Category: Politics – Politicians – Government in Action

Presidential Election Patterns: Implications for 2004

Presidential elections seem to follow patterns. Let’s begin with one-term presidencies:

J Adams 1797-1801 (following Washington’s two terms)

JQ Adams 1825-29 (following Monroe’s two)

Van Buren 1837-41 (following Jackson’s two)

WH Harrison-Tyler 1841-45 (following Van Buren’s one)

Polk 1845-49 (following Harrison-Tyler’s one)

Taylor-Fillmore 1849-53 (following Polk’s one)

Pierce 1853-57 (following Taylor-Fillmore’s one)

Buchanan 1857-61 (following Pierce’s one)

Hayes 1877-81 (following Grant’s two)

B Harrison 1889-1893 (sandwiched between Cleveland’s two)

Taft 1909-13 (following TR’s almost-two)

Hoover 1929-33 (following Coolidge’s almost-two)

Carter 1977-81 (following Nixon-Ford’s two)

Bush I 1989-93 (following Reagan’s two)

Except for the string of one-term presidencies from 1837 to 1861 — when the country was truly deeply divided and about to go to war with itself — the other one-termers (but for B Harrison) followed two-termers. A two-term president, having been popular enough to win the second term, is a tough act to follow. (The exception here is Ford, who was only a fill-in for the reviled, second-term Nixon.)

There have been successive two-term presidencies, but they have come in two well-defined clusters. From 1801 to 1825, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe each held office for two terms. Then there was a gap of almost 100 years before another — almost unbroken — string of two-term presidencies, which ran from 1913 to 1977: Wilson (1913-21) followed by Harding-Coolidge (1921-29), then Roosevelt-Truman (1933-53) followed by Eisenhower (1953-61), followed by Kennedy-Johnson (1961-69), followed by Nixon-Ford (1969-77).

If, since 1977, we have reverted to something like a “normal” succession cycle — a two-term presidency, followed by a one-term presidency, followed by a two-term presidency, etc. — GW Bush supporters will not be happy come November 3.

Alternatively, because the country is again deeply divided — if not on the verge of civil war — we may be facing a new succession of one-term presidencies. That, too, would be bad news for Bush-ites.

I Hate to Say It…

…but some families of 9/11 victims are sounding like typical liberal whiners. Why didn’t the government prevent the attack? Who’s to blame?

Well, the government that can’t prevent you from dying of old age is the same government that can’t protect you from every possible peril in the universe. When did government become our omniscient, omnipresent guardian angel?

But the whiners don’t get it. They can’t accept the hard fact that stuff happens. In this case, a brutally horrific act that was years in the planning by evil men who took advantage of the broad freedom of movement and action the U.S. grants to those within its borders, even non-citizens.

Who to blame? The answer is obvious, but the whiners can’t — or won’t — grasp it. The blame lies with al Qaeda, its allies, and its supporters.

Ranking the Presidents

They’re at it again, this time at Opinion Journal. Here are the rankings, with my commentary:

GREAT

1 George Washington. First in war, first in peace, always first in the rankings.

2 Abraham Lincoln. Still the tallest of the lot. Someday a president may stand taller physically (pray it’s not Kerry), but none will ever stand taller morally.

3 Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had the good “luck” to inherit a depression and stumble into a popular war. If he had been president in a different era he would have been considered a philandering failure.

NEAR GREAT

4 Thomas Jefferson. His greatness cannot be negated by historical revisionism.

5 Theodore Roosevelt. A hyperactive nut-case with good press.

6 Andrew Jackson. Another nut-case, with bad hair.

7 Harry S Truman. The right man in the right place at the right time.

8 Ronald W. Reagan. He ended the cold war, licked inflation, set the stage for the boom of the 1990s, and made anti-government rhetoric respectable. But that’s not enough for some people.

9 Dwight D. Eisenhower. The most cunning of the lot. His decade looks better all the time.

10 James K. Polk. Who? What?

11 Woodrow Wilson. The first of the pointy-headed ineffectuals to hold the job. Maybe he’d have done better if he’d kept his first name (Thomas).

ABOVE AVERAGE

12 Grover Cleveland. Great name and one of the last small-government Democrats. Would we remember him at all if he went by his first name (Stephen)?

