Positive Liberty

One of the biggest problems with presidential campaigns in the contemporary era is that we let the public vote for the parties’ nominees.  In the old days, party activists and elders chose the nominees at the national convention, which mostly led to nominees who had managed not offend any major factions within the party–often they were bland, unimaginative men who neither promised nor delivered much.  Today nominees have to be ambitious self-starters, people with the drive to appeal to mass publics, because the selection process takes place through state primaries and caucuses.  This forces them to engage in a game of “promise early, promise often,” which leads to unrealistic expectations. 

But that’s only the half of it.  Continue Reading »

With the parties’ candidates determined, and the last two interminable months of the campaign before us, it may be time to offer some perspective on the presidency, lest anyone get their hopes too high about either candidate’s chances creating a paradise here on earth (not that such hopefuleness about the candidates seems to be endemic on this blog.

Presidential scholar Thomas Cronin wrote an excellent short piece called “The Presidency and Its Paradoxes,” (which first appeared inThe Presidency Reappraised, then expanded into a whole book). He lists 10 paradoxes, but in the interest of something vaguely resembling brevity I’ll only address a few here.  These paradoxes help explain why it is nearly impossible for a president to succeed in the job. Continue Reading »