Past Presidential Elections
Scott already warmed you all up on this post on who to vote for in past presidential elections.
Some additional thoughts.
1. I realize Jefferson and Madison were not particularly effective in office. But the Federalists were responsible for the Alien & Sedition Acts, the greatest threat to freedom this country has ever faced, outside of slavery. The Federalists are dead to me after that. That’s why there is absolutely no way I could vote for DeWitt Clinton in 1812 or especially Charles Pinckney in 1804. Noon has a theory about why Clinton was actually a pretty good choice which he can explain if he wants. But let’s remember that this is before the Erie Canal so he doesn’t have this under his belt yet. And with Pinckney, well, that’s just way too soon for the Federalists–even knowing that Jefferson’s Embargo was arguably the worst foreign policy mistake in the nation’s history.
2. I do agree across the board about Henry Clay, who was simply a better candidate than anyone else for most of those elections, outside of arguably 1824 when a John Quincy Adams vote could make sense. On the other hand, while Van Buren was indeed a pretty awful president, Daniel Webster is not great vote. Webster was the ultimate pre-Civil War plutocrat and while personally opposed to slavery, voted for the Fugitive Slave Act. I mean, you do what you have to do sometimes, but what a nose-holder.
3. On the other hand, 1856, now that’s a bad election. Really the worst in American history. Which says something given the stiff competition for this title. Who do you choose here? I mean, I guess you have to go with Fremont because Buchanan and Fillmore are both so odious. But Fremont’s utter incompetence in everything he ever did makes George W. Bush look like George Washington. To quote Richard White’s bit on Fremont from Railroaded “By the early 1870s, Fremont was a man so expert at transmuting opportunity into spectacular disaster that he was not only capable of squandering a gold mine but actually did squander one.” Said Jay Cooke of the man, “Fremont is entirely unreliable in money matters and it injures any one to have any connection with him.” Cooke didn’t say this because Fremont had the morals Cooke so very much did not; Fremont wanted to rip off the public as much as Cooke. He just wasn’t any good at it. Really his greatest accomplishment was an interesting daughter. His presidency would have almost certainly been an unmitigated disaster.
4. I respect going to the Bryan well all three times. Everyone forgets that Bryan was actually a tremendously principled man who attempted to do a lot of good in the world. Yes he was a fundamentalist Christian who embarrassed himself in 1925 during the Scopes Trial. He was also ejected from the Wilson Administration for not going along with the increasingly militarism of Wilson. Does that not buy him credibility? Plus, TR is the most overrated president in history.
Really can’t disagree that strongly going forward except to say that while Harding was lame, so was James Cox. Again, no good choice there. Also, I’d go with the underrated Charles Evans Hughes over Wilson. The politics of the late 20th century are too boring for me to argue about much. The idea that Howard Dean was some kind of great progressive is not actually supported by any evidence, but then neither are a lot of annoying myths.
I don’t understand these rules. Are we supposed to pretend we only know what voters that year knew?
I think you can split the difference. I don’t think we can assume everything the person did after the particular year, but you can certainly be influenced by their character. That’s how I took it anyway.
“Plus, TR is the most overrated president in history.” More so than Reagan?
Several of these are agonizing in their plausible (as opposed to unbelievable like McGovern, etc) “what if?” possibilities…Gore, Humphrey, Clay…gah. It’s fascinating to think about how many presidents you might actually support, as opposed to just counting up excellent vs. almost-burned-the-whole-place-down ones…
Reagan is frequently and popularly remembered in an absurdly counter factual and ridiculously generous manner – by propagandists and by all too many laypeople. TR is similarly treated, by actual historians. This is an important distinction. Though I’d not bet against Ronnie taking the crown later …
Yes.
JFK is very like Reagan in this regard: massively overrated by the public…but not so much by most historians.
Ronaldus Magnus you mean.
Jeez. Better to decide on the basis of who’d win a knife fight.
