ABSTRACT
Expectations upon the president have decidedly increased. The nation now expects a president to ably fill a number of roles—not only to provide policy solutions for a variety of problems, domestic, economic, and international, but also to fulfill a broader yearning for effective leadership. The ability of modern presidents to take measure of, and to fulfill, the evergrowing demands of the office has lagged. The modern presidency has called not for constraint upon the president but for more executive empowerment, and the federal government and president's policy responsibilities have rightfully expanded. Presidents pushing for power, by the way, would not be foreign to the Framers. Changes in the media are not the only way history might influence the exercise of presidential power. The various patterns and cycles in historical time and a president's place within them affect not only a president's opportunities and strategies for exercising power but also our perception of a president's successes and failures.
