Wrapping up the Paths to the Presidency Series
Today's post on How Barack Obama Became President concludes our "Paths to the Presidency" Series. In the past nine weeks, we have looked at the path taken by each of the forty-three men who have occupied the Oval Office. There have been similarities, disparities, and most strikingly, an evolution of how one comes to secure the position as the nation's chief executive.
In the beginning, it was crucial for the President to have had some connection to the Revolutionary War. Those who had been loyalists were shunned from society, and those who had kept their heads down during the conflict were not seen as leadership material. One must either have fought in the conflict, as in the case of Washington and Monroe, or one must have risked his neck by assuming a prominent position of political or diplomatic leadership. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all undertook prominent roles in the forging of the new nation such that, had the British prevailed, their death for treason was a virtual certainty. Holding the position of Secretary of State was often seen as a stepping stone to the Presidency, but to acquire that position, one first needed the same kind of credentials and credibility required for a President.
As the Revolutionary War generation passed on, the opportunity to be selected as President depended more on good fortune than on any steady formula. While John Quincy Adams had the benefit of both pedigree and diplomatic excellence, neither of these paved his road to the President's chair, but rather the good fortune of running in an election in which no candidate captured a majority of electoral votes. It was what his opponents called "a corrupt bargain" reached by the House of Representatives that put him in executive mansion, not an outpouring of popular support. Other candidates were elected as "dark horse" selections in hotly contested nominating conventions in which the popular choices fell by the wayside as the party settled on a compromise candidate. Examples of this can be found in James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Warren Harding. In some of these cases, such as Pierce, Hayes, Garfield and McKinley, military experience made the candidate's selection more appealing, but this attribute alone was insufficient to put the candidate in the top tier of his party's choices.
During this period, there were a few candidates who possessed sufficient charisma, gravitas or public esteem so as to be able to capture the office by this attribute alone. Examples of this category can be found in military victors such as Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant and in the 20th century Dwight Eisenhower. Their military success inspired such confidence among the electorate that their electoral success was inevitable. In the case of Harrison and Jackson, it took a second try, but the candidate's military stature was the element that pushed the candidate over the top on the heels of a controversial predecessor. One example of a non-military candidates who enjoyed tremendous public confidence was Herbert Hoover, who won the White House without ever holding elected office or high military rank. Theodore Roosevelt is an example of a hybrid candidate who won widespread massive public support in part for his military heroism and in part for his energetic crusading civilian career.
There is a smaller subset of candidates who found a doorway into the oval office by being recommended by a popular predecessor. Martin Van Buren and William Howard Taft were the chosen ones, essentially anointed by the men who had preceded them in office. Popular presidents who saw a third term as unseemly were able to hand-pick their successors at a time when they still enjoyed enough public respect to do so. This has been a very rare occurrence and the majority of presidents have chosen to either remain neutral in the selection of their successor or to work behind the scenes and out of the public eye in advancing the changes of the person who followed them into the oval office.
There were also candidates who were fortunate enough to be possessed of the qualities that their times demanded. James Buchanan was a northerner acceptable to southerners who was experienced and had distance from his predecessor's mistakes. Grover Cleveland was viewed as a champion of honesty at a time when the public was fed up with political corruption. Woodrow Wilson seemed like the right man at a time when the public was looking for a progressive reformer, in the wake of monopolistic business practices. Jimmy Carter was a God-fearing Washington outsider running in the aftermath of Watergate. Most prominently, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ideas to combat the great depression at a time when the public was desperate for help, and also at a time when the public perceived his predecessor as uncaring. Like FDR, Ronald Reagan also offered those suffering from a bad economy a plausible way out of record high mortgage rates and double-digit inflation and he had the added bonus of talking tough at a time when the nation seemed to be getting pushed around by a middle-eastern despotic Ayatollah.
