Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism ...

their favor were the most likely to succeed. They possessed a situational awareness and an intuitive—even reflexive (because timing was often crucial)—appropriateness. Although their responses seem “natural,” a closer inspection reveals that they were more often some combination of innate temperament (e.g., perceptive, creative, curious, flexible, resilient) and learned abilities (e.g., speechmaking, fundraising prowess, procedural expertise) or strategies (e.g., “divide and conquer”) acquired through their experiences. In short, these “opportunists” were also practiced “herestheticians” who, as William Riker described, “win because they have set up the situation in such a way that other people will want to join them—will feel forced by circumstances to join them—even without any persuasion at all.” Like Polk, they understood the “art of setting up situations” and knew how to “add craft to accident.”²³

Even though this study begins with a model of aspirant opportunism (see figure 1) and includes some statistical findings describing the relationship between opportunism and electoral success (see chapter 2), it is principally, as was stated earlier, an exploration into how presidential aspirants foster and exploit opportunities to promote their political ambitions. Consequently, it examines the stories of nine successful presidential aspirants, revealing the ways in which they sought to “make politics” before they were in the White House. In this way, it bolsters Skowronek's assertion that “Successful political leaders do not necessarily do more than other leaders; successful leaders control the political definition of their actions, the terms in which their places in history are understood.” Augmenting these “success stories” are case studies of three presidential aspirants who lost the general election. Although “losers” are seldom the subject of academic attention, this research suggests that they matter—particularly for the political lessons and the institutional legacies (including opportunities) they bequeath to their successors and the political parties. Considering them seriously means not only engaging in counterfactual analyses—though as recent methodological scholarship points out, some speculations are valid forms of hypothesis testing—but also endeavoring to understand how they may differ as a group of politicians from their more successful counterparts.²⁴