Theodore J. Lowi, John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University and former president of the American Political Science Association, has long studied the presidency. One of the things he has learned in that process is that he would never want the job. “I may be the only American capable of being president of the United States because I have the wisdom to turn it down if it were offered to me,” he said. “I understand the impossibility of that office.” Read on to see why he thinks it’s an impossible job, and why Barack Obama is a bit like Frank Sinatra.

Q. Can you discuss your theory of presidential power as expressed in The Personal President?
A. I was moved by some work of mine that preceded The Personal President [1985-1986], I’d written a book called The End of Liberalism [published 1969, second edition 1979]. One of the things that struck me is as national government became more powerful, it took on more regulatory responsibility, whereas before, states did almost all the regulating. National government simply provided a few public goods and that’s about all. From the Roosevelt period on, national government became a true nation-state like France or England. Congress turned over most of its power to the executive branch during that period. It delegated these powers and didn’t make clear what the rule of law was for each of these important new programs and new agencies created in the 1930s. It delegated the actual policy making power to the president, then it would be sub-delegated to a new agency or existing agency. This was a genuine “Roosevelt Revolution.”

This is a poor thing for a liberal state to do. The rule of law requires that the legislature make clear what policy ought to be. After giving the president those powers to make the policy, my story wasn’t over. That’s when I started looking more closely at the effect of this kind of delegation of power. It transformed the presidency itself. And that is my argument in the book. Once you grant so many large powers to the president, then the American public started looking to the president for the results rather than the Congress. Until Roosevelt, we had very few important presidents. Most were rather dreary fellows. From Roosevelt onward, each occupant of the White House had tremendous power for one guy. And as power goes up arithmetically, expectations go up exponentially.

Q. Are presidents set up to fail?
A. Presidents can never meet the expectations that Americans place on them. Every president following Roosevelt ended up in disgrace. All the power under the sun would not be enough to meet the expectations of the American people. Democrats are more willing to use government power than Republicans, but presidents from both parties have suffered from this kind of expectation….

The ratings of presidents start out at above 60% approval, as with Obama now. That’s far higher than the popular vote they get. They’re giving him the benefit of the doubt. As months go by, ratings go down, and down. Occasionally ratings are reversed, but only temporarily. And since the beginning of plebiscite polling in the 1960s, the same question is asked monthly and then weekly: “Do you approve or disapprove of how the president is doing his job?” With the exception of Ronald Reagan, every president has started out the same way and then, as one comedian put it, they begin “sliding down the razor blade of life.”

The only thing that reverses the downward spiral is front-page international events. After that, there is a rallying around the president. When Bush bombed Baghdad, his poll ratings went from the low 40s to 90. Same with his father, and so on.

Q. What makes international events a president’s saving grace?
A. We don’t have a good explanation for the fact that presidents only gain in international issues. All I can say is there’s a rallying effect…. We rally because we’re obedient citizens. We are patriots. When our country is being attacked, we rally. Add Jimmy Carter, to the two Bushes, and you have the biggest single rating jumps in the history of polling. It’s not a very good explanation, but it’s a fact, and presidents know it. Once their ratings get low, they make trips abroad.

Q. Barack Obama faces a uniquely challenging set of circumstances. Will that make it all but impossible for him to be seen as a success, or will everyone lower their expectations and be more patient?
A. That makes him an especially good case study. He is one of the most talented politicians that has ever come forward in the U.S., or even in the world. There are few who equal his ability to reach crowds, to establish rapport, to gain confidence, to inspire us. He’s a matinee idol, like Frank Sinatra. He has so many things that make him close to the ideal model of a small-d democratic politician. Reagan and Roosevelt had a few similar qualities. But Obama  has so many more qualifications for mass worship than most presidents.

Yet he’s going to go through the same downward spiral. If you check out the rhetoric on the front pages of papers and magazines and TV, you’ll see how personalized their references are: “Can he deliver? When will he deliver?” Let me repeat: All the powers in the world could not make it possible for him to do what’s expected.

But I think he knows that, so he continued his campaign after he was elected. We call it the “permanent campaign.” When Roosevelt was elected in 1932, Hoover begged him to come to Washington and make some statements to reassure people. But Roosevelt stayed silent throughout all that. So did Lincoln, despite President Buchanan’s pleas. Obama responded. And it was the last thing he should have done. He risked getting hooked up with the previous administration. I was in Australia and New Zealand during January and most of February, and I was amazed at the intensity of coverage of his promises. And he was already campaigning, trying to keep his flock, his coalition. He’s still doing it now. He’s doing things most presidents do in the second half of their term.

