Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to Bush II -- Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It - Hardcover

Burns, James MacGregor

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9780465008322: Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to Bush II -- Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465008321 ISBN 13: 9780465008322

Publisher: Basic Books, 2006

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A disastrous war in Iraq, prisoner abuse, secret wiretaps--the presidency of George W. Bush represents a crisis in American democracy. How did this happen? In Running Alone the revered political scientist and commentator James MacGregor Burns sets the imperial presidency of George W. Bush in the context of half a century of presidential politics. In his 1960 campaign, John F. Kennedy turned his back on the Democratic Party. He relied instead on his personal charisma and his family's vast wealth to win office. Once elected, he governed much as he had run: alone. He ignored the Democratic platform and instead sought counsel from a small group of hand-picked advisors, including his own brother. Kennedy fundamentally reshaped the role of President, and each of his successors has built on this model. American presidents have become increasingly isolated from the parties that brought them to power. Democratic presidents--Johnson, Carter, and Clinton--did tremendous damage to the Democratic Party by abandoning its core principles. Republican presidents have managed to lead more effectively in isolation, but have imperiled the nation in the process. Drawing on his own personal letters, interviews, and recollections of America's presidents, Burns charts the decline of genuine leadership in the Oval Office and offers a stirring vision of what the presidency can and should be. America deserves better leaders, and with unsurpassed knowledge of American history and politics, Burns shows us the way forward.

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About the Author:

One of America's most astute political thinkers, James MacGregor Burns is Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government Emeritus at Williams College. He is the author of many books on American history and politics, including Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox and Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award), and Leadership , still considered the seminal work in the field of leadership studies. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this eloquent and tightly written history of late 20th century presidential politics, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author Burns (Transforming Leadership) offers his own take on modern presidents from JFK to George W. Bush, attempting to explain the negative effects of the American electoral process on presidential leadership and why, in his view, "historians have been too critical of recent presidents." Focusing on presidents who manipulated constituencies and distanced themselves from their own parties to win elections, Burns finds a prototype in Kennedy, a staunchly anti-Communist social liberal who was "not afraid to run from his party." Burns demonstrates through cogent analysis how this kind of maneuvering costs both leaders and voters. While Reagan brought the GOP together, his successor could never find the place where he belonged in his own party and suffered for his anemic allegiance to Republican ideology. Conversely, George W. Bush stood firmly with his party but squandered that fellowship with a number of contentious post-9/11 policies, including the war in Iraq. While the human factor looms large in terms of presidential leadership failures, Burns suggests that such failures could be diminished and sometimes overcome with reforms of the electoral process. Burns' suggested solutions fall second to his considerable insights on the difficulty and sacrifice intrinsic to the role of President.
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