ABSTRACT
The presidency remains indispensable—a point made clear following a brief public flirtation with congressional government during the first hundred days of the 104th Congress in 1995. Presidents celebrated the virtues of democracy, and with every Cold War victory the presidency became a unique source of inspiration. Political institutions, like the presidency, reflect the anxieties of the citizens who have given them legitimacy. But in creating a government of Cold War Republican presidents and New Deal-oriented Democratic Congresses, the struggle against communism helped negate a concept that had its origins in the New Deal: party realignment. After the Cold War, it is time to rethink the assumptions that guided Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System and discard those once thought to be sacrosanct. The debate between collective party responsibility and individual responsibility had a long distinguished history in political science prior to 1950. By 1950, collective party responsibility had become political science's First Commandment, and digressions from it were considered heretical.