Hey, you neglected to mention Frémont’s brilliant Civil-War military career…
TR’s baseline in the popular imagination is more or less fixed now. Reagan’s is still plastic, and I think shrinking by the year. He’s been dead So Erik is, I think, just ahead of his time in his ranking TR as most over-rated.
Truman died in 1972, and McCulloch’s bio came out twenty years later. I don’t know if it triggered the Truman boom, or reflected it, but when I was a lad Truman was a famous dud.
Reagan’s been dead eight. Twelve years from now, I think his stock might well have sunk as much as Truman’s has risen.
For “He’s been dead” read “He’s been dead for what, eight years?”
Aargh. What price preview? The drift is clear….
Disqus has preview. But they’re probably not unionized.
Preview, Edit? Simple, just sign at the bottom of this page … ignore the bits about first-born child and forfeit of soul, those are just technical terms
I figure it had to do with all the people who thought Truman was a failure dying off, and their kids & grandkids not having memories of the long slog in Korea, the failed coal mine nationalization, the Taft-Hartley veto override and Macarthur and scandal scandal scandal. Honestly, Truman deserves a lot of credit for Europe. Perfect solution to a huge problem. But it wasn’t a terribly successful presidency by any stretch, it only looks that way if you judge only Europe.
And Civil Rights.
Truman did a lot of good but his confrontational public style and the demands he asked the public to meet were exhausting. After 20 years of Depression, WWII, Berlin, Korea, and China, the public wanted to enjoy things for a bit, take a breather – that’s why Ike was the perfect personality fit for the country in 1952. He didn’t have to be to win the election, but he was.
Govt integration was huge.
But Truman sided with Strom Thurmond on Humphrey’s plank. He ran to the right of Dewey on Civil Rights, mostly thru Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Jonathan Daniels (a powerful southern journalist). They argued that Truman would be more effective in maintaining their regime than the Dixiecrats could be. Party loyalty was central to its survival, in their view.
In Another thread, some liberal was pushing the line that ’48 Dem civil rights plank was stronger than the R one, and that the returning Dixiecrats just caucused with the Dems. I think he was just pulling shit out of his ass, but he got me thinking about the Dixiecrat episode.
They all returned and maintained seniority afak. I don’t know the backstory here, but that sounds like one hell of a Southern Strategy.
At least Truman did veto Taft-Hartley. I don’t think any of his successors would have. Congress gets the blame for the override.
Kennedy would almost certainly have vetoed Taft-Hartley. Not sure about anybody else.
Yeah, wow, 1856. “Do I go for a completely incompetent abolitionist, a slightly more competent slavery sympathizer, or another slightly more competent slavery sympathizer.” During one of the most pivotal moments in our history, there was just nothing going on, leadership-wise.
Generally agree with everything here. Bryan embarrassed himself in Tennessee, but his career was pretty good for a Democrat of his times. He was less racist than Wilson, though that’s not saying much, I guess. Still, women’s rights, social justice, noninterventionism–good stuff, then and now. TR is someone I’d consider overrated–probably the single most significant figure in taking us on an imperial trajectory, during his days at the Navy Department, and he governed for the most part like a typical Republican of his times with only a few touches of progressivism. (Not sure you could really justify voting for Alton B. Parker over him, though.) TR was a great self-publicist, ultimately. I honestly don’t think he’s more overrated than Andrew Jackson or John Kennedy, but ultimately presidential historical reputations often tend to be personality contests too.
With what we know about the disaster of Buchanan’s presidency, and the almost certain disaster that would have been a Fremont presidency, Fillmore actually doesn’t look all that bad by comparison.
Sure, he was nominated by the awful, xenophobic Know Nothing Party. But, iirc, he was never particularly engaged in anti-immigrant sentiment himself. And yes, he was pro-slavery, but in a cautious, Whig kind of way, not in the reckless Democratic manner – certainly his presidency looks pretty good when compared to the two guys who followed him.
