The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

---

---

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you must know that there was a special election in Georgia's Sixth Congressional District this week.

The district has been in Republican hands for nearly 40 years.

Democrats have been eager to anoint the new House majority that they expect after the midterm elections in 2018, and every special election to fill a vacancy that was created when President Trump tapped someone to join his administration has been billed as a preview of coming attractions. After Democrat Jon Ossoff grabbed 48% of the vote in April's so–called "jungle primary" in the Georgia Sixth, millions of Democrat dollars flowed into the district from out of state, much of it from as far away as San Francisco, for the June 20 runoff.

There were high expectations. As it was in most of last year's Republican presidential primaries, Trump has emerged the winner in every special election so far. The margins have been narrow, but close doesn't count. Democrats were hungry for a victory.

And Democrats, who have gone into each contest convinced that public resistance to Trump and the Republicans was just waiting to rise up and be counted, are sounding like the fabled boy who cried "Wolf!"

They have awfully short memories.

I don't know if Tip O'Neill was the first to say "All politics is local," but I know he used the phrase as the foundation of his campaign strategy — and he knew what he was talking about.

O'Neill, a Democrat and five–term speaker of the House, represented a House district in Massachusetts for more than 30 years and rarely faced a serious challenge when he ran for re–election. In that sense, there was nothing particularly remarkable about his re–election in 1982.

But it was only two years, after all, since Ronald Reagan's landslide victory over Jimmy Carter, and the presidency wasn't the only thing the Democrats lost. After more than a quarter of a century of being in the majority in the Senate, Democrats had lost that majority, and their majority in the House was drastically reduced — by nearly three dozen seats. To say there was a certain amount of anxiety among Democrats at that time would be an understatement.

There needn't have been.

The elections in 1982 were the midterms of Reagan's first term as president — and a clear pattern of American political history is that midterms in general almost always favor the out–of–power party. We've grown accustomed in recent times to the possibility that a president's party might not lose ground in one or both of the chambers of Congress in a midterm election, but that is a rare phenomenon that usually requires unique circumstances.

George W. Bush's Republicans, for example, benefited in 2002 from the national mood following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, winning two Senate seats and eight House seats. It was the first time in nearly 70 years that a president's party gained ground in both chambers of Congress in a midterm election.

You have to go back to the 1930s — when America was in the grip of the Great Depression — to find the previous example of a time when the president's party prospered in both chambers in a midterm election. In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democrats picked up 10 Senate seats (at a time when there were only 96 members of the Senate) and nine House seats. (FDR's midterms of 1938 and 1942 went against the president's party, and what would have been his fourth midterm, which he did not live to see, was a total disaster for his successor, Harry Truman, in 1946.)

While 9/11 is often compared to Pearl Harbor, FDR did not benefit the way Bush did 60 years later. In the 1942 midterms FDR's Democrats lost nine Senate seats and 45 House seats. In spite of what had happened in Hawaii less than a year earlier, voters were anxious about American involvement in World War II.

In the last century, a few presidents have seen their party make midterm gains in one chamber but not both.

Bill Clinton's Democrats benefited in 1998 from a national backlash against the Republicans' partisan impeachment proceedings. They neither won nor lost seats in the Senate, but they won four seats in the House.

Richard Nixon's Republicans lost 12 House seats but won two Senate seats in the midterms of 1970. There was still a certain amount of backlash against the Vietnam War and the Democrats' participation in its escalation.

In 1962 John F. Kennedy's Democrats gained ground in the Senate but lost ground in the House. The Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred a few weeks before the election, may well have played a role.

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson's Democrats gained five seats in the Senate but lost a staggering 59 seats in the House. The Republicans were more united than they had been in 1912 — when the party's two factions, led by former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in the 1912 presidential election, reunited with a common purpose. They also gave themselves pats on the back for the booming economy — the result, they told the voters, of policies passed by Republicans in the previous quarter of a century.

Eight years before that, Teddy Roosevelt's Republicans gained seats in the Senate but lost seats in the House (although they retained a significant majority).

I could go on, but you get the idea, don't you? (Those were the best midterm years for incumbents in the last 110 years, and, in 2017, Democrats have seen the special elections to replace members of the House who were picked to join the Trump administration as targets of opportunity. Sort of a kickoff to the resounding rejection they are certain Republicans will receive next year. Only one real problem with that line of thinking — Republicans have won every special election this year. If you want to have a revolution, you have to have some victories.)

But back to O'Neill.

Even with that history, Democrats were edgy heading into the 1982 midterms. And O'Neill, facing a challenge from a Massachusetts lawyer whose campaign was being financed by out–of–state contributors (primarily oil interests in Oklahoma and Texas), emphasized that point in his campaign.

In November O'Neill won with 75% of the vote, and Democrats recaptured more than two dozen seats in the House, padding the majority they had held since 1955.

