Who Should Be President and Why?
2011-10-01 · Guest: Thomas Fleming (Historian and author) · 50:23
The American Presidency and the Founders Vision
Bob Zadek welcomes historian Thomas Fleming to discuss the historical foundations of the U.S. presidency. They explore how George Washington’s frustrations with an ineffective Continental Congress shaped the Constitutional Convention’s decision to create a strong, co-equal executive branch.
Topics: American Presidency, George Washington, Constitutional Convention, Executive Power, Congressional History, Thomas Fleming Speakers: Bob Zadek (Host), Thomas Fleming (Guest)
Bob Zadek: You’re listening to The Bob Zadek Show on Fox News Radio, 910 AM. Thank you to the Shangri-Las for bringing us into this hour of The Bob Zadek Show, every Sunday at noon. Thanks so much for listening. I am your host, Bob Zadek.
My first exposure to big-time electoral politics—the presidency, the vice presidency—was in the fifth grade. I ran for the office of the president of my fifth-grade class in P.S. 26 in Fresh Meadows, Queens, New York. It was a straight party-line vote. I lost to Judy Grable because there were more girls than boys in the class, so I was vice president.
The only job I had as vice president, after I lost on a party-line vote, was to lead the class out into the schoolyard during recess. I would be at the front of the class. The students would follow me in single file down the staircase into the schoolyard for what was called recess. Well, it didn’t take me long before I became intoxicated with the power of the vice presidency. I looked over my shoulder, and the class was following me down the staircase into the schoolyard. I didn’t stop in the schoolyard. I walked across 73rd Avenue, up to 193rd Street, left two blocks to Union Turnpike to my favorite candy store, Hy and Dave’s Park Luncheonette, where we all had sodas until the teacher found us. I was, to my knowledge, the first fifth-grade vice president to be impeached in office.
But I became enamored with electoral politics, and I am to this day. Thus, today’s show is about electoral politics, specifically the office of the presidency. What is the presidency? How do we pick a president? How should we pick a president? And most importantly, how did the Founders envision the office of the president? And how does today’s president, or our recent presidents, measure up to the standards that the Founders may have set for the office?
Who better to discuss the history of the presidency than Tom Fleming? Tom Fleming is my favorite historian. I feel like by reading Tom’s books and watching his PBS programs, he and I have a distant but quite intimate relationship. It’s always a pleasure to invite him to be on the show. Tom has written about 50 nonfiction and fiction novels. Tom is a military historian and has studied the American Revolution for most of his life. He’s a frequent guest on C-SPAN, the History Channel, and PBS, and is very active in a magazine which I love to read called American Heritage. Tom, this is your second visit to the show. Thanks so much for joining us.
And to the audience, if you have questions for Tom, 800-345-5639. We would love to get your calls. Tom, thanks so much for joining me.
Thomas Fleming: Oh, Bob, I’m looking forward to our afternoon together. It’s really going to be great fun. You couldn’t be discussing a more important topic.
The Founders’ Vision of the Executive [05:15]
Bob Zadek: You know, it struck me in watching some of the debates—now, we’re not yet in the presidential debate season; we are in the primary debate season—but debates seem to have this profound level of importance. We discuss endlessly, or the pundits do, who wins a debate (however you measure that), who loses a debate, and what the debate means. The fortunes of candidates vary wildly during debates. It occurred to me that the Founders couldn’t have envisioned building a country where the criteria for the best president was who seemed the most glib in a debate.
When the Founders were building this—because they built it from scratch, and there was no equivalent office on the planet at the time—what did they have in mind for the office of the president, besides having George Washington in mind, of course?
Thomas Fleming: Bob, they needed a strong president. That’s what the majority of them figured out after eight years of fighting the American Revolution with no president, just Congress. George Washington was so disgusted with the whole idea of Congress running the country that he just left quietly and went home to Mount Vernon at the end of the war. He didn’t make any statements. He then spent about a year or so on the porch at Mount Vernon talking to James Madison about what was wrong with the American government. They both agreed that the problem was there was no central leader.
