Jeremi Suri
speaker
329 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2023
last heard 7 Sep
Jeremi Suri’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
But the reality is that it was unseemly for a president to be out in the hustings, pressing flesh, making promises, calling out his enemies.
Theodore Roosevelt is really the first president to actually campaign in a way we would think of campaigning today.
It's absolutely right.
As late as Herbert Hoover's presidency, you could first of all walk up to the White House as a citizen or non-citizen, knock on the door, and Herbert Hoover might actually open the door for you.
A birdie, as he was called, might say, hello, who are you?
Presidents had office hours.
Even during the Civil War, Lincoln famously had office hours like a professor, and people would line up.
To meet with the president, the founders presumed that the president would be a small person, a small office with limited power.
And that's why they didn't give the president a permanent staff or a permanent budget.
That's true.
There was a little more protection for Truman, but yes, it's still a little bit of the old world.
My favorite Truman story is when he left the presidency in January of 53, he and Bess's wife got into their old vehicle and just started driving west.
They spent their first night after the presidency staying in a Howard Johnson's
That's right.
It had limited responsibilities.
No one expected the president would be responsible for their health insurance, their pension, policing on their streets, things of that sort.
Yes, they were, and they did have personal relationships with members of their party, but it was a different kind of relationship from the relationship today.
In many ways, presidents communicated with members of their party.
They tried to coordinate, but they didn't have day-to-day interactions.
Congress was not in session for six months of the year, for the most part.
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