With a presidential election coming upon us in the next year, we have seen the campaigns of many candidates take shape. Candidates have been traveling across the country to reach out to the voters. There have been debates and town halls to firmly get an understanding of who we want to be the leader of our country. Perhaps many have narrowed it down to a couple choices, while others may need to take all the time up to election day to decide. What about you? Are you ready to vote?

Let’s take a step back and think about this. Recently, we have been stressed more and more about the power to vote, and we revolve our vote around one main campaign, the Presidential campaign. Ironically, however, we are told that our representatives have the greatest power to hear us. It is with our representatives that our concerns can be addressed most effectively. So why do we put such a great stress on the presidency? It wasn’t always like this.

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the dominant culture was to place more emphasis on congressional campaigns. More attention would be payed to the legislators that would be representing your district. Most citizens would know their representatives, and more support (financial or voter) would be directed to them as well. We used to have much more emphasis on those that would write and vote on our bills that directly affected us. Now, we see an emergence of higher focus being placed on the president. We focus most of our time and energy on the presidential campaigns, and we will find the most entertaining ways to understand who we want as our president. Most people will know the name of the president, but they most likely wouldn’t know their representative.

What led to this shift was the increase in understanding the powers held by the president. The Founding Fathers did not want to have strong powers established in one singular person, so they drafted the Constitution that ensured that the legislative would be strongest in its powers. As the years went by since the birth of the nation, president administrations would slowly expand on the powers the president would practice. Some presidents such as Presidents Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are known better for establishing the increase in what the president can do. The biggest pivot could be argued to be when President FDR was in office as he was seen as being the most hands on and aggressive in getting tasks done. As he put forward more and more legislation ideas, projects, and reforms, he changed the scope in which the president was involved in the lives of American citizens.

With this increase, many conservatives viewed as intrusion. Resistance occurred strongly from conservative groups as they believed in smaller governments and decreased connections between the people and government. Nonetheless, many of the policies push forward passed and were implemented. This proved successful expansion of presidential powers and it led to a rise in importance towards the president. Today, we see can see the direct impact as we revolve our elections around the President of the United States.