Recent president ial elections. So, were going to start with this. And im coming on the work of Professor Robert dallek, wellknown president ial historian. Centuryeites, th 20th saw an impressive expansion of president ial powers, due to the leadership skills of nine men who served in the office Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, frank lynn delano roosevelt, harry s truman, dwight d eisenhower, john f. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines johnson, richard nixon, and ronald reagan. Analysisessor dalles only looks at the 20th century. Im going to throw in some of the president s from the 21st century as we go along. So, if we can go to the first talks professor dallek about these six points. The first one, he says, his vision. The second is crisp im going to go and talk about this. The second is charisma. The third is pragmatism. Flight. Ve onto the next the fourth is consensusbuilding, followed by trust and credibility, luck, and then im going to throw in, which is on the last slide, something im going to call communication competence. And were going to leave the slides behind right now. So, lets start with vision. Dallek,on, according to is president s come up with an develop they help us to something thats going to pull us altogether. Something thate is going to unify us. A,etimes it comes to us as in a phrase. The new deal, the new frontier, the great society. These would be the things that are going to occur when we talk about vision. So, let me talk about a few of the president s who were involved in this. And were going to start with Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore roosevelt was the first president of the 20th century, and he came to the white house at a time when the presidency was pretty weak. ,t was considered really to be certainly not what it is today. But roosevelt began to expand that notion of it. And roosevelt looks at the white house as an invitation to opportunity. And he talks about something he calls the square deal, and something that he calls the new nationalism. The square deal was the idea that people in america were not being treated fairly by the very wealthy in the country, by the trusts, which were groups of people that came together in the industry to have certain sway over government. And this is going to be a way to deal with that and to make things a little more equitable, if you will. So, the square deal was going to try to establish a balance between what had been the monied interest and give more back to the people. The same with the new nationalism. The new nationalism was supposed to try to protect Human Welfare to property, and just generally improve the life of americans. Now, to go along with the vision, the Theodore Roosevelt had the idea all of us had benefited from. He was a conservationist. And it was because of him that we eventually had, and now have, the natural the National Parks system. The National Parks, of course, enjoyed by millions of people every year, and theyre their entering legacy to t. R. Woodrow wilson spoke about something called the new freedom. He said that the new freedom stood for the idea of restoring unfettered opportunity for individual action and being able to employ the power of the government on behalf of social justice. Now, its kind of interesting this comes from wilson because if you been following whats transpired since the death of george floyd, then you know that wilson the ideas that expressed were in nature. But he didnt seem to propound those ideas while in the white house, and instead really did fight for social justice revisions and legislations. Ok, if were looking at the Gold Standard as far as vision, the person that we need to think about is frank than delano roosevelt. Roosevelt, of course, comes to mosthite house at a serious time in American History. Its the depths of the depression. 25 Million People are out of work. And he goes to the Democratic National convention. He becomes the first modern president ial candidate to fly to a convention. Just the fact that he flew was a big deal because president ial candidates were not flying around in the 1930s. But he flew to chicago and he stood in front of the people and he said, i pledge you, i pledge myself to a new deal for the american people. And that showed extraordinary vision on the part of fdr. I assume that many of you know about some of the accomplishments of the new deal. Daysuring the first 100 that we now talk about 100 days of any president ial administration, some of the legislation that would become part of this new deal, is put into effect. Aaa,ven things like the which is the agricultural adjustment act. It includes the federal emergency relief agency. It includes the National Recovery act. Now, interestingly, what finally pulls the country out of the depression and i just want to ask if anybody knows the answer to this what is it that finally got us beyond the new deal and gets the country out of depression . Does anyone know . Hard for me to see. Does someone want to speak out . Yeah, world war ii. Prof. Gutin world war ii, thank you chase. All of a sudden, putting people back into factories and being part of the industries, and yes, finally world war ii extracts us, lifts us up from the depression e terrible hold of the depression. Now, roosevelt doesnt something as part of his vision that speaks to communication and is really considered extraordinary in its own way. He decides that he is going to talk to the people on radio. And, of course, the series of chats that he gives, the series of talks become known as the fireside chats. Now, of course, will always makes me smile is that there was no fireside. He was speaking from the white house. But it didnt matter. People felt that roosevelt was talking to them. President s had given speeches, but roosevelt was talking to people. Mann roosevelt died, a stopped his wife, eleanor roosevelt, on the street. And he said to her, misses roosevelt, i miss mrs. Roosevelt, i miss your husband. I missed