltese, 164). In regards with President Bill Clinton and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, James Barber identifies them as an “Active-positive”. Active-positives display personal growth and stability, which they take pleasure in their job and the challenges they face with power productivity to pursue their objectives. Also, they pragmatic political figures that possess flexibility in their pursuit of achieving their goals and are willing to alter or abolishing their goals rather than experience severe consequences (Maltese, 164).

With the end of World War Two and the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, the United States emerged on the global stage as one of the planet's great economic and military powers. It is safe to say that with America's change in status, and in conjunction with profound industrial and technological change, that presidential leadership would necessarily have to transform yet again to meet a new era; nowhere could two different styles of leadership to meet the age be seen than in the Cold War administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Both men would exhibit a unique style of leadership suited to the personality of each, and each style could be considered to characterize the administration of each president, but nevertheless, both men would also use very similar leadership styles when necessary in order to attain certain policy goals.

During the time of the elections businesses have been debating of weather to make their opinion of who they are for and who they are against. Some businesses think that it will draw in more customers or lose a big part of their market. Because of this many businesses had gone away from the subject entirely on fear of losing their clientele. Many of the businesses (mainly small ones) are worried that the presidential debate will hurt the economy making it harder to function in the future.

The United States is now close to electing its new President and this raises new challenges and issues to be assessed by analysts and the media. One important example in this sense is represented by the skills and experience which need to be possessed by the political candidate in order for them to be able to adequately complete their operations. Whereas there are some skills which help win votes, such as charm and charisma, the technical skills of the candidates should account for more.

In the movie “The Candidate” I thought that the film was very interesting to me, being a person that has never been interested in politics. I found it interesting even though I am not for sure if this is the way that campaigns are run now. I thought it was nice to see how some candidates may be chosen, especially in this film because he was not expected to win the election. He was not even interested in politics although his father was once governor. The film showed how the campaign was ran and managed by his advisors. Although not expected to win the election, he somehow

It is difficult to measure each individual official’s experience level over time. In order to measure the experience level, not only I will find the key decision maker’s background, but also I will compare the attributes of “experienced” leaders to the Bush administration. The “experienced” leaders tend to have the attributes of strategic behavior, process of complex information, confidence, and cooperativeness. The “experienced” elites are tending to be better at using heuristics when making decisions in the complex situation. They know how to bargain strategically in the complex situations; therefore, they are better at signaling to the

He cannot speak to every "Jack and Jill" during crucial decision making dilemmas. The contradiction- the before and after the election- happens with each and every President. How effective the President is in listening to his inner circle of people who listen to the outer circle of people is very important to being a good President. The opposite of listening is not to listen or to be rigid. A President who does it “his way” or according to his own personal agenda as compared to what is good for the people is not flexible.

From the presidential quiz, I was most likely to vote of Hilary Clinton. I was not particular surprised by the result, because I have not closely followed much of the election process. Candidates and some of their stances are flaunted throughout social media, and typically Hilary Clinton is not shown in a good light. I didn’t expect to be matched up with her. A close second was Bernie Sanders. Many of the other candidates are not seen in a good light either, and it is apparent to me that many of them typically tend to have viewpoints that are not of the right mindset.

Presidential candidates make a lot of promises on their roads to the White House. It seems to be a common idea that many of them do not follow through with their promises. Although the national debt has gone up since President Obama first took office, he has had a lot of success amongst the politicians in Washington. Obama has not kept all of his promises, but he has kept 37% of them, and many of them have fallen into the “compromise” or the “in the works” category (A scorecard on President Obama's campaign promises). Despite many failures in the process, Obama’s foreign and domestic policies were mostly a success.

In United States History there has been forty-four Presidents, there have been a few great ones, a bunch of good ones and some bad ones. By looking at the Presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson we see how good character traits led to good policymaking. By analyzing these five Presidents we can see that the character traits of Presidents determine their policy making and reestablishes the framework of the United States.