But going into that election year, Democrats were anxious. They had taken a beating two years earlier, and, even though O'Neill had won 15 straight congressional races, he was a consummate politician who knew all too well that Massachusetts — the only state to reject Nixon's bid for a second term in 1972 — had voted (narrowly) for Reagan in 1980 (Massachusetts voted for Reagan again in 1984). Was it a symptom of an emerging shift to the right in a state long known for its liberal politics?

Reagan's approval rating in late 1982 was hovering around 40%. It went up when the economy started roaring back to life, but that was after the midterms.

In hindsight it is easy to see the uphill climb that was facing the Republicans in 1982, but it wasn't so easy to see from ground level at the time.

O'Neill took the campaign to the voters. The people who are backing the Republican in this race, he told the voters, don't live here, but they think they can tell you what to do. And he addressed the district's kitchen–table concerns while his opponent — and his opponent's backers — spoke about more national themes.

Does that sound familiar? Democrats wanted to make the Georgia election about cultural issues. The Republicans and their candidate, Karen Handel, wanted to make it about the issues that affected the daily lives of Georgians — taxes and jobs.

On top of that, Ossoff didn't even live in the district.

It wasn't surprising that he received about the same share of the vote that he received in the first vote.

Many Democrats were fooled into believing Ossoff had a good chance to win by his showing in that first vote. The previous congressman, now–Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, was re–elected there last year with more than 61% of the vote. Ossoff already had done better than any of Price's challengers.

Except in his first election.

Price needed a runoff to win the GOP nomination when his predecessor, now–Sen. Johnny Isakson, decided to run for the Senate. After winning the runoff, Price was unopposed in the general election. He won all his re–election bids without breaking a sweat.

And that is really what is so deceptive about special elections. They are held to fill vacancies — which means there is no incumbent.

Incumbents are notoriously difficult to defeat. They have all the advantages of incumbency at their disposal. Their primary obligation is to be aware of and responsive to the needs of a typically concentrated geographical area. As long as they do that, they tend to win re–election with little trouble.

The best chance to "flip" a House district usually comes when the seat is open.

I have heard all the talk of how Handel will face another tough challenge when she seeks a full term next year, but as long as she keeps her focus on her district, I predict that she will win re–election easily.

It's the way it is.

The Election of 1912

---

---

A century ago today, an incumbent president was rejected by the voters.

That might be a bad omen for the incumbent president whose name is on tomorrow's ballot, but, unlike the incumbent who lost on this day in 1912, at least he doesn't have to run against a former president who is running as a third–party candidate.

(If, on the other hand, Barack Obama is re–elected tomorrow, that might open the door to another possible scenario that was suggested in print by Michael Barone the day after the third and final presidential debate two weeks ago. More on that a bit later.)

Presidential elections usually have several "third–party" candidates, but, typically, only the two major parties (which have varied in the last two centuries, but, since the time of Lincoln, the dominant parties in the United States have been the Democrats and Republicans) receive enough support to make them factors.

Most of the time, third parties are, at best, distractions — and magnets for disgruntled voters who like neither of the major–party nominees. But, occasionally, the third–party candidate wins a large share of the popular vote — and a few even manage to win a state or two.

There have been several times in U.S. history when an incumbent president was defeated in a bid for another term; obviously, such elections involve both a past and future president.

But once — and only once — a three–way race involved three credible candidates who had been — or would be — president. That was the election of 1912. Those voters went to the polls a century ago today.

The incumbent president was William Howard Taft, the hand–picked successor for Theodore Roosevelt, who did not run in 1908 because he had served nearly all of William McKinley's second term plus a full one of his own and honored a pledge he had made in 1904 not to seek another one.

Taft had been Roosevelt's secretary of War, and they had been close friends, but a rift developed between them during Taft's presidency and, by 1912, Roosevelt was the acknowledged leader of the progressive wing of the Republican Party while Taft was the leader of its conservative wing, setting the stage for a battle for the party's nomination in 1912.

Even before the presidential campaign, a deep divide within the Republican Party was clear when Republicans lost 10 Senate seats and 57 House seats in the 1910 midterm elections. The 1912 campaign for the Republican nomination merely put an exclamation point on it.

---

---

1912 was the first year that Republicans held presidential primaries, and Roosevelt was, by far, the more popular candidate among the Republicans' rank and file, winning nine of 12 primaries, most by wide margins.

But three–fourths of the state delegations were chosen in state party conventions run by the party's establishment, which strongly favored the status quo, and Taft, along with Vice President James Sherman, was renominated when Republicans convened in Chicago in June.

(Sherman's nomination wasn't the slam dunk that 21st century observers might assume. He was actually the first sitting vice president to be renominated in more than 80 years.)

Roosevelt and his followers held their own convention, and Roosevelt was nominated to run as the standard bearer for the new Progressive Party. When asked by reporters about his physical condition, the 53–year–old Roosevelt responded that he felt as strong as a "bull moose."

