Word: barbers
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James David Barber is getting a bit weary of people coming up to him and telling him their mothers-in-law are "active-negative" types. But the burden is borne genially by this Duke University political science professor who devised his special psychological measurement for Presidents, not for mothers...
From detailed study, Barber rates the energy a President puts into his job as either "active" or "passive," and he catalogues how a President feels about what he does as either "positive" or "negative." The combination of these elements of energy and attitude places the man in one of four categories ranging from passive-negative to active-positive, with active-negative producing the greatest potential for tragedy, active-positive the best hope for progress. Already some observers have rated Ford passive-positive and Carter a near active-negative who by the grace of God slipped into the active-positive category...
...popularized academic theory of this kind inevitably gets distorted, and Barber's certainly will this week as the most massive character analysis in all history gets under way following the Ford-Carter debate. But the guideposts that Barber established in his psychological assessment will also give more stability and meaning to this national exercise than we have had in the past. Barber's book, The Presidential Character, codifies and explains the importance of presidential character in national leadership. Character is only one of five elements Barber cites (the others: world view, style, power situation, climate of expectations...
With the differences between Ford's and Carter's programs narrowing and with the world relatively tranquil, the big issue before the American house is simply what kind of men these two are-character. In 1960 Barber watched the powerful fusion of John Kennedy and television and decided political psychology was one way to get a glimpse of how Presidents might perform in the future...
Carter has studied Barber's theories and pronounced them among the most important he has read; Ford's researchers have pawed through Barber's pages. Barber's text is used in dozens of major universities. He gets calls from broadcasters, reporters, politicians and even mothers-in-law who seek his expert assessments. Barber is deep into an academic study of this election and its participants, and he is pledged to restraint until it is over. Sometimes perched in an old-fashioned barbershop chair he has in his office, he turns away pleadings to rate...