How to Manage the White House
Be strong. Be attractive. Be logical. All you have to do during your first term is to take care of the second one.
The 2nd term’s agenda is to set your place in the world’s history.
1st year. You have enough public support to start big initiatives.
2nd year. Develop your initiatives.
3rd year. Go, go public preparing your re-election. Presidents often lose voters during this period.
4th year. All-politics year. Try to achieve important international agreement (a treaty) for the historic record. Win re-election.
Divide your day into hours and minutes : 30% of your weekly hours go to senior White House staff, 10% — to Cabinet, 5% — to Congress members, 5% — to foreign leaders.
No matter what, even if it’s a war time, sleep one hour during the day to give your brain a break, and finish your day at 6 P.M. After 6 P.M. do not read any documents, do not take any phone calls, do not talk to anybody but family members and close friends. .And - eat whatever you want, but you must know that the more calories you have to digest, the slower you think.
Remember :
1. You are a national image (a national ideal based on pseudo-facts), a symbol of national unity, national continuity and the symbol of federal government. Leadership is the first quality Americans look for in you - they want a President who is steadfast in his convictions.
2. The power to control the federal budget is your top prerogative.
3. Whom are you going to be:
- utopist (ideas manipulator)
- manager (Government and Congress manipulator)
- challenger (reformer)
4. Any problem turns into a political one if it threatens your power.
5. Use your legal right to press the nation and illegal ones to press the world to eliminate problems.
4. Once you’re in politics, you are a hostage of your status and you must sacrifice privacy in return for power.
6. Never play alone.
7. All your decisions are risk taking ones (any decision brings a problem). You may ask advice before you make a decision, but don’t listen to anybody afterwards. You are not paid for the quantity of your work but for leadership and ultimate decision making.
8. Correct political mistakes fast before they become political scandals.
10. Never blame previous Presidents for the problems they left for you - that’s a sign of weakness.
11. Get rid of a White House tradition to deal with problems only if they “knock at the door.”
White House Staff tricks
1. Fight for access (influence) to President or to people with direct access (aiming to get a better position if President is re-elected).
2. Isolate government from the President.
3. Influence = relationship with the President.
4. Get a table in the West Wing. You are nobody if you are stuck in the White House basement and see the President by appointment only.
5. Before you send a document to the President, have to look at it and ask yourself if it’s too immoral or too radical.
6. Never say “no” aloud to anybody.
7. Remain anonymous with conflicts.
8. Never bring bad news to the President - let it be some idiot, not you.
9. Never say “That’s impossible,” no matter what the President is asking you to do.
10. Disappear (and find an excuse later) if the President is in a bad mood.
11. Never ague with the President if there’s somebody else present.
12. Learn how the President likes to do business (talking, giving orders, writing the documents and taking notes, managing official and non-official meetings) and his habits (food, drinks, cigarettes, favorite sport, movies, show business stars, writers, politicians; attitude to women) and try to copy him — the President has to feel comfortable with you.
13. Fight anybody who’s trying to do your job to be closer to the President.
14. Avoid taking on risky tasks controlled by the President in person (if necessary, try to “delegate” it to somebody else).
15. Avoid being associated with any failures.
16. Don’t say anything President doesn’t want to hear.
17. Use “Smith’s Principle”: if it can be understood by Congress, it’s not finished yet.
18. Write memorandums not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer.
19. No matter what subject is under discussion, employ the language of sports and war: say “breakthrough” instead of “progress” , never speak of compromise, consider “adopting a fallback position.”
20. Every public appearance in with the President is an investment in your career after the White House.
21. Minimize the number of rivals.
22. Gain independence according to how much the President needs you.
23. Before asking the President for some personal favor, make him believe he’s going to get some (political) profit out of it.
24. Tell the President what he can do and help him try to do it, and never tell him what he shouldn’t do.
25. Avoid giving any personal gifts to the President if you are not Chief of Staff.
Every public appearance in with the President is an investment in your career after the White House.
There is an open power struggle between national security staff members and domestic policy staff and between those who develop new policies and initiatives versus budget staff.
