Romney Still Fails to Make the Sale

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 4-4-12

Mitt Romney’s three state sweep this Tuesday is being touted as the tipping point in his surge toward the Republican nomination. The candidate whose greatest ability has been his inevitability now seems all but destined to become the Republican nominee. But in this moment of near-triumph, it is worth examining the great failure of Romney’s campaign so far. In a country that loves to see candidates grow and evolve, with a media primed to write the redemptive campaigning comeback story, Romney never seemed to get better as a candidate, never had that turnaround moment.

Instead, he has been the Steady Eddie of the campaign trail, grinding his way toward the nomination, surviving the occasional gaffe, with no appreciable improvement in his political skill set. His constancy is impressive but his inability to learn, to improvise, to get better, is disturbing. While it is fun to bash an inexperienced opponent by saying the presidency is no place for on-the-job training, the job is so different from any other job that on-the-job training is the only way to function effectively in office. Former governors like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have had to work hard to adjust to the ways of Washington, while former senators like Barack Obama and John Kennedy have had to work equally hard to master the executive skills required.

Different presidents come in with different talents, but all need to adapt, to stretch, to grow. Either Romney does not have that ability at all, and is just too rigid, or he does not have that ability politically, and is just too patrician. Either way, this failure to kickstart his campaign, to turn it around, and to become the new improved candidate, is worrying.

As a result, Romney looks like he is on his way to inheriting the nomination rather than earning it. The last candidate to back his way into the nomination, Bob Dole, enjoyed higher popularity ratings in the spring of 1996 than Romney does. After months of exposure to the American people, after tens of millions of dollars spent, the latest polls suggest that only about a third of Americans view Romney favorably, and half view him unfavorably. Those low numbers and Romney’s  rigidity should be sobering to Republicans.

Of course, they can point to the Ford surge of thirty points or so in 1976, the Dukakis crash of twenty points or so in 1988, and even the repositioning Bill Clinton had to do in 1992. Campaigns are volatile. The stakes are high. The fight will be intense.  But unless Mitt Romney can start incorporating feedback, making adjustments, improving his political skills, he will be broadcasting a warning message to Republicans who desperately want to win in November, as well as Americans who desperately want to see strong leadership in the White House, in the event that he nevertheless does win in November.

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The Tsantorum Tsurge and anti-Mormon Prejudice

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 2-13-12

So far, it seems that former Senator Rick Santorum is having his Paul Tsongas/Bill Bradley Moment. Remember them? Each of these former senators enjoyed a momentary surge when running against a flawed candidate on the Democratic side. In 1992, Tsongas was the Massachusetts media darling who had a brief moment in the political sun, attacking Bill Clinton as a “Pander Bear,” with pander coming out as “panda,” thanks to Tsongas’s Massachusetts accent. New Jersey senator Bill Bradley was the former New York Knicks basketball star and Rhodes Scholar who distracted voters momentarily when Al Gore ran as the inevitable Democratic candidate in 2000. Both Tsongas and Bradley were more popular with reporters than with voters, particularly as they prolonged campaigns that threatened to end too quickly, given the media need for an extended fight.

Santorum is now proving useful to reporters anxious to drag out the Republican campaign, even as most reporters abhor his cultural conservatism. Tsongas and Bradley were each high priests in “Our Lady of the Principled, Priggish Politician,” appearing to waft above the normal political fray. Their fleeting surges fed mass American fantasies about politics as a higher calling. Santorum lacks that appeal—or much popularity with reporters, many of whom view him as a puritanical prig. Republican voters in conservative caucus states like his membership in a real Christian church, the Roman Catholic Church. In this election, that excites Protestant bigots who prefer a Catholic to a Mormon president.

