Via Ron Brownstein:
Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek, a shrewd student of the presidency, sees in this complex record evidence that Obama and his team are torn between consensual and confrontational leadership styles. The first, he says, stresses "the progressive reform idea of bringing everybody to the table [for] rational, pragmatic decision-making." The second argues "that you transform politics only through wrenching confrontation." Skowronek believes that the most-consequential presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, usually start with the first approach and evolve toward the second as they encounter entrenched resistance.