Background
The Declaration of Independence
Creating a strong presidency was not the original intent of the newly independent states following the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After breaking away from a monarchy the colonists were fearful of the idea of an individual having an excess of executive power. In order to achieve independence, the colonies would have to engage in war.
With a war on the forefront of their minds, the members of the Continental Congress knew they had to have a governing power. Sidney Milkis and Michael Nelson note that the states "jealous of their independence and reluctant to substitute even a homegrown central government for the British government they had just rejected, surrendered power grudgingly 1." With the states reluctant to surrender power, what was created was a centrally weak government that had an inherently anemic legislative branch called the Continental Congress. The powers that were granted to this branch, such as declaring war, entering alliances, and raising a military, worked well enough during the revolutionary war to force the British to surrender. The real problems of the Articles of Confederation arose following the war.
Articles of Confederation
After the surrender of the English, the flaws of the Articles of Confederation started to reveal themselves. All the powers that were given to Congress in the Articles were not supported with sufficient means to enforce them. As time passed, the inability of the central government to collect taxes put the United State's credibility in jeopardy due to their inability to pay back their war debt.
The citizens of the newly independent states were also becoming increasingly uneasy about the fact they had not received their compensation to fight in the war and were forced into debt. Uneasiness grew to action across the country where there was an uprising of disgruntled citizens. The incident that worried the country the most happened in western Massachusetts where a "mob of farmers… saddled with taxes and debts and unable to persuade the state legislature to ease credit, closed down courts and stopped sheriffs' auctions in order to prevent foreclosure orders from being issued and executed against their lands." 2 This incident was given the title of Shays Rebellion for the leader Daniel Shay.
Following the war, the states that once fought side by side with one another grew increasingly greedy in terms of their own economic fortune. The states almost seem to work against one another following the war; for example, "some states with port cities… placed taxes on goods imported from overseas by merchants in neighboring states." 3 Milkis and Nelson also describe the states' economic issues, "(f)ew benefited, and many suffered, from the protectionist walls that individual states had built around their economies." 4 The failures of the Articles began to pile up with Congress's inability to collect taxes, inability to stop mobs and rioting within the states, and incapacity to mediate between inter-state relations. These shortcomings collectively forced Congress to schedule a conference to discuss revision the Articles of Confederation.
The United States Constitution: Creation of the Executive
The meeting that took place to amend the Articles of Confederation was later given the title Constitutional Convention. The meeting that began as a plan to amend the articles, ended up with the state delegates deciding to create a new governing document, which would be known as the United States Constitution. This document encompassed two branches that the former document did not: the executive and judicial branches.
Election/term length/members
At the Constitutional Convention, the conversation that took the most energy and time was the legislative branch, in particular how legislative apportionment would be addressed. Even though the legislative branch was the most taxing at the convention, the most notorious topic came when deciding on the structure of the executive branch. While it was commonly agreed after seeing the shortcomings of the Articles that there was a need for an executive, there was not much agreement beyond that as far as the branch was concerned. Some of the disagreements included: how many executives would lead, how long they would lead, and who would choose them.
The first argument over the number of executives showed evidence of some resonating fears the elder members of the convention had over the return to a monarchy. On June 1 during the 3 rd week of the convention, Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson motioned on the floor that the executive should be a single person. This motion was argued by some as being the birth of a king and was replaced with a notion of an executive with a committee of three members. Milkis and Nelson note that the delegates "feared monarchy, but they also realized how much the national government had suffered under the Articles of Confederation from the diffuseness of executive responsibility…and regarded a single executive as more likely than a committee to respond quickly and effectively to riot and discord." 5 After thoroughly arguing, the convention voted in favor of a single executive. This brought the convention to their next issue of how this single executive would be selected into office.
The process of selecting the president has brought controversy even in modern elections because of the way the Framers of the Constitution decided the position was to be filled. At first, the idea was presented in the Virginia Plan to have the executive branch selected by Congress. The legislative selection was voted on and passed many different times, but it left delegates uneasy. The delegates argued if the president was selected by the legislature it would "significantly curtail the extent to which the president could act as an independent bulwark – a truly separate branch in a system of checks and balances – against the encroachment and aggrandizement of legislative authority." 6 In other words, the president would not have autonomy from Congress. This resulted in a standstill until the convention reconvened, and the resulting proposal is what Americans see today in the Electoral College. The selection of the president would be determined by a majority vote of the electors, who would be chosen by the states using the methods that each state adopted. Every state would receive a number of electoral votes equal to its representation in Congress. Once this was decided, all that was left to be determined was the length of a presidential term and the eligibility for re-election.
