s candidates for the 2000 presidential nominations dash around Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early-voting states in the frantic primary election steeplechase, there's little time to think beyond the next event on the day's schedule. Increasingly, however, among politicians and non-politicians alike, the impolitic question arises: What do you win if you win the presidency?
Signs greeting visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. note that ''the White House stands for the power and statesmanship of the chief executive.'' Though accurate, the words seem incongruous when you look around and see the myriad security measures. As much fortress as presidential mansion, the White House symbolizes not only ''power and statesmanship'' but also the dangers that may lurk around its occupant.
Thomas Jefferson in 1797 referred to the presidency as ''a splendid misery.'' Recent years, however, reflect more misery than splendor for America's chief executives. In the last four decades, eight men have served as president. Along with winning the Cold War, landing on the moon, establishing several beachheads of peace around the globe, and other achievements, history's scorecard reports that three (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush) were voted out of office, one (John Kennedy) was assassinated and another shot (Ronald Reagan), one (Richard Nixon) resigned in disgrace, one (Lyndon B. Johnson) chose not to seek reelection fearing defeat, and one (Bill Clinton) was impeached. Reagan left the White House with his sunny disposition intact, but the Iran- Contra imbroglio cast a large shadow over his administration.
With the Vietnam War raging and the Watergate scandal unfolding, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. described and deplored ''the expansion and abuse of presidential power'' in his 1973 book, ''The Imperial Presidency.'' In several respects, however, that vivid, cautionary phrase ''imperial presidency'' has become anachronistic as formal and informal measures have sought to curb what Schlesinger referred to as ''runaway presidency.''
The passage by Congress of the War Powers Act in 1973, the Budget and Impoundment Control Act in 1974, and the Independent Counsel Act in 1978 all served notice on the executive branch that other governmental entities were monitoring the involvement of the military in hostile situations, the spending of appropriated money, and the conduct of the presidents and their appointed subordinates. (The Independent Counsel Act was not renewed earlier this year, but by that time the administrations of Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton had been vigorously investigated.)
Moreover, Supreme Court decisions (notably United States v. Nixon in 1974 and Clinton v. Jones in 1997) made it clear to presidents that their standing in potentially criminal matters was the same as any other citizen's. In the Nixon case, claims of executive privilege did not prevent surrender of his Oval Office tapes about Watergate. With Clinton, the argument of presidential immunity for an allegation of sexual harassment before taking office failed to delay court proceedings that involved Paula Corbin Jones and, ultimately, Monica S. Lewinsky.
At the same time the high court and Congress were imposing checks of different kinds on the presidency and on individual presidents, the news media were dramatically changing their approach to and attitude toward White House coverage. In the post-Watergate climate of unblinking scrutiny, any suggestions of scandal or personal peccadilloes received sustained attention.
Gone were the reporter-as-stenographer days when Franklin D. Roosevelt could teasingly tell a presidential press conference, ''Where I am going I cannot tell you. When I am to get back I cannot tell you. And where I am going on my return I don't know. That's a lot of news, and it can't be released until I am ready.''
As journalists became more probing and, at times, adversarial, previously taboo subjects such as health or sex partners became fair yet controversial game. Aiding and abetting this tell-all atmosphere is the loose-lipped coterie of White House officials and assistants who either leak anonymous, insider information to willing reporters or leave government service and write revealing, behind-closed-doors memoirs about their former bosses still in office.
Ever since Bob Woodward coauthored (with Carl Bernstein) ''All the President's Men'' and ''The Final Days'' about Nixon's misdeeds and eventual resignation, he has continued his fly-on-the-wall approach to the presidency both in his reporting for The Washington Post and in a succession of best-selling books. His techniques have been widely copied in journalism and publishing, so that we now learn more than ever about presidents in intimate settings that are neither scripted nor intended for public scrutiny. By gaining access to people close to Oval Office deliberations and decision-making, this new breed of chronicler strips away much of the mystery, not to mention majesty, of White House life.
For example, in Woodward's most recent book, ''Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate,'' a reader learns about Clinton's split personality - openly warm and gregarious in public but either coldly calculating or given to temper tantrums away from the media lights. In addition, according to Woodward, the ''small, windowless hallway'' near the presidential study, where Clinton and Lewinsky got together, ''was the only room in the White House which afforded him some privacy.''