While the bigotry from the Right against Mormonism has attracted attention, this bigotry is also being reinforced from the Left. The unfair obstacle Mitt Romney faces due to prejudice against his community of faith has not stirred enough indignation from the Left or the Right. On the Right, the passivity reflects the deep prejudice among the bigots who view Mormonism as an abomination, not a Christian denomination. On the Left, it reflects a pro-Obama protectiveness laced with an instinctive anti-Mormonism, based on its conservatism and strangeness. It is definitely a red-state religion.

A recent “Room for Debate” among New York Times guest bloggers asking “What is it about Mormons” reflected the kind of static Romney endures from those who would normally be primed to see the underlying hostility against him as a civil rights issue. The five experts the Times solicited about Mormonism were unflattering, to one degree or another. Sally Denton, the author of  “The Money and the Power wrote about the Mormon church’s “Male-Dominated World,” with the tag line:  “Given that Mitt Romney is a high church official and not just a member, voters are right to be circumspect,”  Jana Riess, who wrote Flunking Sainthood, asked  “Can a Candidate Be Too Perfect?” explaining that “Voters want someone they can identify with. Historically, that does not bode well for Mormons.” Ian Williams, a refugee from Mormonism, said: “It May Look Good on Paper…. But some of us who have experienced the Mormon life firsthand would rather choose a messy, colorful America.”  And “There Is a Dark Side to Mormonism,” warned another author, Jane Barnes, saying “When it comes to the social agenda, the Mormon church does not respect separation of church and state.”  Finally, readers learned about “Mormons’ Double Legacy” from Professor Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, who said “Just as Mormons seem to be ideal Americans, they also provoke typically American fears.”

In fairness, the short entries raised issues that are shaping the contemporary conversation about the man who still remains the leading Republican candidate. But it is instructive to substitute the words “Mormon” and “Mormonism” in judging whether the overall impression provided enlightenment or bred bigotry.  I doubt the Times would have run a debate asking: “What is it about” blacks or gays or Catholics or women or Jews?” Would it have been acceptable to write in 1960 about John Kennedy’s Catholicism: Given that the Kennedys have met the Pope and support the church,  “voters are right to be circumspect,” or in 2000 during Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman’s stint as the first Jew on a major ticket, that “There is a Dark Side” to Judaism?  How about an analysis in 2008 that “just as” African Americans like Barack Obama, “seem to be ideal Americans, they also provoke typically American fears?”

Standing alone, each of these articles analyzes the fears of others. But their cumulative effect together, with no full-throated defense of Mormonism, created this noxious impression. Mitt Romney has been careful to downplay his religion, emphasizing that he is a Jesus-believing, God-fearing Christian. Given what he is experiencing left and right, it seems like the shrewd but unfortunate strategy to follow, especially while the media and voters are still dragging out the nomination battle saga with the Tsantorum Tsurge.

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Mitt Romney Channels Dan Quayle as Gaffemeister

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 2-4-12

Everyone’s having a grand old time mocking Mitt Romney for finally “admitting”: “I’m not very concerned about the very poor.” The quotation has been bandied about as proof that Romney is a greedy, unfeeling capitalist. And, in a presidential campaign which emphasizes optics over good sense, Romney has already retreated, saying he “misspoke.”

In fairness, the quotation was taken out of context. Romney said: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America—the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.” In other words, Romney did not intend to convey contempt for the poor. He was saying that there are programs dedicated to protecting the poor but it is the middle class that is being completely ignored.

This “gaffe” and Romney’s other rich-related verbal stumbles recall the unhappy political career of Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush’s linguistically challenged vice president, who was dismissed as stupid for all kinds of doozies. Remember the time, when he was in Hawaii, and said, “When I meet with world leaders, what’s striking—whether it’s in Europe or here in Asia…” even though Hawaii’s a chain of islands far from the Asian land mass, and is at best called Oceania. Or the time he said, “We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad” when it was the transcontinental railroad. Or the time he said, “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.” Or, my personal favorite, the time he said in Beaverton, Oregon:  “I’ve now been in 57 states—I think one left to go.”

