White House Run Takes Different Skills Than Running the Nation - Yahoo! News

White House Run Takes Different Skills Than Running the Nation - Yahoo! News: "White House Run Takes Different Skills Than Running the Nation" Indira Lakshmanan and Edwin Chen Wed Jan 2, 12:02 AM ET Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- For a year, would-be U.S. presidents have pressed the flesh at state fairs, fielded questions in debates about what Jesus would do and whether they are sufficiently ``black'' or ``feminine,'' attacked their rivals in sound bites and defended themselves in costly ads. Over the next six days, the heavily wooed voters of Iowa and New Hampshire will reward some, and not others. Yet the qualities that win the charm offensive and mud- slinging of a campaign often have little to do with the skills required to govern, say former presidential advisers and historians. ``The ability to do sound bites, to be able to attack your opponent, to appeal to your party base'' is crucial in a campaign, said Leon Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. Once in the Oval Office, a president must ``unify the country behind your vision and be able to work within the institutions of our democracy to get things done,'' Panetta said. The campaign rewards the ``ability to raise money, name identification, and skill and discipline in transmitting a message that will attract large numbers of voters,'' said historian Michael Beschloss, author of nine books on the presidency. `Performance Under Pressure' What a campaign rarely does is reveal ``their judgment and tenacity, their understanding of other political actors, their core values and their performance under pressure,'' he said. In 1860, Republican delegates knew Abraham Lincoln had the leadership skills to face the danger of the South leaving the Union, Beschloss said. ``I'm not sure those qualities would have been recognized under the process we have today,'' he said. A candidate today needs to win voters' hearts, and personal style often trumps substance. A president, by contrast, needs viable policies more than one-liners and a good haircut. As former New York Governor Mario Cuomo put it: ``You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.'' In this race, candidates are courting the hard core in their parties with big talk on social issues, taxes, immigration and foreign affairs. With a few exceptions, such rhetoric reflects more the passions of the moment than a blueprint for practical governance.