Presidential Lightning Rods

Presidential Lightning Rods PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Choice Outstanding Title H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's former chief of staff, is said to have boasted: "Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I'm Nixon's. I'm his buffer and I'm his bastard. I get done what he wants done and I take the heat instead of him." Richard Ellis explores the widely discussed but poorly understood phenomenon of presidential "lightning rods"--cabinet officials who "take the heat" instead of their bosses. Whether by intent or circumstance, these officials divert criticism and blame away from their presidents. The phenomenon is so common that it's assumed to be an essential item in every president's managerial toolbox. But, Ellis argues, such assumptions can oversimplify our understanding of this tool. Ellis advises against indiscriminate use of the lightning rod metaphor. Such labeling can hide as much as it reveals about presidential administration and policymaking at the cabinet level. The metaphor often misleads by suggesting strategic intent on the president's part while obscuring the calculations and objectives of presidential adversaries and the lightning rods themselves. Ellis also illuminates the opportunities and difficulties that various presidential posts--especially secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and vice presidents--have offered for deflecting blame from our presidents. His study offers numerous detailed and instructive examples from the administrations of Truman (Dean Acheson); Eisenhower (Richard Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Herbert Brownell, and Ezra Taft Benson); LBJ (Hubert Humphrey); Ford (Henry Kissinger); and Reagan (James Watt). These examples, Ellis suggests, should guide our understanding of the relationship between lightning rods and presidential leadership, policymaking, and ratings. Blame avoidance, he warns, does have its limitations and may even backfire at times. Nevertheless, President Clinton and his successors may need to rely on such tools. The presidency, Ellis points out, finds itself the object of increasingly intense partisan debate and microscopic scrutiny by a wary press. Lightning rods can deflect such heat and help the president test policies, gauge public opinion, and protect his political power and public image. Ellis's book is an essential primer for helping us understand this process.

Presidential Lightning Rods

Presidential Lightning Rods PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Choice Outstanding Title H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's former chief of staff, is said to have boasted: "Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I'm Nixon's. I'm his buffer and I'm his bastard. I get done what he wants done and I take the heat instead of him." Richard Ellis explores the widely discussed but poorly understood phenomenon of presidential "lightning rods"--cabinet officials who "take the heat" instead of their bosses. Whether by intent or circumstance, these officials divert criticism and blame away from their presidents. The phenomenon is so common that it's assumed to be an essential item in every president's managerial toolbox. But, Ellis argues, such assumptions can oversimplify our understanding of this tool. Ellis advises against indiscriminate use of the lightning rod metaphor. Such labeling can hide as much as it reveals about presidential administration and policymaking at the cabinet level. The metaphor often misleads by suggesting strategic intent on the president's part while obscuring the calculations and objectives of presidential adversaries and the lightning rods themselves. Ellis also illuminates the opportunities and difficulties that various presidential posts--especially secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and vice presidents--have offered for deflecting blame from our presidents. His study offers numerous detailed and instructive examples from the administrations of Truman (Dean Acheson); Eisenhower (Richard Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Herbert Brownell, and Ezra Taft Benson); LBJ (Hubert Humphrey); Ford (Henry Kissinger); and Reagan (James Watt). These examples, Ellis suggests, should guide our understanding of the relationship between lightning rods and presidential leadership, policymaking, and ratings. Blame avoidance, he warns, does have its limitations and may even backfire at times. Nevertheless, President Clinton and his successors may need to rely on such tools. The presidency, Ellis points out, finds itself the object of increasingly intense partisan debate and microscopic scrutiny by a wary press. Lightning rods can deflect such heat and help the president test policies, gauge public opinion, and protect his political power and public image. Ellis's book is an essential primer for helping us understand this process.

