I have been thinking a lot about the difference between failed and successful presidencies lately, mostly because I so desperately want President Obama to be on the successful side.
First, some definitional terms. For me, a successful presidency means the following:
1. That they are re-elected. I know some of my high-minded readers may think this is crass, but it certainly matters whether American voters think well enough if you to give you a second term, and it's hard to really get a lot that's lasting done in only four years. I can't think of a modern president that I would call a successful president who only served one term.
2. That they actually get something significant and lasting done in terms of policy agenda.
3. That their policies work reasonably well in terms of overall economic prosperity and foreign policy.
4. That they end their term in reasonably good standing with the American public.
More on who do and do not fit this definition, and some caveats, in the extended entry.
Looking at presidents over the modern era, the last half-century, the presidents who got re-elected (not including LBJ, who had served less than a year after JFK's assassination) were Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush. The first and last of those presidencies ended in humiliation and failure in spite of the re-election, because of a combination of political and policy meltdowns, and because of corruption. For all of my dislike of Reagan's policies, and for all the damage they did to the country over the long run, I have to admit that his was a successful presidency in that he achieved most of his big policy priorities and ended with the country still feeling pretty positive about him. Clinton, in spite of my disappointment the lack of big change he accomplished, can also be rated a success: the country was relatively prosperous and at peace throughout his tenure, and he had a 60% approval rating not only as he left office but for most of his last five years in office. The other failed presidencies of the last 50 years include:
-Johnson, who in spite of the greatest domestic achievements of the last 70+ years, destroyed himself and his party on the shoals of the Vietnam War, and chose not to run for re-election after Gene McCarthy's primary challenge almost beat him in New Hampshire.
-Ford, whose economic policies were terrible, and who was almost beaten by Reagan in a primary fight.
-Carter, the most conservative Democrat on economic policies since Grover Cleveland, failed at reviving the economy, and was badly damaged by Ted Kennedy's primary challenge.
-George H.W. Bush also failed economically. He alienated the conservative movement by breaking his no new taxes pledge, and was badly winded by Buchanan's primary challenge.
What happened in every one of these cases was that the president started with a lot of goodwill and support from the general public, but when they ran into trouble later in their term, the base turned on them, and once that happened, it was impossible to contain the damage. The reason for this is simple: your base is who fights for you and defends you when you are in political trouble, and if they aren't backing your play, you get cut to the bone -- the damage goes deep. Trouble comes to every president, but you can survive it if you have troops on the ground who keep defending you and fighting your battles for you.
The Clinton presidency is instructive in this regard. In spite of the occasional issue disagreements and rhetorical New Democrat positioning, the Clinton White House worked the Democratic base groups very hard. As the (unofficial) liaison to progressives in the Clinton White House, I lived that strategy: we talked to our progressive friends constantly even when -- especially when -- we disagreed with them; we brought them to the White House for one meeting and event after another; and in the worse days of the Clinton Presidency, those first several months of 1995 when it seemed like Gingrich as going to roll us, we stood up to Gingrich, first on issues like the school lunch program and then on the biggest fight of all, the 1995 budget. Progressive groups rallied to our defense, and when the dust settled from the government shutdowns, we won the budget showdown, and with it, the 1996 election.
Will Barack Obama be a successful president? I believe he will, but he is going to run into big trouble spots down the road -- every president does, and in spite of Obama's political skills, he will too. The economy may have stabilized, but it's not going to start getting appreciably better for regular folks anytime soon. Those massively complex legislative battles coming down the line are going to make the stimulus battle look like child's play, and will have lots of ugly moments. I believe the president has to do three things to be a successful president:
1. Have some big wins on his legislative agenda.
2. Get the economy to start picking up for real people, not just the balance sheets of our stabilizing financial industry.
3. Keep the base excited and ready to both sell his agenda, and defend him when the trouble comes.
None of this is easy, but President Obama has formidable political skills. I have confidence that he can succeed in spite of all the potential pitfalls at all three things if he focuses on getting them done. He has to deliver on the economy for regular working people; he has to fight through the special interest and right-wing opposition and get health care reform, bank regulation, climate change legislation, and immigration reform passed; and he has to keep his political base motivated to keep fighting on his behalf. A tall order, but if he succeeds, he will go down as the most successful president since FDR.
YES WE CAN
Small print:
maybe I won’t
Although no longer in his base (lost me early, rejecting Rev. Wright, unconditionally supporting AIPAC, intending to expand the war in Afghanistan and continue the war on drugs, and approving FISA), I voted for him, acknowledged he was our best option, and continue praying for his success.
I am increasingly pessimistic. Whether not as represented before election, or changed after, his maintenance of status quo and acquiescence to the Military Industrial Complex bring despair for the country of my birth and citizenship.
Opportunities to restore the American image wasted – torture acceptance, rendition, habeas corpus denied, preventive detention, military tribunals – Executive secrets – preemptive attacks disregarding civilian collateral damage – failure to regulate creators of global meltdown.
Main Street abandoned – open ended bailouts of finance and industry without regulation, same old foxes in the hen house – rejection of Single Payer – discrimination against gays – war on drugs – pittance for education and environment.
Little effect on this ageing leftist, I choose “Leave it†over “Love it†15 years ago. But my children, and yours, will pay the price for these betrayals; my son may pay more in his next Iraq deployment.
Remember Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Selma, Birmingham, Kent State, Chicago, Viet Nam, Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge, Waco, Abu Graib, Guantanamo, Bagram, water boarding – more – I do!