Don’t remember Dan Quayle saying these? Well, you’re right—it was Barack Obama. These and other verbal pratfalls, compiled by Daniel Kurtzman, are not all that well-known. This is because even his opponents agree that Barack Obama is smart and eloquent. When he stumbles, most people understand that anyone forced to talk as often as he is before cameras is bound to make the occasional error.

Romney on the wealth issue, and Quayle on the intelligence issue, ran into what I call the “O-Ring Factor.” Just as that particular part on the space shuttle Challenger eroded only because of specific weather conditions, most gaffes only stick where politicians are vulnerable. Obama is rarely tongue-tied, so he can get away with the occasional vocabulary or linguistic malfunction. But reporters and rivals loved questioning Quayle’s intelligence, just as reporters and rivals are now enjoying questioning Romney’s sensitivity to the other 99.9 percent of Americans less wealthy than he is.

Unfortunately, such pouncing comes at a price. It sets candidates on edge, making all of them even more superficial and artificial. None of us would fare very well with cameras recording our every statement. This campaign is seeking a chief executive not a robot. Let’s have an honest debate about the impact of Romney’s wealth on his worldview—but spare us this tomfoolery, or Dan Quaylery.

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A Referendum on the Republican Party — Not Just its Leaders

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 1-19-12

After months of debating, fundraising, positioning, posturing, and polling, America’s Republican candidates are finally facing the voters – with Election Day still nearly ten months away. As always, there is much to mock. But despite its flaws, America’s electoral system is working, managing a complicated, intense, continent-wide conversation among millions of voters seeking a leader.

Admittedly, the Iowa-New Hampshire con  is absurd, with two, small, unrepresentative states starting the voting process earlier and earlier so they can be first in the nation. Both political parties foolishly enable this childish behavior. And yes, the Republican debates often seem more like Bart Simpson versus Sponge Bob than Abraham Lincoln versus Stephen Douglas. The most memorable moment so far from hours of talking by America’s aspiring chief executives has been Texas Governor Rick Perry’s excruciating “brain freeze,” when he could not remember the third federal agency he wanted eliminated, culminating with his now infamous “Oops.”  But this year, especially, the electoral system is not the issue – the frustrations come from the historical context and the candidates themselves.

This election comes at a particularly unhappy moment in American life. The economy has languished for nearly four years.  As during all recessions, Americans fear the downturn is permanent, forgetting the business cycle’s resilience while losing faith in their economy and themselves. The last decade has been clouded by fears of terrorism and the petty harassments at airports and elsewhere from living in a lockdown society. Americans overlook George W. Bush’s greatest achievement, which is a non-achievement — there were no successor attacks on American soil to the 9/11 mass murders. The war in Afghanistan still festers, the withdrawal from Iraq was joyless, even Barack Obama’s triumph in greenlighting the daring operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, brought only temporary relief. It was the dulled enjoyment of a chronically ill patient who had a rare, good day, not the long-sought healing or closure.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s upbeat, historic, transformational, “Yes We Can” candidacy has bogged down in the muck of amateur-hour governing, producing a weary, spasmodic, sobering, “Maybe We Can’t” presidency. Obama has now appointed his third-and-a-half chief of staff in three-years. Most recently, the now-retiring chief of staff William Daley shared duties, after his first demotion, with Pete Rouse.

Amid this depressing context, the Republicans promising to rescue America have been more empty suits than white knights, super-cranks not superheroes. The front-runner, Mitt Romney, has been a Ford Escort-kind of candidate, competent enough but not exciting, rolling along smoothly yet frequently stuck in neutral. He has yet to generate the kind of excitement Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992 each needed to unseat an incumbent president.  Different Romney rivals have successively zoomed ahead sporadically only to crash, sputter, or run out of gas.