It was kind of an odd question, I suppose. I mean, since leaving the White House, Roosevelt had been on an African safari and had suffered no ill effects on it, but he had been stricken with malaria during the Spanish–American War so the question was relevant. From that point on, the new party was known as the Bull Moose Party.

All that sounds like a huge gift for the Democratic challenger, doesn't it? Well, since the Democrat eventually won the election, I suppose it was — except the nominee was not clear when Democrats convened in Baltimore at the end of June.

In those days, a simple majority of the delegates was not sufficient to win the Democratic nomination. The support of two–thirds was required, but no one could even get a majority until the ninth ballot.

In an ironic twist, the initial frontrunner, House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri, was hurt when the infamous Tammany Hall political machine from New York backed his candidacy. Although it boosted Clark past the 50% mark on the ninth ballot, Tammany Hall's support had the reverse effect, earning the wrath of three–time nominee William Jennings Bryan, who had been officially neutral up to that time and was still the darling of the party's liberals despite having lost all three elections.

Denouncing Clark as the Wall Street candidate (that has a familiar sound to it, doesn't it?), Bryan threw his support behind New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson, a centrist, and Wilson gradually gained momentum, finally winning the support of enough delegates to claim the nomination on the 46th ballot.

Perhaps the greatest irony of that election year was the fact that Wilson, who had been finishing second to Clark in the previous ballots, was on the brink of withdrawing and releasing his delegates to vote for someone else when the schism between Bryan and Clark occurred.

If Wilson had given up a ballot or two earlier, Clark might have won the nomination — or Bryan might have boosted the candidacy of someone else.

And the course of American history would have been altered.

It was a different time, of course. There was no internet, no television, no radio to rapidly distribute images and information; news traveled long distances by telegraph. It was relatively early in the industrialization of the United States. The railroad had opened up the West, but the automobile was still new, and commercial air travel was still many years away.

Those who thrive in our instant information era would feel wholly out of place if they could be magically transported back 100 years.

It was, as I say, a different time. Titanic sank nearly seven months earlier — man flew to the moon and back half a dozen times before his technology permitted him to probe the ocean's depths and find Titanic's remains.

It was a different political time, too. It was, in the estimation of many, progressivism's plateau. A fourth candidate for the presidency, Socialist Eugene Debs, made his fourth run for the office and received 6% of the national vote — his highest share ever of the popular vote.

A labor organizer at heart, Debs had little interest in the American electoral system, and he spoke disparagingly of the so–called "Sewer Socialists" who had made political deals to win low–level elections.

The 1912 campaign would have been one for the books if only because three men who had been or would be president were on the ballot.

But there were other things about the 1912 campaign that were significant.

For one thing, Roosevelt was the target of an assassination attempt about three weeks before the voters went to the polls.

While campaigning in Milwaukee on Oct. 14, 1912, Roosevelt was shot by a former barkeeper from New York, John Schrank.

Schrank claimed to have been visited in a dream by McKinley's ghost, who had urged him to avenge his death and pointed to a picture of Roosevelt. He apparently had been stalking Roosevelt from New Orleans to Milwaukee, where he confronted and shot the former president in his chest at a hotel where Roosevelt was to deliver a speech.

Roosevelt was not killed. The bullet struck Roosevelt's steel eyeglasses case and a 50–page copy of his speech. The ex–president concluded that, because he was not coughing up blood, he was not seriously wounded, and he proceeded to deliver his speech (which took 90 minutes).

Roosevelt's diagnosis was confirmed later by doctors, who decided that it would be more dangerous to try to remove the bullet from his chest than to leave it where it was. Roosevelt carried the bullet inside his body the rest of his life.

An attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate has been rare in American politics. Only two men (Robert Kennedy and George Wallace) have been assassination targets in the last 100 years — and no major–party presidential candidate had been similarly attacked on the campaign trail before.

(Schrank was declared insane and was sent to the Central State Mental Hospital in 1914. He died there of natural causes in 1943.)

Another thing that made 1912 different was the death of Vice President Sherman.

Sherman suffered from kidney disease — in fact, he had delivered his renomination acceptance speech against his doctors' wishes — and he died at his New York home about a week before the election.

In America's history, half a dozen vice presidents had died in office before Sherman did — including Roosevelt's predecessor, Garret Hobart, in 1899 — but no incumbent vice president has died in the century that has passed since Sherman's death, not even Harry Truman's veep, Alben Barkley, who was elected when he was 70 years old.

So, by 21st–century standards, I suppose, it would have been shocking if, say, Vice President Joe Biden had dropped dead last week.

But voters in 1912 probably weren't too shocked. Vice presidents' deaths were more common than presidential deaths in the second half of the 19th century.

Sherman's death was unique, however, in that it left President Taft without a running mate a week before the election. The president of Columbia University, Nicholas M. Butler, was designated to take Sherman's place, but Sherman's name remained on the ballot.