I guess, basically, with Fillmore the issue is “He certainly couldn’t have been any worse than the other two.”
Maybe I’m just a single issue voter, but I’d have to go with Buchanan out of gay solidarity.
Let’s not forget one of those slavery sympathizers was also virulently anti-Irish!
Or at least was happy to run at the head of a virulently anti-Irish party.
More the latter than the former, I think – I seem to have a memory that Fillmore pretty explicitly had no real interest in Nativism, and basically viewed the Know Nothings as a vehicle for the continuation of conservative Whiggery.
Paul Finkelman’s biography in the American Presidents series makes Fillmore out to be kind of a horrible public figure actually. Fillmore was a bit of a conspiracy nut, an anti-Mason as well as an anti-Catholic, anti-Irish Know-Nothing. And his most notable act in office was his obsessive enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. That totally turned Northern Whigs against him and cost him any shot at a getting the nomination he desperately wanted in 1852. He was one of those guys who wanted to take slavery “off the table” so he concentrate on the “real” issues like raising the tariff.
“More so than Reagan?”
Reagan is valorized by only about half of the country, and is usually treated with something like respectful skepticism by the MSM. At least, his errors get discussed, and quite a lot of talking heads and journalists, even the most obsequious, seem to hint that he was, how to put it, not bright.
TR on the other hand is bi-partisan elite catnip.
Interesting, because in the 70s TR as I recall was seen as a buffoon, with the stunt of San Juan Hill as exhibit A.
Mornings on Horseback fixed that, at least for the general population….
Interesting electoral counterfactuals:
What if Nixon wins in 1960 and passes Civil Rights?
What if Lincoln picks an actual Republican as his VP instead of Johnson?
What if Burr outmaneuvers Jefferson in the House in 1800 and becomes president instead of Vice President?
This one is enough to make one cry. John Wilkes Booth got so much of what he wanted out of that bullet.
Lincoln’s greatest error.
If Atzerodt had more courage, and had successfully assassinated Andrew Johnson, the President would be one Lafayette Foster, President Pro Tempore of the Senate from Conneticut. His sole appearance in the three relvant books I have by Eric Foner describes him as a conservative senator. He was defeated in 1866, and ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat in 1874.
That doesn’t sound very encouraging.
Or, you know, just kept Hannibal Hamlin around.
Maine wasn’t a swing state…
The last two are interesting because they’re plausible. Those are things that COULD have happened.
I can’t see Nixon actually passing Civil Rights if he wins in 1960. It was a colossal political lift for Lyndon fuckin’ Johnson, who genuinely cared about it as an issue and was using JFKs corpse as a cudgel after one of the biggest landslide elections and clear-cut mandates of all time.
Tricky Dick would not have had that kind of muscle. Period.
The Civil Rights Act was passed pre-landslide.
I don’t know. Nixon came damn close to accomplishing as much as VP. And Nixon and LBJ were about equals in terms of political instinct. The reason Johnson struggled so much was because Kennedy was useless on domestic policy, and the battle was this close to lost by the time LBJ took office. Johnson had to turn near-certain defeat into victory, rather than starting it on his own terms. So Nixon with a full term to do it? Who knows? Of course, Caro’s third LBJ book implies pretty strongly that Nixon’s interest in civil rights was one of political advantage for the GOP, which was why he went the other way when the advantage was to be found opposing them.
My guess is that Nixon could have done it if he wanted to. And this was 1960 Nixon, the one whose platform supported the union shop and civil rights and social welfare programs. Had he won and served two terms, then was followed by, say, Hubert Humphrey for two more…you kind of have to wonder what the history of the conservative movement would have looked like in this timeline.
Ever heard of a guy named Neil Armstrong? Apparently his U-2 was shot down over China way back when. His remains were repatriated recently, though.
I was about to go off, and then I saw this from Lev:
Wow! Progress on LGM. Allow me to fill in the details. According to Philip A. Klinkner
re.
