Abraham Lincoln: Consummate Leader

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
White House ◽  
State Legislator ◽  
Policy Vision

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Lincoln entered the White House following a mere eight years as a state legislator and two years in the House of Representatives. He excelled in all of the qualities used here to assess leadership. In the realm of communication, he showed acumen in the way he managed his message, the vision conveyed in his statements, and the clarity of his rhetoric. His organizational methods were unsystematic but effective, and were driven by his political acumen. Lincoln was also a master politician who could cooperate with others regardless of their viewpoints.

Franklin Pierce and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Presidential Nomination ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
Policy Vision

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Franklin Pierce, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Pierce won the Democratic Party's 1852 presidential nomination after a forty-eight ballot impasse in which none of the party's top three leaders was able to muster the two-thirds vote needed to become the Democratic flag bearer. A gregarious nonentity, he took office amid growing anger over the Fugitive Slave Act and passed on to his successor an acutely polarized nation. Pierce's historical reputation is captured in a survey of sixty-four historians conducted by C-SPAN in which he ranked fortieth in a field of forty-two.

Millard Fillmore and the Compromise of 1850

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Critical Part ◽  
The Status

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Millard Fillmore, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Vice President Fillmore unexpectedly became the thirteenth president of the United States following the death of Zachary Taylor on July 9, 1850. Fillmore had been sidelined in his predecessor's administration, but in his capacity as presiding officer of the Senate, he had carefully followed the heated congressional debate over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession. Plunged immediately into a crisis when he assumed the presidency, Fillmore played a critical part in the enactment of compromise legislation that appeared at the time to have averted the threat of a war between the slave and free states.

The Disastrous Presidency of James Buchanan

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
James Buchanan ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Civil War Era

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of James Buchanan, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Buchanan was a Northern politician with Southern principles—a common phenomenon of the Civil War era. He had been a presence in American politics for more than four decades when he assumed the presidency. It was widely expected that his extensive political experience would enable him to reverse the spiral of conflict between the free and slave states, but when he stepped down, several Southern states had left the Union and war was imminent, in no small part because of his pro-Southern policies.

The Rough and Ready Leadership of Zachary Taylor

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Palo Alto ◽  
White House ◽  
La Palma ◽  
Buena Vista

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Zachary Taylor, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Taylor was accomplished career officer who lived up to the nickname “Old Rough and Ready.” By February 1847, he had won a series of battles at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterrey, and Buena Vista. The last victory, in which Taylor's forces won despite being outnumbered three to one, earned the general instant fame. On December 2, 1847, Taylor returned to the United States and began his transition from soldier to would-be politician. After being elected president, it comes as no surprise that Taylor governed the nation in a manner better suited for the battlefield than the White House.

Presidents and the Dissolution of the Union

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
George Washington ◽  
Personal Strengths ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
American Leader ◽  
Policy Vision

The United States witnessed an unprecedented failure of its political system in the mid-nineteenth century, resulting in a disastrous civil war that claimed the lives of an estimated 750,000 Americans. This book assesses the personal strengths and weaknesses of presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. The book evaluates the leadership styles of the Civil War-era presidents. The book looks at the presidential qualities of James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. For each president, the book provides a concise history of the man's life and presidency, and evaluates him in the areas of public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. The book sheds light on why Buchanan is justly ranked as perhaps the worst president in the nation's history, how Pierce helped set the stage for the collapse of the Union and the bloodiest war America had ever experienced, and why Lincoln is still considered the consummate American leader to this day. The book reveals what enabled some of these presidents, like Lincoln and Polk, to meet the challenges of their times—and what caused others to fail.

The Policy-Driven Political Style of James K. Polk

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Andrew Jackson ◽  
White House ◽  
Territory Acquisition ◽  
Private Banks ◽  
The Government ◽  
To Come

This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of James K. Polk, focusing on six realms: public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. Polk, has been called the only strong chief executive between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Polk also ranks near the top in the perennial polls on greatness in the White House. On the day of his inauguration, Polk declared that his administration would advance “four great measures”: division with Great Britain of the jointly administered Oregon Territory, acquisition of California, tariff reduction, and passage of a measure requiring the government to keep its funds in its own vaults instead of in state and private banks. Polk accomplished all this and more in a single four-year term. Despite his accomplishments, Polk lacked foresight. This was particularly evident in his inability to foresee that his territorial acquisitions would trigger a spiral of controversy that was to come to a head in the Civil War.

The Making of a “Legislative Miracle”: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Casalaspi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Skill ◽  
The Political ◽  
White House ◽  
Elementary And Secondary Education ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
Education Act ◽  
The Three Rs

The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was one of the most significant legislative accomplishments in twentieth-century American politics. To date, legislative histories have usually argued that the ESEA's passage was the result of either auspicious political circumstances or the political skill of the Johnson White House. Complicating these histories, I argue here that the ESEA was the result of skillful entrepreneurship on the part of policymakers in the White House and in Congress, and that while some auspicious political circumstances existed, these had less to do with the 1964 landslide election and more to do with subtler changes in congressional rules and commitment assignments that had taken place over the previous decade. I illustrate how ESEA supporters collectively overcame daunting legislative roadblocks, including a fractious House of Representatives and the “Three Rs.” I conclude by reflecting on the relevance of the 1965 debates for today's education policy environment.

Exploiting Existing Opinion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Strategic Defense Initiative ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Policy Issue ◽  
Strategic Defense

This chapter examines how the president exploits existing opinion on policies by showing the public how its views are compatible with his policies or by increasing the salience of White House initiatives that are popular with the public. Using Abraham Lincoln as an example, the chapter explains how the president can exploit the congruence of the public’s views with those of the White House by articulating opinion in a way that clarifies its policy implications and shows the public that its wishes are consistent with his policies. It also considers how framing and priming allows the president to define what a public policy issue is about, citing the experiences of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and media resistance to the White House’s framing of issues. Finally, it shows how the president can influence fluid public opinion by analyzing Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and George W. Bush’s stem cell research policy.

The Production of “Emancipation”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regis M. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
White House

Elizabeth Keckly’s Behind the Scenes (1868) dislodges hegemonic models of individual sovereignty and progress, particularly as the memoir of the author’s years in the Abraham Lincoln White House underscores the harrowing conditions facing the previously enslaved at the onset of Emancipation and locates death/suicide as an expression of black political consciousness. In “The Production of ‘Emancipation’: Race, Ritual, and the Reconstitution of the Antebellum Order,” Keckly strikingly depicts epidemic black homelessness and poverty, thereby disrupting mythologies of the postbellum North as quintessential racial asylum. Keckly’s “anti-pastoral reach” as a force through which to contest teleological “up from slavery” narratives, and her politicized acts of witnessing and mediation further illuminate a reorganization, rather than an eradication, of the inhumane institution. Keckly’s selective self-commodification and her unmasking of the trope of interracial intimacy, moreover, foreground insidious if liberal modes of political control, problematizing conventional modes of fetishizing and Othering black women’s bodies.

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