In the long run, I guess, it didn't matter whose name was on the ballot. The Taft–Sherman ticket ran third and received the electoral votes of only Utah and Vermont. That was not attributable exclusively to Sherman's death, but it could not have helped Taft's cause to have such uncertainty about his running mate just days before the election.

Taft's loss, however, turned out to be the Supreme Court's gain, as Claude Marx observes at RealClearPolitics.com

And now, back to Mr. Barone's observation a couple of weeks ago.

In 2008, he noted, Obama "got a higher share of the popular vote than any other Democratic nominee in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson."

But most political analysts, including Barone, are convinced that, if Obama is re–elected, it will be by a considerably narrower margin. Only one president in American history, Barone observed, was re–elected by a smaller margin than the one by which he was elected originally.

That would be Wilson, who was "re–elected in 1916 by 49 to 46 percent in popular votes and 277 to 254 in the Electoral College," Barone wrote.

"If California, which then had only 13 electoral votes, had not gone for Wilson by 3,773 votes," Barone continued, "the incumbent would have lost."

Barone pointed out that Obama has not been definite about his plans for a second term.

"Presidents who get re–elected," he wrote, "usually offer second–term agendas. Obama hasn't, especially on the economy. As a re–elected president, he will be as free of constraints as Wilson was."

Just one thing stands between Obama and that second term — tomorrow's election. (And, for the record, Barone doesn't believe Obama will be re–elected. But Larry Sabato does.)

Fourth-Best President Ever?

---

---

"I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln — just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history."

Barack Obama
60 Minutes interview

---

My, someone certainly has a high opinion of himself and his place in American history.

I didn't watch the president's recent interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, but, apparently, in a segment that was not aired originally, he claimed that his administration's "legislative and foreign policy accomplishments" were as good or better than any other "with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln."

As I have said here before, I'm something of an amateur historian. I minored in history when I was in college, and I have always had an interest in the American presidency and American politics in general.

I'm also a journalist. That was my major in college, and it is the subject I am teaching now. I was trained to write and to think in Associated Press style, which constantly strives for clarity and consistency. So, when a president compares his presidency to "Johnson, FDR and Lincoln," my question is, "Which Johnson?"

The statement, you see, is imprecise. There have been two presidents named Johnson. I'm pretty sure I know which one Obama meant — Lyndon, who succeeded John Kennedy nearly 50 years ago, not Andrew, who succeeded Lincoln nearly 150 years ago.

Until the Clinton presidency, Andrew Johnson was the only president to face an impeachment trial in the Senate — where he was acquitted by a single vote. He chose not to seek a full term on his own in 1868.

A Siena College survey that was released in July 2010 rated Andrew Johnson as one of the five worst presidents in American history.

No, I'm quite sure Barack Obama did not mean to compare himself to that President Johnson. His image has undergone some changes in a century and a half, but, in recent years, he has been remembered as a "white supremacist."

I'm convinced the first black president in American history does not want to be remembered as comparable to Andrew Johnson.

Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, is almost a Lincoln–like figure for American blacks — and he was responsible for the most advancements — in housing, education, employment opportunities, voting rights, in fact rights in general — for blacks and all other underprivileged Americans.

But LBJ, as I wrote about a month ago, had the misfortune of being a president who wanted to do great things domestically (which he did) but served at a time when foreign affairs dominated.

I wrote that Obama appears likely to turn out to be LBJ in reverse — a president who first ran for the presidency because he wanted to end a war and wound up being undone by his inability to tame the economy.

In addition to teaching journalism, I have also been teaching basic writing, and one of the things I try to impress on my students is the importance of using the right word to express the right thought.

That isn't an easy thing for most people — even people who earn their livings (or who have earned their livings) as writers struggle at times to find the right word. I know I do. Most of the time, I keep a thesaurus within arm's reach whenever I sit down to write — and there are still times when I choose the wrong word.

Nor is it easy to select the right word when one is being interviewed without some notes or a TelePrompTer to help. Consequently, I do have some sympathy for Obama. I have seen many people "misspeak" (to use a word that was particularly popular during the Watergate days) in such a setting.

But this wasn't the first time Obama has been interviewed by someone. Far from it. He is no novice when it comes to being interviewed. He just has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth when he does.

When Obama suggests that his presidency is the best in history "with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln," I really have to marvel at his use of the word "possible" and what it implies.

In hindsight, Obama himself might admit that it wasn't the most prudent word choice he could have made, but I believe it speaks volumes about what he really thinks of himself and his presidency.

I think he really does believe his presidency, in its first two years, accomplished more than any other president — but he will allow for the possibility that LBJ, FDR and Lincoln accomplished more.

Lincoln is kind of a no–brainer. The Siena survey listed him third, and most surveys rank Lincoln in the top three.

