The juggling Act

The people of the United States have this idea of the President that he holds these almost God like powers and that he has no restrictions. These ideas frighten the American public. Professor Neustadt proposed that there are more informal powers of the President than formal/ constitution powers. Here I would like to dig deeper into the President’s informal powers, what they mean for our country and what the President really does for our country.One of the jobs of the President is to be able to effectively juggle multiple roles that include Chief Executive, Chief Legislator, Chief Diplomat, Chief Administrator, commander-in-chief, head of state, party leader, and Chief Citizen. The President needs to be able to know when he has to be in what role and what is appropriate for certain situations. For example after the tragedy on September 11th President Bush played the informal role of Chief Citizen with his bullhorn speech but after that he had to work as Chief Diplomat to negotiate with other countries to fight the war on terrorism. The President has to balance his roles, he cannot act like a diplomat with his own citizens and can’t act like a Chief citizen towards leaders of other countries. Part of the President’s role of being a diplomat is his job of persuasion and bargaining with other countries.This brings me to another one of Neustadt’s descriptions of the President’s job which is the President’s persuasiveness or skills at bargaining. Going back to diplomacy I see that it is the President’s job to make our nation whole, yes he does come from one of two parties and usually many people aren’t happy when a new President comes into office but after that it shouldn’t matter because our nation needs to be a whole working unit, and the President is at the head of that unit. The nation needs to stand strong together so that when the President goes and does his diplomatic job other nations think of the United Stated as actually united. The President’s persuasiveness can depend on what the U.S. as a nation thinks about him and we should want to use the best of our abilities to do what is best for our nation. But the President also needs to persuade his citizens to believe in him. That is what he does during election season when he campaigns but once he is in office he needs to get all the people with him, which will most likely not happen but he must attempt to bargain with the people of the other side to get their support. In total Neustadt describes the role of the President and how to juggle the roles that he plays. And that the role of president is a lot less powerful than people think it’s just a job of management for a very large company called the United States.