| Opinion

Opinion

the Constitution and from the president’s place in the tripartite constitutional design. But the Constitution itself rested upon the authority of “We, the people.” By directly campaigning before the voters, a president might plausibly claim to embody the will of the people since their vote could be taken to be an endorsement of his personal appeal. Neither the justices of the Supreme Court nor members of Congress could make a similar claim.

Hence a president might attach the authority of “We, the people” to himself at the expense of the other branches of government and, indeed, of the Constitution itself. His power would rest on his relationship with the people, not his constitutional position, and he might use that authority to usurp powers properly belonging elsewhere or nowhere. President Nixon’s claim to have received a “mandate” in the 1972 election to which Congress ought to bow is illustrative of the danger feared. “Front porch” campaigns would help to make party victories as well as personal victories, thus diminishing the president’s claim while increasing the claim of the party in Congress.

Secondly, the presidency ought to attract and give scope to genuine statesmen. But direct campaigning would give the advantage to candidates who were preeminently orators and rhetoricians — men who could appear to understand politics without really doing so. These orators might easily become the slaves as well as the manipulators of people’s passions and moods. Instability would be introduced into presidential programs as presidents scurried to play to the changing moods of the people, and the discretion and flexibility essential to the conduct of the presidency would be diminished.

The “front porch” campaign sought to insert a party organization between the candidate and the people which shield the future president from excessive dependence on transient moods. The enthusiasm and diligence with which he was supported would depend to a large extent on his serving the stable