FDR was the top–rated president in Siena's survey, which is also kind of a no–brainer. The only president to be elected four times, he guided the country through its worst economic crisis ever and is credited with leading it through World War II even though he died a few weeks before hostilities ended in Europe.

But Siena's survey did not rank LBJ in its Top 10. Apparently, Obama holds him in much higher esteem than most historians — at least the ones who were surveyed.

They ranked Theodore Roosevelt second. Roosevelt is remembered for several achievements — trust busting, conservation, labor laws, public health and safety laws — that continue to influence American life.

T.R. was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize — but, unlike Obama, he was rewarded for an actual achievement (negotiating the resolution of the Russo–Japanese War), not merely for his potential. By his omission from Obama's statement, though, it appears the president thinks his accomplishments in his first two years were greater than Roosevelt's.

The survey listed George Washington as the fourth–best president, and that should be a no–brainer, too. He is remembered as the father of the country, its first president. Thanks to his selflessness (he declined the salary that was offered to him, preferring not to tarnish, in any way, his image as a public servant) and his insistence that the leader of the new country should not be a monarch, we call our presidents "Mr. President," not "Your Highness."

It set the tone for the last 200 years, but I can only conclude that Obama also believes his contributions to American life in his first two years as president are greater than Washington's.

The Siena survey ranked Thomas Jefferson fifth. Once again, that should be a no–brainer, shouldn't it? Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and there are few documents in recorded history that have had the kind of influence on a culture that it has had.

Jefferson also was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States at that time — and still represents roughly one–third of its land mass.

But, apparently, Obama feels his accomplishments in his first two years exceeded Jefferson's.

Sixth in Siena's survey was Jefferson's successor, James Madison. Before becoming president, he was the "Father of the Constitution." As president, he sought to continue Jefferson's policies, but he may be largely remembered for the crumbling of U.S.–British relations and the War of 1812, during which the White House, the Capitol and many other public buildings were burned.

Seventh in the rankings was Madison's successor, James Monroe, whose signature achievement probably was the Monroe Doctrine, which established the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of influence and served notice to Europe that any attempt by any of its nations to interfere would be seen as an act of aggression and treated appropriately.

Ironically, America has not re–elected three consecutive presidents since Monroe's re–election in 1820. If Obama wins a second term next year, he would match Monroe's electoral achievement — but, apparently, he believes he has already bested Monroe as a president.

Siena's eighth–ranked president was Woodrow Wilson, a leader of the progressive movement. A Wilson biographer, John M. Cooper, wrote that Wilson's record of legislative achievement, which included child labor reform, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Farm Loan Act — was unmatched by any other president except FDR, and his advocacy of women's suffrage helped lead to the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Perhaps it is subliminally, but Obama seems to think that what he did as president in 2009 and 2010 is greater than what Wilson achieved nearly a century earlier.

Ninth on the list was Harry Truman, whose low point in his approval ratings (22) was unmatched by any president until Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush.

But that doesn't tell the whole story of Truman's presidency. From the day he succeeded FDR in April 1945 until he won the 1948 election, Truman did great things in spite of the fact that he had been virtually ignored by Roosevelt in his 82 days as vice president.

He knew nothing of the Manhattan Project, which gave him the weapon that he used to bring the war in the Pacific to a quick conclusion. The attitudes about his use of nuclear weapons in 1945 have changed over the years, but at the time and for years thereafter, it was believed to have saved hundreds of thousands who, it was said, would have perished in a fight–to–the–death invasion of Japan.

He had to deal with the transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, which always seems to be uneasy but was especially so after World War II. There were several economic conflicts that had gone unaddressed during the war years but boiled over when the war ended; Truman managed to deal with them all.

He was an advocate of the "Fair Deal," national health insurance and civil rights.

I would guess that Obama has quite a bit of respect for what Truman did as president — so much that he is clearly trying to duplicate Truman's "upset" victory in his re–election campaign in 1948. Truman won a full term largely by running against a "do–nothing Congress," and that seems to be Obama's strategy as well.

For that to work, you need a solid record of achievement to contrast with Congress'. Obama clearly believes he does, and so do his adoring supporters, but, judging from presidential approval ratings, millions are not convinced.

They are not convinced for much the same reason that the people of the late 1960s were not convinced about LBJ. They felt out of sync with their president's priorities. He was focused on domestic issues, which were (and are) important, but they were more concerned about the meat grinder of Vietnam.

In modern times, Obama's highest approval ratings have been for his handling of foreign affairs — when Americans are hurting at home, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. They need jobs.

The Siena survey ranked Dwight Eisenhower 10th. Eisenhower earned Americans' respect when he led the Allies to victory over the Axis powers in World War II, and he presided over a country that was at peace in the world but suffering from some postwar growing pains in the 1950s.