Klinkner’s provocative conclusion:
http://www.thenation.com/article/great-societizer?page=full
And, of course, what if Grant had been drinking at Appomattox?
What if Dewey did beat Truman and Earl Warren ended up as VP…and presumably not on the Supreme Court?
And then Eisenhower runs in ’52 as a Democrat….
We aren’t allowed to do counterfactuals on this blog. Can’t interfere with the Nader bashing.
Am I alone in thinking TR was okay as a President?
He held a lot of odious views, but so did a lot of Presidents, and policywise, on balance, he seems to be a net gain for the country. I also think that, while there’s a lot of bullshit mythologizing around him, some of the myths are rooted in fact; he really WAS a prodigious and interesting writer of books and letters, for example. That’s something you can, y’know, go check out and verify.
That said, I too would have deeply considered voting for Bryan over him.
You couldn’t have voted for Bryan over him. Bryan ran in 1896, 1900, and 1908. TR ran in 1904 and 1912.
Right. Bryan sat out 1904 because TR was too popular. Allegedly he backed Alton B. Parker over William Randolph Hearst because he didn’t think Parker could win, and then he’d be able to run again himself in four years.
TR was about as good a president as we’ve ever had when it came to progressive taxation
For the record, the Populist at the Scopes trial was Darrow. Bryan was a lifelong Democrat and did not even scknowledge the Populist nomination. (And Mencken’s favorite politician was Grover Cleveland, Pullman strike notwithstanding).
When the Populists were destroyed in the South the Southern Republican Party was too, and the Democrats’ White Supremacy had a triumphant 50+ year run. In North Carolina in 1896 a Populist-Republican coalition dominated the NC Congressional delegation, but they were destroyed by military action culmination in the Wilmington Insurrection. Among the leaders of this murderous attack were the Democratic Senator-to-be Ben Tillman (also wrongly thought to have been a Populist) Josephus Daniels, Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy and Roosevelt’s ambassador to Mexico.
Since 1948 or so pejorative and often erroneous cliches about the Populists have had a terrible effect on the Democratic Party.
his [Fremont's]greatest accomplishment was an interesting daughter
I don’t think he had any children. Perhaps you mean his wife (Sen. Thomas Hart Benton’s daughter)?
Jese Benton Fremont would have made a better president than any of the three 1856 candidates.
Or any of the 1852 or 1848 candidates, probably.
Right, right. His wife.
Benton himself would have been better too. But the Democrats sure weren’t going to nominate him in 1856.
Benton was an old, old man in 1856.
And a Buchanan supporter.
But it would have been cool to have a president who once shot Andrew Jackson in a duel.
He [Bryan] was also ejected from the Wilson Administration for not going along with the increasingly militarism of Wilson.
He resigned over the Wilson Administration’s position on the Lusitania sinking. 1200 of 2000 civilian passengers were killed. Bryan disapproved of treating this as an atrocity. I’m not sure that positon equals “not going along with the increasingly militarism of Wilson.”
The response to the Lusitania was absolutely part and parcel of increased militarism.
Look, I’m not necessarily saying that Wilson was totally wrong here. But Bryan was a pacifist in the office of Secretary of State.
Wasn’t the Lusitania carrying armaments, making it a legitimate target?
(1) There is no real proof that Lusitania was carrying armaments, although that was long rumored. But of course, the Germans didn’t know whether the ship was carrying armaments, and sunk it anyway.
(2) I’m not sure that a passenger liner carrying 2000 civilians is a legitimate target, even if the ship might be carrying armaments.
This. Expecting a peaceful response or non-response to the sinking of a ship full of civillians is ridiculous. Even the dumbest politician knows that failing to respond forcefully is political suicide, especially in a democracy.
Well, Wilson’s response was some harshly worded notes. I don’t know where exactly that falls on the peaceful/forceful continuum.
Would you care to expand on that sometime?
