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It is not enough simply to "manage," examining each set of choices in a philosophical vacuum. The President's central principles must be there, they must be consistent, and they must be clearly seen. His own staff, his Administration, Congress, the press and public all need from him a clear indication of what he considers important; of his values, his priorities, and the directions in which he seeks to lead the nation and the world. Whether his direction is right or wrong, it is essential to the debate that it be visible, and that it bear a logical relationship to his other policies and programs.
No President gets his own way all the time, or should. Democracy is a process of give and take. But a President who does have a clear sense of direction provides the steady compass by which policymakers can steer. He may have to trade off a dam here for a missile base there, or an agricultural subsidy for a few crucial treaty votes in the Senate. But there will at least be a basic consistency, and a conscious awareness of how and why he deliberately chooses to vary the course, to avoid this shoal or take advantage of that prevailing political wind. Then policy-making ceases to be an exercise in the abstract, or a matter of rootless, drifting pragmatism. Intellectual discipline returns to it, and arguments once more have a focus and coherence that give edge to the process of public debate.
Many analysts — including, recently, Carter Counsel Lloyd Cutler — have argued that the separation of powers has itself become a formula for stalemate between President and Congress. Stalemate often results, but it does not have to. If a President is sufficiently forceful, sufficiently sound in his policies and sure of his purpose, and able to take his argument persuasively to the people, Congress will go along a good deal of the time. You
do end up in stalemate when those at neither end of Pennsylvania Avenue know what they really want; when, at both ends, officials and lawmakers are wallowing in symbols and photo opportunities and other media gimmicks, trying to ride a poll or catch a headline.
If we have Government by poll, we hardly need a President.
We can simply feed the Gallup and Harris results into a computer and let laws and appropriations come out the other end.
We need a President precisely because we need leadership that rises above the polls, that educates the public and leads public opinion rather than following public prejudice.
The greatness of a President is measured not by his ability to determine what is popular and get it enacted into law, but by his ability to take what may appear to be unpopular positions — which he believes to be right — and to make them popular. This becomes especially crucial as we enter a period in which both sacrifice and risk are necessary — but in which the risks of inaction are greater than the risks of action.
The presidency is in many ways a very flexible office. To a considerable degree, the occupant can organize it the way he chooses. But certain pressures and constraints act to mold it as well. For example, both Presidents Ford and Carter insisted at the outset that they were not going to have White House "Chiefs of Staff." Then each learned the hard way that one was needed, and each named one.