America Needs Another Ike

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"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in censorship always lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."

Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 24, 1950

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As a student of history, I tend to believe that Dwight Eisenhower could not have been elected president in the modern incarnation of a world that was only beginning to develop when he served as America's commander–in–chief.

Presidents tend to be products of their times, not the other way around. Even if they enter the presidency with a specific agenda, circumstances often force them to change direction in ways they never anticipated. Presidents aren't prophets, and few probably would have chosen the crises they had to face.

But they are also influenced by the technology that exists when they live and serve. Some presidents have been slower than others to embrace emerging technology, and some have been ill–equipped to do so. Most presidents have been the first presidents to do something, but history always remembers things like:

• the first president to be photographed (John Quincy Adams — although he wasn't president when the photograph was taken);
• the first president to ride in a train (Andrew Jackson);
• the first president to have a telephone installed in the White House (Rutherford B. Hayes);
• the first president to ride in a submarine and an airplane (Theodore Roosevelt in both instances);
• the first president to own an automobile (William Howard Taft);
• the first president to give a radio broadcast from the White House (Calvin Coolidge), and
• the first president to appear on television (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

In a more recent presidential first, Bill Clinton was the first president to send an email, but apparently — and contrary to what his wife has said — he hasn't made any use of email in his post–presidential years.

Eisenhower, who was born 125 years ago next Wednesday, was the last president born in the 19th century. He was not far removed from his heroic military leadership in World War II, an experience that clearly shaped his view of the world, and he benefited from the public's good will because of it. But America was only beginning to see emerging technological advances, often made possible by war–related research and development, that would come to play important roles in American politics in the not–so–distant future.

In Ike's day, for example, it wasn't crucial to look good on television because TV wasn't yet a commonplace item in every home. By the time Ike's vice president, Richard Nixon, was elected president, there were a lot more TVs in American homes, and how a candidate came across on television was more important. Today it is impossible to imagine a candidate who does not give a good impression on television being much of a success.

In many ways, that is reflected by a growing tendency to favor candidates because of which demographic group(s) they are believed to bring to the electoral table. The face of America is its president, and Americans increasingly show an inclination for that face to be a particular color or gender — and, in equal and opposite proportions, disdain for what Martin Luther King Jr. would call the content of a person's character.

Ike wasn't very photogenic, when you get right down to it. And he wasn't a stemwinder of a speaker, either. But he had some core virtues. Modern politicians would do well to follow his lead. The country certainly would benefit.

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He said things that made a lot of sense, things that both Democrats and Republicans ought to study today, but he showed no penchant for what is known today as a "sound bite." He probably thought they were frivolous and overly simple, but such things win elections these days. Common sense often cannot be boiled down to a single phrase that is suitable for a bumper sticker — although "I Like Ike" wasn't bad for its day.

Ike might have been persuaded to run as a Democrat. He had no party affiliation and was pursued by officials from both parties to seek their nominations. It is interesting that House Speaker Sam Rayburn brushed off talk about Eisenhower seeking the presidency when the topic was first raised in 1948: "Good man," Rayburn said, "but wrong business."

Eisenhower decided not to seek the presidency in 1948, and many people thought he had passed up his only opportunity. It was widely assumed at that time that Tom Dewey, who had lost the 1944 election to Franklin D. Roosevelt, would be elected over Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman. It was further assumed that Dewey would be re–elected in 1952 — and Eisenhower, at age 66, would be too old to seek the presidency by 1956.

But Truman won in what is still regarded as a major upset, then became phenomenally unpopular and chose not to seek another term in 1952. By that time, Eisenhower was ready to declare himself a Republican after voicing his disagreements with Democrat policies. He may have been just as motivated by a desire to prevent Sen. Robert Taft, a non–interventionist, from winning the Republican nomination.