the way that he used to talk to me about government. Its extraordinary. Certainly no one would say that about our past president s, perhaps in the last 25 or 30 years, certainly that i can recall. By the way, people think that roosevelts constantly on the radio, constantly speaking and giving these fireside chats. In fact, over the almost what was it, 13 years that he served in the white house he gave 31. That was it. Moving on with the idea of vision, john f. Kennedy comes to the white house in 1960 and he talks about something called the new frontier. New is a big word for president s. And kennedy says he wants to see money spent on social reform and welfare, as well as there being ambitious projects like going to the moon. Unfortunately, he never lived to see it, but it would happen before the end of the decade. Other things that happened during his time went along with his vision. But perhaps nothing more than something that he announced at my alma mater, the university of michigan. And he announced it at the steps of the Student Union on october 28, 1960, at midnight, when he told thousands of students that he was going to be proposing something called the peace corps. It remains today and is an enduring legacy of john f. Kennedy. One last person with a vision that he tried to follow true on was Lyndon Johnson, who followed kennedy on his assassination. And he talked about something called the great society. Johnson was never a great speaker, and were going to talk about the importance of being a great speaker as president. But he too wanted very much to improve the life of citizens. And during his time in office, we get medicare, civil rights passes, Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act of 19 safety five 1965. Johnsons reputation, unfortunately, is always associated with the vietnam war, which he was mired in, couldnt get out of, and it forced his 1968 to say inf a radio address, i will not seek nor will i accept another term as your president. He realized he lost credibility and things were just not going to go well from that point on. Ok, a second point that professor dallek talks about his charisma. Is being charismatic, besides being dynamic . It makes things exciting for people. President sweve had who have done that for us. Amentioned Franklin Roosevelt few minutes ago, with his use of radio. And he made it exciting for people to be involved with the recovery of the country. Things were getting a little better. And he was a cheerleader for that. John f. Kennedy, again, a lot of charisma. He was the youngest man to serve as president. And in so doing, there was a sense of vitality. And it was an exciting time to be an american. Some of you who are listening tonight may recall that there was a record album that came out during kennedys time in office, called the first family, made terrific fun of the entire kennedy clan. But the one who seemed to enjoy it most was john kennedy. And when he was asked about it, he said yeah, i thought it was fun, did a nice job, but the truth of the matter is i think he sounded more like my brother teddy than he did like me. So, there was that nice sense of selfdeprecating humor, which was really very nice. Another president with great charisma, ronald reagan. Reagan, of course, had a background, he came from acting, then switched to politics later on in his life, started life out by the way, in case youre not familiar with this, as a democrat, later became a republican. And was elected as a republican president in 1980. But again, there was always that sense of excitement, things were going to happen, that these people were not going to sit still. Finally, im going to include in that group, barack obama. Barack obama burst onto the political scene in 2004 when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National convention. And excited a lot of people, and many people walked away from that and said this young man has a good future coming in politics. And of course, four years later, he was running for president , and of course he was elected. And well talk about this in a little bit, but he had tremendous rhetorical skills. Hes a wonderful speaker, and that really stood him in good stead. As you can see on the slide, professor dallek also talks about pragmatism. Pragmatism, of course, is the idea of being practical, but being shrewd, of moving the country to where it should be. Im only going to use one example here. And it does involve Franklin Roosevelt, but such a good example that i think it really does speak for itself. America was very isolationist after world war i. The country simply did not want to get involved in any more foreign wars. The neutrality act had been passed so that technically, you couldnt even declare war. Whatroosevelt was watching was going on in england. Actually, he was watching what was going on around the world. Hitlers had come to power. Bonito mussolini had come to power with the fascists in italy. There is a large Movement Toward militarism in japan. And roosevelt is aware of this. And hes watching it, but he cant do anything because the congress, arehe isolationists. They dont want anything to do with anything. Things get really desperate for the english. They are being bombed mercilessly by germany. By the way, if you want to read an excellent book about the bombing and what was going on at this point in the American British relationship, i recommend a book called the splendid and the vile, wonderful history of what went on. At any rate, churchill is appealing almost daily to roosevelt, saying please, were not going to be able to hold out against hitlers much longer muchuc much longer. Resident appeals to america and congress and theyre not buying it. Finally, he gives a speech. Im going to read a quick excerpt of the speech. He says to the congress and to the country, suppose my neighbors home catches fire, and i have a length of firehose feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, i may help him to put out this fire. Now, what do i