Congress has no leader. There are a few guys that can talk faster than others, but there’s no leader. As a result, they’re totally inconsistent. They welsh on promises. For instance, just to give you a quick example, Congress solemnly promised in 1778 that they were going to pay all of Washington’s officers half-pay—in other words, pensions for life. That’s how we won the Revolution; they stayed in the army.
Bob Zadek: The first entitlement.
Thomas Fleming: That was the first entitlement. “Entitlement” has a bad sound now, but this was crucial, and it won by a single vote in Congress. And what did Congress do when the war was over? They repudiated the whole deal and let the officers go home penniless. Washington wrote them a letter that should have stiffened their spines for the next six months. He said, “You are in danger of causing me eternal embitterment.” That’s how angry he was.
They agreed we have to have a strong president. Washington said he should be co-equal in power to Congress. That job was crucial to their idea of what the presidency was.
Bob Zadek: Now, that was Washington’s view, but he saw the need from the unique vantage point of suffering because of the absence of a strong leader when he was General of the Continental Army.
Thomas Fleming: He had to become the leader. Washington actually became the government. By the time the Revolutionary War was over, the popular opinion of Congress was so low that nobody wanted to serve in it. They couldn’t even get enough delegates to Congress to pass things. Can you imagine? Nobody wanted to go near the place. Congress was considered a total waste of time.
Bob Zadek: Same as today, I guess.
Thomas Fleming: Same as today. Well, it’s interesting that today’s popularity of Congress is also extremely low. There’s a wonderful book—I know all Americans won’t read it, and it isn’t in the bookstores or anything like that—but there’s a wonderful book written by Woodrow Wilson about twenty years before he became president, when he was a professor of history at Johns Hopkins. It’s called Congressional Government. It’s the most devastating analysis of giving Congress too much power. It shows how nothing happens. There’s no leader; nobody has responsibility for making the decisions. That is, I think, the crucial thing we should discuss about the presidency today.
Bob Zadek: When we come back, we’re going to discuss that, Tom. I’m also going to ask you—so you have time to quickly bone up—you’ve given us Washington’s view; was that view shared by all of the Founders? We’ll have the answer when we come back. Tom, I’m going to give you a history question when we come back that you might not be able to answer, and it’s a special gift for you as well.
Back in 90 seconds. Bob Zadek, 800-345-5639. I’m delighted to be joined by historian Thomas Fleming. We’ll be back in 90 short seconds with a history quiz for Tom.
The Derby Ram [11:40]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to The Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek. 800-345-5639 is the way to reach us. I’m joined by Thomas Fleming. The subject is the presidency, then and now.
Now, Tom, I’m incidentally tone-deaf—tune-deaf, you might say—so I’m not too good at it. But anyway, when we came back from break, I played a song. It was both a history test for you and a gift to you. Do you recognize the song? Can you name that tune? What is the title of the song?
Thomas Fleming: Oh, the tune? No, I didn’t hear it played.
Bob Zadek: Well, the song we played, Tom, is “The Derby Ram.”
Thomas Fleming: Uh-huh. That doesn’t ring a bell with me.
Bob Zadek: George Washington’s favorite song.
Thomas Fleming: That’s news to me.
Bob Zadek: That was a gift to you because you’ve studied George Washington so much. It’s called “The Derby Ram.” It was reputed to be George Washington’s favorite song. Check that out. I tried to give a gift to you. Now, Tom, did other Founding Fathers agree with Washington’s opinion of the presidency?
Would you like a summary of the next segment of the episode?
Thomas Fleming: The answer is no, with a capital N. The most important of the other founding fathers was Thomas Jefferson. And he disagreed totally with Washington’s concept of the presidency. And that difference between those two men has had a crucial influence on the development of the presidency on our American history in general.
Bob Zadek: And uh—wasn’t there also the shadow of the king that those like Washington, who advocated a strong presidency, always had right there in front of them? The only other uh—uh—tangible evidence of a strong executive, which is of course the king, which was the form of government that was in most of Europe, which these guys were familiar with.