Underlying the theatrics and personality questions is a serious referendum about the Republican Party’s character. Romney appears to be the most reasonable, presentable, electable candidate. Voters looking for an anybody-but-Obama candidate should rally around Romney, as the Republicans’ best chance to recapture the White House.  The other candidates – especially now that Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry quit – are ideologues, representing doctrinaire strains within the Republican Party.  Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, in particular, hold fringe views.  In a general campaign, Democrats and the media would easily caricature either as yahoos, while Newt Gingrich remains an unguided conversational missile, who has now been tagged by his ex-wife as an advocate of “open marriage.”

The surges of the Santorum and Paul campaigns demonstrate that in the US today, a growing gap separates fundamentalist provincials and cosmopolitan moderates. The extremes are diverging, submerging the center.  Ron Paul’s libertarianism and Rick Santorum’s fundamentalism epitomize the reddest of the red state sensibility, which is deeply alien to the New York-California East Coast-West Coast blue state sensibility.  In an age of niche media – to each his or her own Facebook page and shrill corner of the Blogosphere — members of each social, cultural, political fragment in a society can have their own echo chamber. As they whip each other into self-referential frenzies, and as the headline-driven media amplify their shouts, they drown out the increasingly silent majority, making it harder to forge a common, constructive social, cultural and political conversation.  Of course, the primary campaigns in particular favor the shrill partisans. General election campaigns often help candidates find the center as they woo swing voters.

So let the games begin. As the Republicans battle it out, it will be interesting to see whether Mitt Romney’s safe, lowest common denominator politics wins, or Republicans turn to an edgier, pricklier candidate. And as Republicans pummel one another, President Barack Obama will be watching from the sidelines but trying not to get sidelined.  Hovering above the fray is nice but Obama cannot afford to be too removed – he is too vulnerable and risks irrelevance.

Republicans seek a new Reagan –a Republican upstart who unseated President Jimmy Carter in 1980.  Democrats should be hoping for 1996 Redux, when a flawed, unpopular Democratic incumbent, Bill Clinton, was blessed by an even more flawed, less popular Republican challenger, Bob Dole. For Obama, even winning by default will represent an historic, and possibly redemptive, achievement, as Clinton learned.

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Bring It On: Early Attacks on Romney’s Bain Capital Record May Inoculate Him Against Democratic Attacks

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 1-12-12

A crisis is looming for political reporters desperate for a drawn out, dramatic presidential campaign.  Republican voters may be less crazy and more predictable than the conventional wisdom suggests.  If Mitt Romney continues his winning streak because Republicans realize he is the most electable candidate, we might have a much abbreviated presidential nominating season thanks to voters making a rational, non-doctrinaire decision.

Anxious to keep things going, programmed for conflict, reporters have tried to place a big asterisk on Romney’s New Hampshire victory, warning that the emergence of Republicans criticizing his time at Bain Capital proves that in the week he won Romney also witnessed that which will guarantee his loss to President Barack Obama in November.  History suggests otherwise.  Hashing the issue out now just might inoculate Romney against succumbing to the attack in the general election.

The historical analogy most worrying to the Romney camp comes from the 1988 campaign, when George H.W. Bush decided to “go negative” after discovering he trailed behind Michael Dukakis by 17 points in the polls and was saddled with a “negative rating” of 40 percent, twice that of his opponent. In a move that would become legendary in the annals of political consultants, Bush’s campaign director Lee Atwater gave his director of research James Pinkerton a three-by-five card and said:  “You get the stuff to beat this little bastard and put it on this three-by-five card.”  One of the negatives Pinkerton discovered was an issue Al Gore had raised during the Democratic primary campaign—the prison furlough program that enabled a convicted murderer to rape a woman and terrorize her fiancée—and the devastating Willie Horton attack ad followed.

But there’s a flip side to this tale.  In both 1992 and 2008, primary attacks against Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as unpleasant as they were during the time, ended up being defused by the general election.  In 1992 the Gennifer Flowers adultery allegations and the Vietnam draft dodging charge had largely lost their sting by the Democratic Convention.  In 2008 Barack Obama brilliantly dispatched the Jeremiah Wright problem in March, so that it was not much of a factor in the fall.

