If George W. Bush is to be considered a weak and unpopular president, which many citizens do consider him to be, it could mean that a new “repudiator” presidency is on the horizon, one that would replace the ideology of the previous repudiator president, Ronald Reagan.

In this presidential year, with so much at stake, it may be prudent to bring up an influential political theory regarding the presidency. Developed by political scientist Stephen Skowronek, this theory, called the presidential regime theory, asserts that different presidential leaders who assert a new premise of governance (called “regime leaders”) appear upon the departure of unpopular and weak presidents belonging to outdated regimes of years past.

For example, Franklin Roosevelt – who pushed forward several policies collectively known as the New Deal that dramatically changed how we feel about government’s role in society – followed the disastrous presidency of Herbert Hoover, who was part of a “regime” of presidents that represented strong capitalistic economics within society with limited government interference.

If George W. Bush is to be considered a weak and unpopular president, which many citizens do consider him to be, it could mean that a new “repudiator” presidency is on the horizon, one that would replace the ideology of the previous repudiator president, Ronald Reagan.

To know for sure that this cycle is restarting a new phase, we must first see if Bush fits the qualities of a “disfunctive” president (the last president with similar ideologies of the original repudiator), and if any of the presidential contenders of today present to us the qualities of a new repudiator.

Disfunctive presidents usually signify the current “regime” of the original repudiator is in its dying days. These presidents typically try to keep the regime alive but usually fail, and are noticeably unpopular with the current electorate.

There is also often a split or factioning within the regime itself, meaning different viewpoints of what direction the regime should take are at odds with one another. Think Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan, John Quincy Adams and his father, John Adams. Each of these presidents was followed by a repudiator president, someone who reshaped governance within America in an influential way.

One could make the argument that we see these conditions today in the Bush administration. With the increasing unpopularity of our president, coupled by the factioning of the conservative movement, (for example, libertarian conservativism vs. social conservativism vs. neoconservativism,) it’s easy to see how the Reagan dynasty of presidents could be in its “last throes,” to borrow Vice President Cheney’s words.

Now let us examine repudiator presidents, ones who start new “regimes” in presidential politics. Consider these characteristics and whether or not they remind you of anyone currently running for president.

A repudiator president establishes a new order, usually in response to the discontent of a previous regime distancing itself from an important American value. They’re immediately faced with new challenges left over by the previous regime’s disfunctive president.

Perhaps most notably, they repudiator can get away with being vague, or to quote my notes from junior year, “can be for change without comprehensive ability of defining what change is.”

That, to me, screams Barack Obama. Though he does have ideas of what the change will entail, the fact is that much of the public grasps to his inspiring words without much care to what that change really means. What the electorate wants today is a new repudiator, a new order in America that will drastically change the way we feel government should govern society.

Think about it: In the early part of the last century, President Theodore Roosevelt represented a new idea of “progressivism”; his cousin Franklin Roosevelt represented a “new deal”; and Ronal Regan years later represented a new type of conservative ideology called “Reaganomics.”

But what could a repudiator president in 2009 represent? We see within the American public a disdain for the current regime that began sometime near the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Perhaps a new regime would tackle the problems and ills facing society with new government programs the way FDR did.

We also see a push for diplomacy before taking on rogue countries in the world; perhaps this new repudiator will create a new foreign policy doctrine that will promote peace and understanding before hostility and coercive means. Who knows?

Whatever the outcome of this election, it will be interesting to see what the new president, repudiator or not, does in reaction to the mess that the current administration has left us in.

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