Back in May, I postulated that if you hate the incumbent, you cannot beat him.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
We now have had 17 Presidents reelected plus Cleveland, who won the popular vote three years in a row and his electoral college loss in 1888 was close (for a modern reference 2004 close).
While Mitt Romney licks his wounds (and is apparantly being invited to leave the pack) and the Conventional Wisdom is either that "The GOP never saw this coming" or "Romney was a divisive candidate" or "Obama lucked out" (the Hurricane Sandy theory).
Meanwhile, the meme of this Blog and similar sites is that Romney's campaign was overmatched i.e. Romney's campaign was incompetent. Maybe so, but if letting your candidate be defined by its opponent (John Kerry in 2004, Mike Dukakis in 1988), if poor planning results in making a bad situation worse (McGovern 1972, Dukakis 1988, GHW Bush 1992, Kerry 2004, McCain 2008) or if a lack of competent "skeletons in the closet" research of your candidate (Gary Hart, Mike Dukakis, Bill Clinton, GW Bush, Herman Cain et al.), then we have an explanation for for incompetent campaigns but not incompetent candidates.
After all becoming a political party's nominee for president is not about luck. Romney had the three things you need organization, money, and political capital (experience, name recognition and a record) to win the GOP nomination. So what went wrong?
Romney may be pointed out as as an example of campaign incompetence and mismanagement; but it is a more unified theory to simple say ---- running with a messaqe of hate for the incumbent, no matter what skills, experience and image you bring to the table, is a recipe for a second place finish. Romney had two great qualities "airline pilot looks" (ie an airline pilot should look like he's 45 --- just old enough to seem experienced and just young enough to seem like he's not going to have a heart attack and kill us all) and a Norman Rockwell family. To argue that if he could have shelved his inability to relate and talk with (not to) people, his incessant desire to prove his superiority over others, and the fact that his family stories made him come across like Bing Crosby, he might have succeeded is tremendously short-sighted.
The problem is the message ---- of not simply the eventual nominee ----- but of the political opposition in general. The message of "I hate the President more than you" is a campaign message of failure. What brings bigger crowds? Telling people how much you hate Obama (BTW to a bunch of people who think so as well) or putting out a plan for turning things around (think Reagan in 1980 and Clinton in 1992).
Romney outpolled Obama on the economy pretty consistently this past election ---- who needs political red meat when you've got this. What if Romney said "Obamanomics" is not working. Or "Our economy is stagnating" (not true but its the kind of phrase that makes people wonder if things are getting better.)
Since World War II, we have had 8 re-election campaigns (1956, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1992, 1996, 2004 and 2012). We have also had four elections without an incumbent (1960, 1988, 2000 and 2008). The remainder have their own unique histories but they were neither open elections or re-elections in the strictest terms.
1956 - Eisenhower was elected President in 1952. By 1952, the Democrats had controlled the White House for 20 years. Eisenhower had served as Chief of Staff to President Truman following World War II. He had been urged to run against Truman in 1948 but declined. In addition, Truman had offered the Vice-Presidency to Eisenhower in 1952 if he would run as a Democrat. (Eisenhower had been unaffiliated at the time but made it clear in the late 1940s he had no interest in aligning with the Democratic Party.) Biographer Stephen Ambrose described Eisenhower as expressing disdain for the Democrats.
His opponent, Adlai Stevenson, ran against him in 1952. Stevenson, a former State Department official and Governor of Illinois (one term 1949-1953) was recruited in 1952 by Truman to counter Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, whom Truman viewed as a maverick and untrustworthy. Another contender W Averell Harriman, who in 1952 was only a State Departement official and Cabinet Secretary, was deemed to be lacking in political experience. 1956 was basically a replay of 1952, except Harriman had a new political office on his resume, Governor of New York.
Was there political hatred? To an extent yes. Its right here
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Scroll down to the County Election Data, Stevenson won large portions of the Confederacy. Eisenhower had embraced the Brown v Board of Education decision. The 1948 DNC convention walkout by Dixiecrats had led to a "golden silence" approach to avoid losing the solidly Democratic South. Along with Stevenson majorities in the South, there are shades of green where States Rights candidates tried to make inroads in the South, this is even more pronounced in the 1960 presidential election.
Stevenson's 1952 campaign was to be the anti-Ike. His campaign commercials in 1952 portrayed, Ike as being in bed with Robert Taft (the leader of the GOP's isolationist wing), Ike as being a hollow headed political figure (A Stevenson slogan went "Better a hole in the shoe than a hole in the head"), and that Stevenson was the better candidate.
Nothing changed in 1956. Same candidate. Same lines. Eisenhower is a part-time President, he's old, Nixon is President if Ike dies, Ike mishandled the Suez and Hunagry crises, and insert your complaint about Presidential vacations and playing golf here (BTW This criticism has never worked). Adlai clamored for a "New America" The GOP went with Peace, Prosperity and Progress. You don't need something new unless you don't have Peace and Prosperity. Either convince them times are bad and getting worse or find an issue that divides people in two.
1972 - Nixon won in 1968 with a plurality with majority against him (Humphrey/Muskie for the Democrats and Wallace/LeMay for the American Independent Party ie anti-integration secessionists). To say that GOP operatives for CRP (Committee to Re Elect the President) cheated in the 1972 election is an understatement. The engineering of the nomination of George McGovern as the nominee was at the center of the Watergate Burglary and cover-up --- Nixon wanted to run against McGovern and undermining the candidacies of his Democratic Opponents was at the center of Nixon's re-election strategy. (To be clear, the winner of the popular vote in the primaries in 1972 was former VP Humphrey but he blew off most of the caucus states and some of the primaries and lost by being outmanuevered by McGovern forces.)