The Executive Branch: Washington vs. Jefferson [11:30]
Thomas Fleming: So Washington—that—that caused—well, as I say, Jefferson is not a law—he’s—I didn’t s—I didn’t mean to imply that he was alone. Uh—he—he formed a party, a political party based on this opposition to the i—to Washington’s idea of the presidency, which Washington had a lot of people who agreed with him, including Alexander Hamilton. And uh—they called themselves the Federalists. And w—and uh—Washington—uh—Jefferson and h—Madison, who switched pr—pretty much to Madison—to Jefferson’s side, uh—he—they organized a party called the Republicans. Well, historians call them now the Democratic-Republicans because they were the—they are the fo—they’re really regarded as the founders—Jefferson is—uh—of the—of the Democratic Party.
And they hated the idea of the presidents—of the strong president for that very reason. They said he’s gonna either become a king or a dictator. And uh—uh—Washington said this was nonsense. If—if the man was a true uh—apostle of liberty and so forth, he couldn’t do that uh—if he really had the ideals of the country in mind. And if he was virtuous.
Bob Zadek: And if he was virtuous.
Thomas Fleming: And if he was virtuous. There is a book about Washington called Visionary Realist or Realistic Visionary. And it—it—it—it came out about two or three years ago. And it—it—it—it—it—that is—that sums up Washington so well. He—that’s what he was. He ha—he had the chance, you know, to—to—to kick—when—when he resigned as the h—uh—uh—from the army at the end of the Revolution, uh—he handed in his commission to Congress. There were all kinds of people in the United States that were begging him to tell Congress, “Hey, fellas, disappear. I’m taking over.”
And that’s what the British expected him to do. And when he didn’t do it, you know what George III said? He said—if—he stuttered, the king did. He said, “If—if he did—did that—did that, he’s—he’s the greatest man in the world.” Because it was unheard of that a military leader who had a chance to be dictator for life or king for life would say, “No thanks, I’m going back to the farm.” And he put himself as a—he became a citizen again with the—with giving Congress the power to order him around. It was an amazing performance. It showed his commitment to the ideals of the American Revolution. There’s no two ways about it.
And that was crucial in the development of the government, because then we went on to have the—a Constitutional Convention to develop a—a better government, and Washington presided over that convention. And w—and—and they agreed on a strong president, not without a lot of arguments, I should add.
Bob Zadek: Well, a question I have is the—um—uh—the founders had a certain—and I know they’re not a monolith, of course they’re not. So you can select a particular founder; of course they are not a monolith by no means. But they all had their own ideas. But I’ll use the word “founders” just to introduce the question. Uh—if the founders were to look at the office as it now exists—and I’m not focusing especially on President Obama or President Bush, but you can be specific if you wish—if the founders were to look at the behavior of the occupant of the White House, the President, would they say we were right, we were wrong, or everything got changed and distorted?
The Imperial Congress and the Erosion of Presidential Power [16:15]
Thomas Fleming: Uh—they definitely wouldn’t say that. The presidency in the essence is still—is still a very powerful office, but it has suffered damage. Uh—I wrote an article—uh—for American Heritage last January. It’s called “The Imperial Congress,” and you can get it on the American Heritage website, and I really recommend—uh—uh—our listeners to—to take a look at it, because it tells how twice in the country’s history, Congress basically stripped the president of crucial powers and cre—and—and grabbed them all for themselves. And as a result, we had a lot of chaotic years of government.
Uh—the first of these big—uh—uh—uh—uh—disasters—I—I think of them as—came after the Civil War, after Lincoln was assassinated, and they tried to impeach his successor, Andrew Johnson, and that sort of demolished Johnson as a politician. He—he was c—acquitted, but he still was pretty much out of business, and Congress just seized all—so much power from the presidency. In fact, th—there was one Congressman who said, “From now on, everybody get it—ever better get this idea straight. Congress is the people, and the people are Congress.” My goodness. That is—that is a tall heresy from the viewpoint of the—of the government that Washington and Madison designed.
But they got away with it for about twenty or thirty years, and that’s when Woodrow Wilson, after watching them in action for this time, wrote this—wrote his book, uh—Congressional Government, proving how absolutely disastrous the government had become, the federal government.
Bob Zadek: Was the second instance the War Powers Act?