13 John Adams. Belongs with Truman in the greatest crotchety president category.

14 William McKinley. Too bad he was shot while TR was his vice president.

15 James Madison. Sold “short”?

16 James Monroe. Excellent doctrine. Too bad JFK didn’t adhere to it.

17 Lyndon B. Johnson. Terrible foreign policy, terrible domestic policy, other than that, who’s complaining?

18 John F. Kennedy. Spent most of his time in bed (sick or with mistresses), so how can he be ranked?

AVERAGE

19 William Howard Taft. Best of the super heavyweights.

20 John Quincy Adams. Better in Congress than in the presidency.

21 George H. W. Bush. Stopped short of deposing Saddam, raised taxes, lost to Clinton. A three-time loser. But he leads the pack in names.

22 Rutherford B. Hayes. Replaced Grant’s bourbon with lemonade. Boo.

23 Martin Van Buren. The original Who? What?

24 William J(efferson) Clinton. Belongs with Nixon. Doesn’t deserve his middle name.

25 Calvin Coolidge. Most under-rated by far. He knew exactly how to be president: Keep your hands off the economy and out of taxpayers’ pockets. Another one who dropped his first name (John).

26 Chester A. Arthur. Another Who? What?

BELOW AVERAGE

27 Benjamin Harrison. Ditto to Arthur.

28 Gerald R. Ford. And double ditto. Could have been worse, though, he was born Leslie King Jr.

29 Herbert C. Hoover. FDR without the oratory.

30 James Earl (just call me Jimmy) Carter. Ford would have been better, which isn’t saying much.

31 Zachary Taylor. Yet another Who? What? The 19th century was replete with them.

32 Ulysses S. Grant. Bourbon drinkers can’t be all bad.

33 Richard M. Nixon. He and Clinton belong in a separate sleaze category.

34 John Tyler. Fathered the most children, and not even Catholic.

35 Millard Fillmore. I don’t “Know-Nothing” about him.

FAILURE

36 Andrew Johnson. Had the bad luck to succeed Lincoln and be a drunk, to boot.

37 Franklin Pierce. Another drinking president — seems like a trend.

38 Warren Gamaliel Harding. Who really killed WGH? Maybe he should have gone by his middle name, like Cleveland, Wilson, and Coolidge.

39 James Buchanan. Lincoln’s stepping-stone to immortality. Ranked last because he failed to prevent an unpreventable war. LBJ, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton were worse.

"Your government failed you"

So says Richard Clarke, former “anti-terrorism czar” at the White House. Truer words were never spoken. Government fails all the time. What’s amazing is that most people continue to look to government for “solutions” to “problems” that are really their own to solve (e.g., saving enough for retirement).

Government officials and employees aren’t — “West Wing” to the contrary — smarter, more competent, or more honest than other people. In my considerable experience they’re about as dumb, incompetent, and dishonest as the populace at large. Their dumbness and incompetence are leveraged into greater dumbness and incompetence by the gross size and rigidity of government bureaucracy, which has the reflexes of a day-old infant. Their dishonesty (at all levels, not just at the top) makes them even more dangerous to our well-being because government officials are rarely held accountable for their misdeeds.

Government-lovers will say: “Well, government does this or that, so how can you say government is incompentent.” I don’t say that government is always incompetent — though it often is — only that it is generally less competent than the private sector.

There are a few tasks that only government should undertake, national defense being one. But don’t expect even those few tasks to be done with consistent competence. The Union won the Civil War — despite poor generalship and many lost battles — because it had superior technology. That — not great competence — is why we will eventually win the war on terror.

Fact-Finding Commissions

When’s the last time a fact-finding commission actually found a useful fact? There’s always plenty of fault-finding, and sometimes facts emerge from all the “he said-she said-they said-we said” testimony. But what about facts that might actually help to prevent a future disaster?

I can recall only Richard Feynman’s discovery of O-ring failure as the cause of the Challenger disaster in 1986. But finding that fact didn’t prevent the loss of Columbia 17 years later.

Finding useful facts becomes even more problematic in the exponentially more complex world of human behavior. Our understanding, such as it was, of the causes of Pearl Harbor didn’t prevent 9/11. Our understanding of 9/11 will not prevent future terrorist attacks within the U.S.

But the headline writers and pundits are having a field day, so the game must go on.

Dick Clarke, Former "Anti-terrorism Czar"

Bush was okay in 2002, now he’s not okay. Talk about playing the flip side. I wonder where this Dick Clarke’s payola is coming from.

Rich Liberal Hypocrites

What do Senators Clinton, Corzine, Edwards, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, and Rockefeller have in common, other than their membership in the Democrat Party? They, like most of their fellow Democrats in Congress, want the rest of us to pay higher taxes to fund their favorite giveaway programs. They also possess great wealth. A little tax hike wouldn’t bother them, so why should it bother the rest of us?

