Neustadt’s first chapter answers its titular question by showing the president is necessarily both a leader and a clerk. The clerkship functions have grown over time, necessitating the growth of presidential staff who make the presidency far more than a single individual.

The president is both the head of the executive branch of government and an individual, Neustadt emphasizes. Thus, he seeks to measure the individuals who have filled the presidency in a manner that reflects their ability to muster power to achieve policy results. Such individually wielded power is different in Neustadt’s treatment from the formal “powers” held by the president attendant to the office.

Neustadt identifies five constituencies that interact with the president to both affect and reflect the extent of his power: the officials of the executive branch, Congress, his partisans, the citizenry, and foreign nations. Examining the means by, and extent to, which the president interacts with these constituencies to create, maintain, and exercise power is the core task of the book.

Chapter 2 develops Neustadt’s theory by examining three examples of crises that required action by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. The core thesis of the chapter is succinctly stated as, “[p]residential power is the power to persuade” (11).