Thomas Fleming: Yes. Absolutely. It’s—it’s after Nixon was almost impeached. Congress did the same thing. They seized all kinds of powers from the presidency, and—uh—and—and they really have—uh—they still—uh—have a great many of them. They—they assume that they’ve got, for instance, the right to interfere in foreign policy whenever it pleases them. That was absolutely totally the opposite of what Washington had in mind.
Here’s the first thing Washington did when he became president. He wrote a letter to every country in the civilized world informing them that henceforth if they wanted to get in touch with the United States of America, they should write to him, President George Washington, and not Congress. Believe me. He was making it very clear that foreign policy was the president’s power—uh—was a power reserved for the president. And—uh—the today’s Congress just runs amuck in that field, and they have been ever since—uh—the—the—uh—uh—the almost impeachment of Nixon and—uh—the upheaval at the—at the end of the Vietnam War.
Bob Zadek: Haven’t the presidents—um—recently, Obama being a particular example, been complicit in that by delegating—by in effect ceding to Congress? Congress doesn’t have to take it; it—it’s often given to them where—
Thomas Fleming: I agree. Some presidents have found it—uh—easier to do that. And—uh—but this is—this is a very grave mistake. Uh—uh—uh—I—I—I—you know—I think my view of President Obama is mixed, you know. I think like most Americans at this point, and I’m not saying he’s a disaster—uh—uh—like some people are or anything like it—uh—but—uh—he did make one mistake which I was very upset by—uh—uh—when—when we were—we were plunging into that res—recession and he—uh—wanted to write this—that stimulus. He wanted a stimulus. Instead of writing the bill himself, he passed the task to Congress.
As a result, they got a bill which spent hundreds of millions of dollars with six thousand of these earmarks, which the Congressman write as favors to special constituents. This—this is a perfect example of what happens when Congress gets out of—uh—the president’s—uh—leadership control. And—uh—uh—so that—that was a very bad example of—of what—how things can go wrong.
And—uh—to go back in history, another great example of this is Jefferson in the—in the middle of his second term, he—he announced that there was going to be an embargo on all U.S. trade to the world—uh—in order to force the British and the French to stop s—raiding American commerce, American ships at sea. And it paralyzed the whole economy. It was a total disaster. People started smuggling and—and—and it really it was—it was one of the worst ideas that any president has ever had.
So after about two years of chaos with 40,000 seamen unemployed in our ports and you know, merchants going out of business right and left and so forth, uh—uh—Jefferson passes the whole problem to Congress. And he said, “If you have a better solution, let me know.” God almighty. Washington—uh—he was only dead about—uh—five years at this point. He—if he was listening, and I think he might have been, he must have been rolling at his grave.
Bob Zadek: And—uh—you know, when—um—the question that we’re—we’re gonna go to break in a few seconds, but a question that strikes me as I look at the almost perpetual presidential election cycle, it’s almost perpetual. Is that—that’s another worry.
Thomas Fleming: I think you’re onto something very important there, Bob. Yes.
Bob Zadek: And the the question is, as a country, and using history as our guide, as a country, what are we doing wrong in the process of figuring out who will make a good president? What what structurally can we learn from history, if anything, about how we end up with a president? I find—and Tom, the the the we’re gonna go to break with this observation—we have things like, as I said earlier in the show, debates as being really important. And I say to myself, the skills that one needs to get elected are totally different than the skill one needs to govern. It’s like interviewing somebody for one—it’s like interviewing somebody to be a lawyer, and what you do is you have them go and pump iron and see how many push-ups he can do, and then you hire him to be a lawyer in a law firm. It’s like testing for the wrong things. So when we come back, Tom—definitely and getting close to that.
Thomas Fleming: I agree. Yes, I agree.
Bob Zadek: So when we come back, I want to ask you when we come back from break, uh, what does history teach us about how we should select the president versus how we do select a president? 800-345-5639. Tom Fleming and I would love your questions on the selection of the presidency. What can we learn from history? Thank you very much.
