ABSTRACT
Americans at century's end live in a time of unprecedented prosperity. There are some different templates of leadership competing for public support in America at the turn of the twenty-first century. Leadership capital and how to earn and expend it in a still divided culture and society, but newly united country, are central questions in the aftermath of the terror attack. Americans flirted with heroic leadership in the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns with Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan. Mr. William J. Clinton did not promise to command, but to respond. The new millennium began as a paradoxical time for American politics. While America had unparalleled status and influence abroad, it was beset domestically by fractious disagreements about its values, history, culture, and policies. Americans were traumatized and the circumstances of the George W. Bush Presidency were transformed. The last some decades have been difficult ones for American political culture.