His most lasting legacy, I suppose, is the interstate highway system — and his warning, in the final days of his presidency, against the growing influence of the "military–industrial complex."

Both continue to influence American life, but Obama thinks his achievements are equal to or greater than Eisenhower's.

Maybe they are, but that will be up to the voters to decide next year.

The Morning After

It was 217 years ago today that a French feminist named Olympe de Gouges was guillotined during the Reign of Terror that was brought on by the French Revolution.

She was executed because of her radical views, which were widely distributed in political pamphlets.

De Gouges wasn't the only person who died during that particularly bloody chapter in French history. Many others, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were executed as "enemies of the revolution."

No doubt there are many Democrats in America who can sympathize. They may well feel as if they and others have been under the blade after yesterday's elections.

That's understandable, I suppose.

But this morning, my thoughts are of my mother, who has been gone now for more than 15 years and was a devoted Democrat during her life.

I don't know if anyone ever asked her, in precisely these terms, whether a glass of water was "half empty" or "half full," but Mom was a positive kind of person so I'm sure her response to such a query would be "half full."

Mom died in a flash flood, and she was in apparently good health at the time of her death so I have often thought that, had she not been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she would still be with us.

Of course, if she hadn't died in the flood, something else might have happened, but, if it is true that she would be with us today, I am sure she would have voted for Democrats in yesterday's elections (although, living in Texas, she would have been aware of the fact that Republicans far outnumber Democrats here and few, if any, of the candidates she supported would win), and she would be grieving their massive losses in the House and their reduced majority in the Senate.

She would try to learn from the experience. But she would not abandon her principles. She would look for ways to bridge the gulf. And she would be listening.

I will always remember a phone conversation she had with an old friend the day after Ronald Reagan won the presidency and his Republicans captured the Senate and slashed the Democrats' majority in the House in 1980.

I only heard Mom's side of the conversation, but I could imagine what was being said on the other side. "We lived through the Nixon years," Mom said, "and we'll live through this."

And, in the days ahead, Mom really did look for common ground with those with whom she disagreed. And she looked for ways to be more attentive to what those voices had to say. That didn't mean she agreed with those voices. But she was listening to them.

She wanted to work with those with whom she disagreed — she found much truth in what President Kennedy said about seeking common ground with our adversaries because we all inhabit the same small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures and we are all mortal.

Maybe it had something to do with the times in which Mom grew up. She was a child in the Depression, when families and friends had to pull together to survive, and she was a young girl during World War II, when Americans were united in a common cause in spite of their political differences.

Mom knew that no election is truly final. It is not a guillotine. It may seem like one at times. It may have seemed like one to Republicans in 2006 and 2008. It certainly felt like one to Democrats in 1980 and 1994.

In fact, I remember speaking with my mother shortly after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. Mom was worried about whether Bill Clinton would be re–elected in 1996. I told her that he would.

We had both been living in Arkansas when he was governor and we had seen his keen political instincts at work. I just knew, although I don't know entirely why, that he would be re–elected, that he was a pragmatist who would calculate what he needed to do — and then he would go out and do it.

And I tried to reassure Mom. I learned, after all, from her example.

Mom didn't live to see Clinton's re–election in 1996, but I went to the cemetery shortly after the votes were counted and stood next to her grave. And I remember saying, on a gray, chilly November day — perhaps to no one or nothing in particular — "Clinton won."

I couldn't say that to her directly by then — and if there is no afterlife, I said it to no one on that occasion, either — but I just felt the need to say that to her if I could or, at least, near her remains.

(If there is an afterlife, maybe she already knew. Or maybe spirits simply don't care what happens with the living. After all, if the spiritual world does exist, spirits know that what happens here is brief, temporary. It's not really important.)

If Mom could speak to today's Democrats, though, I think she would remind them that others have traveled this road before. And the ones who have survived are the ones who have listened to what the voters have had to say. Even the ones with whom they disagreed.

Which reminds me ...

I was reading an interesting article the other day in Commentary that compared Barack Obama to Woodrow Wilson.

There really are some remarkable similarities between the two men. For example, both were academics with modest political backgrounds when they were elected president.

Wilson "thought and acted like a professor even after he entered politics," wrote John Steele Gordon. "[He] always took it for granted, for instance, that he was the smartest guy in the room and acted accordingly."

Both were "the subjects of remarkable public adulation, and both won the Nobel Peace Prize for their aspirations rather than their accomplishments."

As I say, the similarities are striking.

Gordon is doubtful that Obama will be any more successful at bringing the two sides together than was Wilson, whose refusal to compromise with Senate Republicans prevented the League of Nations from ever achieving its objective.

And I am skeptical about that, too. I have seen little inclination on Obama's part to seek common ground, to be truly bipartisan. He gave it plenty of lip service when his party held huge majorities in Congress. Now we'll see if he can walk the walk.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the two men — whether for good or ill — is the near–constant media exposure that was Obama's ally on the campaign trail but with which Obama has had an uneasy relationship since becoming president.