Presidential Lightning Rods

Presidential Lightning Rods PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700631496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's former chief of staff, is said to have boasted: "Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I'm Nixon's. I'm his buffer and I'm his bastard. I get done what he wants done and I take the heat instead of him." Richard Ellis explores the widely discussed but poorly understood phenomenon of presidential "lightning rods"-cabinet officials who "take the heat" instead of their bosses. Whether by intent or circumstance, these officials divert criticism and blame away from their presidents. The phenomenon is so common that it's assumed to be an essential item in every president's managerial toolbox. But, Ellis argues, such assumptions can oversimplify our understanding of this tool. Ellis advises against indiscriminate use of the lightning rod metaphor. Such labeling can hide as much as it reveals about presidential administration and policymaking at the cabinet level. The metaphor often misleads by suggesting strategic intent on the president's part while obscuring the calculations and objectives of presidential adversaries and the lightning rods themselves. Ellis also illuminates the opportunities and difficulties that various presidential posts-especially secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and vice presidents-have offered for deflecting blame from our presidents. His study offers numerous detailed and instructive examples from the administrations of Truman (Dean Acheson); Eisenhower (Richard Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Herbert Brownell, and Ezra Taft Benson); LBJ (Hubert Humphrey); Ford (Henry Kissinger); and Reagan (James Watt). These examples, Ellis suggests, should guide our understanding of the relationship between lightning rods and presidential leadership, policymaking, and ratings. Blame avoidance, he warns, does have its limitations and may even backfire at times. Nevertheless, President Clinton and his successors may need to rely on such tools. The presidency, Ellis points out, finds itself the object of increasingly intense partisan debate and microscopic scrutiny by a wary press. Lightning rods can deflect such heat and help the president test policies, gauge public opinion, and protect his political power and public image. Ellis's book is an essential primer for helping us understand this process.

Cabinet Members as Presidential Lightining Rods

Cabinet Members as Presidential Lightining Rods PDF Author: Richard John Ellis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description


The Politics of the Presidency

The Politics of the Presidency PDF Author: Joseph A. Pika
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 154439084X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
Get the most up-to-date coverage and analysis of the presidency. Never losing sight of the foundations of the office, The Politics of the Presidency maintains a balance between historical context and contemporary scholarship on the executive branch, providing a solid foundation for any presidency course. In this Revised Tenth Edition, bestselling authors Joseph A. Pika, John Anthony Maltese, and Andrew Rudalevige present a thorough analysis of the change and continuity following the November 2020 presidential election and Biden administration.

The Politics of the Presidency

The Politics of the Presidency PDF Author: John Anthony Maltese
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1071917277
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Get the most up-to-date coverage and analysis of the presidency with this comprehensive text. Never losing sight of the foundations of the office, The Politics of the Presidency maintains a balance between historical context and contemporary scholarship on the executive branch, providing a solid foundation for any presidency course. Now in its Eleventh Edition, Maltese, Rudalevige, and Pika thoroughly analyze the change and continuity in Biden′s first two and a half years in office and look forward to the competitive setting for the 2024 presidential race.

The Oxford Companion to American Politics

The Oxford Companion to American Politics PDF Author: Kathy Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019976431X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1141

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Book Description
Provides students and scholars with a valuable reference source in the field of American Politics. The Companion will equip readers with a deep understanding of the complex interaction between governmental institutions and processes and the wider American economy and society that they govern.