McGovern's campaign was largely built on organizing the anti-war activists, students and minority voters into a cohesive political force for change. His campaign commercials --- largely McGovern talking to large groups of Union laborers about the issues of the day, mostly focusing on his opposition to specific Nixon policies. We have an old saying in the South "Dance with the one that brung ya".
The political culture of the 1972 was still Hard Hats vs. Hippies. McGovern was trying to be anti-Nixon with two disparate groups, the anti-administration crowd (anti-war activists, students and minority voters) and pro-administration blue collar voters. Given SCOTUS rulings on Contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut) and Abortion (Roe v. Wade),the Kent State shootings in 1970 (a primarily white middle class university in Ohio), McGovern might have fared better focusing on Middle and Working class women and waning support for the Vietnam Way in 1972 (less than 30% overall). The political campaigns of 2008 and 2012 (Bring our soldiers home so we can do nation building at home) have shown how successful that message is. The political campaigns of 2008 and 2012 (Bring our soldiers home so we can do nation building at home) have shown how successful that message is.
1980 - In 1980, Ronald Reagan, four years after his unsuccessful primary challenge to Gerald Ford, ran as the heir apparant to the GOP throne.
After staving off, his challengers in the primaries (including his eventual VP --- GHW Bush), Reagan campaigned on one theme "Lets make America Great Again" The Misery Index, touting his economic record in California, and communicating a hard-line approach to the Soviet Union served as ample political weaponry against President Carter. The Panama Canal Treaty, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which led to the 1980 Olympic boycott) sold an impressivce image of weakness abroad. Double digit inflation and unemployment, gas prices (with lines!) and a general view that Carter was in over his head was a recipe for defeat.
What sealed Carter's fate? Two endorsements: former Watergate scandal prosecutor Leon Jaworski accepted a position as honorary chairman of Democrats for Reagan in September of 1980. Five months earlier, Jaworski had harshly criticized Reagan as an "extremist;" he said after accepting the chairmanship, "I would rather have a competent extremist than an incompetent moderate." The other Reagan endorser was former Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota (who in 1968 had challenged Lyndon Johnson from the left, causing the then-President to all but abdicate). Ouch!
Reagan's message --- the economy is in shambles, I have a specific plan to turn the economy around. Carter is incompetent.
Carter's message --- Reagan is too right wing to be trusted (a difficult argument since a conservative ideologues had not been in office since Harding and Collidge had been in office), Reagan is going to implement Cabinet style government, the importance of the decisions a President makes, and that John Anderson was a distraction in the race. Huh?
The better message. Reagan is another Goldwater. Reagan is opposed to the Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy legacy. Reagan has a radical agenda that will eliminate more than four decades of social progress. Doubt this message's success at your peril ---- it worked for Bill Clinton in 1996, except Clinton called Bob Dole evil as well.
1984 - By 1984, the American public had seen the political landscape tranform radically in a single decade. In 1974, the Democrats won big in the Congressional elections. In 1976, the Democrats controlled everything. In 1978, the political backlash in Congressional midterms was minimal (the Democrats lost 3 Senate seats and 15 House seats). In 1980, the Democrats lost 34 House seats and 12 Senate seats (and lost control of the Senate) and the White House. With a working conservative majority in both Houses, Reagan mounted a number of political sucesses on tax cuts and budget cuts. In 1982, the Democrats regained 26 seats and the GOP picked up 1 Senate seat. Divided government gave way to a more aristocrated construct....the House was in Democratic hands but the GOP majority in the Senate acted as a cooling force to contrast and constrict the progressive impulses in the lower House of Congress.
Reagan ran for re-election with the wind at his back. OPEC unity had fallen apart and its ability to control the price of oil had disintegrated. The recession of 1979-1980 had bottomed out in 1982 and the economy was actually turning around (thanks in part to Paul Volker, Carter's Federal Reserve appointment). The Soviet Union's political leadership was aging and its ability to control the Warsaw Pact was diminshed (the Solidarity movement in Poland is the most striking example). Reagan had provide fairly facile at keeping Israel close and the Arab world closer.
Enter the determined but largely disorganized Democratic field. Mondale, actually a potential presidential contender in 1976, was seen as the heir apparant in 1984. While most of the field seemed innoccuos enough, two contenders had the organizational skills to challenge him: Senator Gary Hart of Colorado (Hart notably was Senator McGovern's campaign manager in 1972) and the head of Rainbow, Rev Jesse Jackson. The pre-primary season (most of 1983) was largely speeches, debates and positioning by the field trying to prove nobody hated Reagan more than them.
Mondale eventually out-duelled Hart and Hart and won the nomination in San Fransisco in July 1980. As he approached the podium, ready to give his acceptance speech, he could take to routes: tell the delegates he hated Reagan (which they did as well) or tell the American people how he would make the economy better for everyone. Instead of communicating that Reaganomics wasn't working, Mondale went with “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes; and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.”
The rest is a sad tale ---- Reagan won with just less than 60% of the vote, every state but Minnesota, and dominated virtually every demographic.