Choosing a Healthy President

Abstract

This article considers the requirement for-but dilemmas in-health screening of presidential candidates. It surveys the experience the United States has had since 1931 with the health of candidates for the presidency, especially those who have been elected. The tripartite role of the president-as chief executive, as party leader, and as national symbol/model-is stressed. Several instances of deception, or at least lack of candor, are described. The dynamics of the process are reviewed, as are the advantages and inherent problems of corrective measures. President Clinton, as chief executive, proposes legislation, carries on foreign affairs, and administers the federal bureaucracy. He is, moreover, leader of the Democratic Party, with responsibility for seeing to it that its candidates are elected and its programs advanced. Of particular importance is his role as chief of state, as the symbolic embodiment of his nation's leadership. Health screening of presidential candidates is profoundly affected by the fact that every president must fill these three sometimes complementary, but often contradictory, roles. Almost every other country separates these functions. No other country combines them with the intensity of the United States. Unlike constitutional monarchies, where the symbolic function of chief of state is vested in the king or queen and is separated from that of the prime minister, who serves as chief of government, this fusion of roles places a special burden on the symbolic function of the president. Americans going to the polls to elect a president are aware of this combination of governmental power, political leadership, and symbolic potency. Issues of candidate health, physical and mental, are evaluated in terms of what the public knows the president will not only have to do, but also have to be.