N o t e s 1 Introduction 1. Approximately 1.4 million active troops according to Department of Defense projec- tions for FY 2012, United States Department of Defense Budget Request FY 2012, Overview. 2. Generally speaking, to veto something means to reject it or to prevent an action from taking place. More specifically and with respect to our concerns, to veto means that the president may reject an Act of Congress even though a majority of both houses have agreed to the legislation. Thus, a single individual may stop something from becoming law that has been passed by Congress by an overwhelming majority. Naturally, Congress has the power to override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both chambers. 3. The actual wording in the Constitution is, “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union.” 4 . Presidents may also enter into other agreements with foreign leaders that do not have the same force of law as do treaties. These arrangements are called “executive agreements” and are generally enforceable only while the two leaders who are party to the agreement are still in office. 5 . Among others, the most controversial was perhaps that of Marc Rich, convicted of 51 counts of tax fraud and evading $48 million in taxes, there was the appearance that the pardon could have been in return for political contributions made by Rich’s wife (Reaves 2001 ). 6 . Explicit powers are defined as those powers granted by the Constitution in explicit lan- guage or, in other words, those that are quite clearly written in the document either by the founders or by later amendment. The elastic clause creates, for Congress, a broad array of implicit or implied powers. The same is true of the other two branches and all are subject to the interpretation of the courts. In fact, the Supreme Court’s application of the power of judicial review in the case of Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 ( 1803 ) is one example of the application of implied powers. 7 . Once again, see Marbury v. Madison . 8 . See the Twenty-Second Amendment to the US Constitution. 9 . While the president’s travel for official business is paid for with public funds, travel for political purposes must be reimbursed to the government. 10 . Approximately $590,000 in 2006 dollars, according to the calculator at measuring- worth.com and using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the index. 11 . Many of the numbers here come from http://www.lib.umich.edu/node/11736/ and 3 U.S.C., Chapter 2 , § 102. 212 Notes 12 . Author’s personal observation from visits to the Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton libraries. 13 . Carter wrote, “From the beginning, our differences were obvious, even in personal hab- its. Prime Minister Begin was the soul of propriety. He preferred to wear a tie and coat and strictly observed protocol , always reminding President Sadat and me that he was not a head of state and therefore did not rank as an equal with us. When I wanted to see him, he insisted that he come to my cottage and not the other way around” (1982, 331, emphasis added). 2 The Historical Context: How We View the Presidency 1 . Milkis and Nelson in summarizing Jackson’s view actually use the expression “a presi- dent should reject any bill that he felt would injure the nation” (1994, 127). 2 . The commission was appointed by Roosevelt in 1936 to make recommendations about more efficient governance of the executive branch. For more detail and a brief memoir, see James Fesler’s “The Brownlow Committee Fifty Years Later” ( 1987 , 291–296). 3 . While popular accounts have Roberts changing his mind soon after Roosevelt’s announcement of the Court Reform Plan, evidence seems to indicate that Roberts had actually decided to support the Washington State law just after oral argument in December of 1935. The Court was awaiting the return of the ailing Harlan Fiske Stone before issuing its opinion about three weeks after Roosevelt laid out his plan in a Fireside Chat on March 9th, 1936. See, for example, Marian C. McKenna’s (2002) Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War: The Court-packing Crisis of 1937 . 4 . See, WhiteHouse.gov “Executive Office of the President, Fiscal Year 2011, Congressional Budget Submission,” retrieved on July 2nd, 2012, from http://www.whitehouse.gov /sites/default/files/ 2011 -eop-budget.pdf. 5 . See, for example, H. R. Haldeman’s ( 1978 ) memoir of his time as Nixon’s chief of staff, The Ends of Power. 