tl;dr version: It’s really hard to hold the White House for longer than two terms.
Yankeedoodler brought up Professor Allan Lichtman in one of the VUTB threads the other day. It’s the first time I’d heard of him, but his ideas ring true to me...especially after this election.
Michael Moore famously predicted the results of Nov. 8...but so did Allan Lichtman. And Lichtman based his work on models he’s been working on for more than 30 years. He claims to have been right every time. (Though he did call 2000 for Gore.)
Basically, his argument is this:
...My theory was that the pundits and the scholars are all wrong about predicting presidential elections. That the real key is not the candidates, or the issues, or the debates, or the ads, but rather the performance of the party holding the White House — that essentially, American voters are ultimately pragmatic. And if the party holding the White House did a good job, they’d give them four more years. If not, they’d toss them out.
That has always been my sense. Lichtman, however, makes an attempt to quantify it. He has thirteen “keys,” which are true/false statements. If the answer to six or more is “false,” the incumbent party will lose the White House.
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
False. As we all know, the GOP holds the majority in the House.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
True, according to Lichtman.
If you rate this false instead, the temptation might be to blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz for allowing Bernie Sanders to run as a Democrat. However, that’s probably putting the cart before the horse. A tough primary fight is an indication that people are unhappy with the incumbent party, not the cause of said unhappiness.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
False, but there is nothing either party can do about that. IMO, this is the major reason it’s now hard to hold the White House for more than two terms: you can’t run an incumbent more than once.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
Lichtman called this false, based on the numbers Gary Johnson was polling at in September. (He says 5% is “significant,” and he cuts the polling numbers in half to get an estimate of the actual numbers.)
As it turns out, none of the third party candidates got anywhere near 5% nationally, but they did in the states that turned the election.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
True.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
I would guess this is a true, if only because the previous two terms encompasses the 2008 economic crisis.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
False. Obama’s second term was not different from his first in any major way.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
True. There’s been some social unrest, but not sustained.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
True. The Obama administration has been scandal-free.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
True. Despite the GOP’s attempts to make Benghazi into one.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
False. Obama had such a success last time: killing bin Laden. Not this time. At least, not recognized.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
False. Hillary is not JFK.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
True. Trump is no JFK either.
Counting up the falses, that’s six — which means the incumbent party will lose the White House.
What struck me about Lichtman’s model is that there is so little the parties or the candidates can do to affect the outcome. Basically, this time, the Democrats were destined to lose, no matter who they chose or what they did, and the Republicans were destined to win — again, no matter who they chose. (Alas.)
The personal charisma of the candidates is the only thing they can control, at least in the time frame of the campaign. And uber-charismatic figures like JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama are once in a generation types. We can’t count on running someone like that in every election. There was no one like that on the GOP or Democratic bench this time.
Lichtman believes that conventional campaigning doesn’t work. He thinks it was a waste of time for Obama to campaign for Hillary. What Obama should have done is use his personal charisma to paint the Iran deal as a success. That might have flipped that key and saved the White House. (And he wouldn’t have had to wait until the primary was over to do it.)
So what about next time? Is there anything we can do to help make Trump a one-term president? I can think of three things.
1) Try to take the House, which we would try to do anyway.
2) Kos is right. The GOP playbook works, unfortunately. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Obama couldn’t do anything his second term because of GOP obstruction. But the voters don’t care about that. The buck stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
3) Make sure the headlines are full of Trump scandals, of which there is sure to be a plentiful supply.