Dilemmas of Presidential Leadership

Dilemmas of Presidential Leadership PDF Author: Richard Ellis
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412821728
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Dilemmas of Presidential Leadership challenges the widely accepted distinction between "traditional" and "modern" presidencies, a dichotomy by which political science has justified excluding from its domain of inquiry all presidents preceding Franklin Roosevelt. Rather than divide history into two mutually exclusive eras, Richard Ellis and Aaron Wildavsky divide the world into three sorts of people-egalitarians, individualists and hierarchs. All presidents, the authors contend, must manage the competition between these rival political cultures. It is this commonality which lays the basis for comparing presidents across time. To summarize and simplify, the book addresses two general categories of presidencies. The first is the president with a blend of egalitarian and individualist cultural propensities. Spawned by the American revolution, this anti-authoritarian cultural alliance dominated American politics until it was torn asunder by what Charles Beard has called the second American revolution, the Civil War. The Jeffersonian and Jacksonian presidents labored, with varying degrees of success, to square the exercise of authority with their own and their followers' ami-: authoritarian principles. They also were faced with intraparly conflicts that periodically flared up between egalitarian and individualist followers. The president with hierarchical cultural propensities faced different problems. While the precise contours of the dilemma varied, all straggled in one way or another to reconcile their own and their party's preferences with the anti-hierarchical ethos that inhered in the society and the polity. Hierarchical presidents like Washington and Adams were hamstrung by this dilemma, as were Whig leaders like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster who aspired to the presidency but never achieved it. .Abraham Lincoln's greatness resided in part in his ability to resolve the hierarch's dilemma. He operated in wartime when he could invoke the commander-in-chief clause, and he created a new cultural combination in which hierarchy was subordinated to individualism. This, suggest the authors, was a key to his greatness. The unique dimension of this volume is its use of cultural theory to explain presidential behavior. It also differs from other books in that, it deals with pre-modern presidents who are too often treated as only of antiquarian interest in mainstream political science literature on the presidency. The analysis lays the groundwork for a new basis for comparison of early presidents with modern presidents.

Data Mining for Social Network Data

Data Mining for Social Network Data PDF Author: Nasrullah Memon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9781441962874
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Driven by counter-terrorism efforts, marketing analysis and an explosion in online social networking in recent years, data mining has moved to the forefront of information science. This proposed Special Issue on Data Mining for Social Network Data will present a broad range of recent studies in social networking analysis. It will focus on emerging trends and needs in discovery and analysis of communities, solitary and social activities, activities in open for a and commercial sites as well. It will also look at network modeling, infrastructure construction, dynamic growth and evolution pattern discovery using machine learning approaches and multi-agent based simulations. Editors are three rising stars in world of data mining, knowledge discovery, social network analysis, and information infrastructures, and are anchored by Springer author/editor Hsinchun Chen (Terrorism Informatics; Medical Informatics; Digital Government), who is one of the most prominent intelligence analysis and data mining experts in the world.

The Keys to Power

The Keys to Power PDF Author: Shirley Anne Warshaw
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317343301
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
An accessible and comprehensive main text for courses on the presidency, this text argues that to be a successful presidential leader, one must effectively manage the enormous institutional and personal resources - or the "keys to power." Using the "keys to power" theme, Warshaw argues that the presidency is far more powerful today than in past generations. The book offers the most coverage in the market on the structures that provide the president with such power. As a result, there are discrete chapters dedicated to the vice president, the president's cabinet, the White House staff, and the executive office of the President. Standard topics such as "the president and the economy," are still covered but are integrated throughout the chapters.

Women in Presidential Cabinets

Women in Presidential Cabinets PDF Author: Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190491434
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Though parity is still rare, presidential cabinets contain more women than ever before. Who are these women and what types of political capital resources do they bring to the administration? Are they new types of political players or very much like the men who have traditionally run the government? And once they gain office, are they treated equally in the cabinet? Do they have the capacity to be as effective as their male counterparts? Drawing on data from five presidential democracies -- Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the United States -- Women in Presidential Cabinets examines the backgrounds, connections and credentials of all full-rank cabinet ministers in presidential administrations over the course of two decades to determine if women and men bring similar numbers and diversity of political capital resources to the administration. Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson find that, with a few notable exceptions, presidents select men and women with similar work and education backgrounds, political experience, and linkages to related interest groups. There are, however, differences across types of posts and countries. They evaluate the treatment and effectiveness of similarly credentialed male and female ministers on four benchmarks. Specifically, they examine whether women with equal qualifications can really obtain all posts or whether glass ceilings persist in some areas. They then turn to the ability of women to hold onto a post, considering the nature and circumstances surrounding their departures from office and how long they remain in office. In doing so, they uncover evidence that female ministers in Latin America stand on an unequal playing field when it comes to the ability to enact policy through legislation. Ultimately, Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson show conclusively that while women lack numerical equality, they are no longer tokens, instead appearing positioned to exercise power at the highest levels within the executive branch.