3 Introduction: The Process in General 1 . Some noted examples include George Wallace in 1968, John Anderson in 1980, Ross Perot in both 1992 and 1996, and Ralph Nader in 2000. In particular, Nader’s can- didacy is thought to have had an impact on the outcome of the election in 2000 in that his margins in New Hampshire and Florida would have provided Gore with suf- ficient votes to be the winner in those states, either one of which would have changed the outcome of the election. In New Hampshire, Nader received 22,198 votes and the difference between George W. Bush and Gore was a 7,200-vote margin for Bush. In Florida, where the difference between the two candidates, officially, was just over 500 votes, Nader received more than 97,000 votes (source: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000 presgeresults.htm). 2 . See CNN.com (2008) “Election Center 2008,” retrieved on June 25th, 2010, from http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/. Notes 213 3 . Most recently, California joined Louisiana in adopting a primary where all candidates from all parties face each other in a single contest and the top vote getters face each other in a general election regardless of party affiliation. 4. Ragsdale ( 1993) uses a similar scheme. She delineates four periods: the Congressional Caucus (1800–1824), the Brokered Convention (1828–1912), the Emergent Primary (1912–1968), and the Media Primary (1972–present). The major difference is my argu- ment that the brokered convention still dominated the political environment through 1968. 5. According to the website Dictionary.com, the expression dates back to the period between 1910 and 1915. 6 . This was the system of distributing political jobs often credited to the presidency of Andrew Jackson that abandoned the government of “gentlemen” approach of the Jeffersonian Era, but before the Civil Service system that would come decades later. 7 . Herring ( 1979) is among those who point to exaggerated media coverage of North Vietnamese/Viet Cong success. In fact, he says, “Early reports of a smashing enemy victory went largely uncorrected” (197). In addition, Stanley Karnow ( 1983 ) provides a thorough narrative of how the media turned on Johnson and his policies regarding the war. 8 . The reference here is to the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in April of 1968. 9 . Chicago, Illinois, was the site of the Democratic Convention that year. 10 . It is generally believed that Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party—thus supporting Goldwater for president in 1964—as a result of the Johnson administration’s support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 4 The System Changes Forever 1 . Formally known as the Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, the com- mission is most often and popularly referred to as the McGovern-Fraser Commission, named for its successive chairs. 2 . My interpretation here is that “open” refers to a public and accessible process where the party’s rank and file could participate, thus limiting the ability of party leaders to control the process. One could also interpret “open” to refer to the later opening of the delegate selection contests in some states to include nonparty members. 3. McGovern’s speech began at 3 a.m. (EDT) and with Hawaii 6 hours behind Eastern Time, the speech would have begun there at 9 p.m., which is usually considered prime time. The delay was attributed to a number of factors such as demonstrations in support of candidates and 39 challengers to McGovern’s vice-presidential selection of Senator Thomas Eagleton. 4 . Technically, it was the Commission on Presidential Nomination (DNC 2005), chaired by Governor James Hunt of North Carolina. 5 . The 2005 DNC report noted that at least in one case—South Dakota—the state legis- lature, being controlled by the opposing party, seemed to want to instigate mischief by creating a conflict with the rules. 6 . See, for example, “It Could All be Over after Super Duper Tuesday” by Bill Schneider (2008) on CNN.com. The story can be accessed at http://articles.cnn.com/2007–02–05 214 Notes /politics/schneider.superduper.tuesday_1_new-hampshire-south-carolina-democrats -diverse-states?_s=PM:POLITICS. 7 . In the end, both delegations were seated. 8 . A federal system of government is one where there is shared responsibility and some measure of independence for the lower level of government. To use this analogy would be to argue that Republican state party organizations would be somewhat independent from the national party. 9. In a similar way, in a unitary form of government, where all the sovereignty lies at the central level, this analogy would argue that the DNC would allow less auton- omy for its respective state party organizations than the more federally organized Republicans. 10 . To make it easier to understand some of the more difficult detail in this discussion, it might be useful to think in terms of the reforms. As such, Wigoda’s group were the “bad guys,” trying to keep things the same and the Cousins group were the “good guys,” trying to reform the system and beat the evil political machine.