The argument could be made that any place of privacy is a site of temptation for some people, but the fact of having virtually no privacy in the whole White House draws into question mythic notions of power.
Woodward also reports that Clinton has even feared taking notes at official meetings, lest the scribbling be subpoenaed for use in court or by Congress. The potential historical value of having a record of presidential thinking at a specific time is sacrificed because of apprehension over possibly incriminating disclosure.
Back in 1936, Roosevelt asked a committee of specialists in public administration to study how functions within the federal government could improve. They recommended a larger presidential staff, which (in the words of the committee) ''should be possessed of high competence, great physical vigor, and a passion for anonymity.''
In recent years, as the mania for celebrity has strangled any ''passion for anonymity'' throughout American culture, White House advisers have become household names. Even before Reagan completed his eight-year tenure, publishers offered nearly a dozen you-are-there accounts, questioning his work habits and style of governance. Clinton thus far has been the subject of revealing books by Robert Reich, the former secretary of Labor, Dick Morris, a principal consultant on the 1996 reelection campaign, and George Stephanopoulos, who played a key role in the 1992 campaign and served in the White House throughout the first term.
Considered collectively, the governmental, journalistic, and cultural changes of the past 25 years result in more of an investigated or imperiled presidency rather than an imperial one. At a time when the United States is the world's only superpower, whoever occupies the Oval Office faces new constraints that, to a degree, weaken the institution.
Civics texts might continue to describe the president as a combination chief executive, head of state, commander in chief, principal diplomat, legislative agenda-setter, crisis manager, and party leader. However, all these roles have become more difficult since Vietnam and Watergate.
To take a couple of recent examples from the realm of international affairs, where a president traditionally has greater opportunity for above-the-fray leadership, Clinton's appointment of Richard C. Holbrooke as chief representative to the United Nations triggered almost a year of wrangling before final Senate approval in August. The Senate's resounding defeat of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in October sent a clear message that the president does not act alone (or always get his way) in matters that involve the nation's stature in the world.
The checks and balances that operate between the executive and legislative branches date back more than 200 years to the ratification of the Constitution, deliberately limiting the powers of each branch. Theodore Roosevelt once remarked, ''Oh, if I could only be president and Congress too for just 10 minutes.'' That lament could serve as the hopeful wish of any president.
Despite all the problems and frustrations a president faces, every four years aspirants still line up to compete for the office. Ambition, ego, and, ideally, an agenda for the country can make future-oriented candidates subordinate the past and its risks to the prospects of a new administration.
What the 2000 race already demonstrates is that the existing electoral process foreshadows some of the difficulties confronting a contemporary president. A grueling schedule, scrutinizing media, and a constantly changing environment make a campaign far from an edifying experience in civic virtue. Indeed, some now liken what occurs to a torture test. In addition, the need to raise unseemly amounts of money to produce and air television commercials citizens often despise makes the prelude to the presidency the opposite of a pageant, leaving the public without much respect for whoever wins.
Metaphorically, if a candidate can endure the bruising ga ntlet of a presidential campaign and triumph, the eventual victor confronts four years in office that increasingly become a tightrope walk across an abyss. It's a tricky and constant balancing act between governing and campaigning, principle and pragmatism, domestic matters and international affairs, traditional practices and new initiatives, appealing to a partisan base and the public at large, and so on. Any misstep can wound or even prove fatal, as recent presidents have learned.
The post-Vietnam and Watergate legislative changes, the end of the Cold War, the devolution of certain federal programs to the states, the declining trust in politics, the chaos (and cost) of gaining the White House, along with the general coarsening of the media culture all contribute to a presidency of diminished stature and power. These, though, are circumstances of the current moment and subject to change, especially if there erupts a domestic or foreign crisis of national consequence.
The longer view of history teaches that America's highest office is the most resilient one, and strong occupants of the White House, such as Theodore Roosevelt and FDR, can transform the nation's political climate through forceful and purposeful personal leadership. The modern presidency might be endlessly perilous but it is above all a position of enduring possibility, with each campaign a renewal of that promise.
