Just Be the President
By: Eric Medlin
Tags: Joe Biden, History, Michael Bloomberg, Politics

Just Be the President

Getting results is more important than bipartisanship or a one-term pledge.

Joe Biden at a debate. Source: Politico

In the 2020 election cycle, candidates have proposed various ways of altering the nature of the presidency, in ways both large and small. Joe Biden shook up the political press back in December when Politico reported that he was considering making a pledge to serve only one term. The backlash was so significant that one of his campaign advisers downplayed the report the next day. There have been reports of candidates running on bipartisan tickets and even a proposal by Michael Bloomberg to completely upend the Oval Office and replace it with an open office plan. All of these candidates are attempting to appeal to voters’ supposed desire for good government and nonpartisan leadership. Bloomberg’s offer is technocratic in nature, while Biden wants to emphasize his honesty by showing that he would not be beholden to the donors who would ostensibly bankroll his reelection campaign.

Such a tendency is not new. Arguably the first “dark horse” presidential candidate, James K. Polk, strengthened his 1844 candidacy with his announcement that he planned to serve only one term in office. In 1864, at the height of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln attempted to bring the country together by running on a unity ticket with Democrat Andrew Johnson. Over 100 years later, Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy made curbing the president’s power and deference to Congress one of his campaign planks.

While the approach worked for Polk, it was a poor long-term strategy for Lincoln. Lincoln certainly would have won in 1864 even without appointing Johnson as his running mate. This decision meant that, after Lincoln’s assassination, the Constitution elevated a president from the opposing party who went on to spend his four years in office undermining Congress and Reconstruction at every turn. The decision to change presidential power also did not help McCarthy’s campaign. It earned McCarthy a strong rebuke from historian and prominent liberal Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a supporter of Robert Kennedy’s nascent presidential bid. In The Crisis of Confidence (1969), Schlesinger argued that McCarthy supported a “general limitation of the Presidency with all functions reconsidered and all powers greatly reduced,” a process that would make the president almost powerless in domestic affairs. (Schlesinger, 220) As exemplified by Scheslinger’s criticism, McCarthy’s inability to unite the party in the primaries led to a contested convention and the eventual nomination of Hubert Humphrey.

Schlesinger’s critique extends to the current attempts by prospective Democratic candidates to change the nature of the presidency in order to attract more attention from the electorate. These changes distract from the reasons that people vote for a president. Changes to the Oval Office or a president’s reelection plan do not emphasize his or her capacity for leading the military or aiding the economy. Most importantly, they do little to improve the ability of a president to pass legislation that will improve the lives of Americans. There is a chance that some changes may even lessen this ability of presidents. Pundits have noted that one of the strongest tools a president has to influence legislators is the power they have to aid their reelection bids as an incumbent running for reelection. A lame duck president loses this ability entirely, with the only election they preside over being a traditionally disastrous first midterm.

Joe Biden may only intend to serve one term in office. If so, he should keep that intention secret and conduct the business of running for president as if he planned on seeking a second term. Proposing that he will only serve one term will not help his candidacy and will only weaken his leverage over Congress. Presidents should not worry about the nation’s structure of partisanship or how the electorate views their age. They should just worry about being president.