This essay applies Tulis's work on the rhetorical presidency to one modern example—George W. Bush and his tax cut plan of 2001. In his book The Rhetorical Presidency, Tulis examines Woodrow Wilson's reinterpretation of presidential leadership, examining how Wilson reimagined the presidency as an office dedicated primarily to popular leadership through rhetoric. Since prior to the events of 9/11 George W. Bush's reputation was not that of a brilliant rhetorician, does that mean Tulis's construct did not apply to him? In fact, no—for the rhetorical presidency is at heart a constitutional problem, not a problem of oratorical skill. The modern presidency-centered system requires the president to be a policy activist and to resist compromise as he sets rhetorical markers of success. Yet the other branches of government still retain all of their traditional institutional weapons to fight presidential success. Even though Bush was not known for being a rhetorically gifted popular leader in his first months in office, he still found himself operating according to the rules of Wilson's rhetorical presidency. Thus, Bush experienced every potential weakness of the rhetorical presidency identified by Tulis.

This article constitutes a comparative analysis of nineteenth‐century “restoration presidents”—presidents from the dominant party who come to power immediately following opposition presidents—to determine the extent to which they were able to act as free agents or were bound by prior commitments. These presidents established the pattern for leadership of which George W. Bush is the latest exemplar. Specifically, this article focuses attention on the Jacksonian Democrats following the Whig presidencies (Polk and Pierce) and the Republicans following Cleveland's two administrations (Harrison and McKinley). A recurrent pattern in these presidencies is that they and their regime allies see their immediate opposition party predecessors as illegitimate threats to the dominant party's ascendancy and in response these “restoration presidents” tend to overreach, pushing the regime toward its disjunction. Exploring the common elements among this group of presidents will facilitate a more accurate understanding of similarly placed presidents in the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries.

Well into President George W. Bush's second term, history appears to be repeating itself—second terms are far more problematic than first terms. Are problematic second terms inevitable, and if so are they caused by the Twenty‐second Amendment? In this article I explore the constitutional and historical dynamics of presidential term limits, focusing on the leadership and clerkship roles the president performs in the constitutional system, constrained by the dynamics of political time. The article examines the classic arguments for and against term limits, comparing Hamilton's focus on stability to Jefferson's concern for tyranny. It then surveys the scholarship on second term problems to tease out the effects of term limits from the more general problem of second terms. I conclude with an analysis of second term and term limit problems from a political time perspective, suggesting that presidents are more constrained in the pursuit of their constitutional functions by the dynamics of regime cycles than they are by term limits. It appears that term limits add little to the functions of the presidency in the constitutional order.

This article explores the nature of presidential opposition leadership. Presidents aligned with a minority party are opposed to the reigning governing philosophy. Such presidents can be considered “opposition leaders,” and the nature of the conflict they face differs from that of other presidents. All opposition presidents face roughly the same type of leadership situation—governing in an era in which they do not control the power to define politics. That problem influences the actions of administrations. Studying the presidency in such a political context enables us to break free of the one‐size‐fits‐all model of presidential leadership. Leadership strategies are contingent and context bound. If an opposition leadership strategy can be generalized to all such presidents, the article will demonstrate the need to be more nuanced in our examination of this branch.

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 was passed to make the solution to the problem of a double vacancy in the presidency and vice presidency more democratic. The current law, however, privileges “democracy” at the expense of “energy” in the executive, especially as that energy is reflected in the unitary nature of the presidency. Hamilton explains in Federalist no. 70 why unity in the executive is important, both for the purposes of energetic leadership and accountability. The possibility that a successor under the 1947 statute could be from a party other than that elected by the people diminishes the energy that is key to this branch of government. This article explores the central constitutional question surrounding the issue of double vacancy: whether the current law meets the two goals of providing for the possibility of a double vacancy while still retaining the energy that typifies the office of the presidency.