ABSTRACT
Two presidents stand out as men who not only declared their independence from public-opinion polls but faunted their disdain—the unlikely duo of John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush. Each was the product of a privileged background, but the similarity ended there. Kennedy was urbane, articulate, and glamorous. Bush was rough-hewn, often inarticulate, and down-home. Kennedy ran a successful presidency because he had a good intuitive sense of what the public would accept, and Bush’s presidency failed in many ways because he lacked that sense.