Eisenhower did deny Taft the nomination — after one of the closest, most bitterly fought presidential nomination battles in American history — but I have always wondered if it had as much (if not more) to do with Taft's unpopular opposition to the postwar Nuremberg trials. (In the interest of fairness, I should point out that future President John F. Kennedy praised Taft in "Profiles in Courage" for taking a principled stand in spite of public opposition.)

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During his tenure, Ike balanced the budget three times and cut the federal debt as a share of GDP. He was criticized as a "do–nothing" president, probably because of his domestic record, particularly Ike's record on civil rights. Seen from the 21st century, Ike's record on promoting racial equality appears to be unimpressive, but he took some important steps. Truman gets credit, and rightfully so, for desegregating the military, but Ike took it farther, ending the segregation that existed in VA hospitals and schools on military installations. His administration also navigated legislative waters in 1957 to pass the first civil rights act since Reconstruction.

Having grown up in Arkansas, one of the first things I learned about Eisenhower was that he enforced a desegregation court order that had been defied by Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas. It's worth noting that one of the members of Congress who opposed the president's action was Democrat John F. Kennedy.

I studied this when I took Arkansas history in school; in those days, I think it was a class everyone took in the fifth grade. For me that would have been more than a decade after the Little Rock Central crisis, but my memory is that our textbooks were brand–spanking new, so new that the books squeaked when you opened a cover or turned a page. Ours was the first class in my hometown to study an unbiased account of that moment in our home state's history. Those books had not been in use the previous year, when a text that was less balanced and tended to favor Faubus was used.

The New Republic's Richard Strout, bewildered by Eisenhower's soaring popularity (which seldom strayed below 50%), complained that "the less he does the more they love him." He didn't understand, as Ike did, that the American public was weary from the back–to–back experiences of the Great Depression and World War II. In the '50s, Americans craved stability.

Black Americans were still inclined to heavily support Democrats, as they had been since the ascent of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932, but in 1956 Eisenhower received 39% of black America's vote when he sought a second term. Within a decade, Republican presidential nominees were receiving much less than 10% of black votes. Win or lose, has any Republican presidential nominee even come close to matching Eisenhower's achievement in the last 60 years?

In his rather modest, soft–spoken Midwestern way, Eisenhower achieved things without feeling the need to resort to self–promotion. He respected constitutional limits — on the use of military power, of the capacity of the government and the role of the president — and worked within them. He didn't try to get around them.

But there were still times when he wanted credit for things he did.

"The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my administration," he said after leaving the White House. "We kept the peace. People ask how it happened — by God, it didn't just happen, I'll tell you that."

We could use another Eisenhower today. Unfortunately, no candidate in either party remotely resembles him.

The End of 'Recovery Summer'

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The summer of 2010 is coming to a close — and thus, I suppose, "Recovery Summer" also is ending.

But, while the administration may have had high hopes when it launched "Recovery Summer," things seem to have flatlined, at best, and a lot of folks just aren't feeling it.

They aren't all Barack Obama's political opponents, either. Some of them are like Velma Hart (see video), an Obama supporter who told the president that she was "exhausted" from having to defend him and his administration while she has seen little evidence of improvement.

Hart joked about having thought that she was past the "hot dogs and beans" stage in her life, then meekly asked Obama if that was the "new reality." If so, she seemed prepared to defend that — as if that's the way it is supposed to be.

But it may be hard for millions of unemployed Americans to see how her life has been affected by the recession. She has a high–paying government job, with all the benefits it provides, and she and her husband are putting their two daughters through private school — which is a choice that they made (as opposed to losing your job, which, in most cases, is a decision that is made for, not by, someone).

Perhaps they have had to make some sacrifices — most Americans, after all, have had to make some concession to the bad economy, even if it has been something as modest as not eating out as often or going to the movies as frequently.

If that's all that Hart's family must do to weather this economic storm, though, they're undoubtedly a lot better off than most blacks in America. Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times about how "black voters ... have been hammered disproportionately by the recession and largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party."

