“How important is the office of President of the United States? “ Why?

"Whatever one's station in life, we are all president-watchers. Nobody needs fresh evidence to know that the presidency is the diagnostic point in American political life, and, therefore, that the doing of the individual presidents and First ladies provide the choicest grist for discussion and argument."(Graff,ix) This quote sums up the reason in which why the office of the President is important because it truly is the point of attention for the American people. The Presidential office is the key factor that produces all of America's opinions and the Presidential choices for the nation.

The office of the President is important because it is the foundation of the decisions made for the United States. The positions in which the President holds while in office are: Chief Executive, Chief Administrator, Chief Diplomat, Commander in Chief, Chief Legislator, Chief of Party, and Chief Citizen; all of these positions are done in a simultaneous manner while he enforces the law. Harry S. Truman once said, "Men make History and not the other way around" and I believe this quote hits the "nail right on the head" for as far as why the office of the President is important;it captures the idea that the President, while holding his duties in office, makes History in every one of his decisions, actions, and speeches. Without the Presidential office our country would have no foundation in which it was founded.

While holding residency within the White House, the President is able to utilize these different areas of staff: medical care, recreation, housekeeping, and security services. The President, while in office, is capable of declaring war and holds the responsibility for overlooking the country in establishing the fact that it runs efficiently. Though the president has no vote in Congress he holds the single largest source of legislative proposals that become law. While in office, he is the principal foreign policy maker,and for this title, the president of the United States has become the world’s most important leader in international affairs.

The President's role can be related as that of an office manager because he is tasked with the responsibility of directing government finances among other things.One of the most demanding roles in which the President must perform, is that of the chief administrator. Simply put, the President is in charge of the world's largest government with a work place of over three million employees. The president is responsible for ensuring that operations run smoothly. In this being the most important role of the president it is evident that the office of the president is important to the production of the country and the way in which the process of laws run and are established within the American society.

"The president of the United States at any given moment personifies to the world no less than to the American people the nation's power, purpose, and prestige. Taken together,the acts of the thirty-nine men who have occupied the presidency constitute the story of the national political leadership of the country during the nearly two centuries since the creation of the office. These men each emerged out of bewildering chaos and conflict of their day by some fortuitous or unexpected turn of the wheel of history; for despite youthful dreams of reaching the White House, no youth can lay out and follow a sure road to it."(Graff,xi) The President of the United States occupies one of the most powerful offices in the world and therefore it is important and vital that it be ran in an efficient manner that is beneficial to the country and the people as a whole.


Graff, Henry F. The Presidents A Reference History.New York:Simon&Shuster Macmillan, 1997

McPherson, James M. To the Best of My Ability.London:Dorling Kindersley,2001