Crockett, David A. The Opposition Presidency: Leadership & the Constraints of History.

• Author: Menard, Orville D.
• Position: Book Review

College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 2002. 286 pp. Cloth, $39.95.

Crockett's central question "concerns the nature of presidential leadership ..." (p. 7). His search for answers takes him into the divided nature of the American institutional structure of power, the evolution of the party system, and what he refers to as "context"--i.e., the political environment within which these interact. The personalities and character of his subjects also become important factors of his profiles. His concept of the opposition president provides the analytical framework for this thoughtful and original study.

The author points out that his opposition president is not a president who faces a rival-political-party majority in Congress (although that is part of the "context" in several cases). Rather, it is "a president from a political party that is in opposition to the reigning governing philosophy" (p. 5). The party whose ideas reflect the "grain of history" provides the governing philosophy, defines the terms of debate, and controls the political agenda. "When a president's true purposes run counter to the reigning governing philosophy," Crockett asserts, "we may think of him as an opposition president" (p. 3).

The problem for the opposition president is how to lead and govern from his disadvantaged position. Crockett's opposition presidents are William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton. He analyzes their styles and strategies to assess the nature of presidential leadership as it is exercised under such conditions. In tightly written and well-argued chapters, the author provides a political history of the administrations under examination, considers the aspirations of each, discusses the stages and positions of political parties and the political environment, and examines the personal strengths and weaknesses of the presidents concerned.

All too often an author introduces a conceptual framework and then proceeds to ignore it in the pages that follow. That is not the case here. The framework is faithfully applied, affording a coherent basis for examining the various presidents under consideration. The "constraints of history" in the sub-title are lodged in the fact that although a president may have a personal agenda, he is not a free agent to see it accomplished. As an opposition president, he must recognize...