In the 20th century, there emerged a new type of successful presidential candidate, one who was ahead of the curve when it came to running elections, one who understood new technologies and who could accurately read the mind of the voters. Although he was mistakenly viewed by his opponents as a hick, Harry Truman adopted the perfect strategy in 1948 to overcome a divided party and a charismatic opponent. His advisers calculated not only the right message for the voters, but the right way to deliver it and they proved the pollsters wrong too. John F. Kennedy used the power of his father's wealth and the new medium of television to his advantage to eek out a narrow victory despite the handicaps of his youth, inexperience and religion. Lyndon Johnson learned from Kennedy's use of television, and ran a devastating advertising campaign, using spin to frighten voters about his opponent. Richard Nixon knew how to rise from the political ashes and take advantage of public dissent over the war in Vietnam. While Carter had the times on his side, he still had to win his party's nomination, and did so by crafting just the right message for the voters. George H. W. Bush used spin to make his opponent seem laughable, but four years later he was schooled by the master in the art of political spin. By all accounts, Bill Clinton's campaign should have been DOA, but his campaign team crafted a message that took the spotlight off of his opponent's strengths and on to "the economy stupid." George W. Bush also won a war of spin by convincing voters that what they needed was a compassionate conservative and that he was just that man.
Barack Obama has epitomized the most common modern path to the presidency. Today it is impossible to be elected president without the trifecta of a first-rate fundraising effort, a masterful effective ad campaign, and a presentable and attractive candidate who is elegant, eloquent and as gaffe-free as possible. Even when the rules changed late in the game, as they did after the Supreme Court changed the rules on corporate adverting, Obama was able to adapt to the new rules of the game and outscore his opponent. His campaign teams have known how to raise unprecedented sums of money, how best to spend it and when to spend it as well. The timing of how they spent their advertising dollars in the 2012 election campaign was nothing short of brilliant.
When it comes to running for president, times have changed, and many would say they have not changed for the better. It no longer matters if a candidate was born in a log cabin, and in fact being born in poverty puts a candidate a step behind his opponents, at a time when money talks louder than ever. Military experience counts for much less than it did at other times in history. Religious devotion or philanthropy seem to matter little. Although John Kerry had courageously served his country in Vietnam, the most quoted phrase about him in the news media during the 2004 election campaign was "flip-flopper". Being the most generous candidate to give to charities in decades (perhaps ever) did not protect Mitt Romney from being spun as some sort of evil Montgomery Burns. Even having a wealth of good ideas will not protect a candidate from the attack ads, as negativity seems to rule the day on the 24 hour news networks. Great ideas are no substitute for a full war chest. The future promises more of the same as the science of campaign spending evolves and more efficient strategies are crafted for PAC spending.
Suddenly the smoke-filled rooms that selected Warren Harding don't look all that bad any more.
In the beginning, it was crucial for the President to have had some connection to the Revolutionary War. Those who had been loyalists were shunned from society, and those who had kept their heads down during the conflict were not seen as leadership material. One must either have fought in the conflict, as in the case of Washington and Monroe, or one must have risked his neck by assuming a prominent position of political or diplomatic leadership. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all undertook prominent roles in the forging of the new nation such that, had the British prevailed, their death for treason was a virtual certainty. Holding the position of Secretary of State was often seen as a stepping stone to the Presidency, but to acquire that position, one first needed the same kind of credentials and credibility required for a President.
As the Revolutionary War generation passed on, the opportunity to be selected as President depended more on good fortune than on any steady formula. While John Quincy Adams had the benefit of both pedigree and diplomatic excellence, neither of these paved his road to the President's chair, but rather the good fortune of running in an election in which no candidate captured a majority of electoral votes. It was what his opponents called "a corrupt bargain" reached by the House of Representatives that put him in executive mansion, not an outpouring of popular support. Other candidates were elected as "dark horse" selections in hotly contested nominating conventions in which the popular choices fell by the wayside as the party settled on a compromise candidate. Examples of this can be found in James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Warren Harding. In some of these cases, such as Pierce, Hayes, Garfield and McKinley, military experience made the candidate's selection more appealing, but this attribute alone was insufficient to put the candidate in the top tier of his party's choices.
During this period, there were a few candidates who possessed sufficient charisma, gravitas or public esteem so as to be able to capture the office by this attribute alone. Examples of this category can be found in military victors such as Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant and in the 20th century Dwight Eisenhower. Their military success inspired such confidence among the electorate that their electoral success was inevitable. In the case of Harrison and Jackson, it took a second try, but the candidate's military stature was the element that pushed the candidate over the top on the heels of a controversial predecessor. One example of a non-military candidates who enjoyed tremendous public confidence was Herbert Hoover, who won the White House without ever holding elected office or high military rank. Theodore Roosevelt is an example of a hybrid candidate who won widespread massive public support in part for his military heroism and in part for his energetic crusading civilian career.