Presidential decision making
1. Decision making is a multiple choice process.
2. Any decision involves political risk.
3. If you can’t make a decision, you need more information.
4. Be optimistic, but remain realistic.
5. Give yourself a deadline.
6. No brainstorming chaos.
7. There are two kinds of decisions: irreversible and reversible. Better know which kind you are facing.
Here’s the process:
a) Identify the problem
b) Analyze the problem — what are the facts?
c) Evaluate options - what are the pros and cons? what can go wrong?
d) Identify choices - which alternative is the best?
e) Implement plans - what action needs to be taken?
How to Manage the Staff
Adopt a dominant management style:
1. Pyramidal, structured as hierarchy with you at the top, followed by the Chief of Staff and other key assistants. I strongly recommend this one - it insures a clear chain of command and provides precise channels of information going up and directives going down.
2. Circular, when you are surrounded by advisers, all of whom have equal access to the Oval Office. That means chaos (JFK style).
All your assistants are political assistants and everyone will try to play a policy-maker. But a good thing is that all of them were not elected and are responsible to you only.
Thus you can:
- reform your staff freely as there’s not even a word about it in the US Constitution
- interchange key figures if domestic crisis is approaching
- if you don’t agree with the staff on important issues, go to polls for back-up. (The best employee is the one you can blackmail. Besides, a very good “pusher” for your people is their deep understanding that they have to work together to help the President stay in office next term — if the President leaves, everybody leaves)
- use “the carrot and the stick”
- use “pulling by pushing” — give an important job without publicity to those who become too popular
- do as little reading as you can — you have staff for that
- do as little writing as you can — same reason
- involve yourself personally in your staff and Cabinet jobs as little as you can — same reason
- make no minor decisions — same reason
- send back any intelligence or other report if it’s more than one sheet of paper
Technology of Mind Manipulation (MM)
1) Create a steadfast American collective will-power: “We want to live forever in the America we live in now” - through the media.
2) Don’t ask people to change their views and beliefs - they have only to change the object of their aggression - “Now we understand who are America's enemies! (the previous President, Republicans).
3) Get people accustomed to accept facts but believe only in the “right” comments - any common sense has to be “switched off.” This way you create “mass artificial schizophrenia” — people lose the ability to connect statements and facts (notions) and just believe.
Besides, by extreme exaggeration of the enemy’s negative qualities you can install the national schizophrenic fear (of "international terrorism") and people have to accept you, the US President, as a savior. Plus, no matter what, repeat your major statements until people start accepting them without thinking.
4) Divide the nation into “good Americans”(patriots) and “bad Americans”(the “minority).
Make it clear : it’s much better and more comfortable to be “good” than “bad.” “We aren’t watching good Americans who support the President. The surveillance is for bad Americans and we make their lives and careers uncomfortable. We have to do that because enemies of America may be using them.” This method is called artificial social selection and its ultimate goal is a total regulation and standardization of the nation.
5) For successful MM, use the combined efforts of popular Democratic American writers, TV and radio anchors, talented publicists and columnists, business and show business celebrities, politicians. Thus, step by step you create the “industry of correct political behavior and correct American thinking.”
6) Use a combination: statement + image. It reduces the effort needed to understand your message and makes people comfortable with you.
7) Shift all popular TV shows to prime time - Americans don’t have to think about politics after they come home.
The U.S. Congress Management
1. A Congressional session is a waste of federal time and money — you don’t need debates because Congressional staffers can do all the technical work and they can negotiate between themselves and balance positions. Senators and Congressmen don’t even have to come to Washington — they can vote from their local offices. So these people can spend their time helping thousands of constituents.
2. The President is dependent on Congressional cooperation to carry out the executive responsibilities of the Office because Congress has to authorize government programs, establish administrative agencies to implement the problems and funds to finance them.
3. It’s important if President belongs to the party with a majority in the House and Senate. But if your party loses the majority in Congress, you have to work out new political strategy yourself.
4. President’s prestige (popular support or political capital) affects Congressional response to his politics.
5. Influence in Congress is courted only for long periods of service; a Senator with 30 years in office (like Edward Kennedy) has considerably more power than a Senator in his first or second term.This causes the electorate to increasingly favor incumbents, as dislodging one’s Congressman or Senator after 30 years, even if the candidate or his party have become unpopular, can be viewed as hurting one’s district financially. It is often thought that a freshman would be less able to bring home federal money for his state or district.