I imagine that if I lived back then, I would already have moved to Canada along with my Tory Doan cousins (the ones who survived, that is).
But between the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, I’d choose the Federalists, every. Damn. Time. Y’inz do realise, don’t you, that the D-Rs were essentially the war-hawk and Indian extermination party basically from Jefferson on, right?
And the Federalists were the party of imprisoning journalists and secession. Pick your poison.
That bit about secession strikes me as a bit of a low blow, in so much as considering seceding from a relatively new country over a stupid war that harms your economic interests seems rather different than seceding in the name of defending the institution of slavery.
Secession the Hartford Convention considered though and it destroyed the Federalist Party.
Certainly neither Adams nor Pinckney nor Clinton (who was not even a Federalist) was the least bit interested in New England secession, though.
the Federalists were the party of imprisoning journalists
Yes, but . . . Jefferson campaigned on reepal of the acts, and after being elected supported prompt repeal, which his party accompished in Congress. There was a time gap, however, before the repeal took effect–and Jefferson used that time gap to prosecute some of his political opponents under the Sedition Act.
You can tell he was a Republican, sometimes (well, he was a Republican in the same way that Hitler was a socialist).
Well, given my having decided on already having moved to Canada from my Tory sensibilities in this here counterfactual, I think my poison has been pretty well picked. :P
That said, though, I think Brien Jackson had it right. The Feds were protesting the senseless involvement of the newfangled United States in the Napoleonic Wars – on Old Boney’s side! Threats of secession may have been a little extreme, but a.) they weren’t committing treason in defence of slavery; and b.) on the substantive policy issues, they were on the right side. The D-Rs were basically backing the French dictator out of sheer greed.
“I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainer. Yours with regard, Danl Webster”
The Tom DeLay of his era!
This reminds me of those debates when we were kids over whether Superman was as fast as the Flash or whether Batman could kick Spiderman’s ass.
Remember this one?
Let’s mash them together and just start wondering about what would have happened if Superman had been running against TR in 1904.
First we’d have to send to Krypton for Superman’s birth certificate. That short form from Kansas is an obvious forgery.
Make it 1912, and they could take turns ignoring being shot in the chest.
Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet – there is where the bullet went through – and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.
’1. I realize Jefferson and Madison were not particularly effective in office. But the Federalists were responsible for the Alien & Sedition Acts, the greatest threat to freedom this country has ever faced, outside of slavery. The Federalists are dead to me after that.’
Wait that is both illogical and hypocritical! So slavery is a Greater threat to freedom than the Alien & Sedition Acts so the Democratic Republicans must be dead to you as well – correct. Unless of course you are arguing it would have been better for the UK to require the USA, and thus the inane policies of Jefferson and Madison were ‘better’ since that seems to be what they where aiming at and were just lucky the UK was tired.
Really the Democratic Republicans were aggressive in New York to suppress the free black vote – to there advantage – And the slave owning aristocrats of the South were willing to take that policy and slavery to the grave, break the country and try and provoke a wider even more disastrous war than the one they started.
I think in the long view the A&S acts pale in comparison especially when you consider the anti slavery argument of many Federalists rather than just drink the Jefferson cool aid.
I just curious how many blacks lost the vote in NY under Jefferson vs the evils of whites loosing the vote under the A&S acts? Which was a bigger sin against some democratic values?
I’m not sure than Van Buren was as bad as he has been portrayed. True, he had no solution to the economic crisis he faced, and would have been ideologically opposed to anything that we now think might have worked, but, given the state of economic knowledge at the time, what available policy responses were out there? Did anyone at the time have any better ideas?
“and secession. Pick your poison.”
Really outside of Jefferson/Madison paranoia I am hard pressed to find this supposed succession it was not in the report. Even if true is that more or less a political ideal the Democratic Republican intellectuals championed themselves?
[...] Erik and I recently discussed this post on retrospective voting in presidential elections. From a [...]