The new era of choosing partisan presidents began in 1992. That year, disenchanted voters eyed George H. W. Bush as a Cold War president without a Cold War to prosecute and were concerned about the costs a post-Cold War economy was extracting from them. Bill Clinton felt their pain, and promised to guide the nation into a new global future.

But Bill Clinton's presidency exacerbated an ongoing cultural war. In 1992, Patrick J. Buchanan told the Republican National Convention that the ascendancy of Clinton & Clinton (a reference to Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary) would mean a profound cultural change: "The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America—abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat—that's change all right. But it is not the change America wants…. It is not the change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country." Later, Irving Kristol, the intellectual founder of the neoconservative movement, wrote in his 1995 book, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, that "There is no 'after the Cold War' for me. So far from having ended, my cold war has increased in intensity, as sector after sector of American life has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos."

Further intensifying the partisanship was a shift in electoral behavior. Southern Democrats—long alienated from the Democratic presidential party thanks to its support of civil rights—deserted the Democrats in droves. As they did, the "Dixiecrat"—that crossbreed between conservative and nominal Democrat—became nearly as extinct as the dodo bird. Likewise, Yankee Republicans—who savored balanced budgets and railed against government intrusion into their private lives—became alienated by a GOP so animated by the culture wars that it formed alliances with Christian evangelicals who wanted government to impose their moral codes on private behavior.

The result was a form of political entrapment in which the presidency became a partisan office. As a consequence, presidents were presented with few opportunities to expand their bases of support. Bill Clinton won 43 percent of the popular vote in 1992 and got only 6 percent more in 1996. Because nearly all of Clinton's gains came from within his own party, he was unable to capture a majority of the electorate against a weak and inept Bob Dole. In 2000, Al Gore won 48 percent of the popular vote—a loss of one percentage point from Clinton's 1996 score—despite Clinton's impeachment following the Monica Lewinsky affair.

In 2000, George W. Bush suffered a similar fate. He received 48 percent of the popular vote (and fewer votes than Gore). But nearly all of Bush's gains came from Republican-leaners who had favored Ross Perot. In 2004, Bush was able to eke out a popular-vote majority. Viewed from another perspective, his 51 percent of the popular vote represented only a three-point gain from four years before. And this relatively small increase came in spite of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the loss of nearly 3,000 lives on American soil!

In sum, the era of landslides is over.

On September 12, 2001, Americans gave every indication that they were perfectly willing to return to a nonpartisan, plebiscitary-like presidency. In the early days of the new war on terror, George W. Bush rose above the Clinton-era partisanship to give two very effective public addresses: one at the National Cathedral; the other before a joint session of Congress. The result was near-unanimity in support of the president. Three weeks after the attacks, Bush's approval rating rose to an astronomical 90 percent in the Gallup poll—a score that exceeded the all-time record of 89 percent posted by Bush's father during the Persian Gulf War. Bush's strong persona resonated long after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, were seared into the public's memory. A January 30-February 2, 2003, Los Angeles Times poll found 71 percent characterizing Bush as a "strong and decisive leader." In the same poll, more than three-quarters of the respondents said they liked Bush as a person, and 50 percent described themselves as either "hopeful" or "happy" that he was president.

Americans came to like George W. Bush. But with the passage of time, the partisan divisions returned. The increased signs of a renewed partisanship came in 2003, when a growing number of Democrats believed that Bush lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and needlessly took the nation into war. Although each successive "victory" there produced a bump in the polls for Bush, both the rise in support and its duration became smaller each time. For example, according to Zogby polls taken in December 2003, just before and after Saddam Hussein's capture, Bush's job approval rating went from 49 percent to 53 percent—an increase of just four points.

As the election season began, Democratic primary voters in state after state said they were either "angry" or "dissatisfied" with the Bush administration (see Figure 2). These ill feelings carried over into the fall campaign. On election day itself, the entire country was split: 49 percent of voters responding to exit polls said they were "angry" or "dissatisfied" with the Bush administration; 48 percent said they were "satisfied" or "enthusiastic" about it. Not surprisingly, the Bush antagonists broke overwhelmingly for Kerry, while the enthused Bush supporters backed their man.