Presidential Perks Gone Royal Read online

  Speaking of push and pull, until he is selected as his party’s nominee, a candidate is lucky if his campaign can afford one or two security officers, and even they usually serve less to protect him than to wedge a path for him through crowds, which could potentially contain assassins or other would-be attackers. After all, even the brother of a former president, Bobby Kennedy, who was then on the campaign trail, was gunned down in just such a chaotic crowd scene at the height of his campaign’s success.

  The non-presidential candidate is also under continuous scrutiny by members of the press, who butter their bread by reporting on a challenger’s every movement, trying to catch him off guard. He must struggle to be up to speed on every local issue, while being knowledgeable about all issues of national interest and staking out positions that will be conveyed to the public via the traveling press.

  The candidate must be knowledgeable not only about changing events at home but also those that take place abroad. He or she must be aware of the actions and comments of his opponents as well as all issues of importance to particular communities, to individual states, and to special interest groups—and somehow still squeeze in time for the stream of information and requests spewing forth from his campaign headquarters, his pollsters, and his managers. The challenger must know the standing of every local politician and must appear excited by the opportunity to shake every outstretched hand, kiss every baby, approve every nutty idea and ride the wave of every fad.

  Communications are a challenger’s constant headache. The non-presidential candidate is always searching for a secure telephone line, then struggling to hear what is being told him on his cell phone above a cacophony of noises pitched a decibel or two above the point of pain.

  For many months, the daily fare of the non-presidential candidate would make a dietician turn pale. He will be called upon to eat a Denver omelet for breakfast, baloney sandwiches and deep-fried catfish for lunch, and Philly cheese-steak sandwiches or hot-dogs for dinner—if that’s what’s popular with a region’s voters.

  For the contender, small pleasures understandably loom large— a twenty-minute nap in the seat of a crowded campaign bus, say, or the chance, at the end of a long and arduous day, to stick his fist into a motel room’s ice bucket for a few minutes respite from the pain of too many hearty handshakes.

  He lives on insufficient sleep in strange motel rooms with rattling, sleep-disturbing air conditioners, lumpy beds and thin walls that barely separate him from noisy next-door neighbors. To save funds, his committee may even forgo the motel room and arrange for him to sleep overnight on the campaign bus—where hopefully he will not have to give interviews to press representatives who may be traveling along with him.

  While there still are multiple candidates vying for their party’s nomination, each contender struggles to get his position straight on many different issues. In primary races, each would-be candidate competes with all the other hopefuls as he seeks venues where he can express his opinions and get press coverage for his events.

  Quite often, the challenger candidates are also governors or members of congress. Thus a contender for the White House simultaneously lives two parallel and equally demanding lives; while he pursues the office of commander in chief he must not be inattentive to the office he currently holds. The presidential-hopeful’s campaign is also in constant and unremitting need of funds. He needs media advertisements to heighten awareness of his candidacy, to combat new attacks, to clarify positions, and to attract new segments of voters. Advertising is expensive. Even if the non-presidential candidate is leading in the polls, and even if he has a great many active supporters, fundraising will be his constant chore. Even candidates with good name-recognition and high popularity have frequently found themselves so short on funds that monies raised were raced to the bank so that outstanding checks wouldn’t bounce!

  The non-presidential candidate is running against a man whose name recognition has become not just total but global, a man who has been the focus of every news outlet for four years, and for whom countless babies born in his term have been named.

  Always running against the clock to be somewhere far from where he presently finds himself, the challenger to the president often finds transportation costs to be one of the largest line items in his budget. If his campaign can afford it, he will be flying chartered jets to major locations. More often, though, he will be going by chartered buses that are infinitely less comfortable and infinitely less imposing than the “mega-beasts” that the president can use at no cost to his campaign.

  The non-incumbent candidate is competing for contributions with all others running against him for the same party’s nomination, while also competing with the president and all of his formidable forces. Those political action committees who support a challenger often feel the need to “take out insurance.” This means that they make sure they contribute an equal (or even larger) amount to one or more of his opponents. Most often, that fund-receiving opponent is the president! Why? Because he is already in the powerful position of being able to grant, deny or delay certain executive decisions that may be important to a potential donor. In a culture that has drifted discouragingly close to accepting the all-too-prevalent “what’s-in-it-for-me” mindset, presidents have a major advantage with such wealthy donors, even when they belong to the “other” party, because of their tendency to hedge their bets and contribute equally to several competing candidates.

  Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt held office (he was re-elected to four terms) only Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush have failed in their bids for a second term. That is the power of the outrageous perks we have conveyed on our sitting presidents. And, very significantly, since presidents learned to take full campaign advantage of the Air Force Ones for which we taxpayers paid $640 million, no other incumbent has been defeated.