After determining the term length and the membership of the presidency the constitution Framers wrote Article II: section 1 of the constitution which states, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected." 7
What we as readers can see is that the Framers were in two different mindsets during the writing of the Constitution, so when it came to granting power the Framers did so keeping in mind the two forms of government that had previously governed them: the Articles of Confederation and the King of England. Some of the powers of the president are written in clear language or as enumerated powers, while others are left vague and open for interpretation so as to not limit the power of the president. With these two angles of approaching executive power it shows that the delegates took into consideration the tribulations the colonies suffered with a king, as well as the inherently frail government when an executive power is not present.
Warnings of political parties and rhetoric
A majority of the Framers of the Constitution were fearful of the development of political parties even though they did not address this fear by adding a section of the Constitution forbidding political parties. "The Framers considered political parties to be self-serving factions that cultivated dissent and were ultimately detrimental to good government." 8 George Washington understood the "presidency was a nonpartisan office…and like most of the Framers of the constitution, he disapproved of 'factions' and did not regard himself as the leader of any political party." 9 Like Washington, Thomas Jefferson was quoted in Kathleen Jamieson's Packaging the Presidency as stating, "if I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." 10 The Framers envisioned a leader who would stay out of the way of the common grief of the people and the legislation that leader George Washington portrayed.
Along with the Framers' apprehensions towards factions, they were equally weary of a rhetorical leader. The Framers feared "that mass oratory, whether crudely demagogic or highly inspirational, would undermine the rational and enlightened self-interest of the citizenry which their system was designed to foster and on which it was thought to depend for its stability." 11 The Framers believed that a rhetorical leader would be more worried about the people and less about constitutional authority and legislation. Although the Framers and Jefferson did not intend on parties or a leader to petition the people, the development seemed to be inevitable. Once the presidents and parties found their power based in public opinion more than constitutional authority, the role of the media became central, since the media was the direct link to the public.
Media in presidential elections
A student today often seems to assume one source of the media as being the truth and uses that to shape his or her "opinion" of a presidential candidate or the president. What Americans see in presidential campaigning and elections was not the original intent of the Framers; the use of media as a tool was absent from the campaigning realm up until the 1824 election. The development of political parties and the growth of presidential rhetoric gave rise to the use of media in presidential elections.
1828 election: press deployments
The 1824 presidential election was made up of five candidates John Quincy Adams, John Calhoun, Williams Crawford, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay. Because of their political positions three of these men (Adams, Calhoun, Crawford) were able to employ the press to promote their presidency, while the other two men were at a disadvantage because of their inability to endorse themselves within the press. Paul Starr argues that this is where "political parties assumed a more structured form…though not fought on a party basis, [this election] foreshadowed the development [of political parties]." 12 Jackson managed to win the popular vote in the 1824 election, but he did not have the means to campaign like Adams did for the electoral vote and subsequently lost the presidency. Although Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election, he used the model that Adams created and established his own source of media for the upcoming election by creating newspapers across the country for his own campaigning basis.
During the 1828 election, Jackson pursued a style of campaigning more in line with modern day elections. Jackson employed propaganda strategies by distributing handbills, a small printed sheet to be distributed for advertising by hand, across the Union. The handbills portrayed Jackson in a general's uniform or wearing the clothes of a Tennessee farmer with a hickory can in his hand. While on the same handbill Jackson's supporters portrayed opponent John Quincy Adams as "driving off with a horsewhip a crippled old soldier who dared to speak to him, to ask an alms." 13 In response to Jackson's handbills, Adams deployed a set of handbills knows as the "coffin handbills" accusing Jackson of "executing six soldiers, one of them a Baptist minister who deserted after the Battle of New Orleans." 14 These handbill exchanges would continue back and forth, yet the organization of Jackson's campaign would prevail.
Andrew Jackson's campaign organizers during this election set the foundation for those campaigns to follow. Jamieson states that,
in addition to planning meetings and devising and distributing campaign materials to newspapers and voters, Jackson's organizer created a precursor of a precursor of the Democratic and Republic National Committees by establishing a Washington-based central correspondence committee. These organizers also collected funds, compiled list of voters, and made arrangements for printing ballots. They founded newspapers, increasing in number as the campaign progressed; they issued pamphlets, broadsides and biographies.15
The 1828 election was the beginning of what the Framers feared when it came to political parties and presidential rhetoric.
1960 presidential race: rise of television
When historians look at the use of media in presidential elections, the most common election mentioned is the 1960 presidential election of John F. Kennedy v. Richard Nixon. No longer could a candidate win simply by distributing advertisements; presidential candidates at this point were in the national spotlight. This election became famous because it required many Americans to determine whether the issues the media presented were important to them or not. The election was also the first election to have two presidents debate on live television.