In Wilson's day, television didn't exist and radio was brand new. It should go without saying that the internet was not a factor.

Today, no matter which news source you may cite, Republicans appear to have gained more than 60 seats in the House.

It is the greatest shift in the House since Harry Truman was president. But the thing that I find really interesting is a similarity that Gordon couldn't have known about when his article was posted on Sunday.

In the midterm election of 1914, two years after Wilson was first elected, the Democrats lost about 60 seats in the House. Wilson had benefited from a split in the Republican ranks when he was elected in 1912; incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated but many Republicans chose to support former President Theodore Roosevelt's third–party candidacy.

Democrats took advantage of the Republican rupture in the general election.

Republicans regrouped two years later and made massive gains as the electorate made its quadrennial midterm adjustment. Because the Democrats of 1914 held a majority in the House that simply dwarfed the one they had going into yesterday's midterms, the Democrats didn't lose control of that chamber until two years later — when Wilson was running for a second term.

When the votes had been counted in 1914, the Democrats retained their majority in the House, holding an advantage that is similar to the one the Republicans will hold in January.

Circumstances were different then. The economy was flourishing, and the policies that had been followed by Republicans prior to Wilson's election got a lot of the credit.

It is the third straight election in which more than 20 seats have changed hands in the House. That used to be a relatively rare occurrence. Never mind Wilson's experience. Of the 28 House elections between 1950 and 2004, only nine produced shifts of 20 House seats or more for either party.

It seems to me that the American people have been trying to tell their leaders something since before the start of the Great Recession — but certainly since that dreadful day in September 2008 when it seemed the entire financial system was imploding around us, and the economy was bleeding jobs.

And no one could stop the bleeding. It seemed no one was really trying. Maybe that's because no one has seemed to be listening.

Their sense has been that their leaders just don't get it. And my sense is that they will keep using the ballot this way until they get a system that really seems to be working for them. That someone is listening.

That's really the lesson that all politicians should take from this.

I think that is what Mom would remind the politically active Americans of today — Democrats and Republicans.

Remember who this is all about. Don't think that you have all the answers. Listen to their concerns.

You do otherwise at your own peril.

A Global Milestone

I guess I'm becoming more sensitive to milestones these days — not because I've been observing significant milestones in my own life, but more because I've been getting re-connected with many old and cherished friends in recent days and I've been learning of the milestones they've marked in the years that have passed since I last saw them.

Perhaps I'm just musing a little, but please bear with me because there is a certain method to my madness.

Today is the 90th anniversary of an event that turned out to have little positive importance in its own time but has had great ramifications since and may play a key role in the future of the world.

I am speaking about the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which was the meeting of the allies after World War I. During that meeting, the allies made decisions that they wanted to shape the conditions in which the people of the world lived for the remainder of the 20th century — and, they hoped, beyond.

The United States, France and Great Britain were the leaders of the postwar initiative, but dozens of countries sent representatives to the conference with hundreds of issues to discuss (in fact, the deliberations may have influenced the fight for women's suffrage in America because women's rights was one of the many topics on the agenda). The conference went on for six months, but it was on this day 90 years ago that the conference approved President Woodrow Wilson's proposal for the League of Nations.

Wilson's name is associated with the League, but the idea originated more than a century earlier, when German philosopher Immanuel Kant outlined it in "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch." In hindsight, that's somewhat ironic because perhaps the most significant outcome of the conference was that Germany was severely punished for its role in starting the war — and it was the hardship that was placed on the German people, as a result, that made it possible for Adolf Hitler to rise to power, eventually leading to the outbreak of World War II.

The League of Nations was the victim of politics back in the United States. Wilson made many compromises during the Paris Peace Conference, but he deeply believed in the objectives of the League. In what was a virtually unprecedented move by an American president, Wilson went to Paris himself, and he emerged from the conference having won its approval for the establishment of a League of Nations. He lobbied hard for the treaty's passage in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, which was (and still is) required to give its stamp of approval to treaties.

That reminds me of a story. One of Wilson's chief foes in the Senate was Henry Cabot Lodge, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. When Wilson insisted on personally delivering the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate, he was greeted by Lodge, who asked him if he could take the treaty in to the Senate body for him. Wilson replied, "Not on your life, senator!"

Because of the opposition he encountered in the Senate, Wilson set out on a physically demanding cross-country speaking trip to rally support for the treaty among the people. It is believed by many that this brought on the stroke that physically incapacitated him for the remainder of his term — although, to be fair, it has been speculated that Wilson suffered a series of "mini strokes" before and after that time that went undetected because of the absence of adequate technology for that purpose.

The Senate rejected the treaty, preventing the United States' entry into the League. The League proceeded, anyway, but that defeat in the United States made it much weaker than Wilson envisioned. The goals of the Paris Peace Conference were noble. The intentions were good. But without the United States, the League of Nations was unable to prevent the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s — and the deaths of tens of millions around the world.