IQ and Politics

This content of this post is now incorporated in “Intelligence, Personality, Politics, and Happiness.”

The Terrorists’ Election Strategy? Take 2

The Terrorists’ Election Strategy? Take 2

A few days ago I suggested that terrorists might “[w]ithhold attacks on the U.S. until after November 2, to distract Americans — enough of them anyway — from the war on terror. That would divert attention from Bush’s (rightful) strength as a war leader and toward the economy, where Bush (wrongly) seems to be vulnerable.”

Here’s another possibility: Terrorists might stage a spectacular attack in the U.S. and claim that it’s retribution for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Such a claim would be cynical, of course, but it would probably swing the election to Kerrry.

The Terrorists’ Election Strategy?

Withhold attacks on the U.S. until after November 2, to distract Americans — enough of them anyway — from the war on terror. That would divert attention from Bush’s (rightful) strength as a war leader and toward the economy, where Bush (wrongly) seems to be vulnerable.

Campaign Rhetoric

The two sides (if not more) of John Kerry:

1. The war on terror

a. Kerry will proclaim the war on terror a phony war if there is no significant terrorist attack against the U.S., its overseas interests, or its forces in the Middle East.

b. Kerry will proclaim Bush’s war on terror a failure if there is a significant terrorist attack.

2. The recession

a. Kerry will continue to blame Bush II for the recession, which began under Clinton.

b. Kerry will seek to identify himself with the so-called Clinton boom of the 1990s, which began under Bush I (or Reagan, if you prefer).

3. Consistency

a. Kerry will oppose Bush on every issue, even if it means that Kerry must contradict his earlier positions on many of the issues.

b. Kerry will fault Bush for having done what he said he would do about Iraq.

And so it will go.

Kerry for President of What?

A report in yesterday’s New York Times about John Kerry’s decision-making style includes this observation about Kerry’s inability to take a position and stick to it: “Some aides and close associates say Mr. Kerry’s fluidity is the mark of an intellectual who grasps the subtleties of issues, inhabits their nuances and revels in the deliberative process.”

I worked for a CEO who might have been described in just the same way: He, like Kerry, fancied himself an intellectual and sought every nuance of every issue before making a decision — which he would then almost invariably regret if not reverse. He, like Kerry, mistook his “style” for nuance and intellectual rigor, when it merely betrayed his self-doubt and lack of consistent principles.

My former CEO ran a think tank and was very well compensated for all of his intellectual pains. Kerry would do the country a great favor if he would retire to a similar sinecure.

Miscellany, Potpourri, and Other Stuff That Comes to Mind

* Taxes and regulations drain almost half of the output of the U.S. economy. Where’s the outrage?

* Truth is to government as daylight is to vampires.

* Democrats — having embraced balanced budgets as a sign of “fiscal responsibility” — must keep taxes high to keep the welfare state intact. They know where their votes come from.

* Remember “urban sprawl”? Of course there’s urban sprawl. Not everyone wants to live in the hot, crowded, noisy, filthy confines of downtown Washington, D.C., and other centers of urban elegance.

* Remember the budget surplus? Sorry it has vanished? Well, just remember that the surplus was your money. When politicians were arguing about what to do with the surplus they sounded just like thieves arguing about how to split the loot from a bank heist.

* If the President is responsible for the state of the economy, he must be responsible for the state of the weather as well.

* Those who say that the era of big government is over he must be talking about the Soviet Union.

* Here’s a success strategy for the Republicans: Drive the religious right out of the party and into the arms of the Democrats.

Political Parlance

Constitution
Archaic document viewed by politicians on the left as an impediment to progress by judicial fiat.

Entitlement
Legislative term for handout.

Fiscal responsibility
Shibboleth of big-government liberals, whose version of a balanced budget requires higher taxes to pay for “social programs.” Formerly a New Deal ploy characterized as “tax and spend, spend and elect.”

Gridlock
Something we could use less of on Washington’s streets and more of in the Capitol building.

Liberal
Someone who wants the best of everything for everyone, at the expense of those who have achieved more than mediocrity.

People’s business, The
Something which, it seems, cannot be conducted without imposing more taxes and regulations upon the people.

Socialism
Foreign political movement founded on the principle of “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.” Thought to be defunct but thriving in the United States, thanks to “progressive” taxation, “protective” regulation, and myriad “social programs” at all levels of government.

Social Security
Welfare program disguised as pension plan. Robs otherwise hard-working individuals of the incentive and ability to invest wisely toward retirement.

Unfinished business
Whatever it is that Congress hasn’t done lately to impede the economy and trammel liberty.