Show me organization
I will show you oligarchy
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
If this is "success," then given me Jimmy Carter's "failure" that actually turned around energy use per dollar of GDP, put Naderites in charge of some fairly important agencies, and had a relatively honest administration. After Nixon, Reagan's administration holds the record for most indictments for malfeasance in office (29). (Clinton's total = zero!).
Most revealing, an interview with Carter elicited no regret about losing the Presidency because of the hostages in Iran, while Reagan's policies got the U.S. convicted of state-sponsored terrorism in Nicaragua by the World Court. While Carter preferred sparing innocent Iranian and hostage lives, Reagan would have killed his own mother (and then denied it) to get power.
Obama's decisions on Rick Warren and continuing to shovel money to churches under Bush's faith-based initiative tells me I still got someone who's not going to protect or strengthen the wall between church and state. Now we've got a 6th Catholic for the Supreme Court who isn't clear on her support for Roe v. Wade. All these make me uneasy.
Add to the other problems people have mentioned his DOJ's defense of executive privilege and power to keep everything secret. It's also kept Karl Rove's favorite federal prosecutors on board. Crook Ted Stevens is free while Don Siegelman is still in danger of prison and Paul Miner is in prison. WTF?
Does Obama have to go? It's too early to say that, especially with a lack of a viable challenging candidate. The deciding issue will probably be the economy, and with the way he's shoring up the banksters while letting the car companies screw their workers, I'd say that will probably be the point of failure.
His approach to health reform is strange. First, he is NOT fighting through special interest opposition, if you accept that the biggest SI entity is the industrial medical complex. Instead, he enabled this powerful SI to BE the support for his health care reform, by allowing them to control and stage the Senate hearings and one-day summit. As controllers of this process, this SI support apparatus successfully excluded their only challenger, the single-payer option.
Which brings me to the second strange approach to health care reform. He alienated the largest grassroots health care activist group in the country, the 59% of Americans who support a national government-provided option. Now it is true that among those 59%, not all will abandon him on this issue, but nonetheless, this is his base who fought for him during his campaign and who he now wants to defend his health care proposal.
As for the third strange approach to health care reform, his administration's focus on the RIGHT-WING opposition to health reform, he is misperceiving the right-wing opposition as being what he needs to address, when it is the BASE-OPPOSITION that is his bigger problem. To get passage, he is calling on what's left of his campaign volunteers to canvass their legislators to support the health care plan that was written by and for the medical industrial complex. Strange.
And you are not happy that Obama hasn't solved every crisis Bush and Co. have created.
Grow Up!
-a member of the base
My kids and grandkids will know what a corrupt, immoral administration Bush's was.History will bear it out.But they need an economy that will offer them hope more than they need revenge.
It's almost as if politicians today want people to forget that there ever was
a President like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is the measure by which
true greatness is measured. And while he was weak with age in his last
years and failed to see Stalin's scheme his earlier work is has not even
approached let alone surpassed.
Today we live in an age where money and media controls image and perception.
Obama is sailing on that now. If he does not reign in the banks, help Main Street
and get UNIVERSAL healthcare passed then he whiffed on all his big rhetoric.
So far he is NOT impressive. He's hitting easy pitches at batting practice.
The real at bat comes with finace regulation, single payer healthcare and
tax reform that brings us back to the sixties or fifties - all of whic I expect he can't
even see let alone hit.
This isn't happening. The base is souring on Obama. I was an excited Obamana supporter in the primaries? Why? He was the alternative to Clinton's policies and promised change so lobbyists and corporations didn't control things anymore.
I supported him in his early alienation of the base by inviting Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural.
Yet I am despairing over this administration and becoming disenchanted. How can I be excited about an agenda that includes not acting on "Don't Ask Don't Tell," escalating the war in Afghanistan, giving the economic reigns to Wall Street lover Geithner, not even letting Single Payer at the table, continuing to support 'Free Trade,' and showing no interest in prosecuting those who violated the Constitution"
I may end up preferring Obama's health care plan to the GOPs, but if needs his base to rally around him, he better start letting us be a viable part of what's going on. He needs us marching for him, not marching against him.
Incorrect. his base is NOT the people on this website, believe it or not. His base are the not the fall left who are obsessed with getting Cheney. They are people who just want things fixed and prosperity back. They don't want grand restructuring of the banks, they just want the post-Clinton/Bush regulatory changes rolled back. That's all that's needed.
It's sad, but the people of this nation do not want to hang the previous administration in a gas station, they want them gone and forgotten.
The republicans are strangling themsevles. Giving the right a big open punch like DADT would be silly right now.
I think he will act on many if not all of those problems Have some patience. The left can be very huffy about when someone they see as being "Their guy" doesn't respond when they say jump.
Have you noticed our concerns don't even enter the debate? We have a Democratic President, an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House, and, once Franken is seated, a filibuster proof Democratic majority in the Senate. But what's the debate between? The center and the GOP's right-wing base.
By the way. According to the polls I've studied, a majority of Americans actually agree with progressives: We want Single Payer Universal Health Care and we want prosecution of the crimes committed in the Bush administration. We know that ignoring the crimes of the previous administration means "looking forward" eventually to another administration knowing they can get away with the Bush crimes.
You failed to mention the most important quality in a successful president: leadership. So far, Obama has shown that he's more of a mediator than a leader.