do . I dont say to him, before the operation, neighbor, my garden hose cost me 15. Youll have to pay me 15 for it. What is the transaction that goes on . I dont want 15. I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. And what roosevelt is saying to the congress and the american people, we have these old battleships and theyre standing, theyre in dry dock, and were going to share them. We need to share them with the british people. And were going to do, like this garden hose, is going to be a lend that the british is going to pay us, but theyre going to pay us back. Roosevelt knew they were never going to come back, but he needed to move people forward. And he was very pragmatic about it. Endedd this speech and we up engaging britain, and you all know, fortunately, the end of the story. Moving on to consensusbuilding. Consensusbuilding is the idea of putting together a coalition, getting coalitions, getting people to support you. And again, im only going to give you one example here, but its from Lyndon Johnson and its for civil rights. Maybe its no surprise to anyone, but the opposition to civil rights was extreme. It was bitter. Esere were any number of vot that were taken earlier, where civil rights were voted down. Johnson,ly, lyndon interestingly a southerner, is able to put together a coalition republicans who believe in doing the right thing, in social justice, and johnson goes out and he sells it to the people and he gets the consensus and civil rights passes. And it is the law of the land. Trust and credibility. Trust in credit ability, then youre pretty much kaput as president. If anyone remembers president jimmy carter, carter lost his credibility over a number of things that he was doing, and it really doomed his presidency. Johnson,on, for lyndon he lost that trust and credibility because of vietnam. People just did not trust him anymore. Raised on has been im not sure that well see it play out for a while, whether President Trump has lost a lot of credibility with regard to coronavirus. Well see. That one has yet to play out, and you know, well see it this fall. Probably, donald trump is very unlucky in that he was kind of moving along very well to reelection because the economy was quite good, and then coronavirus hit and turned all of our lives upside down. Now, i have a question, and again, anyone please go ahead and yell it out. Does anyone know, it was in the 20 century, who was considered to be the unluckiest of president s . I cant hear you. Coolidge . Prof. Gutin who would be considered to be the most unlucky president of the 20th century . Nixon, maybe . President nixon . Prof. Gutin why would president nixon be considered the unluckiest president . Watergate, maybe . Prof. Gutin well, think of an event you really cant control. Unfortunately, there were certain issues where president nixon couldve done some controlling with watergate. Ok. Prof. Gutin going once. Going twice. Kennedy . Prof. Gutin kennedy. Why would kennedy be considered the unluckiest president . He was assassinated. Prof. Gutin well, yeah, being assassinated is definitely a very unlucky thing. But no, no. Im going to help you here. It was Herbert Hoover. Why hoover . Of 1929 s in march by the way, Herbert Hoover always gets a bad rep. He was really a very, very brilliant man, has much of europe after world war i, comes to the white house. Hes in office since march. 1929, then october of stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins. One historian wrote that Herbert Hoover came to the white house poised for a grand job of building, and instead he was obliged to catch. He was pretty unlucky. Harry truman used to say that Herbert Hoover did not create the depression. The depression was created for him. It it didnt matter. But didnt matter. He couldnt help the United States from push out from the weight of the depression and he lost the election in 1932 to Franklin Roosevelt in a landslide. Ok, so understanding that luck would have this effect for certain president s, again, its the same thing for donald trump. He did not create coronavirus, but he is dealing with the effects of it. And you know, weve been living through trying to get back to some degree of normalcy. I have one last thing to add. That is the point that i have, isch is i added, which communication competence. I believe this is important and i based this on my own experience on watching president s and studying them for a long time. What i found is that a president , and president ial campaigns, campaigners too, and youre seeing it right now, have to be effective in their discourse, appropriate. Decentd to be at least a speaker, better if youre a good speaker, best if youre an exceptional speaker. Ok, so among exceptional speakers, we would certainly have to put barack obama. We would have to put Franklin Roosevelt. Down,in the next tier perhaps bill clinton. But these were people who could take advantage of situations, rhetorically, and all of them also had the facility to adapt to changing conditions. If things suddenly could shift, then we know they were able to respond rhetorically. Too, would of this, correctness and cadence, being able to string ideas together. So, if we were looking towards maybe the bottom layer, george w. Bush was not a particularly articulate president. Donald trump is not particularly articulate, though he has the benefit of great resources in media and getting his message out. But thats a different story. Competence ision an issue. As we look at the 2020 race, i think that were all wondering about joe biden and just how competent a speaker he is. Unfortunately, hes had his issues with gaffes over the years, so this is something, if they hired me right now to work with him and by the way, joe, im available im available to anyone i would work with competenceunicare and being able to frame thoughts and being able to produce good, strong, rhetorical responses. I have a question, if you dont mind. Prof. Gutin please come ago. Please, go. We talked about ge