Contents: Preface to the second edition. -- Introduction : presidents as muscular moderates : a "middle course" for our "common cause". -- Washington's way : "liberal allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yielding on all sides". -- Compromisers, zealots, and ciphers : the blessing of parties, the challenge of slavery, and the failure of presidents. -- Abraham Lincoln's middle measure : a cautious politician's "my policy is to have no policy" pragmatism. -- Theodore Roosevelt's democratic two-step : the rise of the romantic, nationalist presidency. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal : the radical as moderate. -- Truman, Eisenhower, and America's bipartisan consensus : building political unity through cultural conformity. -- John F. Kennedy and civil rights : moderation and the challenge of change. -- The consensus collapses : Lyndon Johnson and the limits of moderation. -- Learning from losers : where Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter went wrong. -- Ronald Reagan's moderate revolution : resurrecting the center. -- Bill Clinton and the perils of triangulation : the need to be muscular as well as moderate. -- George W. Bush : imprisoned by conviction? -- Conclusion : center seeking in the twenty-first century : is political moderation possible in an age of excess? -- Afterword : a president and a people in search of moderation

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Context of Why moderates make the best presidents : George Washington to Barack Obama, Gil Troy