The Importance of Historical Literacy [23:45]
Bob Zadek: “Hail to the Chief.” What an appropriate piece of music for our show today on selecting a president. Do we do it right? Do we end up with the right choice for president? What can history teach us about the process of selecting a president? Who better than to give us the long view, the historical view of selecting a president, than Tom Fleming? Tom Fleming is one of the country’s leading and absolutely my favorite historian. Tom has written about 50 books—yes, five-O books—about 20 nonfiction books, 23 novels, historical novels. Tom has studied American history with particular emphasis on military history and the American Revolution all of his life. Tom is often a guest on C-SPAN, the History Channel, and PBS, and I say this with no small amount of pride, twice a guest on my show, for which I am deeply grateful. Tom, thanks so much for joining us.
Thomas Fleming: I’m having a great time, Bob. Nothing more than more entertaining to a historian than to talk talk about it.
Bob Zadek: You know, and while we’re at it, before we get back to the question I posed before the break—
Thomas Fleming: Yes, yes, very good question.
Bob Zadek: Uh, the the question where I have my own answer, but I would—I and my audience would love to hear yours, and I know you can give a 35-minute answer, of course you could. But the question is: why is a knowledge of history, of our roots, why is it so essential to be an informed voter and an informed participant in the political system today?
Thomas Fleming: It’s so important because if you know the history of the country, you can see where we’re making mistakes in the, say, in the election election process, and you you can, uh, perhaps, um, uh, lend your influence to changing that. Uh, but but it also you you—you’ll know the mistakes the country made before. We’re—we’ve never been governed by supermen. We’ve—they’ve all made mistakes. Uh, and and it’s very important to know how we made—why we made those mistakes and how we recovered from them. I—I’ll just give you a quick—another quick example of how important history was. Uh, Harry Truman used to say, “If you don’t know history, you’re gonna just repeat the mistakes that people have made in the past.”
Bob Zadek: That’s Santayana’s famous—that’s Santayana’s favorite famous quote.
Thomas Fleming: Yes, it really is. And, uh, but it’s true. It really is true. Ben Franklin—he was asked to design a history—a pro—uh, a curriculum—not a history curriculum, but a curriculum for the University of Pennsylvania back before there even was a country, and he recommended that every year they—every student majored in history. He said that was the most important thing they had to learn. They should learn.
Bob Zadek: And Madison studied the history of all the republican forms of government and other forms of government. He was the greatest student of them all in many ways.
Thomas Fleming: Yeah, he really was, and and armed with that, he was able to detect what was wrong with the other—where did the other republican forms of government fail? So when he went to Philadelphia… great essay, a great series of essays that Madison wrote with Hamilton and and another m—uh—man, John Jay, it’s called The Federalist Papers. They were discussing the con—supporting the Constitution, trying to persuade Americans to ratify it. It’s so brilliant, the the way they point out how this is wrong and that was wrong in d—in the past and so forth and so forth. I tell you, if—if our listeners read those two books, they’d be educated voters instantly. I mean it.
From Conventions to Primaries [29:15]
Bob Zadek: Now, before we went to break, uh, the question that I threw out for you to think about during the 90-second break was the process of selecting a president. Um, it seems to be my own observation, one guy just looking at the system, it’s not designed to filter out and to find the best person for the job. In short, my complaint is: is it working now?
Thomas Fleming: No, absolutely not. Uh, we we have drifted into this election by primary. Uh, that that was never in the in the plans of of the—of the Founders. They didn’t have a plan. They didn’t think that the president would ever run for the office. He’d be chosen because he’d be an outstanding man and all the best people would get together. Well, that evolved. And and pretty soon by—in by—uh—uh—in Madison’s day, uh, he was—he succeeded Jefferson—in Madison’s day, uh, the congressional caucus of the parties used to nominate their candidates. But it was still, you know, very much, you might say, parochial. Just the congressmen were nominating the people they—the man that they thought should run.
