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Bob Taft might have provided that kind of leadership. Without it the powerful senior Republicans, particularly in the Senate, still run things to suit their own conveniences. The Old Guard Republican leaders do not seem to be trying to take over the party. Rather, they snipe or obstruct without any apparent sense of party responsibility or direction. Minority Leader Bill Knowland, New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, Illinois' Everett Dirksen, Ohio's John Bricker and Colorado's Eugene Millikin virtually ignore the President as a leader of Congress. He makes no effort to punish them for so doing.
Flanking Movement. But if Ike sticks to his present political line, he could conceivably outflank the Old Guardists and their friends without a pitched battle. He has powerful weapons on his side. He is far more sensitive to the mood of the nation than the Old Guardists are. He is devastatingly effective on television. Moreover, if he chooses to run in 1956, he will be in a strong position to dictate the G.O.P. platform and influence the selection of delegates.
Concretely, the recent changes in Eisenhower's own definition of his job have almost certainly put him in a position where he must run again in 1956. Personally, he would rather not do so, but once he became impressed with the urgency of reforming his party—and through it the Government—the decision to run in 1956 became all but inevitable.