What kind of president would Mitt Romney be? To answer this question, I'll draw on the work of Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek, who has argued that presidents' fortunes depend on how they establish their political legitimacy in the particular circumstances under which which they assume power.
Reconstruction or Disjunction?
When new presidents take office, they face not only the country's existing domestic and international problems but also the political regime created by their predecessors. That regime consists of the interests, assumptions, and ideologies that dominate public discussion, and the relative strength of the parties' electoral coalitions. Our current political regime emerged in the wake of Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and it has continued even through the Democratic presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. It is politically conservative and skeptical of government, at least in contrast to the New Deal/civil-rights regime that preceded it. And the Republicans have been the dominant party.
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Skowronek's key insight is that a president's ability to establish his political legitimacy depends on where he sits in "political time": Is he allied with the dominant regime or opposed to it, and is the regime itself powerful or in decline?
For example, Lyndon Johnson was allied with the Democrats' New Deal regime, while Richard Nixon -- the second Republican elected after FDR -- was opposed to it. And the regime itself can either be resilient or vulnerable. For example, Harry Truman became president when the New Deal regime was robust, while Jimmy Carter took office when it was on its last legs.
A president who has the good luck to run in opposition to a political regime that is falling apart is in the best possible position politically. He can sweep away the old and begin a new regime with a new set of political assumptions. Such "reconstructive" presidents seize the opportunity provided by being in the right place at the right political time; they create a new political reality that their successors inhabit. Franklin Roosevelt was able to blame Herbert Hoover and Republican ideology for the country's predicament during the Great Depression, just as Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter and the Democrats during the economic difficulties of the late 1970s. Reconstructive leaders -- Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan -- are generally regarded both as pivotal in American history and among the country's most successful presidents.
Conversely, the unluckiest presidents -- like Hoover and Carter -- are those with the misfortune to be associated with a political regime in rapid decline. Skowronek calls these presidents "disjunctive," because they cannot hold their party's factions together, and things fall apart. These presidents are usually judged failures, and they place their successors in the best possible position to pick up the pieces and reconstruct politics in a new way.
What Skowronek calls "affiliated" presidents take office allied with a regime that is still relatively strong. George H.W. Bush is a recent example. Affiliated presidents can be quite successful, but their political opportunities are strongly shaped by the interests and ideology of the dominant regime. Ultimately their political legitimacy depends on their ability to meet new challenges and innovate in ways that do not offend party orthodoxy. Lyndon Johnson, for example, sought to complete Roosevelt's New Deal in his Great Society programs. George H.W. Bush's presidency was widely regarded as Ronald Reagan's third term. But when Bush raised taxes, he faced challenges within his own party for violating Republican ideology.
The last group of presidents is the most interesting: They take office opposed to a still robust political regime. Skowronek calls them "preemptive" presidents, because they must find a "third way" to establish their legitimacy and forestall opposition. Bill Clinton, the first Democrat elected after Reagan, is a recent example. Preemptive presidents can achieve a great deal if they understand that they face strong political headwinds and must always trim their sails. They can only survive by appearing moderate, pragmatic, and non-ideological, and by finding ways to borrow ideas from their political opponents. It was Clinton, after all, who announced that "the era of big government is over," and who balanced the federal budget, reformed the welfare system, and continually triangulated in order to maintain his political fortunes. (Barack Obama, as I'll discuss, could fall into this category or could become a reconstructive president.)
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