And uh, so but then that evolved into nominating people in conventions. This was the brilliant idea of President Andrew Jackson and his group, and they and both parties began having these national conventions, and that became the way we nominated presidents for well over a hundred years. Long, long. You know, uh, uh, not until after World War II did we start to drift into this primaries. Oh, it’s you—the—somebody convinced everybody that it’s that—that’s a better way to get at the voice of the people and so forth and so forth. Well, it’s in the theory that sounds good, but it—it doesn’t work that way. In pri—at—in the primary elections, we now know only the extremists vote on both sides: the left-wing Democrats and the right-wing Republicans. As a result, we’re not getting representative people either to run or or get or be nominated.
Bob Zadek: So the—so it’s interesting. What you really have said was a very, uh, worrisome trend. What you really have said was, and the Founders were not crazy about small-d democracy, town hall meetings. They feared it—tyranny of the majority and the mob.
Thomas Fleming: They were very—government is designed to control the mature—the the uh tyranny of the majority. That’s why we had a Senate who was—originally the senators were nominated by the state legislatures, and uh, they served for six years, so they were supposed to be a more stable view of the government and what was going on. Uh, and uh, it—it definitely—and the in the House of Representatives, they were the voice of democracy. They had a run every two years. So there was—there was this constant attempt to have a balanced government, you know. Uh, and uh, uh, I—I fear the way things are going now, we we are losing that crucial balance.
Bob Zadek: I—that is—it’s very, very worrisome. What what I find to be so interesting is, of course, our country, uh, while it is representative small-d democracy, it really—there is so much in the Constitution that rejects pure majority rule.
Thomas Fleming: Uh, oh, definitely, yeah.
Bob Zadek: And what’s happened is in the primary system—and it rejects majority rule because there is great suspicion of the wisdom of the mob, of all the people, the great masses.
Thomas Fleming: Oh, yeah. Well, let’s not call them the mob right away, blah, but I agree. They can—they can become a mob. And before the Constitution was written, the the Founders had had this experience. These various states—Washington had a great line after the Revolution. He said, “I see one head turning into thirteen.” That’s what he said was happening to the—to the—to this—to the—to America right after the Revolution. All these states started to act like they were semi-independent. They started printing their own money and and insisting that the state next door to them had to accept their money. And some—some state like Rhode Island, they printed this money until it was worth about a penny of—uh, you know, you could sell it by the pound, literally, you know, on a scale. And it still was worth about ten cents. I mean, you—you—you—you couldn’t let these people, uh, just run wild that way. They saw, they experienced the danger of just the legislatures. Well, they’re all ruffled: “This is the voice of the people. Well, okay, let’s just print this money.”
In this portion of the discussion, Bob Zadek and historian Thomas Fleming examine the historical shift in how American presidential candidates are selected. They contrast the modern primary system with the founders’ original vision, noting that the current process often prioritizes broad voter appeal over the more deliberative approach favored in the early Republic. Fleming explains that while the founders initially feared political factions, they soon recognized parties as an unavoidable reality of governance, using George Washington’s eventual alignment with the Federalists as an example of this pragmatic shift.
The conversation then turns to potential reforms, with Fleming suggesting a significantly condensed election cycle to improve the quality of the electorate’s engagement and ensure the debate remains relevant to current world events. He also explores the nature of presidential leadership, highlighting how early presidents established executive authority through decisive actions and “leadership gestures.” As an example, he cites Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality, which asserted executive power in foreign policy despite significant pushback from Congress. They conclude by speculating whether a return to party-led, brokered conventions might result in more qualified leadership than the current primary-driven model.
Would you like a summary of the next segment of this episode?
Presidential Leadership and the Power of Gesture [44:02]
Thomas Fleming: They—they—but they weren’t even—they weren’t in office. I mean, they weren’t meeting. They couldn’t do anything for about three months, and by the time they got back, they grumbled and so forth, but there was nothing they could do about it. That was one of the powers of the presidency that Washington had insisted on when he and Madison discussed the office. And so this—this—this kind of powerful gesture is important, so important.
And another—another very good example is Jefferson himself. I’m not saying he was—he was a very good politician, you know, even if I don’t agree with some of the things he did as president. And one of the things he did was—now, the previous presidents, Washington and John Adams, had ridden to the office in a big carriage, you know, with six horses and all kinds of guys with trumpets on them and so forth. It was—the whole point was to make the president look important. But Jefferson figured, “Hey, now we’ve done that. We know the president’s important, but what we have to show is the president is also a man of the people.” So what did he do when he went to his inauguration? He walked. Don’t you again see how brilliant that was?
