Representative Presidency

I believe the President should be a trustee in terms of how he runs the country.  The President has the difficult job of representing the country as a whole.  When the President discusses treaties with other countries, he does not represent the state of Michigan or the Midwest region; he represents the United States.  Therefore, the President has to make decisions for the country as a whole. Congress should be delegates because they are voted by their constituency and have their interests in mind.  While Congress does have national interests to consider, their primary interest is to the benefits of the people who vote for them.  This is why there are 100 senators and 435 House of Representatives; which is significant because it brings all the issues around the country into “one big pot.”  The President has different concerns than what a delegate may have.  For instance, the President has more concern with the middle class throughout the country while the governor from Indiana is concerned about the middle class within his or her state. As for the politico representation, I have never seen a President who represented this point of view.  Presidents are not career politicians; therefore reelection is not always on their mind.  Having said that, they do need to please their political party at times in order to pass a bill, but it has never dictated how they run the office.  Pros to running a trustee government is that the President will get things done.  The Executive office is the action arm of the government, therefore if the President is worried about pleasing a certain group of people, or pleasing their political party, nothing will get done.  There are too many people in the United States to please everyone, therefore the President needs to be focused on the national issues of the country and let Congress and state officials worry about other domestic concerns.  A con to this form of government is that the equal branches of government are not so equal.  The President will have to make some decisions without Congressional approval, and therefore he has more decision making power.  I do not think people should expect Presidents to be descriptively representative because I think people vote for someone based on substantive issues.  There are people who vote for Presidents who are descriptively representative, but not the majority.  Individuals vote for Presidents based on substantive representation.  For example, Ted Kennedy was well known for fighting for the poor, even though he grew up wealthy.  Presidents have switched in representation styles, particularly when they are running for elections.  President Obama would go into poor neighborhoods to show that he was “one of them,” but then switch styles and speak about the substantive issues that matter most.  Usually, the lower class involves the black community, so when they see President Obama walking around, they will vote for him.  In the 2008 election, President Obama received 96% of the black voters (politico.com), so in that case a descriptive representation worked.  I think this is a significant statistic because it’s hard to believe that 96% voted for Obama based on substantive issues.  This gives me the implication that there are certain parts of the country that are not as knowledgeable, and so they vote based on descriptive representation.