George W. Bush and the Partisan Presidency

Traditionally, political scientists have tended to see the powerful presidency of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as the enemy of strong parties.1 Through an "objective" media, presidents appeal directly to voters, over the heads of party leaders, seeking a nonpartisan image. They build ad hoc coalitions of support in Congress without regard to party lines. They pre side over an executive branch staffed by nonpartisan experts more interested in policy than politics. Presidents show little interest in their party's perfor mance in down-ballot races, let alone its long-term fate. All of these proposi tions held true for presidents of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, especially Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. But since 1980, we have seen the rise of a new kind of presidency?a partisan presidency. And George W. Bush has brought this partisanship to a new extreme?perhaps to the point when practice becomes pathology. Bush is not an exception to the rule or the product of a recent change. Both party loyalty in Congress and ideological constraint in the electorate began to revive in the 1980s.2