In fact, John Kerry might have become president in 2004 had his primary opponents done a better job of attacking him more viciously.  When Kerry ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004, he ran as a war hero and was treated as such.  The Republicans “Swift Boated” him effectively during the general campaign, turning his war record into a liability.  Had Democrats tried that tack during the primary, Kerry might have been able to pull the patriot card on them and deflected the attack—just as Romney has to continue pulling the capitalist card on Republican critics, to squelch the criticism and try to unite his party behind free market values.

The Swift Boat campaign could inspire a great attack and a great defense on the Bain Consulting issue.  The Swift Boat campaign was so effective because the attackers mobilized dozen of fellow veterans, who stood there condemning Kerry.  If I were running against Romney, I would look to get as many individual, heartbreaking stories of job loss on tape, and then try to get as many of his victims as I could together in a room for a day of melodramatic, tear-jerking filming.  If I were running Romney’s, I would look to get as many individual, heartwarming stories of job creation on tape, and then try to get as many of his beneficiaries as I could together in a room for a day of melodramatic tear-jerking, filming.

Romney has to look at these attacks as opportunities—to preempt attacks that might appear again from Democrats and to strut his stuff, as they say. Attack ads are sometimes just what a candidate needs to come to life.  Romney has to demonstrate that he is winning these primaries because of his skills and vision, and not simply backing into the nomination, if indeed, he is “the one.”

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Relaunching this Blog: Fed up with the Iowa Corn Con

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By Gil Troy, HNN, 1-5-12

Mitt Romney’s margin of eight votes highlights just how small and unrepresentative the sample at the Iowa caucus is – -and how marginal that exercise should be. My third grade class presidency was decided with a larger margin. And, once again, the state that made Pat Robertson a viable candidate – albeit temporarily in 1988 – and has made ethanol subsidies a pork barrel standard, has given us the “gift” of Ron Paul. That 21.4 percent of .004 percent of the American people wants this extremist with a racist past does not say much, although Paul’s popularity with the younger voters could be a worrying harbinger.

The big news from this small sample, of course, is Mitt Romney’s continuing stasis. Barack Obama’s campaign people should be studying Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign. Back then, Bob Dole was the inevitable, Republican establishment candidate, dutifully nominated because of his electability, who failed to beat an eminently beatable Democratic incumbent. Romney’s people are going to have to work harder in rifling through the historical files. The candidates who have unseated incumbents in the last half-century – Bill Clinton in 1992, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Jimmy Carter in 1976 – were blessed with two advantages Romney lacks. First, each of the incumbents faced a tough nomination fight – Pat Buchanan ran against George H.W. Bush in 1992, Ted Kennedy combated Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Reagan opposed Gerald Ford in 1976. Furthermore, Clinton, Reagan, and Carter, in their winning campaigns, were able to generate an excitement among rank and file party members, and core committed partisans, that we have not yet seen propelling Romney.

At this point, the 1980 results, which were more an ABC – Anybody but Carter – vote than a referendum for Reagan, offer the most optimistic path for Romneyites (or should we call them, with a nod at Newt Gingrich’s McGovernik remarks, Mittniks?). Romney has to try casting Obama as Carter redux, failing to manage the economy, inspire Americans, or defend the nation affirmatively abroad, hoping to win the not Yoko but ONO vote – Only not Obama.

Meme Alert: We are now being told that Republicans are Divided. How is this shocking news at the start of a presidential nomination fight when Republicans have yet to choose a candidate? Isn’t that what the election process is all about, starting divided, fragmented, tied to many candidates, and then, through the democratic process, rallying around one nominee, then one winner?

