Of the 44 presidencies (Obama is actually the 43rd person to be President but non-consecutive terms by Cleveland bump the number of presidencies up one), sixteen were re-elected to a second term (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland*, McKinley, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and G.W. Bush). While Grover Cleveland was not re-elected, he won the popular vote when he lost to Bejamin Harrison in 1888 and should be included as having won the popular vote in three consecutive elections (1884, 1888, and 1992).
Five died in office without completing a full term (Wm Harrison, Garfield, Taylor, Harding and Kennedy).
In four of the remaining presidencies, the Vice President served the remainder of the president's term and was elected to a full term (T. Roosevelt, Truman, Coolidge and LBJ). Of the four, Truman and LBJ were eligible to run again after being elected to a full term on their own and made efforts towards that goal (New Hamsphire proved to be the bain of both men). For Truman and Teddy, they served most of the prior president's term (in both cases more than three and a half years.)
Of the same four, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge and LBJ were "elected" in landslide fashion.
Of the remaining presidencies, five filled out the remainder of the former-president's term (Tyler, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Arthur, and Ford), sought renomination for the presidency for election to a full term and lost. These five plus Adams, Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, B. Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Carter and H W Bush make out the One-termers. Three, of course, Polk, Buchanan and Hayes, decided not to run for re-election. Buchanan faced poltical turmoil, impending war and a compete lack of any political will; Hayes was the benefactor of the stolen 1876 election and pledged to only serve one term, and Polk did everything he said he was going to do in term and did not run for re-election. (Not surpisingly Polk routinely is ranked of one of the best Presidents)
Is there any commonality for the remainder?
Well, there is the economic theory and its a real winner. From the late 1820s until after the Civil war, the economy lurched up and down and was constantly in a recession for most of the time with only a few upward economic trends. Most of that period can also be viewed as the normal struggles of an agrarian economy adapting to industrialization. During the same period, numerous banking issues and currency speculation created economic problems all on their own. Poor economic performance as an explanation for the failure to be re-elected does explain Adams, Quincy Adams, van Buren, Pierce, Tyler, Fillmore, Buchanan and Andrew Johnson's failure to be elected or re-elected as the case may be. In fact from 1828 (when John Quincy Adams lost to Jackson) until 1872, only two President were re-elected (Jackson and Lincoln).
If you go through the remainder --- Hayes/recession, B Harrison/recession, Taft/recession, Hoover/Great Depression, Ford/recession, Carter/recession and GHW Bush/recession. In fact, Teddy Rooselvelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman and LBJ were facing economies that had recessionary qualities just before and during critical re-election periods (1908, 1928, 1952, and 1968) and in the case of the latter two, wartime problems added more fuel to the fire of the "dump this guy" political mood.
Politically ineptitude is good but seldom examined ---- Take a look, of the five who served the remainder of a presidential term, only Ford got his party's nomination; the other four: Tyler, Fillmore, Arthur and Andrew Johnson failed to even get nominated.
Franklin Pierce who was elected and served a full term was not nominated for a second term.
Buchanan saw the Democratic Party completely fall apart on him and decided not to run. Its no small surprise that the presidencies from 1836 to 1868 were unmitigated disasters except for Polk and Lincoln.
Hayes and Benjamin Harrison took office while majority of Americans had voted against them.
Taft had Teddy Rooselvelt pulled his wing of the GOP away from Taft in 1910 and ultimately ran a third party candidacy against him in 1912.
Hoover ran for re-election fearing the radicals in his party would destroy the GOP's free market brand with business. (It is common knowledge that Hoover did not want to remain in office but feared who his party might nominate.)
Both Ford and Carter faced their party's more dominate ideological wings with attacks from Reagan on the Right in 1976 and Ted Kennedy on the Left in 1980. Truman and LBJ also were getting drilled by their own party going into 1952 and 1968.
The most recent such intra-party attack was 1992 and Pat Buchanan played the pit bull nipping at GHW Bush's heels.
Woodrow Wilson was right in his parliamentary view of political power --- if you want to run the country, you need to keep your own party in line first. When you can't, its time to go.
I've often tangled with my third party candidacy theory --- the natural political course of events is reversed by third party candidacies. In the modern era, 1912, 1924, 1948, 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996 and 2000 all had decent third party threats. Would Taft, Davis, Dewey, Humphrey, GHW Bush and Al Gore prevailed without the strategic dissonance that comes from two political foes instead of one. In 1948 and 1996, it helped the incumbent, but in the others ----- well give me President Gore in 2000 and I would gladly live with the political consequences in 2004 and 2008.
I have a new theory and its one I expect I will be studying for some time to come, the POLITICAL HATRED theory ----- If you HATE the president enough, you can't beat him/her.
Obama is hated by his political opponents. He won in 2008 --- only the second election since 1988 without a third party candidacy (no one jumped in in 2004 so we would be unified because we hated W that much) largely because so many people seemed prepared to say anything, do anything and believe anything if it was anti-Obama.
The moment that comes to mind is the elderly woman who "told" McCain that Obama was "an Arab". McCain shut her down before she could complete her 2 cents. Sure she was old and doddering and probably a little loopy on a good day but McCain must have had a sense that he was being supported by people who simply hated Obama and were never going to like him or his political agenda.
Tea Party, Birthers, Socialism haters (even when they don't know what socialism is nor are they sure what Obama is doing is socialist), Big Brotherism, Fascism haters (same problem as Socialism), Partisanship for its own sake --- who else faced a united and somewhat unfocused revulsion for his very existence in just about every facet of his presidency?
