Other consequential presidents had the good fortune to follow weak predecessors ( Andrew Jackson, after John Quincy Adams), to arrive at moments when the country was ripe for real change (Lyndon Johnson after a martyred John Kennedy) or to show up at a favorable moment in what presidential scholar Stephen Skowronek calls “political time,” when one coalition or party is weakening and another is gaining strength ( Ronald Reagan, after Jimmy Carter).
The point is that the hour, the circumstance and the season set up the great man. But this kind of luck only creates the possibility of change, not its certainty. For this, you need the marriage of a skillful president and his moment. And near the top of that president’s must-have qualities is the acute capacity to grasp where the nation is and where it can go.
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