  Since he is the current president, it is not taking unfair aim at Barack Obama to show him as the logical example of a system that, with each new administration, has not only seen presidential perks and privileges skyrocket but has, alarmingly, become even more skewed toward the incumbent. For example, President Obama had been in office only a little more than two years when the committee charged with his re-election announced it would raise nearly a billion dollars. If true, this means that the President’s committee will have assembled the largest pre-election war chest in the history of American politics! What’s more, the Obama re-election committee would only need to invest those funds at 4% interest to earn an additional $40,000,000 to $60,000,000 before the election. Obviously, President Obama’s re-election is of great importance to a great many block interests.

  For chairmen of presidential candidates’ campaigns, it would be hard to over-dream of the possible ways to use the money if you could have a billion-dollar war chest. In the Obama campaign that translates to funds for a 50,000 square-foot campaign headquarters. It means more than ample funds to profile a nation’s voters, to search their Facebook entries for trends and preferences, for lists of contacts and friends, and to match specific government programs with voters’ prime interests and concerns. Still, the Obama campaign chairman announced that most of the billion-dollar war chest will be spent on advertising. And why not? Today, for an incumbent president’s campaign, we citizens cover most of the costs that will be most challenging for his opponents. As we described earlier, among the 469 “assistant presidents” are speechwriters, researchers and strategists―again, 182 of them are paid between $100,000 and $170,000—and, of course, the best of their high-priced skills will be at the disposal of the campaigning president. Some will move to active positions on his campaign staff. Those who remain at the White House will track his success and continuously monitor how the actions they undertook on his behalf dovetail with the interests of particular audiences in specific geographic areas, organizations or special interest groups.

  In his campaign for re-election, President Obama’s “czars” will also be a rich resource. Their counsel w
ill ensure that his campaign speeches set the right tone with the right emphasis in various regions of the country and for different sectors of the economy. The President’s 43 czars will be his contact points with the leaders of every facet of business, finance, industry, and constituents’ interests, and will act as magnets for campaign contributions in those areas and arenas.

  It doesn’t take an Einstein-level genius to calculate just how overwhelmingly favored a standing president is for re-election. Simply put, his campaign costs him far less while he simultaneously raises far more money. These advantages mean he is far more likely to win than his challengers, no matter how personally wealthy they are. Add to this the fact that political action committees (PACs) give most of their money to the more-likely winners, which in this case is the incumbent president. Consider that this same fellow also has four years to woo his biggest supporters and campaign contributors with, for example, luxurious sleepover privileges in the (tax-payer supported) White House, and the picture becomes abundantly clear.

  If you wholeheartedly support the incumbent, this next point may not resonate with you as much as it would, or should, with someone who does not. The taxes of even those citizens who oppose the incumbent and his party unwittingly pay their share of the costs when the president rewards his past supporters or entices new ones with invitations to White House dinners, invites donors to enjoy movies in the White House theater or to use other facilities of the White House “country club,” gives them prime box seating in the Presidential Loge at the Kennedy Center, or takes them along for a fun weekend at Camp David or an exciting flight on Air Force One.

  Running for re-election, a president also has a nearly insurmountable advantage in terms of foreign affairs. In his first two years in office President Obama spent 55 days overseas visiting 26 countries, some of them more than once. By the time he finishes his first term, President Obama will have flown one or the other of those two great Air Force Ones to just about every major country in the world. Every trip he has made has been thoroughly covered by the press, while also doubling as an educational crash-course for him—quite an expensive education, and all at the taxpayers’ expense. In the meantime, a presidential challenger, when he is being interviewed, need only miss the correct location of one of 192 foreign nations or the correct pronunciation of its leadership during a campaign to be branded as “unprepared” in foreign affairs.

  Compared to his exhausted, wrung-out opponent, who will by now have been running for his party’s nomination for over a year, a president running for re-election comes to the political ring comparatively fresh and vigorous. Taxpayers, including those who may be backing his opponent for re-election, have paid for his privilege to fly, be bused or be driven by limousine to any destination in effortless luxury.

  In transit on Air Force One, the president also can access a full background check on anyone with whom he is about to share a platform. He can even be well informed about that same day’s squabble in the city council of his destination city. Likewise, he has immediate access to everything his opponents have said about him and what they have said about one another.

  No opposing candidate can even hope to match the up-to-date, detailed information at the immediate disposal of a president running for re-election. His citizens, including those who oppose him, have put at his fingertips the world’s most sophisticated information bank, at zero cost to his campaign. That memory bank travels with him as he moves, in the lap of luxury, to every political contest.

  He can also be confident that his chief of staff will advise him of every development worthy of presidential attention and comment, so that he’ll be fully prepared at his next stop as the cameras roll.

  After a few hours campaigning, the presidential-candidate is taken back to Air Force One, where he will eat well and rest well before his next strategic briefing and his next highly-visible event.

