Few presidents since the founding generation and Lincoln have been treated as significant political thinkers in their own right. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan are all considered to have been representatives of powerful ideologies at their moments of ascent, but we know they were not the authors of those ideas. Bill Clinton may have been the smartest political strategist since FDR to occupy the White House, but I know of no books on the political theory of Bill Clinton—which would, in any event, be an elusive subject. The exception is probably Woodrow Wilson, who would be regarded as a significant figure in the development of political science even if he had never run for office.
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