Housekeeping Detail: This is the relaunch of my Blog which covered the 2008 campaign in detail, but has been much quieter lately as I finished a book.  As in 2008, I will post at least weekly through the presidential campaign, trying to provide some historical context to the discussion. My goal is to avoid three Ps – polemics, partisanship, and predictions –and provide a valuable fourth one, perspective. This entails not only rifling through historical files as I did above, but locating this important, nationwide democratic conversation in the broad sweep of American history and presidential campaigning history. I know dear readers, from last time, that if I ever deviate from the mandate, you will be there to chide me, correct me, and help me redeem myself. And we’re off….. Gil Troy on HNN

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NYT Campaign Stops: Can We Get Serious?

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By Gil Troy, NYT, 12-2-11

To select someone worthy of sitting in George Washington’s chair, sleeping in Abraham Lincoln’s bed and governing from Franklin Roosevelt’s desk, Americans crave a substantial presidential campaign, as long as they don’t have to endure too many boring speeches. Like every human decision-making process, presidential campaigns seesaw between the serious and the silly.

Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, political science and the dismal science demonstrate what we know intuitively, that human decision-making involves our heads and our hearts. We are neither fully rational nor totally emotional. Similarly, campaigns fluctuate between profound policy exchanges and trivial personality clashes, between significant indicators of future presidential performance and serious idiocy.

A substantial campaign is most likely when history conspires to offer high stakes with stark choices or an incumbent seeks reelection (and it helps if the candidates avoid defining gaffes or temper tantrums). Re-election campaigns in particular are usually well-focused, because at least one nominee presents a defined track record.

The 2012 campaign seems primed to be portentous, with an embattled incumbent confronting an opponent from an ideologically-charged party amid economic turmoil. But every campaign, no matter how high-minded, flirts daily with farce. “Unfortunately, when you run for the presidency your wife’s hair or your hair or something else always becomes of major significance,” John F. Kennedy said, when Walter Cronkite asked about his forelock. “I don’t think it’s a great issue, though, in 1960.” Actually, the Kennedys’ good looks brought John Kennedy great political luck.

Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, left; Associated PressHair has been the subject of political debate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, just as it was for John F. Kennedy, right.

The first substantial presidential campaign — which brought about America’s first transition from a ruling party to the opposition — also teetered between frivolity and philosophy. An ugly brawl between two founding fathers preceded the great deadlock of 1800, which you may remember hearing about during the election standoff in 2000. Federalists called Vice President Thomas Jefferson an atheist, a libertine, a traitor, “the infidel.” Democratic-Republicans called the short, fat pompous president, John Adams, “His Rotundity.” But the election also contrasted Adams’ centralized government championing industrial development against Jefferson’s vision of limited government with limited growth.

The 1800 election was the first to show how presidential re-election campaigns crystallize issues and polarize positions. A challenger need not be as doctrinaire as Barry Goldwater to offer “a choice not an echo,” when pitting boundless hopes against a first-term president’s adjustments to reality. Running for re-election in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt admitted there would be only one issue: “It’s myself, and people must either be for me or against me.” Running a referendum on Roosevelt, the Republican candidate, Alfred M. Landon, called himself “the direct antithesis of the present executive.”

Winners beware, though. The binary choice most American elections offer frequently overstates differences and oversimplifies results, especially when presidents win re-election. Most of the twentieth-century’s most lopsided wins kept incumbents like Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in power, but frequently helped spawn the dreaded second-term curse.

Campaigns fluctuate between profound policy exchanges and trivial personality clashes, between significant indicators of future presidential performance and serious idiocy.

Even landslides do not offer the political equivalent of a blank check, however much it might feel that way. Roosevelt overstepped during his second term, especially when he tried packing the Supreme Court. He wrongly interpreted his 523-8 electoral-vote triumph as a more sweeping mandate for his New Deal than voters intended. Lyndon Johnson went from feeling, “for the first time in all my life,” truly “loved by the American people,” marveling at “millions upon millions of people, each one marking my name on their ballot, each one wanting me as their president,” to being hounded out of office.