The Democrats' neglect of their black base "is likely to translate into lower turnout among blacks this fall," Herbert writes.

Well, it wouldn't surprise me. Black voters haven't exactly been turning out en masse in this year's primaries the way they did in 2008. Of course, neither are young voters or liberal voters. Without them, Obama could not have won the election in 2008, and it is highly unlikely that the members of his party will succeed without them this year.

It really must be difficult for the Obama apologists, and it's only going to get tougher. We're down to six weeks until the midterm elections. If there is no truly dramatic improvement in the economy between now and November 2, the only thing that can possibly (but not absolutely) reverse the Democrats' fortunes would be an international crisis.

And no one — other than the Democrats who are all but certain to be defeated in November — wants that.

But those who all too eagerly embraced an imprecise call for "change" are realizing, I think, that, in 2008, many people attached many interpretations to that call — and darn few are satisfied with the results, no matter how much Obama may protest that his solutions are long term.

In hindsight, a number of things should be clear, but hindsight is always 20/20, they say. All of which makes it even more ironic that Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker that former Vice President Walter Mondale sees many similarities between the Obama presidency and the one in which Mondale played a key role, the presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

Now, I voted for President Carter in 1980. It was the first presidential election in which I was old enough to vote, and I believed that President Carter had been doing a good job in spite of the obstacles that kept being thrown his way. I was also deeply suspicious — and, I still think, rightfully so — of Ronald Reagan's policies.

But I was in the minority that year.

When Mondale tells Mayer that the American people "just turned against us — same as with Obama," I know exactly what he's talking about. I lived through it. And it has had a profound influence on how I perceive political movements in America.

Mondale is candid about the things that Carter did wrong — and the lessons Obama and the other members of his party should have learned from that experience 30 years ago but apparently didn't.

The former vice president does seem to have learned from the Clinton experience, noting that Obama "needs to get rid of those teleprompters, and connect. He's smart as hell. He can do it. Look right into those cameras and tell people he's hurting right along with them."

In other words, make sure the voters know that he feels their pain. With his professorial demeanor, he often comes across as a cold fish — which was one of the criticisms of Carter the engineer.

Carter, Mondale reminded Mayer, had an impressive list of legislative and diplomatic accomplishments, but they didn't seem to help him with the voters. And his image wasn't enhanced by his handling of Congress.

In all, Mondale favors a more hardball approach. "[T]he idea of turning things over to Congress — that doesn't work even when you own Congress," Mondale said, and he spoke from experience. Democrats enjoyed large congressional majorities in the post–Watergate years. "You have to ride 'em."

And he was critical of Obama's quixotic quest for bipartisanship. "You should explain clearly what you want, and, if [the Republicans] oppose you, attack them for it."

Mondale is somewhat encouraging in his assessment of Obama's future prospects. Unlike 1980, when President Carter was challenged for the nomination by Ted Kennedy, Mondale does not envision anything like that for Obama.

But I'm not sure about that. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended more than a year ago, but millions of Americans remain unemployed 15 months later. If things get worse in 2011, it isn't hard for me to imagine a Democrat challenging the president for the nomination — either seriously (i.e. Kennedy) or symbolically (i.e. Pat Buchanan).

That really isn't the worst of it for the administration.

As Catherine Rampell observes in the New York Times, "The announcement also implies that any contraction that might lie ahead would be a separate and distinct recession, and one that the Obama administration could not claim to have inherited."

Well, that's not really true. The Obama administration could still claim — although not plausibly — to have inherited it. Maybe they could get away with it. Probably not, though.

And the race card probably wouldn't work, either. And "change" can't be brought back for an encore because the voters already have seen how that one worked.

I guess the strategy will depend on how much Obama and the Democrats are forced to neglect the economy while trying to defend the tenuous turf they won in their extended skirmish over health care reform.

Because Republicans are making no secret of their desire to chip away at, if not repeal outright, the health care reform law.