There is a smaller subset of candidates who found a doorway into the oval office by being recommended by a popular predecessor. Martin Van Buren and William Howard Taft were the chosen ones, essentially anointed by the men who had preceded them in office. Popular presidents who saw a third term as unseemly were able to hand-pick their successors at a time when they still enjoyed enough public respect to do so. This has been a very rare occurrence and the majority of presidents have chosen to either remain neutral in the selection of their successor or to work behind the scenes and out of the public eye in advancing the changes of the person who followed them into the oval office.
There were also candidates who were fortunate enough to be possessed of the qualities that their times demanded. James Buchanan was a northerner acceptable to southerners who was experienced and had distance from his predecessor's mistakes. Grover Cleveland was viewed as a champion of honesty at a time when the public was fed up with political corruption. Woodrow Wilson seemed like the right man at a time when the public was looking for a progressive reformer, in the wake of monopolistic business practices. Jimmy Carter was a God-fearing Washington outsider running in the aftermath of Watergate. Most prominently, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ideas to combat the great depression at a time when the public was desperate for help, and also at a time when the public perceived his predecessor as uncaring. Like FDR, Ronald Reagan also offered those suffering from a bad economy a plausible way out of record high mortgage rates and double-digit inflation and he had the added bonus of talking tough at a time when the nation seemed to be getting pushed around by a middle-eastern despotic Ayatollah.
In the 20th century, there emerged a new type of successful presidential candidate, one who was ahead of the curve when it came to running elections, one who understood new technologies and who could accurately read the mind of the voters. Although he was mistakenly viewed by his opponents as a hick, Harry Truman adopted the perfect strategy in 1948 to overcome a divided party and a charismatic opponent. His advisers calculated not only the right message for the voters, but the right way to deliver it and they proved the pollsters wrong too. John F. Kennedy used the power of his father's wealth and the new medium of television to his advantage to eek out a narrow victory despite the handicaps of his youth, inexperience and religion. Lyndon Johnson learned from Kennedy's use of television, and ran a devastating advertising campaign, using spin to frighten voters about his opponent. Richard Nixon knew how to rise from the political ashes and take advantage of public dissent over the war in Vietnam. While Carter had the times on his side, he still had to win his party's nomination, and did so by crafting just the right message for the voters. George H. W. Bush used spin to make his opponent seem laughable, but four years later he was schooled by the master in the art of political spin. By all accounts, Bill Clinton's campaign should have been DOA, but his campaign team crafted a message that took the spotlight off of his opponent's strengths and on to "the economy stupid." George W. Bush also won a war of spin by convincing voters that what they needed was a compassionate conservative and that he was just that man.
Barack Obama has epitomized the most common modern path to the presidency. Today it is impossible to be elected president without the trifecta of a first-rate fundraising effort, a masterful effective ad campaign, and a presentable and attractive candidate who is elegant, eloquent and as gaffe-free as possible. Even when the rules changed late in the game, as they did after the Supreme Court changed the rules on corporate adverting, Obama was able to adapt to the new rules of the game and outscore his opponent. His campaign teams have known how to raise unprecedented sums of money, how best to spend it and when to spend it as well. The timing of how they spent their advertising dollars in the 2012 election campaign was nothing short of brilliant.
When it comes to running for president, times have changed, and many would say they have not changed for the better. It no longer matters if a candidate was born in a log cabin, and in fact being born in poverty puts a candidate a step behind his opponents, at a time when money talks louder than ever. Military experience counts for much less than it did at other times in history. Religious devotion or philanthropy seem to matter little. Although John Kerry had courageously served his country in Vietnam, the most quoted phrase about him in the news media during the 2004 election campaign was "flip-flopper". Being the most generous candidate to give to charities in decades (perhaps ever) did not protect Mitt Romney from being spun as some sort of evil Montgomery Burns. Even having a wealth of good ideas will not protect a candidate from the attack ads, as negativity seems to rule the day on the 24 hour news networks. Great ideas are no substitute for a full war chest. The future promises more of the same as the science of campaign spending evolves and more efficient strategies are crafted for PAC spending.
Suddenly the smoke-filled rooms that selected Warren Harding don't look all that bad any more.