W - Guys, we hated him. Daily Kos is basically a testament to that. Forget Gore, he won. Kerry, without any impediments like third party candidates, received nearly 50% of the vote and the electoral margin was nearly as close as 2000.
Clinton - They impeached him. They complained endlessly about him. Even a liberal columnist wrote weekly "I hate Bill Clinton" columns for the New York Times. Now that's hate. The GOP nominee, Bob Dole --- acerbic, nasty, vicious and unlikeable. Bob Dole would rehash last week's political loss on the Senate floor as if it had been a gangbang of his mother and he was looking for a knife fight for retribution. I cannot fathom who would have been a more effective candidate to oppose Clinton, but it wasn't this guy. And Dole' nomination was in many ways symbolic of the GOP alignment against Clinton ---- "Bob Dole - nobody hates Bill more than Bob"
Reagan - Don't get me started. I think the intenet would have gutted him but who knows. Nickname as California governor "Ronnie Popular". I don't think Gart Hart would have done better than Walter Mondale; but 1984 played like Mr Smith goes to Washington. Reagan looked like the every hero in every movie he made and Mondale looked like the worst caricature of backroom "wheeling and dealing". Reagan did a hundred stupid things...He pushed thousands of painful policies and in the end....everybody who complained about his policies never blamed him.....the one and only Teflon President
Nixon - Super-hated to the point he kept a list of who hated him. I still remember vicious family discusions about what Nixon did between my Mother and Older sister versus my Dad. I leaned my Dad's way until my grandmother spent a week with us in California during the Watergate hearings.
Eisenhower - Popular general....bumbling politician....fearful of taking on McCarthy or Civil Rights. Faced the same crappy candidate twice (Adlai Stevenson) and more than 42% of the electorate opposed him both times. Not really hatred but perhaps it was more political ineptitude by his opponents. Still, like Grant below, you'd think, the American public would figure "War Winning General does not equal Successful President" was an important concept.
FDR - Roosevelt-hating was for some families was a religion itself. In 1936, FDR broke 60% of the popular vote --- nearly 40% of the electorate opposed a guy who was clearly steering the economic ship of state away from the abyss, even big business was supporting much of the New Deal, the GOP economic brand of laisse faire was dead, and the last three standard bearers of the GOP --- Harding, Coolidge and Hoover (particularly Hoover) --- were viewed as the source of the Great Depression. Still 40% hung in to vote for anyone but FDR. (Point in fact in 1940 and 1944, two political buttons "No Third Term" and "No Fourth Term either" were immensely popular in GOP circles.)
Wilson - What's not to love about a guy who campaigns for re-election in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of war" and then turns around after he's re-elected and gives economic support to the allies and then joins in the war after he won the peace/isolationist vote. More than half the popular vote went against him twice. His re-election percentage in 1916 (the popular vote margin was little more than 3%) was razor thin; in 1912, his popular vote margin was more than 11%, but he faced a divided opposition --- Taft and the GOP and Teddy and the Bullmoose Party.
McKinley - While both popular and the benfactee of a realigning election, McKinley represented economic protectionism and the gold standard --- not really popular with famers, small businesses, rural America, the still growing labor union movement and anyone affected by high tariffs (think Southerners). Popular...yes but not really overwhelmingly so. William Jennings Bryan kept McKinley under 52% both in 1896 and 1900. Prior to his assent to the Presidency, McKinley served as a Ohio Congressman, the Democrats in the Ohio Legislature tried to gerrymandered him out of office regularly, both unsuccesfully and successfully. If that isn't political hatred, nothing is. Assassination pushes the hatred meme.
Cleveland - In 1884, the seconding speech of Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin roused the delegates with a memorable slap at Tammany and his political machine in championing Cleveland as the candidate for President. "They love him, gentlemen," Bragg said of Cleveland, "and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will, but they love him most of all for the enemies he has made." As the convention rocked with cheers, Tammany boss John Kelly lunged at the platform, screaming that he welcomed the compliment. Couple that sentiment with the taunts that he fathered an illegitimate child (A common cry was "Ma, Ma where's my Pa, Gone to the White House, Ha ha ha.") Enough said.
Grant - Scandal riddled administration and the guy left office smelling like a rose. Fortunately, he was popular during his presidency because both economic condition and scandals would have leveled anyone else. Despite economic problems and scandals, the Democrats fielded no one and basically threw in their lot with the Liberal Republican standard bearer, Horace Greeley. Other candidates sucked away any real chance for Greeley and Grant walked way unscathed.
Lincoln - Despised by so many political quarters, it hard to imagine him winning re-election without secession. The politically divided dissaray by his detractors kept any political focus from fronting a viable political foe in 1864 to remove him. (McClellan, yes the same guy Lincoln fired as the General of the Union Army, ran against him, also ran in opposition to the platform that gave him the nomination to run against Lincoln.) Assassination helps push the hatred meme.
Jackson - Felt he was cheated out of the presidency in 1824 and was called "King Andrew I" by his detractors. Plus he invented the spoils system. Its hard to beat a guy when every time you try to build a base against him someone in the group is beholden to him or knows 10 more people who beholden to him.
Its hard to view Washington, Jefferson, Madison or Monroe's re-elections as conventional elections --- they were more like coronations.
When I look at what both the Presidential GOP and the Congressional GOP have done to oppose Obama, I am taken aback. You hate him that much?
Even in 1983 and 1984, Speaker O'Neill set up Congressional Democrats with a series of votes so they could run on a economic record of supporting policies that steered the nation back towards economic growth and prosperity.
I invite thoughts on the POLITICAL HATRED theory as I believe its more predictive than the Economic theory.