Who Is An Active-Positive President?

In summarizing an active-positive politician, Barber suggests an “active-positive president wants to achieve results,” while an active-negative president “[aims] to get and keep power.” Based on the actions of the candidates in the media, as well as their respective policy platforms and past career actions, I suggest that Hillary Clinton represents an active-positive politician, whereas Trump represents an active-negative politician.

Hillary Clinton’s constant activity during her decades in the political realm proves that she is an active politician. As the First Lady, she expanded the role of her office. Rather than picking up a small or uncontroversial issue, she advocated for issues that were both controversial and central to Bill Clinton’s policy agenda such as health care reform and women’s rights. In the Senate, she worked with both parties to pass important legislation to help New York City recover both immediately after 9/11 and years after the tragedy. As Secretary of State, Clinton visited 112 countries, the most

of any Secretary of State. These accomplishments show that Clinton hasn’t ever sat idle for long during her life in public service.
Though in her convention speech Clinton admitted that “the service part has always come easier to me than the public part,” Clinton still appears to enjoy politics. While she does not come across as well on TV like politicians such as her husband or Obama, when she spoke of her experience in politics during her convention speech, she seemed to speak from a place of happiness. She seems to have enjoyed the opportunity to fight for disabled children during her time at the Children’s Defense Fund, as well as for families in her later career, thus making her a positive politician.
Clinton’s overall activity during her tenure as a politician and positive nature toward public service makes her an active-positive politician. As mentioned above, an aspect of an active-positive politician is a desire for results. Clinton’s policy platforms suggest that she desires results. Although she did decide to include some less plausible policy items in her policy agenda, such as free public college, for the most part, Hillary Clinton’s platform is relatively mainline and somewhat moderate. Furthermore, her willingness to make allies across the aisle while in the Senate (particularly with the more religious conservatives) proves that she dedicates herself to accomplishing tasks, even if she needs to compromise. Barber also says such politicians see themselves “as developing over time toward relatively well defined personal goals.” Hillary Clinton demonstrates this quality as for most of her career her main policy goals, the well-being of children, improved health care, and women’s rights, have remained consistent as she has worked up to higher and higher offices. Based upon these facts, I suggest Hillary Clinton is an active-positive candidate.
Analyzing Donald Trumps’ situation is much more difficult as he has not been a politician, but rather a business person.

Based solely on his business career, Trump would likely be an active politician. He has built a fairly successful enterprise, but an incredibly successful personal marketing strategy. Trump has 33 building projects licensed under his name, as well as seven Trump golf courses. His name has become analogous to success. However, based upon his interactions with the press, he might take a more passive role. Rather than discussing policies that Congress could potentially pass, Trump tends to declare nonsense that isn’t likely to come to pass, such as “I’m going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.” Even more tellingly, Trump prefers to insult those who ask him about his policy agenda instead of actually answering with feasible policy items. If this continues in the White House, nothing would ever get

done.
Again, whether Trump will feel positively or negatively towards being a politician is not clear. Trump’s interactions with the media do little to clarify this. His campaign contends that only he can “Make America Great Again.” This may suggest he feels as if running for office is just something he has to do at this point in his career. Alternatively, his convention speech repeatedly suggests that Trump is the only one who can save America. This insinuates that Trump decided to run for president not because he wanted to, but because he had to. However, he also suggests that everything he did, does, or will do is “great,” thus he definitely feels positively toward his past successes, and potentially his future successes.
Overall, Trump is best described by either the passive-positive or active-negative descriptors. Barber describes a passive-positive candidate as someone with “low self-esteem… and a superficial optimism.” Trump does not seem to have a low self-esteem at all, though his optimism that he can fix America does seem superficial and short-sighted. He fits better as an active-negative politician. Barber’s description of the active-negative politician sounds more like Trump. Trump seems “ambitious, striving upward, power-seeking” in most of his policies, business past, and interactions. Furthermore, as demonstrated by his various flippant tweets and insults during speeches, “he has a persistent problem in managing his aggressive feelings.” For these reasons it seems Trump will be an active-negative president should he win the election and take office in January of next year.