Sometimes campaigns turn serious by coinciding with serious trouble, especially impending wars, ongoing hostilities or economic busts. Voters in 1860, in choosing Abraham Lincoln, knew that they were empowering abolitionists and risking war. Four years later, a worried President Lincoln needed battlefield victories to woo voters who were doubting him and his war. Ultimately, bullets swayed the ballots as General William T. Sherman’s conquest of Atlanta two months before Election Day helped vindicate Lincoln’s war strategy, leading to his re-election.

While wartime campaigns often become votes of confidence — or no confidence — regarding the incumbent, the downswing in an American business cycle often yields an upswing in surprisingly theoretical, intensely polemical, debates about American capitalism. During a recession, suddenly everyone is an economics major — or a philosopher.  The Panic of 1893 triggered 1896’s “Battle of the Standards.” Americans escalated arcane questions about valuing paper money, silver coins and gold into a searing philosophical divide that stirred fears of civil war. The major parties nominated candidates with contrasting stands. Converting from currency to morality, William McKinley, the Republican goldbug, said “The American people hold the financial honor of our country as sacred as our flag.” And catapulting from economics to metaphysics, William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic-Populist silverbug defending “the producing masses of this nation and the world” famously cried: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” One Republican, John Hay, moaned: “The whole country has been set to talking about coinage — a matter utterly unfit for public discussion.”

Still, good intentions and clear visions do not guarantee Solomonic deliberations. In 1964, insisting that “I’m not one of those baby-kissing, hand-shaking, blintz-eating candidates,” Senator Barry Goldwater envisioned a “lofty, rational presentation of contending beliefs” against President Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater loved his campaign slogan:  “In your heart, you know he’s right.” But with Democrats sneering “In your guts, you know he’s nuts,” and his numbers tanking, Goldwater retaliated. By October he was snarling “Would you buy a used car from Lyndon?” and saying all Johnson did was “lie and lie and lie” — although the patriotic senator recoiled when crowds, riled by his rhetoric, booed the president. Time magazine deemed the 1964 campaign “one of the most disappointing ever.”

Just as ideologues can end up mudslinging, moderates do not necessarily sling mush. Mocking moderates is a great American tradition. Some, like Lewis Cass, the Democrats’ compromise nominee in 1848, earn the contempt. As Americans polarized over slavery, Cass ran as a “doughface,” a Northern man who molded his politics to satisfy Southerners, impressing few, alienating many. “And he who still for Cass can be,” one Whig wrote, “he is a Cass without the C.”

America also enjoys a rich tradition of muscular moderates. Barack Obama has already shown he can run an exciting, crisp campaign from the center. In 2008, both parties nominated centrist senators seeking the swing voters who could sway the election. These crucial voters, like the Reagan Democrats and the Clinton soccer moms before them, made a clear choice, this time for Obama. Interestingly, even though both Obama and John McCain played to the center, they clashed on foreign affairs, economic policy and governing philosophy, and in the process they offered voters two quite distinct alternatives.

Pool photo by Kevin Dietsch, left; United Press International, right President Barack Obama, left, was accused of being an atheist, as was Thomas Jefferson, right.

The history of presidential campaigning reveals the ingredients that yield substantial campaigns, including a charged historical context, clashing world views and coherent candidacies.  Still, every candidate remains one slip of the tongue, one gotcha question, one feeding frenzy, away from the chaos that overwhelms so many campaigns. Americans genuinely yearn for an ideal democratic exercise, one-part university seminar, one-part town hall. Yet the blood rushes, the pulse quickens, interest peaks, when campaigning turns ugly, emotional, personal. The contradictions of popular politics, meaning mass democratic decision-making, don’t just mirror but magnify our all-too-human contradictions as personal decision-makers.



Gil Troy, professor of history at McGill University, is the editor, with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Fred Israel, of “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2008,” fourth edition.

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