Such talk was the fodder of jokes a year ago. It's no joking matter for Democrats today.

And things are looking bad for Democrats in places they never would have expected a year ago. Such as:

• West Virginia, where the state's voters must select a replacement for late Sen. Robert Byrd. Public Policy Polling says the Republican candidate leads the state's popular Democratic governor by three percentage points in a poll of likely voters.


• Wisconsin, where a Daily Kos/PPP poll of likely voters shows the Republican challenger holding a double–digit lead over three–term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Many races in states and districts are volatile this year, more volatile than just about anyone predicted 18 months ago.

I remember, after Obama had been elected and Democrats were giddy with their victory, there was plenty of talk about which great American president Obama's administration would most resemble.

Not whether he would be up to the enormous challenge he faced. It was taken for granted that he would be.

Would he be another Lincoln? Or another Washington? Or another FDR? In some scenarios, he was going to be another JFK because, like Kennedy, he broke a barrier that many thought could never be broken.

But we're almost halfway through Obama's term, and the question must be asked by Democrats when they ponder the 2012 campaign. It can no longer be avoided.

Is it possible? In an electoral context, could he be another Jimmy Carter?

Hunting for Clues to Voter Behavior

It's an occupational hazard for political operatives — trying to anticipate voter behavior.

And that task is being put to the test in 2008, with the first black presidential nominee.

So political operatives would be well advised to read what Paul West has written in the Chicago Tribune, comparing two statewide political campaigns from 2006 that featured black candidates.

Actually, there were more than two such races in the last election — and, of course, each was subject to its own set of issues, the dynamics of the voter pool and the quirks of each candidates’ styles and personalities — but the races to which West refers were noteworthy and could prove instructive for political analysts.

Those campaigns were the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts and the Senate race in Tennessee.

In Massachusetts, the black candidate, Deval Patrick, was elected. In Tennessee, the black candidate, Harold Ford, lost.

Both candidates are Democrats. In the interest of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that there have been black Republicans (not many, but a few) who ran for statewide office in recent elections — for example, former Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver Lynn Swann lost the race for Pennsylvania governor (receiving only 40% of the vote) two years ago.

West suggests that ”racial attitudes are going to influence” the race between Barack Obama and John McCain. ”But there is growing evidence,” he writes, ”that race is losing its potency as a determining factor in U.S. politics.”

He acknowledges ”some uncomfortable moments” during the primaries that were brought on by observations of ”similarities between language that [Patrick and Obama] had used,” leading to charges of plagiarism.

Nevertheless, ”Patrick won in a landslide, after a general election campaign that resembled the one Obama is running against John McCain. He exploited the public's desire for change and tied his Republican opponent to an unpopular Republican administration in the state.”

But, as West points out, ”[b]ecoming governor is not the same thing as gaining the presidency … and culturally liberal Massachusetts is not America.”

From Obama’s perspective, there isn’t that much to be learned from the Massachusetts experience — except, perhaps, that it takes a special set of circumstances that are favorable to Republicans and either a unique nominee or a weak opponent for the GOP to win a statewide race there. And none of those conditions appear to apply in 2008.

The state has had a reputation for liberalism that goes back at least to the 1972 campaign, when it was the only state to support George McGovern against Richard Nixon.

It’s true that three Democratic nominees in the last five decades (John F. Kennedy in 1960, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004) were favorite sons from Masssachusetts — and two others from the Bay State, Ted Kennedy and Paul Tsongas, sought the nomination.

It’s also true that Massachusetts voted for Ronald Reagan twice (both times by narrow margins), and it supported popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower twice in the 1950s.

But, realistically, other than the Reagan and Eisenhower elections, Massachusetts has been voting for Democrats for president since the stock market crashed in 1929, and most observers expect it to support Obama this fall.