  All Hail to the Chief…

  Let’s figuratively watch as Air Force One glides to a stop. The main door to the presidential spaces opens. There is a moment’s wait. Like a theatrical entrance (which this actually is) the president has been advised to hang back and allow anticipation to build before

  He steps into the doorway. Now, well-fed, well-rested and looking like the exalted world figure he is, the president waves to the assembled crowds, beaming as he comes jauntily down the airplane stairway. He gives a smart salute to a military aide and camera lights flash as he directs one last wave to the assembled crowd. Next, he steps into the powerful presidential limousine, emblazoned with the great Presidential Seal. Local motorcycle police then escort his all attention-gathering motorcade, with its caravan of Secret Service forces, and the “Beast” or the mega-bus, which, along with support vehicles and equipment, has been flown to the destination aboard one of the presidential transport jets.

  When the motorcade reaches its destination, the president steps out of the presidential limousine or the very-impressive campaign bus and is immediately greeted by a blinding flash of cameras and swept through the masses by a small army of security personnel. Shaking hands with those who have been selected for the privilege of proximity, he moves to the podium. There, awaiting him on his teleprompter, are remarks that have been crafted carefully for him, noting all the hot-button issues for this locale or audience and recounting all the favorable government programs that he and his party have instituted for its specific benefit during his administration.

  After his remarks, the president will meet with a select group of the area’s party leaders, political principals and campaign donors before being moved efficiently through the crowd back to his motorcade.

  Then, with an impressive wailing of sirens, leaving behind an aura of monarchical power, his motorcade will move off to his overnight residence, which is either the presidential suite of a major hotel, or, more likely, Air Force One. Awaiting him aboard one is the ever-present presidential physician we taxpayers have paid for, should the president-candidate need a throat spray or muscle relaxant. Another of his perks, his $100,000-a-year valet, is aboard to slide tired feet into slippers. So is one’s gym attendant, who is on call if the president-candidate covets a shoulder massage.

  Perhaps, at that last appearance, some point did not go as well as he had hoped, and this is still bothering the president as he continues his campaign for re-election. Or perhaps some charge by an opponent is still ringing in his ears. Representatives of the world’s most influential print and broadcast media have been permitted to fly with him in the aft section of Air Force One. He can flatter select individuals to come up to one’s presidential quarters for a chance to clarify a point or hear him freely inject the last word in a topic under debate.

  Would he prefer it, one of the taxpayer-provided projectionists can be asked to run a distracting movie to help take his mind off politics and campaigning. Or, better yet, if he would enjoy hearing some great music over one’s magnificent surround-sound system that too can be arranged. Then, in the safety and serenity of the world’s most luxurious aircraft, the candidate-president can enjoy the meal of his choice excellently prepared by one or more of those five chefs aboard before rejuvenating with a good sleep in his spacious quarters. Isn’t it worth considering that we Americans are threatening our democracy by giving such an avalanche of impressive assists to incumbent presidents?

  Protecting POTUs

  The way an opponent is guarded from any hostile or dangerous situations and the way the president is protected are as different as night and day. Bobby Kennedy, as the challenger, enjoyed nowhere near such high levels of surveillance and security. Perhaps that played a role in his vulnerability, assassinated the night of his Democratic primary win in California over Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

  The U. S. Secret Service is charged with, and best known for, the task we all consider the most important of the Secret Service’s duties: to protect the president’s personal safety and insure that he remains immune to breaches of security. But that i
s only part of what they do. Operating under the Treasury Department, the Secret Service has 125 offices worldwide, employs over 3,000 people, and operates on an annual budget of $1.5 billion—at least, according to what’s disclosed to the public. In addition to protecting the president, the Secret Service is charged with investigating violations of laws relating to counterfeiting of obligations and securities, financial crimes such as access device fraud, identity theft, computer fraud, financial institution fraud, and computer-based attacks on our nation’s financial, banking and telecommunications systems. These tasks make up the little-known array of this branch’s investigative powers. America’s “Praetorian Guard” thus has fingers that reach deep into the affairs of the most influential and wealthy individuals and the biggest corporations in our country.

  Even such information as we can properly obtain about details and costs of protecting our president in trips abroad is sobering. Imagine our costs when President Bush made a trip to London in 2003. It was deemed that the trip required 904 staffers from Defense, 600 from our armed forces, 250 Secret Service officers, 205 from the White House staff, 103 from the CIA staff, 44 from the staff of the State Department, 30 more from the Cabinet, 18 Senior Advance office staff and 12 sniffer dogs.

  If ever the Secret Service gives a sigh of relief, it is when a president is in the White House. The presidential mansion provides security that is as close to bunker quality as can be provided to the president while still allowing him any semblance of a normal life. But while no president ever has been shot within the White House grounds, occasional breaches of security have occurred.

  One evening, when President Roosevelt was working at his desk in the mansion, he suddenly found himself facing a young teenager. The youth was standing there, face-to-face with one of the most powerful and difficult to reach men in the world, all because he had taken his friend up on a dare to walk right on into the White House and see how far he could get toward the oval office. The boy’s appearance of youthful innocence had seen him safely through several checkpoints, from the outdoor security gate, across the White House grounds, and into and right on through the mansion to the desk of the Big Man himself.