The first thing a new president notices upon moving into the best address in public housing is that the issues that occupy their time are not the ones they spent so much time talking about in the campaign. “The biggest shock they face is that eighty-five to ninety percent of the job is all about foreign policy, which is about five percent of the campaign,” says Elaine Kamarck, author of Why Presidents Fail. “All of the sudden you’re having to make decisions and learn about countries and meet with world leaders and then on top of that there’s the secret world of intelligence.”