I think there’s more to be learned from Tennessee, a Southern state that isn’t part of the ”Deep South” and was more receptive to the civil rights movement in the 1960s than some of its neighbors, like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

I believe it is in the states located along the geographical edges of the Old South where the Democrats may have the best chance to pull off an upset. At the moment, I'm still inclined to believe the Republicans will sweep all of the Southern states, that attitudes haven't changed as much in the South as some people think.

And I also question the logic of an influential increase in the black voter turnout capable of reversing the outcomes in some Southern states.

Obama’s campaign has been talking about increasing black turnout in the South and, consequently, flipping normally ”red states” to ”blue.”

That may well happen, but I haven’t seen much evidence to support that scenario.

West sees in Tennessee an opportunity for Democrats to (pardon the use of the word) ”overcome” the South’s history of racism, even though Tennessee did not elect Ford to the Senate.

”Ford lost, but by less than three percentage points,” he writes. ”The close finish sent a clear message: race was becoming less of an impediment for black candidates, even in the South.”

Well, I’m not so sure about that. If the 2000 election taught you anything, isn't it that you only need to get a majority of the electoral votes to win the election? And George W. Bush only received one vote more than he needed.

And, in a Senate race, electoral votes are not a factor so all you need is one popular vote more than the other candidate. In Tennessee, Ford lost the popular vote by 50,000 votes.

Let's take a look at some of the numbers from the 2004 presidential election.

• In 2004, Bush won with 51.2% of the vote. Kerry received 48.3% of the vote. Bush's margin in the popular vote was 3 million.


• More than 120 million people voted in that election. The percentage of the voting age population that participated was higher than it's been for any presidential election since 1968 (which was before the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18).


• In 2004, the black vote accounted for 11% of the national vote. Kerry received 88% of the black vote nationally. The black population in America (which includes those who are old enough to vote and those who are not) accounts for about 12.8% of the total.


• As a minority group, black Americans have been the most active demographic group in the United States — perhaps owing to the high-profile sacrifices so many Americans, white and black, made to ensure that basic right.

As I say, it has been suggested that black Americans, energized by having one of their own nominated for president, will come to the polls in record numbers.

What I want to know is, if the demographic group itself is already more engaged in the political process than any other minority group and the Democratic ticket received nearly nine out of every 10 black votes in 2004, how many more votes can that demographic provide? Isn't that like drilling in an oil field that is known to have run dry?

And, for an increase in black voter participation to influence the outcome, doesn't that depend — at least in part — on the participation level of the other demographic groups (especially white voters) dropping or remaining unchanged?

Along with the black vote, Kerry won the Hispanic vote (which provided 8% of the total) and the Asian vote (which provided 2% of the total).

But the Republicans won the white vote (which provided more than three-fourths of the ballots). Bush received 58% of the white vote.

If Obama can't raise his comfort level among white voters, he needs to work on bringing more Hispanic voters into the Democratic tent. Unlike the black community, there is plenty of ground for Democrats to gain in the Hispanic community — Kerry took 53% of Hispanic votes while Bush received 44%.

Hispanics could well hold the key to close races in a number of the so-called "swing states" — like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

It's possible that black participation will increase, but my point is that it's going to require some additional factors — like, for example, a pronounced increase in the non-participation of members of some reliably Republican demographic groups — to be at work at the same time before it's likely to have an effect.

That also is possible. And that's an area that McCain can do something about — by picking a running mate who energizes the traditional Republican supporters while demonstrating his commitment to selecting someone who would be qualified to take over if necessary. Whether McCain is able to do so will be a crucial test of his leadership qualities.

And, if you read further into West’s analysis, you will find indications that race — while not an overt issue — served as subtext to Ford’s defeat.

One of Ford’s pollsters (who is performing the same service for Obama’s campaign this year) told West, ”[Race] was not an issue [Ford] ran on. … He was very clear that the election was not about race.”

But Republicans used tactics that, while not mentioning race directly, injected it into the campaign.