And now let’s jump forward about 180 years or so, and a man named Ronald Reagan becomes president and the country is in the worst shape. You know, it’s—it’s—Jimmy Carter had just practically wrecked it with his passive presidency and letting Congress decide too many things and so forth. And so what does Reagan do? He—he—he looks out at the American people and he says, “It’s morning in America again.” I mean, what a phrase. It just—it sent a thrill of hope to tens of millions of Americans who were wondering what is going to go wrong next. And suddenly here’s a man saying, “We’re going to be—things are going to get better, that they will get better. I’m going to make them better.” And oh my God, there was a strong leader. And that’s compared with the president who led, led, led—and we compare that with Jimmy Carter’s “malaise.” “There’s a malaise in America.” Oh my God. The absolute total absence of leadership. Oh, it was—it was really sad. And he was a—Jimmy Carter’s a decent man, but he just didn’t know how to be a president. That’s all there was to it. And he still doesn’t, I’m afraid. But at any rate, he’s become a very good ex-president, you know, going around building these houses for the poor and so forth and so forth. All very praiseworthy stuff.
But at any rate, those—I think that’s what—that’s what the presidency is all about: leadership. And the—the great example after—after—after Washington was Jackson. South Carolina in 1833 threatened to secede from the Union. President Jackson sent them a message: “Go ahead and secede. I will be—within 24 hours, I will cross your border at the head of an army of 90,000 men.” What do you think of that, huh? Now there’s presidential leadership. And suddenly everybody in South Carolina said, “Oh, well, we didn’t really mean that.”
Evaluating Candidates and the Primary System [48:25]
Bob Zadek: How can we today—how can we in the process of picking a president today—what is there in the process that helps us find, other than gut reaction, who the strong leaders are going to be?
Thomas Fleming: I think you have to go back and look at their record. That’s all there is to it. Al Smith had a great saying—you know, he ran for president. He—he was a great guy. He got creamed for various reasons, but he—mainly because he had a terrible New York Tammany Hall accent. But at any rate, he used to say, “Let’s look at the record. Let’s look at the record.” And that is what I think you’ve got to do.
The—I think the best presidents have been those who had some experience in public office before they got there. I think this has been one of President Obama’s problems. He just hasn’t had enough experience as a—as a politician, as a leader, to—to—to carry—to have—to bring the right amount of weight into the—into the presidency. And—and that’s why he occasionally has—as—has shown a real tendency to let Congress take charge.
Bob Zadek: So the two lessons, as we wind—regretfully—regretfully wind down a very fast hour with Tom Fleming, the two lessons, it seems to me, are: the existing process may—this is my own view, Tom may not 100% agree—place too much value on small-d democracy in this electing of candidates.
Thomas Fleming: And the small-d democracy, Bob, is an illusion because we’re not getting most of the people to vote in these primaries. So that’s—it’s a claim that it’s small-d democracy, but it isn’t the real thing. We’re not getting the—the middle-of-the-road people to vote. And this is a crucial group, you know. So I think that you’re—you’re onto something that—that’s—the primary system is not working. There’s no doubt about it.
Bob Zadek: And we don’t have enough emphasis on the raw quality of leadership. Who is the guy or woman when they walk into a room, everybody turns like that? What was it, the Smith Barney ad or E. F. Hutton? “When E. F. Hutton talks, everybody listens.” We need that kind of gravitas to represent us in the free world.
Thomas Fleming: That’s right. Oh, that—this is crucial to—one of—that’s one of the most important jobs of the presidency. Harry Truman, you know—I used to—I did a book with him and—
Bob Zadek: We have five seconds, Tom.
Thomas Fleming: He used to say the presidency was six jobs in one. And one of the—the most important of the six is how the president is the way we relate to the rest of the world.
Bob Zadek: Thank you so much, Tom. It was too fast an hour. Bob Zadek, thank you for listening. 800-345-5639 is our constant number. Speak to you next Sunday.