6. For most Senators, the Senate is a platform for Presidential election campaign. Senators who openly express presidential ambitions are better able to gain media exposure and to establish careers as spokespersons for large national constituencies.
7. The first act of a newly elected Representative is to maneuver for election to the Senate. Why? First, they enjoy their position, power and money for six years non-stop. Second, there are only a hundred Senators and the publicity is much, much greater. But Representatives have a much better chance to be re-elected.
8. Congress rejects two thirds of President’s proposals.
9. Senators are always looking for a BBD (bigger, better deal) and often shift from one committee to another (a good choice is those dealing with taxes, budget, energy, commerce).
10. Bills to benefit big business move smoothly. (Congress doesn’t like the poor — they don’t contribute, sorry). To gain majority support for big business legislation members have a special trick — log rolling, when factions combine efforts.
11. Senators don’t depend on the people — they depend on the media.
12. If a Senator is blocking the President’s proposal, he wants to get the President’s attention.
13. When Senators want to bury issues , they create committees.
14. The Senate is a small structure and personal relations between Senators are extremely important.
15. Senators have no incentive to study the details of most pieces of legislation and their decision is simplified by quickly checking how key colleagues have voted or intend to vote.
16.To have power a Senator has to object: much of the Senate work is done by unanimous consent and if you object you’ll be approached for sure by some influential people including other Senators, Secretaries, President’s aides or the President himself. They’ll try to press, blackmail or buy you — and that means you’ve got a piece of the power pie.
17. Senators avoid responsibility in economic policy.
18. Congress loves the military because military contracts are very lucrative for Congressional districts.
19. Senior Senators teach “newcomers” to vote against any reform which is a threat to their stability.
20. A Senator has real influence on legislation only if he has professional staff in charge of the projects.
21. Senators are afraid to vote against a defense budget increase because then they may be accused of a lack of patriotism.
22. Republicans and Democrats are not really enemies, here, though both sides are always looking for a “traitor” or “insider” in the other camp.
23. The President must have “insiders” in the Senate , because the other party could prepare secretly and then launch officially some investigation against you or the members of your Administration.
24. A legislator does exactly what his voters want him to do — stealing federal money from other states and districts, because for him the most important thing is numbers — polls in his state showing how many people approve his activity. His donors watch these numbers too and estimate their investment and the necessity to support re-election.
25. Every member of Congress has a so-called “split personality” — a “Hill style” while working on Capitol Hill and a “home style” while back in the state or district with the voters.
26. A Senator makes a decision only after thinking about what it means in terms of the re-election money that will come to him or to his opponents. His voting decisions depend on his party membership, constituency pressures, state and regional loyalty ideology, interest groups’ influence. His stubbornness comes from the fact that he doesn’t want to be seen by his constituents as a “rubber stamp” for President’s decisions, especially when the bill in question benefits a Senator’s state. (And the hidden problem is — you want to move fast, especially during the first year while your personal popularity is high — but for the Congress speed is not important).
27. Sooner or later every member of Congress starts playing the “pork barrel” game. It’s nothing else but a diversion of federal funds to projects and places not out of national need but to enhance a member’s chances of re-election in his district (military projects, federal buildings, highways construction projects). So be ready for a “Christmas gift” when these fellows add pork barrel amendments to appropriations bills you are about to sign. They often wait until late in each session to pass critical spending bills, which narrows your range of possible responses because a veto may not be feasible if Congress has adjourned and the funds needed to run the federal government are contained in the legislation.
28. In Congress a small percentage of bills (about 500 out of 10,000) actually become law because many bills are introduced merely to get favorable press. The strategy is especially effective if the legislation is “tied” to the headlines of the day (mass murders, natural disasters, ethnic riots etc.).
29. In the Senate it’s easier for a minority to block the bill than for a majority to pass it: a 60-vote majority is needed to force a final vote on the bill, while only 41 votes are needed to continue debate and delay a vote.
30. The minority can hold the majority responsible as the party in power for whatever legislation does or does not emerge from the Senate. But both parties prefer to be the party in power in the Senate - all Senate legislation begins in the committees, whose membership and chairmanship are controlled by the party in power. Besides, each chairman has power in terms of controlling the committee budgets and deciding which hearings will be held and which legislation he will allow to be released to the Senate floor for a vote. He can also “lock up the bill” in committee until it dies. Perfect!
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