They campaign, and they never quit. Why? Because they know what I know. Each president knows his poll ratings are going to go down and down and down. I don’t say it’s inevitable, but nine presidents since Kennedy have all suffered from the same thing. That is the sad story of the American presidency. We democratized the presidency and that made it an impossible job. (Reagan was not really an exception, but that’s too long a story.)

Q. How did Obama’s speech strike you? Is his new optimistic tone a smart move considering the expectations he faces?
A. I think he was well-balanced. He is capable of exciting audiences, but I do think he used more restraint. He, or his writers, exercised restraint. And that’s a good thing. His speech will not go down in history; there was no great single statement like “ask not what your country can do for you.” But it stands up in craftsmanship and dignity.

That’s what makes me so sad. He excels in all that we require in a president and he’ll fail, precisely because he’s president…. I know this sounds like an awful contradiction or conundrum, but that’s the presidency.

Q. Is the financial crisis creating opportunities for presidential power to expand still further – and is this good or bad for the office and the country?
A. George W. Bush was already branded disgraced when the financial crisis hit, with 22% approval. No president has ever gone out so deeply disgraced, not even Andrew Johnson. But as soon as the crash came in September, Congress just went to its knees and begged that disgraced president to do something. Bush sent his Treasury Secretary before all the cameras to say we need nearly a trillion dollars to bail out the banks. And this was validated and trumped by Obama.

These were enormous grants of power by Congress. Congress had to authorize the bill, but set no particular restrictions on the president, the Treasury, or the implementers. The up-front, dramatic commitment may be a good thing to do. I don’t need to judge it, but Congress delegated grants of power that violate every understanding of the rule of law. Congress simply surrendered to the president.

Obama vowed last Tuesday that “we will rebuild, we will recover.” And he designated the Vice President to watch over the two trillion dollars, “because nobody messes with Joe.” But nobody can watch over the expenditure of nearly two trillion dollars. You can’t keep track of whether they used the money right or not. Yet Congress set almost no standards, no restraints, against the use of that power. Congress just said, here’s all the money you can use and if you need more come on back. Just set things right again…. One of these days we’ll look back and say where did all the power go? The same delegations of power were reaffirmed through the president in war. Obama back-slid into the arms of the military, delgating to them the decision of when we withdraw and how many we leave.

To me, open-ended delegation from Congress to the presidenty and the executive, is the Achilles heel of the greatest of all democracies in the world. It is a kind of hubris that we can’t do anything wrong. If we have money, we think money will give us results, peace, the end of the crisis. I don’t get interviewed by the American press, because I’m the teller of bad news. But he’s going to fail like the others have failed.

Q. What then is “success” for a president? And is success solely a matter of how we perceive their time in office?
A. We denounce them because they didn’t satisfy us. Each is successful in something but it’s not enough. For all we know, he’ll end up giving us a health program that we need. He might bring us two or three things that he’s really committed to.
But his success is not enough to meet the expectations of the millions and millions of Americans. A president can succeed and still fail in success. This is not ironic. The harder you work the further you fall. I understand the impossibility of that office. I get emotional about this because I don’t want to consider the national government my enemy. But that is what it is.

Lowi’s law, though, is that the one contribution each president makes is the rehabilitation of his predecessor. Bill Clinton looks awfully good now, because of George. And though it may seem impossible, within four years George will start looking better. That’s not because I hate Obama. He’s simply stuck in an institution that is his biggest enemy. If he would just listen, he could at least be more careful and disperse some of the expectations.

Q. Is there a way to remake the presidency into an institution that can work?
A. The only method of getting out of this dilemma is the recognition of what I’ve just told you. It’s like psychoanalysis. The success of psychoanalytic treatment is the awareness of the problem. They don’t get rid of your depression, they give you means of handling your depression. We need to talk about this. We need to tell these children in politics – everyone in politics is a child. Obama’s next book should be titled “The Vanity of Expectations.”

Q. What are the odds that Obama – or any president, giving their propensity to fail – will get reelected?
A. The chances of being reelected are strong. Presidents know enough to know that they must hit hard and hold. They better get something going. They’ll confront health or education or infrastructure, goodwill stuff. They’ll be reelected though they may lose control of Congress, like Clinton and Bush No. 2.

If I were a betting man I’d put a fairly good bet down that Obama will be reelected. He’s adorable. But he does need to accomplish a few things domestically and maybe make a big move to get the soldiers out of Iraq. His odds of a second term are very high. But his odds of getting out without disgrace are very low.

*Photo of Obama courtesy of an agent. Photo of Theodore Lowi courtesy Lowi.