After World War II, the concept was revisited and became the modern-day United Nations. Nearly 200 countries are members today, and it continues to play an important role in international relations more than 60 years after its establishment.

Actually, this gives me an opportunity to make an observation that I think would be beneficial to the new president. Wilson was the first Democrat to be re-elected president in nearly 85 years (and only two, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, have been re-elected since), largely because he had kept the nation out of war in his first term. It is said that, during Cabinet meetings, he did not take the role of the boss. He was more like the first among equals and listened to what everyone had to say, even when it conflicted with his personal beliefs.

Perhaps that was due to his experience in academics, where he presided over countless faculty meetings — he was governor of New Jersey when he won the presidency but he served for many years as president of Princeton prior to that.

In many ways, Wilson set an example that Barack Obama will be wise to follow. I know the new president has a great deal of respect and reverence for history, and his admiration for Abraham Lincoln has been well documented. But there are valuable lessons he can learn from other predecessors as well.

Wilson was seen by many as charming on a personal level but something of a cold fish on a public level. In spite of his shortcomings, he set an example every president, from the current occupant of the Oval Office to his future successors, should emulate.

The Election of 1912

---

---

Last week, Kenneth Walsh wrote, in his U.S. News & World Report series on consequential elections, about Theodore Roosevelt's sweeping triumph of 1904.

I wrote, in this blog, that I was never under the impression that Roosevelt's victory was ever in doubt in 1904 — and that I thought the most consequential presidential election in which Roosevelt was involved was the election of 1912, when Roosevelt broke with his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, and the Republican Party to serve as the nominee of the Progressive (or "Bull Moose") Party.

The Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson, benefited from the GOP's disarray and won the election. Four years later, in one of the closest presidential elections in our history, Wilson became only the second Democrat to win two consecutive terms in the White House.

(In case you're wondering, there have been five Democrats who were elected to two terms — or more — as president — Wilson, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton. Cleveland is the only one who did not serve his terms consecutively.)

Last week, I expressed the hope that the election of 1912 would be examined in the series before it concludes at the end of this month.

Well, perhaps Mr. Walsh reads my blog because the election of 1912, which I mentioned last week, is the subject of Walsh's article in this week's U.S. News & World Report.

I'm gratified, of course. I think the 1912 election has a lot to teach us about the evolution of modern presidential politics.

But, in a few hours, Sarah Palin will become the second woman to officially accept a spot on a major party's national ticket.

I guess I was hoping that Walsh would take this opportunity to write about the 1984 election and Geraldine Ferraro's role in it.

Of course, I don't know if Walsh considers the 1984 election one of the most consequential in our nation's history. Ferraro and the Democrats lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans that year, but as I established last week, it is clear that an election doesn't need to be a cliffhanger to be considered consequential.

The election Walsh wrote about last week — 1904 — was, in virtually every way, a landslide. Margin apparently plays no role in whether an election qualifies for Walsh's series.

So, if the 1984 election is included in Walsh's series — and I'm inclined to think that the election featuring the first female nominee for vice president was, indeed, consequential, even if it was a landslide — I think it could have been helpful and informative to reflect on the impact of the first female vice presidential candidate's acceptance speech on the night that the second female vice presidential candidate gives her acceptance speech.

It was an opportunity to examine what has changed in this country in 24 years — and what still needs to be changed.

But that's only a modest complaint.

My father's father was a college professor, and he was a great admirer of Wilson.

Wilson, I believe, was the only U.S. president who was ever president of a college or university (he was the president of Princeton University).

My grandfather was a very young man when Wilson was elected president, and he was inspired by Wilson's example. With his devotion to education, I have no trouble understanding how my grandfather would be inspired by the candidacy of an intellectual like Wilson.

"Wilson was one of the most brilliant and cerebral of America's presidents," Walsh writes. "He was also one of the most inflexible, which in the end kept him from achieving his most ambitious goal — the creation of the League of Nations."

I was only 6 years old when my grandfather died, and I have no memory of anything he ever said about Wilson. But my grandmother spoke of his admiration for Wilson often. So has my father.

I suspect, from what I've heard, that it was a great disappointment to my grandfather and many of Wilson's admirers — just as it was a disappointment to Wilson himself — that the League of Nations never lived up to the promise he believed it held — perhaps because it lacked the support from the United States' Congress that the League's successor, the United Nations, enjoyed three decades later.

As president, Wilson could not overrule the Congress, although he campaigned hard for the support of the American people in this matter — so hard, in fact, that the stress may have brought on the stroke that seriously debilitated him for the rest of his presidency and life.

And I suppose that's the legacy of Woodrow Wilson.

He sacrificed himself for a cause he believed in, as surely as the young men who died fighting the "war to end all wars."