Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to Bush II

by James MacGregor Burns

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 046500833X
• ISBN13: 9780465008339
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Look At Modern Presidential Politics

First thing to mention: The author of this book is a liberal Democrat. He admits it out front. Thus, he is looking at things from the glasses of being a liberal Democrat. Does this alter his premise? No. His contention is that from JFK, most of the presidents have been trying to hard to please everybody and have cut themselves from their own party as a result. He points out there are differences in the way these presidents run alone, but they still run alone. While, as I said, Burns has his bias, he still has a valid point, and tries to be as balanced as a partisan can be. He covers eight of the nine most recent presidents, with Ford being the exception. In pointing out ones that were exceptions to running alone, he cited both a Democrat (LBJ) and a Republican (Reagan). Burns feels that party polarization is a good thing. He believes that the parties should stand for something, and polarization gives the voter a real choice. I remember a Senate race here in Indiana, where the eventual winner, Evan Bayh seemed to be the twin of his lesser known Repbulican competitor Paul Helmke. He feels that it is a weakness to try to govern from the middle. The strength of this book is dealing with how to improve presidential leadership. If I wrote the book, I would have put more emphasis on moving to personal experience, using the presidents as models for the rest of our lives, which Burns does not do.

Running Alone

The venerable historian reviews the history of the Presidency since the election of JFK. His perspective is best on Kennedy, as they were personal friends. The rest of the presidencies receive cursory treatment, at best. Nonetheless, Prof. Burns provides significant insights into the process that led to the presidency's current dysfunctional state. At the conclusion, he advances a theory of how the process can be reversed. It's debatable whether he is correct in his assessment, but the book is still worth reading.

Interesting Analysis (if you ignore the liberal diatribes)

Mr. Burns provides an intriguing overview of presidential leadership styles over the past 50 years. He argues persuasively that most of our recent chief executives have, more often than not, been ineffectual because they have chosen to "go it alone," i.e., they have attempted to govern without regard to the interests of their party. This has led to a string of imperial presidents who view Congress more as a nuisance than as a co-equal branch of government--even when the president's party controls both houses of the legislature! Mr. Burns is at his best when he shares a telling anecdote--stories that are rendered all the more interesting because, frequently, he was an actual participant (the man interviewed JFK and Eisenhower on more than one occasion). And his proposals for addressing some of the problems inherent in the nature of the Office of the Presidency are worthy of serious consideration. I especially enjoyed his discussion of the Committee on the Constitutional System, a body formed in the 1980s to recommend changes to the Constitution. And Mr. Burns has definitely caused me to rethink my views on the subject of term limits (he is against them). Mr. Burns, however, is at his worst when departs from the main thesis of his book to propagate his liberal dogmas. He castigates Bill Clinton for promoting welfare reform for the simple reason that welfare is a sacred cow of the Democratic Party--a position that seems all the more silly given that Mr. Clinton's welfare initiatives have been hailed, by both Democrats and Republicans, as largely successful. And his defense of Hilary's health care proposals is lame, at best (I almost choked when I read his statement that "European and Canadian . . . public health systems provide effective care at a reasonable cost." Mr. Burns must be oblivious to the number of Canadians who travel daily overseas to obtain surgical procedures they cannot procure in a timely manner at home. And he should read one or two of the recent news stories about the utter collapse of the British nationalized dental care system.) Mr. Burns believes that it is not sufficient that all men are created equal; rather, he thinks it is the duty of government to ensure that we have an egalitarian society that preserves equality from cradle to grave. Further, he believes (like FDR) that we should construe Jefferson's promise of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as imposing an obligation on the government to insulate us from fear and provide for our wants; in short, to ensure our happiness. But as Benjamin Franklin once observed, the Declaration of Independence only gives you the right to PURSUE happiness; you have to catch it yourself. Regardless of whether you share Mr. Burns' liberal ideology, it seems clear that its not-so-subtle interjection throughout the text detracted from what was otherwise a pretty good and objective analysis of presidential leadership.