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president for the good of all. Mr. Wilson’s presidency (which is now ours) requires an election in which the personal campaign of the candidate is central in order to establish the president’s personal authority, arouse the force of the people, and concentrate this force in one man.
Whatever the merits of President Wilson’s view, more striking today are its failings. Presidents who rely on the power of their oratory alone rather than their constitutional authority and their strategic position within the constitutional structure seem weak, not strong. Leadership seems too often to have transformed itself into “followership” of shallow moods and sentiments. And the people’s opinions seem inchoate and unable to direct the government or to call a president to account even as presidents disregard constitutional boundaries.
We have the personal campaigns favored by Woodrow Wilson without the fruits he thought would come from them. We need to reconsider not merely the campaign practices but the view of the presidency of which they are part and parcel.
Dr. Thurow is the chairman of the Department of Politics at the U niversit y of Dallas in Texas.
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