”Late in October, the national Republican Party ran an ad that attacked Ford for attending a Super Bowl party sponsored by Playboy magazine. In the ad, an attractive blonde cooed, ‘Harold, call me,’” writes West.

”The ad was criticized as racially tinged and quickly became ‘a big distraction’ that interfered with the Democrat's effort to communicate his message through the news media, his pollster said.

“Paul Begala, a key strategist in Bill Clinton's rise to the presidency, said the attack on Ford contained ‘one of the most powerful messages that Republicans always try to pin on Democrats: (that) he's not one of us.’”

Political observers have asserted that the Tennessee race is an example of what has come to be known as the ”Bradley effect” — which was first observed in 1982, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black man, ran for governor of California.

In the days prior to the election, Bradley was ahead in the polls but he lost the election. The ”Bradley effect” refers to the phenomenon that was observed in that election — in which white voters tell pollsters before an election that they can support a black candidate but behave differently when they vote.

The campaign manager for Bradley’s opponent actually predicted this behavior a month before the election. He had to resign from his position because of the negative response to his remarks — but subsequent events proved he was right.

Over the years, political observers have noted additional examples of the ”Bradley effect.” It’s been given other names, too — for example, it’s been called ”the Wilder effect,” after Doug Wilder’s gubernatorial campaign in Virginia was almost derailed in 1989.

It’s also been dubbed ”the Dinkins effect,” after David Dinkins barely defeated Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York in 1989 (Giuliani was elected mayor in 1993 and re-elected in 1997).

In recent years, the existence of this phenomenon was said to be responsible — in part — for Colin Powell’s decision not to run against President Clinton in 1996.

Powell’s decision was widely reported to be a concession to his wife, who was said to harbor serious misgivings about such a campaign. But a comment he made suggests that concern about racism — even as polls were showing a wide respect among both Republicans and Democrats for Powell’s abilities and even indicating a lead for Powell in a hypothetical match with the president — was a factor.

”Every time I see (black publisher) Earl Graves,” Powell said, ”he says, 'Look, man, don't let them hand you no crap. When [white voters] go in that booth, they ain't going to vote for you.’”

Did Ford lose the race in Tennessee because of such an effect? Was it neatly obscured by, as Begala put it, Republican attempts to portray the Democratic candidate as ”not one of us?”

As West points out, racism has come to be regarded as more ”socially unacceptable” than it was when I was a child in Arkansas in the 1960s. But it's not completely gone. It remains a factor.

As a Democratic pollster, who conducted surveys in Tennessee during and after Ford’s campaign, told West, ”Saying race is not a factor at all is naïve. It’s that race is one of many factors that have to be dealt with.”

We have witnessed — and we continue to witness — race’s changing role, as West puts it, as ”part of a gradual evolution, rather than a sea change, in voter attitudes.”

Such change doesn't happen all at once. West correctly points out that part of the complex dynamics of racial politics is generational.

The Tennessee pollster told him, ”Twenty years ago, most voters had grown up in a society that was still legally segregated. But now, to have a recollection of that you have to be over 55.”

That’s not completely true. I grew up in Arkansas, and, although I’m not yet in my 50s, I can remember elements of segregation in my hometown.

The public schools were integrated when I entered first grade in 1966 so my high school class — which, coincidentally, is holding its 30th reunion this weekend — was the first class in my hometown to be integrated from first grade through high school.

But I have vivid memories of blacks and whites sitting in segregated sections of the movie theater in my hometown.

Otherwise, I have no real memories of living in a segregated society. So I would concede that the Tennessee pollster was right — at least when you're talking about the South's border states — like Tennessee and Arkansas.

Integration was already occurring in those states while racially motivated murders were still being committed in the Deep South.

If you grew up in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia, the segregationist policies remained in effect well into the 1960s — and, in some cases, persisted into the early 1970s.

Old habits die hard.