The Television era
The first nationally televised presidential debates attracted an audience of roughly 60% of the adult voting population. During these debates Kennedy had the edge because of his experience in front of the camera. Just as Jackson had been able to revolutionize the way presidents campaigned 100 years earlier, Kennedy was able to use knowledge in media to dominate the evolving media sphere. Liette Gidlow states, "the often repeated story, which is in fact true, is that polls taken after the first debate showed that most people who listened to it on the radio felt that Nixon had won, while most who watched it on television declared Kennedy the victor."16 The idea was argued that it was because Kennedy appeared younger, healthy and was better looking than Nixon. During the election Nixon had opted not to shave, and to wear makeup to give color to his pale skin. Like Andrew Jackson had done after his 1824 defeat to Adams, Nixon learned the new form of campaigning and used it to his advantage. In 1968 when Nixon ran for president he declared himself "tanned, rested, and ready," and ended up winning the election.
2008 presidential race: rise of social media
The 2008 presidential election was the election that rewrote history for many different reasons. The first historical aspect of the election was the two members of Congress who ran against one another. The Democratic Party elected Illinois junior senator Barack Obama. Obama was the first bi-racial candidate to get the nod in a national presidential election. The Republican Party nominated Arizona senior senator John McCain. Due to the relative newness of the election, there is not too much debate on the precedent of their issues. The main contribution to this election is the utilization of social media to attract and employ campaign messages.
Implementation of new media
The use of social media by the candidates during the campaign led to an explosion of individuals turning to internet media for their latest updates. The presidential candidates both utilized these new forms of media, but it appears that the Obama administration had the distinct advantage. The sites that Democratic and Republican constituents flocked to for their instant media update during the 2008 elections included Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube. Bruce Gronbeck argues when comparing the two candidates that of those media followers when comparing the two candidates that Obama had five times the number of visits to his MySpace, seven times the number of visits to his Facebook page, and 15 times the number of mentions in the blogosphere (eg twitter).a17a During the election thousands of Facebook users would join virtual fan clubs for and against presidential candidates. During the campaign Obama referenced the site and alludes to the advantage he had over McCain when Obama jokingly stated, "for the past few weeks John McCain has been out on the campaign trail asking this question; Who is Barack Obama? I have to admit I was a little surprised by the question. The answer is right there on my Facebook page."a18a The use of social media offered the voters a much wider and more liberal way to access the election. Diana Owen believes that over time, audience members will be in a better position to tailor their election media experience to suit their needs as they become familiar with the plethora of offerings and how to best engage them.a19a In the United States today the citizen is becoming more and more independent from the social norms and the growing use of social media allows for the candidates to grow with and relate to this population like never before.
The 1960 elections allowed for citizens to get the feeling that the president was at their home sitting and talking to them through their television set. Now with social media, not only is the candidate at home talking with the citizen, but also the citizen can respond, have their own voices, become a part of the election, and be involved like never before in the campaign process.
Conclusion
If you were to turn on the television 6 months prior to a presidential election and watch one hour of any basic cable channel programming, you would surely see a commercial supported by one of the candidates petitioning the people to vote against the other candidate. This was far from the mind set of those members of the constitutional convention. The framers created a governing document in a way they believed would work, keeping in mind their failed attempt at creating a government. Because of the history of failure in the United States with too much or too little executive power, at the convention the most disagreements surrounded the role and duties of the office of the presidency. At the end of the Constitutional Convention, most in attendance saw the position of president being carried out very similarly to the first Chief Executive, George Washington.
As the first president, Washington did not indulge in petty politics. Some of the framers' initial fears when creating the office of the presidency were of the creation political factions and rhetorical leaders. These fears became a reality in the years following Washington's presidency. At first, the factions grew as disagreement among presidential leaders and candidates, but as time grew so did these oppositions. During the 1828 elections the fears of the framers started to become a reality. In the 1928 election, Andrew Jackson put in motion the early development of political parties and the first real effort at campaigning as a rhetorical leader. Jackson did this by appealing to the people and petitioning them for votes. As time went on, Jackson's strategies created the two party system that citizens know today. In today's presidential campaigns, in order to win the presidency the candidates and their teams research and attempt to have an edge by employing any new form of media available. For Jackson, this was handbills with political cartoons and messages. As technology evolved so did the types of strategies used in efforts of winning. These evolutions in technology came into use in the 1960 election between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Just as Jackson perfected the handbill, Kennedy did not invent the televised debate; he was just more prepared for it.
Now in presidential elections, we see the candidate that is savvier or able to use the media more efficiently often has the upper hand. Evidence of this can be seen in the 2008 election in which Barack Obama defeated John McCain. In this election, Obama's use of social media seemed to give him the upper hand in appealing to the people. In the early beginnings, the president was an individual that was viewed by the citizens as being above the common quarrels and bickering of the people. Today, the citizens' view of the position of the president is an individual that is not only running the country but also speaking directly to and for the people. The United States president can be seen or heard from at any moment in a citizen's day by just picking up a newspaper, turning on the radio or the television, or getting minute by minute updates on your home computer or smart phone. So the question that is left is what would the framers have done differently if they knew this is what would become of the president?
Comments: