Barbara Bush Dies at 92

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Former first lady Barbara Bush, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was a remarkable woman, and her attributes are justifiably being remembered today. She said many things that should inspire the rest of us on our journeys through life.

I have felt considerable empathy for the Bush family, especially Mrs. Bush's children, who have had the pleasure of having their mother with them longer than most. I learned when my own mother died that, no matter how old we are when it happens, it feels strange to be a motherless child.

And I have learned that is a feeling that never really goes away.

I have no doubt that George W. Bush, who is now 71 years old, is feeling that way tonight — in spite of his insistence that "my soul is comforted" by his mother's certainty that there was an afterlife waiting for her.

The loss of a parent is a blow for most people, whether it is expected or not.

But it is also worth remembering that she, like all of us, was human and subject to the same shortcomings we all have.

For example, when her husband, then–Vice President George H.W. Bush, debated the first woman to be on a national ticket, Geraldine Ferraro, in October 1984, Mrs. Bush, when asked her opinion of Ferraro, replied, "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich."

Well, we all have our shortcomings, as I said.

And most of the time Mrs. Bush was inspirational, reminding us of things that really count in life. But she wasn't perfect. None of us are.

We shouldn't lose sight of that fact as the accolades pour in.

The First Impeachment

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It was 150 years ago today that an American president was impeached for the first time.

It has been fashionable in recent years for those who lose presidential elections to start calling for the impeachment of the winner — even before the winner has taken office — but impeachment had never been attempted before this day in 1868. Only two American presidents have faced the genuine prospect of impeachment since that time, and only one (Bill Clinton) faced a trial in the U.S. Senate. The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against Nixon in the summer of 1974, but Nixon resigned before the full House could vote on them.

Four years earlier, Johnson (a Democrat) had been selected as the running mate for Republican President Abraham Lincoln in his bid for a second term. Not only was it unprecedented for a major–party nominee to pick someone from the other party to be his running mate (they actually ran under the National Union banner), but Lincoln's choice was the military governor of Tennessee, a state that had seceded and was still not a part of the Union (it was occupied by the Union army). Tennessee did not participate in the election of 1864.

Johnson was an inspired choice for a president whose mission was to preserve the nation. While a supporter of slavery, Johnson was an unapologetic Unionist who had been the only Southern senator to oppose his state's decision to secede.

I don't think vice presidents deliver inaugural addresses anymore, but they did in Andrew Johnson's day. At least, Johnson tried to deliver such a speech, but he wasn't feeling well so he drank some whiskey, believing that would help. Instead, he got gassed and gave a rambling speech. Thus, the inauguration of 1865, which is remembered in history for Lincoln's magnanimous call for "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the North's treatment of the vanquished South following the Civil War, was an awkward introduction for Johnson to his fellow Americans.

That was particularly unfortunate since Johnson became the nation's leader a month and a half later.

Six weeks after the inauguration in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated, and Johnson became the 17th president. Things didn't go well for him, and by this day in 1868, 11 articles of impeachment, largely related to Johnson's efforts to dismiss the secretary of war, were adopted by the House. The case was sent to the Senate for trial — where Johnson was ultimately acquitted by a single vote.

Johnson failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1868 and left office in 1869.

He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875 and died shortly therafter.

Taking Back the House

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Democrats face a similar situation to the one Republicans faced eight years ago. In 2010 Democrats held the White House and both chambers of Congress. Today Republicans do.

Granted, the Democrats had larger majorities in both the House and Senate — and they had a more popular president, too — in 2010. Yet they still managed to lose their advantage in the House when Republicans gained a net of 64 seats that year. They lost ground in the Senate and eventually lost that majority as well.

Today many political observers are convinced that the tables have turned — which is based on solid historical data. This is a midterm year, and midterm years almost always go against the party in the White House. That has been true whether the incumbent was popular or not.

Indeed, presidential approval ratings play an important role in midterm elections, but the responses have become increasingly polarized over the years. In the 1950s, for example, an average of nearly half of Democrats said they approved of the job Republican Dwight Eisenhower was doing as president. In the 1980s, an average of less than one–third of Democrats approved of the job Republican Ronald Reagan was doing, and in the 1990s, slightly more than one–fourth of Republicans approved of the job Bill Clinton was doing.

Clinton's successors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, failed to average even that much support from the opposing party.

But Bush's Republicans benefited electorally from the terrorist attacks of 2001. They might have been expected to lose ground in the midterm elections of 2002; instead, they gained ground in both chambers, the first time a president's party accomplished that in a midterm election in nearly 70 years.

(It is unwise to ignore the influence that circumstances can have. At the same time, though, it is not wise to expect too much from things like scandals. The Iran–Contra scandal dropped Reagan's approval rating below 50% in January 1987, but he rebounded to higher than 60% by the time he left office two years later.)

I have a theory about that trend. When it is a president's first — and, in many cases, it has been a president's only — midterm, that president is two years removed from winning the presidency, and his supporters are complacent while his foes are energized. When it is a president's second midterm, his supporters are generally demoralized by something, a scandal or whatnot, and the rest of the country, from those who are indifferent to long–time detractors, is just weary.

It takes truly unusual circumstances for any incumbent to overcome that, and so far such circumstances have not materialized in this election. But it has been observed frequently that the 2016 elections rewrote the rules so I wouldn't rule it out.

In 2018 Democrats need fewer than half as many seats as they lost in 2010 to claim a paper–thin majority in the House. That sounds plausible — and it is — but there is something that is worth remembering.

Unlike Senate seats, which are decided every six years, House seats are on the ballot in every election. There have been 22 elections since Watergate, and a single party has gained that many House seats (or more) in four of them. The rest of the time the gains were less than 24.

It's a tall order — but not one that is impossible to fill.

As Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball recently noted, there is already an unusually high number of House incumbents not seeking re–election — twice as many Republicans as Democrats.

In fact, there are enough open seats in Republican–held districts for Democrats to entertain thoughts of capturing the majority in the House by winning most of them — but that would be a foolish strategy. It ignores the fact that not all districts are created equal.

Some districts have long histories of voting for one party or the other. Like mine, for instance. I live in Texas' Fifth District. It has been represented by Republican Jeb Hensarling since 2003. The only time he was held under 60% of the vote was when he was originally elected in 2002 — and he received 58% in that election. He announced a couple of months ago that he would not seek re–election.

Hensarling is not leaving because he anticipates a tough election. He is highly regarded here and would be sure to win another term if he wanted one. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be a heavy favorite to win the general election — if he/she is even opposed.

If the voters in this district elect a Democrat to succeed Hensarling, it will be a clear indication that a wave election is underway.

Democrats are more likely to gain ground in districts like Arizona's 2nd District, which was represented by Democrat Gabrielle Giffords before she was shot in 2011 and had to retire. One of Giffords' aides was elected to fill her vacancy in 2012. Voters narrowly chose the loser of the 2012 election — Martha McSally — in a rematch in 2014. McSally was re–elected with 57% of the vote in 2016 and now is running for Jeff Flake's Senate seat.

Democrats are favored to win that House seat this November.

Other open districts are just as evenly divided — and could be prone to flip in the next election with no incumbent on the ballot. The power of incumbency, as I have noted here before, is considerable.

But it is not absolute.

Open seats do present opportunities for the party that does not occupy the White House, but Democrats have to be selective about which ones they pursue. Kondik says they need to net at least half a dozen Republican–held open seats to be on track to seize the majority in the House. The rest, he wrote, will need to be taken from the officeholders. His estimate is that Democrats will need to beat 15 to 20 incumbents head to head.

That may seem like a challenge, but Kondik insists the number is not too high by historical standards.

Time will tell.

This Is Not Watergate Redux

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People who compare Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey to the Saturday Night Massacre show a stunning lack of knowledge of history. Recent history, at that. This isn't ancient history.

If you want to talk about ancient history, let's go back a couple of centuries to the time when the Founding Fathers were designing the system of government for this new country. Chief among their concerns was due process for people who were accused of crimes. They realized that, no matter how utopian they believed their new land to be, people are still people, and some of them will commit crimes. They wanted a government that would treat all who were accused of crimes to be treated fairly.

There had to be an actual crime, not speculation about what may or may not have been done; there had to be evidence showing that a crime had been committed (if, for example, a person disappears under suspicious circumstances, that disappearance cannot be treated as a homicide unless a body has been found). Witnesses were probably considered the best evidence at first, and they're still valuable, but as forensic evidence gained credibility, its stock in criminal cases rose considerably. When I was in high school, DNA was still in a limbo state, legally speaking. Today it is the coin of the realm.

Fast forward to Watergate.

Where shall I begin? Well, let's start with the fact that the Watergate investigation really began when Bob Woodward was covering the arraignment of the Watergate burglars in June 1972 for the Washington Post — more than a year before the Saturday Night Massacre. Burglary is definitely a crime. Everyone knew a crime had been committed when five men were arrested in the Democrats' national headquarters in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. That was certainly a suspicious thing, but curiosity was really aroused when a paper trail revealed that some of the burglars were linked to Richard Nixon's White House.

That was the root of the investigation. A crime. Not speculation that a crime may have been committed but evidence of an actual crime. Just as the Founding Fathers intended. Facts were deciding the case. Not emotion. Not rumor. Not innuendo. Not hearsay.

And it was the question of how potential evidence in the investigation of that crime was to be handled that ultimately led to the Saturday Night Massacre.

Let's back up just a little here.

In July 1973, it was revealed during the Senate Watergate hearings that there had been a taping system in the Oval Office, a system that was activated by sound. Only four people, I think, knew of the existence of this taping system, and one of them was Richard Nixon.

Anyway, this system had been secretly recording conversations Nixon had with his top aides for a few years. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox issued a subpoena for tapes of conversations believed to be relevant to the Watergate investigation, mostly based on testimony from former White House counsel John Dean; fewer than 6% of the tapes related to Watergate — many of the recorded conversations, for example, dealt with plans for Nixon's trips to China and Russia — and thus were irrelevant to the investigation, but the tapes Cox sought were expected to prove or disprove Dean's testimony, which had been remarkably specific as to the dates of conversations and what was said in those conversations.

Until the existence of the tapes became known, there seemed to be no way to break the impasse, but the tapes could establish who was telling the truth, Nixon or Dean.

Nixon refused to comply and offered a compromise. Mississippi Sen. John Stennis — who was notoriously hard of hearing — would listen to the tapes and provide a summary for Cox. Cox rejected the compromise.

Nixon's attorney general, Elliot Richardson, had appointed Cox earlier in the year and was the only one who could dismiss him. At the time of Cox's confirmation Richardson had promised the Senate that he wouldn't use his authority to interfere; some five months later, Nixon asked Richardson to fire Cox, and Richardson resigned. Next in line was Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned rather than fire Cox.

Then it fell to Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out the order.

One thing that is not mentioned today — but was mentioned in Theodore H. White's book on Watergate, "Breach of Faith" — was the concern about Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was meeting with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. In the Cold War atmosphere of that time, perceptions were critical on both sides, and a presidential order had been defied. Many in the federal government worried about what the Soviets would think.

That does not justify anything, but it helps to put the decision process into context.

That was the Saturday Night Massacre. If there is a comparison to be made between the Saturday Night Massacre and the firing of James Comey, certain facts must be addressed.

In October 1973 everyone knew a crime had been committed. What was the crime in this case? I'm not talking about speculation. I'm talking about anything that would stand up in court.

That is due process, and every American citizen is entitled to due process.

Even the president, whether you like him or not.

Inauguration Day

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"The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer."

Donald Trump, Jan. 20, 2017

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Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States yesterday.

Now there are 11 words I never expected to string together in a sentence.

I didn't get to see it happen. I was at work. But I always wish an incoming president well and withhold judgment until he has taken office and actually done something. I always hope the president succeeds, whether I voted for him or not. His success is my success.

And I really haven't had much of an opportunity to watch the highlights. I was at my part–time job this evening, just got home a short while ago, and I have seen a few highlights although probably not enough to get a true feeling for what the experience was like.

But I feel strangely optimistic tonight. It's an odd sensation for me because I really haven't felt that way much for many years now.

I lost my job around the time of the economic implosion in the fall of 2008. Technically, my job was a casualty of the George W. Bush era, but he was only president for a few months at the beginning of my period of unemployment. For more than 5½ years of the Barack Obama presidency, the best I could get was part–time work, and I struggled to make ends meet.

It was a bleak time in my life, and it was a time when I felt abandoned — by my government, by my church, by many of my friends, even by my family.

It was fashionable in the Obama years to say that the economy he inherited was the worst since the Great Depression. That, of course, was so devastating that Franklin D. Roosevelt felt it was necessary to create a New Deal for Americans. That was his mission in 1933 — to revive the American economy, to put America back to work.

It seemed to me in 2008 — and it still seems to me — that, in the worst economy since the Great Depression, it was Barack Obama's mission to forge a new New Deal — to make putting America back to work his top priority. Was there anything in his way? Democrats like to say that Republicans obstructed Obama's agenda, but that conveniently ignores the fact that they controlled both chambers of Congress in 2009 and 2010. They even had a "filibuster–proof majority" in the Senate.

Obama could have done something about the unemployment crisis, but he did not.

Instead he focused his political capital on the nomination of an Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court (a nomination that was never in doubt), a beer summit with a white police officer and a black college professor and the so–called Affordable Care Act.

That's when he lost me. Instead of helping Americans get their financial lives back on course, he came up with something that Americans could be compelled to buy with money they didn't have — and they could be punished financially if they failed to buy it. Is there a more draconian arrangement in American life?

Now the health insurance policy that I am obliged by law to buy costs me nearly $750 per month. That's a 54% increase over what I was paying each month in 2016. My rent just went up, too, by about $50 per month. That means I'm paying $300 more per month for those two things alone.

I just got a raise, which helps, but it's only $100 more per month. So I'm still $200 in the hole.

I can't afford it.

When I hear a president talking about remembering the forgotten, he's singing my song.

It may turn out to be more political hooey, but I'm hopeful, on this night, that it is not.

Bring Us Together

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"There's a difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you."

Kellyanne Conway

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In November 1968, when Richard Nixon had finally won the presidency, and he addressed the nation as president–elect for the first time, he referred to a sign he had seen a young girl holding in the closing days of the campaign. "Bring us together again" is what it said.

That, Nixon said, would be the great mission of his administration — to bring together a nation that was deeply divided. It seems to be the thing that every incoming administration promises to do. At least, it has always been that way in my memory. But it is much easier said than done.

As challenging as it was for Nixon — and, of course, he did not succeed in bringing America together — it may be even more difficult, if not impossible, for the Donald Trump administration. If you follow the news, you know that there were protests in large cities from coast to coast after Trump's election.

It really is nothing new that some of the voters are unhappy with the outcome of the election — although throwing such a tantrum over not getting your way in an election is rather new. No president is ever going to please everyone. As for bringing us together again, I would argue that Americans have seldom been 100% united about anything. Even when Congress declared war on Japan, propelling America into World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a dissenting vote.

But there is something significantly different about it this time.

In what is best described as scattershooting, the Democrats have been casting wide nets to find something, however unlikely, to reverse the outcome of the election. Failing that, they pigeonhole people as good or evil, depending upon how they voted.

That is a dangerous mindset. It assumes things about other people that cannot be proven by their electoral choices. In fact, it is a claim that usually can be refuted — easily. For example, I've heard Trump voters described as racist — even though many of them voted for Barack Obama twice.

Each election is different, and each vote is based in part on how one has voted in the past, in part on whether one is satisfied with how things have gone since the last election and in part on the issues of the day. Enough voters in enough key states were dissatisfied with the status quo to flip the outcome from blue to red.

The left is engaged in stereotyping. Isn't that precisely what the left has found so objectionable about the right? And yet the left sees everything in stereotypes. All women think the same. All minorities think the same. All gays and lesbians think the same.

(Democrats don't seem to value individuality anymore, and that bothers a lot of people. The Democrats of 2016 reminded one voter of Frank Burns on the M*A*S*H TV show when he said, "Individuality is fine as long as we all do it together.")

That completely ignores the fact that millions of Americans had no interest in identity politics. They were interested in jobs, keeping one or getting one, and security.

It is a lesson Democrats refuse to learn. If they ever do, they may be able to bridge the gap that exists in America. Democrats will say that "gap" actually favors them. After all, their nominee won the popular vote — and if she had been able to sway fewer than 40,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin combined, she would have won the electoral vote, too.

Instead she piled up a huge margin in California, thus winning the national popular vote. If you take California out of the mix, Trump wins the popular vote, too.

But in neither case is it a landslide.

This country is divided — deeply — and one of the many challenges America faces in 2017 and beyond is the need for a greater sense of national unity.

As polarized as this nation is, I don't know if that can be achieved — or who can achieve it. I have my doubts that Trump can do it — but I had plenty of doubts about Trump in 2016, and he always surprised me.

The situation calls for someone who can appeal to both sides. Can he do it? History says no — but as any stock investor can tell you, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

A Quiet Realignment

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As these things go, the presidential election of 1896, which was held 120 years ago today, was a quiet realigning election.

Political scientists will tell you that a realigning election is a dramatic shift within a political system.

In a democracy such as the one in the United States, that tends to mean the ascendance of a new coalition that eclipses one that has been dominant.

My original major in college was political science. Later I shifted to journalism but not before I had been introduced to many of the concepts in our political system that continue to be seen in politics in America — one of which is the concept of realigning elections.

One of the things I learned in my brief career as a political science scholar, though, was there is no absolute agreement among political scientists about realigning elections — which elections are realigning elections, the definition of a realigning election, even whether realigning elections really do occur.

However, it is safe to say that a majority of political scientists would conclude that realigning elections do happen, roughly every three to four decades, and they are evident more in terms of voting patterns than in sudden power shifts from one party to another — although they are frequently characterized by landslides.

More specifically, political scientists say, realigning elections represent a transition from one "political system" to another.

That three– to four–decade window held true in the 19th century, but shifts seemed to come more frequently in the 20th century — although perhaps history needs a little more perspective before rendering such judgments.

A realigning election is usually — but not always — characterized by a shift from dominance by one party to dominance by another. The election of 1800, for example, is seen as the beginning of the "First Party System" in the United States, a period when George Washington's Federalists and Thomas Jefferson's Democrat–Republicans competed for control of the presidency, the chambers of Congress and the state governments, until the next phase in America's political evolution.

That was in 1828. Andrew Jackson and the emerging Democrat Party seized power and remained mostly in control of the federal and state governments for the next 30 years, establishing the "Second Party System," which eventually yielded to the "Third Party System" in 1860. That was on the brink of the outbreak of the Civil War and the inauguration of Republican Abraham Lincoln.

With only a few exceptions, Republicans held the White House for the next 70 years. That did not prevent another realigning election, though. In fact, the realigning election that heralded the start of the "Fourth Party System" was held on this day in 1896. As I say, it was relatively quiet in the outcome and didn't usher in a period when a different party prevailed. The same party kept winning; what changed was the set of issues. Republicans proved more in sync with the voters on those issues than the Democrats. It was just as simple as that. The Republicans also assembled a new electoral coalition consisting of businessmen, professional men, labor and farmers. Perhaps overshadowing everything else was the "Panic of 1893," an economic depression that was still being felt nearly four years later.

Grover Cleveland, one of only two Democrats to win a national election between 1860 and 1932, presided over that, and it contributed to a general impression of Democrat incompetence. In 1896, unemployment was high, and money became a key factor in presidential politics for the first time. William McKinley and the Republicans outspent the Democrats and William Jennings Bryan by 10 to 1. It has been estimated that the Republicans' 1896 war chest would be worth $3 billion in today's dollars.

The 1896 election was the first national realigning election in which there wasn't a dramatic shift in the balance of power from one party to another. It wasn't even close to a landslide. McKinley received 51.02% of the popular vote and 60.6% of the electoral vote. His numbers were only marginally higher when he sought re–election four years later — in spite of triumph in the Spanish–American War abroad and a booming economy at home.

But the 1896 election gave ammunition to political scientists who contended that realigning elections are not always seen in single elections but sometimes over a period of time. The conditions that ultimately led to the emergence of the "Fourth Party System" actually began with the economic "Panic of 1893." Republicans seized control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections of 1894; in fact, the G.O.P. won so many House seats in the midterm (120) that there were relatively few seats left that were plausible takeover targets in 1896 — and many of the seats Republicans had captured represented districts that were more evenly balanced than the election returns of 1894 indicated. Thus, even as McKinley was winning the White House in 1896, his party lost 30 House seats.

Republicans continued winning in the Senate, though. By 1906, Republicans held 61 Senate seats. Even though the number of senators has increased by 12 since then, Republicans have not held more than 55 Senate seats since the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Still, with the exception of the Wilson years, Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress until the Crash.

On the presidential level, voting patterns in several states show how the electorate realigned in Republicans' favor in 1896.

New York was the largest state in the nation at the time. Its support was critical for anyone who wished to be president but especially so for Democrats. Between the end of the Civil War and 1896, Republicans Ulysses S. Grant (1868) and Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) won the presidency without winning New York, but the only Democrat to be elected president during that time, Grover Cleveland, desperately needed New York's electoral votes the first time he won the office.

New York is regarded as reliably Democrat today, but in the late 19th century it was a swing state. In fact, only once had any presidential candidate ever received more than 53% of the state's popular vote. The Republican share of the vote tended to be much healthier in the elections that followed 1896.

You can find similar stories throughout the United States from that time. Things almost certainly became a lot more relaxed for Republican candidates — and a lot more stressful for Democrats.

In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that the only Democrat to be elected president between the "Panic of 1893" and the Stock Market Crash, a period of more than 35 years, did so only because there were two Republicans running — the incumbent president and his predecessor, who ran as a third–party alternative — and they split the Republican vote.

The United States became a much more Republican country on this day 120 years ago.

Does the election of 1896 have anything in common with the election of 2016?

You be the judge.

Historians have long regarded it as one of the most dramatic and complex campaigns in American history.

McKinley did not pursue the nomination in the usual way, which was to appease eastern party bosses. Instead, he relied on the efficiency of his political organization, run by his friend and campaign manager Mark Hanna, an Ohio businessman. He then did most of the campaigning from the front porch of his home in Canton. His remarks reached the voters through newspapers.

Bryan ran as the champion of the working man against the rich, and he blamed the prosperous for the economic conditions the country faced. The root of the problem, Bryan said, was a gold–based money supply, and he promised to switch to silver, which was plentiful, would restore prosperity and would break the grip the wealthy had on the money supply. He conducted his campaign primarily by rail.

Turnout was almost certainly higher than it will be next Tuesday. It has been estimated that more than 90% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1896 election.

The Day William McKinley Was Shot

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"Father Abe freed me, and now I saved his successor from death, provided that bullet he got into the president don't kill him."

James Benjamin Parker

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Forty–three men have been president of the United States. Most Americans probably can name a handful — maybe — and most of the ones they can name were president during their lifetimes — as if history didn't exist prior to their births.

(That assumes that the people with whom you are speaking can tell you who is currently president — and, frankly, you would be surprised how many people cannot. I haven't decided whether that is a blessing or a curse.)

Many Americans, of course, can name a few presidents who served before they were born — a list that usually includes George Washington and Abraham Lincoln at the very least although people can surprise you with what they know and what they don't know. If they can name Washington and Lincoln, they may also name Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt.

As some of you probably know (I wish I could say all, but I have to be realistic), those are the four faces chiseled into Mount Rushmore.

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Roosevelt became president when the incumbent president, William McKinley, was shot and killed 115 years ago. In fact, McKinley was shot inside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., on this day in 1901. His assassin shot twice. The doctors who treated McKinley were only able to retrieve one of the bullets; the other lingered in his abdomen and killed him eight days later.

Roosevelt had only been vice president for about six months when McKinley was shot. McKinley's first vice president died on the eve of McKinley's campaign for re–election, and Roosevelt, then the governor of New York, was nominated by the convention to be McKinley's running mate in 1900 — the president felt it was the delegates' decision to make, not his. Roosevelt was known to have his eye on the White House, and the vice presidency seemed like a good stepping stone for Roosevelt's own run in 1904.

Roosevelt might have been elected in '04 — unless McKinley decided to seek a third term, which, at the time, was permissible. It was only after the presidency of Roosevelt's cousin, Franklin, about 50 years later that the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two four–year terms was ratified.

Had fate not intervened, McKinley might well have been a candidate for a third term. He was only 58 when he died — younger than many of his predecessors had been when they entered the presidency — and McKinley was already into his second term.

Polls that measure public approval of a president didn't exist at the turn of the century. They wouldn't exist, in fact, until Roosevelt's cousin was in the second term of his presidency. But if they had existed in 1900, they might well have reported solid public approval of McKinley's performance in office.

That might be a difficult conclusion to reach when one looks at the election returns from 1896, when McKinley was first elected to the presidency, and 1900, when he was re–elected. In 1896, McKinley received 51.02% of the popular vote. His share of the vote went up to 51.66% four years later. He received 60.6% of the electoral vote in 1896. That percentage went up to 65.3% in 1900.

Clearly, McKinley was popular enough to be re–elected — and by a wider margin than the one he received when he was elected. That is something Barack Obama cannot say. But on the surface it isn't as impressive as students of presidential politics might expect. See, even though America's last three presidents were re–elected by less than overwhelming popular margins — and the one before that wasn't re–elected at all — it has been commonplace historically for presidents to be re–elected by landslides.

Seen in that context, McKinley's electoral performance may not be especially eye–popping unless you keep a few things in mind. Most important, perhaps, is the fact that realigning elections as the 1896 election is frequently labeled (and which I plan to discuss in greater detail in November) are not always dramatic landslides. Sometimes they are virtually imperceptible unless you consider preceding voting patterns — and what happened in the elections that followed.

The opponent's relative strengths and weaknesses are important factors to consider, too. McKinley had to win both elections with William Jennings Bryan, one of the great orators in American history, as his foe. My guess is that McKinley was lucky to live in the pre–TV and pre–internet age. Far fewer people got to hear Bryan speak in 1896, and that almost certainly worked to his benefit.

He could have been appealing in our time. I have heard him described as open, cheery, optimistic, friendly. That generally plays well with the voters. He was not necessarily a gifted speaker, though, so it may have been a good thing for him that TV and radio played no roles in elections at the time.

When McKinley won re–election in 1900, he carried Bryan's home state of Nebraska, a traditionally Republican state that made an exception for an exceptional favorite son. Bryan was nominated by the Democrats for the presidency three times. The 1900 election was the only time he lost his home state (with the exception of an 1894 Senate race).

It is fair to assume, even though we have no polls to support this conclusion, that McKinley was a popular president on this day in 1901 when his assassin, a 28–year–old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, fired two shots into the president's abdomen. Czolgosz was about to fire a third time when James Parker, who had been a slave as a child, reached for the gun and prevented the shot from being fired.

As it turned out the first shot struck a button and was deflected. Only the second shot struck McKinley, but it ultimately proved fatal, probably due to inadequate medical care. There was a surgeon in Buffalo who might well have saved the president, but he was performing delicate surgery in Niagara Falls. During the operation he was interrupted and told he was needed in Buffalo; he insisted he could not leave even if it was the president of the United States who needed him. It was at that point that he was told the identity of the patient.

A couple of weeks later, after McKinley had died, that surgeon saved the life of a woman who had suffered almost exactly the same wound as McKinley.

McKinley's death was quite a shock to the American public — who had been misled by unjustifiably optimistic prognoses into believing McKinley was recovering.

He was the third American president to be assassinated within 40 years — and the last to be assassinated before John F. Kennedy more than 60 years later.

Oh, and Roosevelt did win a full four–year term on his own in 1904 — but he did so as the incumbent.

The Uniquely American Friendship of Jefferson and Adams

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"Adams and Jefferson could hardly have appeared less alike. Adams was eight years older and about five inches shorter, as thoroughgoing a New Englander as Jefferson was a Virginian. Adams had difficulty holding his tongue or his temper; Jefferson was a master of keeping his emotions in check. Yet the two men — and, in time, Abigail, Adams' wonderful wife — were to forge one of the greatest and most complicated alliances in American history."

Jon Meacham, "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power"

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I have always been fascinated by the stories in American history, and there may be no more intriguing story in the history of this great nation than the relationship between two of its Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. For several reasons, their friendship is worth reflecting on as we celebrate the nation's 240th birthday — and observe the 190th anniversary of both Adams' and Jefferson's deaths.

Bearing in mind that political labels of the 21st century are wholly inadequate for describing the politics of 18th– and 19th–century men, they are still useful in enabling those of our time to get an idea where those men might stand on the modern political spectrum. It really isn't that much different from comparing baseball players of different eras — i.e., Babe Ruth vs. Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds. They played in different ballparks against a different caliber of competition. Ruth didn't play as many games in a season as Aaron and Bonds did, nor did he play when there were playoffs other than the World Series (unless two teams were tied atop their league standings at the end of the regular season).

And they didn't play night games during the Bambino's career. They did play quite a few doubleheaders, which were increasingly rare in Aaron's day and virtually nonexistent in Bonds'.

But, anyway ...

I would describe Jefferson as something of a libertarian, perhaps even a bit radical for his day. Adams was more of a strait–laced conservative — and the more emotional of the two.

Now, I must caution the reader that these labels must be seen in the context of the times. We have conservatives and liberals and libertarians today, but the issues are different — and America is different. Today the United States is a superpower. In the 18th century, it was small and fragile. In 1790, there were fewer than 4 million people living in the United States. There are more than 320 million today, and the Census Bureau projects a population of 417 million by 2060.

There is always a lot of rhetoric in modern political campaigns — sometimes it is justified, most of the time it is not — that the times are fraught with peril and disaster will strike if the wrong choices are made. In Adams' and Jefferson's day, that was no exaggeration. They knew the stakes were always high. The threat of attacks from enemies foreign and domestic was as constant a fact of life in 18th–century America as it is in 21st–century Israel.

From the time they met at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775 until they were driven apart by the politics of George Washington's first term as president (during which Adams was vice president and Jefferson was secretary of State), Adams and Jefferson worked together frequently — and quite well at that. In 1784, roughly five years before Washington became president, Adams said of Jefferson, "He is an old friend with whom I have often had occasion to labor on many a knotty problem and in whose abilities and steadiness I always found great cause to confide."

For his part, Jefferson said of Adams, "I never felt a diminution of confidence in his integrity and retained a solid affection for him."

The men signed the Declaration of Independence — of which Jefferson was the principal author — 240 years ago today and were allies in nearly everything. But they came to a parting of the ways over the size and scope of the federal government. Adams was a devout believer in a strong, centralized government. Jefferson favored a hands–off approach and a deference to the rights of the states to conduct business as they saw fit.

Adams, who was the nation's first vice president, was elected to succeed Washington in 1796 — at a time when the runnerup in the presidential election became vice president. Jefferson, as Adams' runnerup, became the second vice president and called on the president–elect the day before his inauguration. History professor Fawn Brodie wrote, in "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Biography," that Adams suggested that Jefferson go to France to mend relations between the two countries. That was something that desperately needed to be done, but that, apparently, was not the whole story.

"Had Jefferson been anything but vice president," Brodie wrote, "the offer would have been an act of statesmanship. But Adams, disarmingly tactless as only he could be, betrayed his real feelings in a single sentence. Jefferson reported him as saying 'that it would have been the first wish of his heart to have got me to go there, but that he supposed it was out of the question as it did not seem justifiable for him to send away the person destined to take his place in case of accident to himself nor decent to remove from competition one who was a rival in the public favor.'"

Having been Washington's vice president, Adams was also aware of the threats that were made to the president's life, even in those nascent days of the republic. He may have feared a plot against his life from Jefferson's supporters or perhaps even Jefferson himself.

Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency. They did not switch places, though, as Adams finished third. Aaron Burr became vice president.

After he became president in 1801, Jefferson trimmed the powers and expenditures of the federal government but also was known for acquiring the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubling the size of the United States.

Adams and Jefferson died exactly 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence, on this day in 1826, having resolved their differences after Jefferson left the presidency in 1809.

As he died, Adams seemed to draw comfort from his belief that Jefferson would survive. What he did not know was that Jefferson had died some five hours earlier.

It is the only time in American history that two former presidents died on the same day. And how much more appropriate could it have been — two old friends who signed the Declaration of Independence dying on the document's 50th anniversary?

It was a uniquely American story.

The Game Changer

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Last night's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida is a political game changer.

I have long thought that terrorism is the real wild card in this year's campaign. Terrorist attacks make people feel unsafe, which is, of course, the objective. The more terrorist attacks there are between now and Election Day, the worse the news is for the Democratic ticket that wishes to succeed Barack Obama and Joe Biden — because terrorist attacks make voters compare the situation under those who have been in power with the situation when their predecessors were in power.

And, say what you will about George W. Bush, terrorists weren't carrying out attacks on Americans in California and Florida or anywhere else when he was in the Oval Office. At least, not after 9–11. The wisdom of fighting the terrorists in the Middle East instead of having to fight them here is not lost on American voters when they see news reports of people being gunned down at nightclubs and Christmas parties.

So the best–case scenario for the Democrats would be if no more terrorist attacks occurred on U.S. soil between now and the election. I'm sure that is what they are hoping for.

But I don't think that is what will happen just as I never thought the election campaign would pass without being marred by a single terrorist attack. And it hasn't. Is there anyone so naive as to think there will not be at least one more in the next five months?

I've heard implications of the left's favorite straw man, the automatic weapon, which is already heavily regulated and wasn't even used in this attack. It's easier to ignore terrorism when it is happening half a world away than it is when it is happening just down the road a piece.

And it is easier to blame something that isn't responsible — automatic weapons — than it is to blame something that is responsible — Islamic radicalism.

On Being President

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Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written that what Teddy Roosevelt called the "bully pulpit" of the presidency is "somewhat diminished in our age of fragmented attention and fragmented media." I am an admirer of Goodwin's work, but I think she is wrong in that assessment.

The bully pulpit is as influential as ever — if not potentially moreso with so many means of communication available. Its relevance depends upon who has access to it and how it is applied.

I have been wondering — since before Barack Obama took office more than seven years ago — what it was about him that I found unpresidential. You see, for a long time, I wasn't able to put my finger on it.

If I had the opportunity to give him some advice today, I think I have a pretty good idea now what it is that has bothered me and what I would advise him to do. With about nine months left in his presidency, my guess is it wouldn't help much now. But it couldn't hurt.

There can be little doubt that, for some (but certainly not all) of his critics, Obama's skin color is, as many in the Democratic Party have frequently suggested, the issue. That is impossible to deny. Racism is an unfortunate element in the human equation. It always has been, and I suspect it always will be — like greed and lust and other unattractive qualities that take control of some people. Some folks do a better job of overcoming those negative qualities than others.

For a long time, I wondered if I was being racist because I found myself objecting so frequently to Obama's policies. The idea troubled me greatly because I was raised by liberal parents, and I always believed their values were my values. My mother was involved in promoting positive race relations in the Arkansas town in which I grew up, and I have always believed that, as a result of my upbringing, I am a tolerant person.

I soon concluded that I wasn't a racist, even if there were some in the Democratic Party who insisted on labeling everyone who objected to Obama policies a hater. More than once, I have voted for black candidates — and other candidates who differed from me in other ways — for office. When I think back on my voting history, I know that my votes have been decided by issues and political philsophies — and my political philosophy has evolved over time, as I suppose everyone's does. "The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20," Muhammad Ali once said, "has wasted 30 years of his life."

To issue a blanket assertion that anyone who objects to Obama's policies and his approach to his job is racist is to ignore some important facts, and much of it, I believe, has to do with fear, plain and simple.

People are genuinely frightened these days — they were frightened before Obama took office — and there is certainly a lot for them to fear. It doesn't matter whether the president thinks the fears are justified. It isn't enough to remind people of the phrases that past presidents used (i.e., FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself") to calm jittery generation of long ago.

People want the president of their own time to recognize the legitimacy of their fears, to speak to them in a reasonable, not belittling, fashion and to keep them informed. Time after time Obama has come up short in this respect.

We live in an unprecedented age of instant information, but it hasn't always been that way. Presidents of the past were limited by the technology that existed in their times. Presidents have only been using television for about half a century, radio for about a century. In the first 150 years of America's existence, news traveled much more slowly; it took weeks, sometimes months for a president's remarks on a topic to reach citizens on the country's outskirts.

But people of the 21st century are plugged in to things in a way that their forebears never were. They can get up–to–the–minute information on just about any topic on their smart phones or laptops. But information is really all they get. They do get what passes for context — what journalism students are told is the elusive "why" of a news story — but it is usually political agenda disguised as context.

A president has to function above that.

Naturally, a president who is seeking re–election can be forgiven for allowing politics to permeate his remarks — but outside of the electoral battlefield, a president is expected to be respectful of people's fears, even if he doesn't share them.

A president is expected to act like the president of all the people, and far too many people have felt that this president only sees himself as president of a certain segment of the population — that, as far as this president is concerned, those who disagree with him can, in the memorable words of John Ehrlichman, "twist slowly in the wind."

Take the subject of terrorism, for example. Its purpose is to frighten people, and the videotaped beheadings and equally horrific executions have done the trick. So have the attacks that have been carried out in places like Brussels and Paris and San Bernardino.

When the president pays little attention and chooses to go golfing or dancing or to a baseball game instead of trying to engage the people, instead of explaining why he believes terrorism is not as great a threat as people perceive it to be, he may honestly believe that he is doing the right thing by not contributing to a chorus of hysterical voices.

But he is really fanning the flames. Fears go unchecked, and that leads to things like surges in gun purchases — which is the opposite of the outcome Obama has sought as president. So Obama's behavior in the face of terrorist attacks has been counterproductive.

Same with the economy and unemployment.

Few modern Americans, as a portion of the population, had experienced anything comparable to the Great Recession, and they were understandably alarmed to see their jobs disappearing, their life savings slipping away, their very homes being taken from them. Even those who lived through the economy of the late '70s and early '80s had not seen anything like it.

In such times, the American people expect reassurance from their leader, and today America's leader likes to brag of the unemployment rate being at 5%, but words from him were few and far between when unemployment was over 10%. Even if he had no news to report, he needed to do a 21st–century version of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats, telling people what he was doing to turn things around and what he planned to do in the future.

Instead they have been left in the dark by this president.

The president, whoever he or she may be, has enormous influence on people — even those who did not vote for him or her.

But the bully pulpit must be used in a way that unites a diverse population instead of dividing it. The presidents who have understood this are the ones who have earned a revered role in American history.

The Game Changer

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"The Court claims that the Act must equate federal and state establishment of Exchanges when it defines a qualified individual as someone who (among other things) lives in the 'State that established the Exchange.' Otherwise, the Court says, there would be no qualified individuals on federal Exchanges, contradicting (for example) the provision requiring every Exchange to take the 'interests of qualified individuals' into account when selecting health plans. ... Pure applesauce."

Antonin Scalia, King v. Burwell (2015)

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I have followed politics longer — and, as nearly as I can tell, more closely — than most people. Perhaps it has been to my detriment.

A few days ago, I was thinking about the first time I dabbled in predicting the outcomes of New Hampshire's presidential primaries. It was almost 40 years ago — when I told my friend and mentor, Aunt Bess, that Jimmy Carter would win on the Democratic side and President Ford would narrowly defeat Ronald Reagan on the Republican side. I was right on both counts.

I must have been like a novice investor who hits it big the first time he buys stock in a company — and concludes that it is a breeze to make money on the stock market. I must have concluded that I had some special gift for predicting the outcomes of elections — and was, therefore, stunned when many of my predictions in future years fell flat.

People who hit game–winning home runs in their first–ever at–bats are generally due for big letdowns the next time they step to the plate, and I have had more than my share.

Oh, I have had some successes over the years, but not nearly as many as I probably expected I would have. My subsequent predictions, as I say, haven't always turned out so well, and that losing streak has mostly continued since 1976.

I guess the reason why I have continued to be intrigued by politics is that it always seems that something totally unexpected happens to change the trajectory of a campaign somehow. It may not alter the eventual outcome — although it might — but it may change how resounding that outcome is. Was it decisive? If so — or if not — it may be due to a previously unexpected event.

In hindsight such an event may come to be regarded as preordained. Part of our history having an influential role in our future.

These unforeseen events are never quite the same. I guess they are the most obvious examples of Mark Twain's observation that "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

The death yesterday of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has the potential to be such an event.

Supreme Court vacancies don't come around very often, and such vacancies are even more infrequent in presidential election years. Vacancies caused by death are rarer still.

And it is, I suppose, one of the quirks of American history that presidents are seldom asked to select a replacement for a justice whose views were so opposite of the chief executive's. Some are, but Obama, should he choose to go ahead with a nomination, would be an historical rarity.

It has been 28 years since a lame–duck president had to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in a year when his successor would be chosen. That was 1988 when Lewis Powell retired. Ronald Reagan, who nominated Scalia in 1986, appointed Anthony Kennedy to succeed Powell.

Powell had also been nominated during an election year; Richard Nixon picked him to replace FDR appointee Hugo Black in 1972. But Nixon wasn't a lame duck. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was seeking re–election, which he won in a massive landslide later that year.

And Black hadn't died. He had retired — although he did die eight days after his retirement.

(Nixon also nominated William Rehnquist to succeed Eisenhower appointee John Marshall Harlan that year. Harlan, too, was a retiree.)

Some presidents — Carter, for example — never get to nominate a Supreme Court justice. Most get the opportunity to nominate at least one, but their choices are rarely seen as consequential as this one could — and, probably, will — be.

This country is about as evenly divided as it has ever been in my lifetime. My guess is that it really has been that way for at least the last 25 years. Although much has been made of Democrats winning the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections and the electoral vote in four of the last six, the margins have been much closer than they tended to be even in the second half of the 20th century.

Even when he was re–elected four years ago, Barack Obama had an historically underwhelming performance — perhaps not as bad as George W. Bush in 2004 but hardly the mandate that most re–elected presidents tend to claim. Until the dawn of the 21st century, presidents who won re–election did so by wide margins.

Obama had a lower share of the vote and a lower electoral vote total than he received in winning his first term. Obama was the first president to be re–elected with a lower share of the popular vote than he received the first time around since Andrew Jackson 180 years earlier.

Only one other president — Woodrow Wilson in 1916 — was re–elected with a smaller share of the electoral vote than he won the first time.

Justice Scalia is widely regarded to have been a stable, conservative voice on a closely divided court. Philosophically, it is safe to say that he and Obama did not agree on many things.

Obama now has the opportunity to nominate a replacement. He's been looking for a way to ensure his legacy after he leaves office, and this could be it. Kennedy has largely been identified as the swing vote on a court that is otherwise divided 4–4. If Obama nominates someone whose legal positions support Obama's agenda, that nominee would have the potential to influence court decisions for a generation.

While their potential for long–term influence on court decisions is always acknowledged, Supreme Court vacancies generally are not seen as being overall game changers, but this one could be.

Scalia often observed that he was not a politician. He was a jurist. But it is important to remember that this is a presidential election year, and everything that the lame–duck president does will be perceived politically.

If he chooses to send a liberal nominee to Capitol Hill, it could set off a national political discussion on all sorts of issues as Obama's nominee speaks to the senators who will vote on the nomination. Remember: The majority party in the Senate is Republican, and the Republican Senate is not likely to act on a Democratic lame–duck president's Supreme Court nomination prior to an election.

Obama could nominate a more moderate justice than he might prefer, simply to avoid an embarrassing setback, but that is a risky proposal. A more centrist judge might well take positions in some cases that are contrary to Obama's.

But a more extreme nominee almost certainly would have no chance of being approved by a Republican Senate.

Obama could issue a recess appointment when the Senate is not in session, in which case the Constitution calls for such an appointment to be approved by the Senate before the end of the legislative session. If it isn't approved, it becomes vacant again.

Under the present circumstances, the Senate is likely to remain in session as long as possible, but congressional terms end early in January, and Congress will not be in session until the presidential inauguration.

Obama would have roughly 2½ weeks to make a recess appointment before his successor is sworn in. A recess appointment probably would prove to be a temporary solution, but that would depend on other things that are likely to be discussed in the next 8½ months. Whether Obama announces his nominee before or after the election could become a big issue when voters go to the polls — along with the positions such a nominee is likely to take on cases involving the most pressing issues of our time.

That, I suppose, will depend on how many Americans recognize the impact that Scalia's successor can have on their lives. It will be interesting to see just how many that is — and to hear the discussion it sparks.

That could be the real game changer.

Does Iowa Matter?

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I remember when Iowa first became a player in the presidential nominating process.

As I understand it, Iowa has been holding caucuses since the 1840s, but the caucuses weren't the first–in–the–nation political events they have become in presidential politics until 1972. Nothing much happened in the caucuses that year.

It was outsider Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia, who put Iowa on the political map with a strong showing in the 1976 Iowa caucuses. He didn't win. "Uncommitted" did, as it had in 1972. But Carter received more than 27% of the vote in the Democrats' caucuses, more than doubling the total of his nearest rival, and he got a lot of positive press that gave him the momentum he needed to win the nomination and, eventually, the presidency.

In the 40 years since that time, catching lightning in a bottle the way Carter did has become the holy grail for every candidate who has come into Iowa trailing significantly in the polls. Ironically, I suppose, that seldom happens, especially on the Democrats' side. Former Vice President Walter Mondale (in 1984), Vice President Al Gore (2000) and Sen. John Kerry (2004) won the Iowa caucuses as front runners and went on to win the nomination as expected — but not the general election.

Eventual nominee Michael Dukakis finished third in Iowa in 1988, and Bill Clinton polled less than 3% in the 1992 caucuses, which were won by favorite son Tom Harkin in a landslide. Sixteen years later, Clinton's wife Hillary was the front runner going into Iowa — but came in third behind Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The rest, as they say, is history, but I don't think that history repeated itself in that campaign. History, as Mark Twain said, doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

It is tempting to suggest that Obama duplicated Carter's accomplishment in 2008, but I would argue that Carter was much more of an unknown nationally than Obama. Carter also changed American politics by putting his name on every primary ballot; up to that time, candidates picked which primaries to contest. Most states picked their delegates in state conventions.

In fact, that is actually how delegates from Iowa will be chosen. The caucuses are simply the first step of a fairly lengthy process.

Carter had never held a national office when he won his party's nomination; Obama had been a U.S. senator for four years.

Plus, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention that nominated Kerry. That speech, which was given less than four months before Obama won the Senate seat from Illinois, is credited by many historians with launching Obama's national political career. Carter, to my knowledge, never appeared before a convention until he accepted the 1976 nomination.

Both, of course, went on to win the presidency, which was something Mondale, Gore and Kerry never did. But, from the perspective of becoming the party's nominee, Iowa Democrats have a fairly long history of supporting their eventual nomineess in the caucuses.

Thus, from an historical standpoint, Iowa certainly does matter for Democrats, particularly since the dawn of the 21st century. No Democrat has won the presidential nomination in the last two decades without winning the Iowa caucuses.

That makes Iowa incredibly important for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential aspirations. It is generally conceded that the Vermont senator will win New Hampshire a week from Tuesday, but to be a plausible threat to the supposedly inevitable Hillary Clinton, it is generally accepted by most political observers that Sanders must win in Iowa tomorrow.

Polls show Clinton with a lead of varying amounts. The latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll has Clinton leading by three percentage points, 45% to 42%. The poll's margin of error is 4%.

Clinton's lead is outside the margins of error in the latest Public Policy Polling survey, where Clinton has 48% to Sanders' 40%, and the latest Gravis Marketing poll, where Clinton is exceeding 50%.

Before that, the NBC News/WSJ/Marist Poll found Clinton leading by 48% to 45%, which is within that poll's margin of error, and a Monmouth University poll found Clinton leading 47% to 42%, which is outside that poll's margin of error (but only by about half a percentage point).

Clearly, anything could happen, and observers say a high turnout could make the race even tighter. That may depend on whether snow strikes Iowa during tomorrow night's caucuses. Currently, there is a less than 50% chance of snow in most of Iowa's major cities tomorrow night with the greatest chance for snow coming after midnight. So caucus goers may dodge the bullet, and turnout may be high. We'll see if that is good news for Sanders.

Yes, Iowa Democrats clearly have a history of endorsing their party's eventual nominee. Republicans? Not so much.

On the Republican side, victory in Iowa has meant little in the overall scheme of things. Since 1980, only two winners of the Republican nomination have won in Iowa's GOP caucuses — Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000. Rick Santorum won Iowa in 2012. Mike Huckabee won Iowa in 2008. Dole beat George H.W. Bush in Iowa in 1988, and George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan in Iowa in 1980.

When a party has an incumbent running for re–election, that party usually doesn't hold caucuses> The Democrats of 1980 were an exception to that rule. Then–President Carter defeated Edward Kennedy, 59% to 31%, in the Iowa caucuses that year. Since then, Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and both Bushes were not challenged in Iowa.

According to recent polls, it could be just about anyone's caucus on the GOP side. Donald Trump was trailing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Iowa at one point, but he seems to have pulled ahead following former vice–presidential nominee Sarah Palin's endorsement. The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll showed Trump with a five–point lead over Cruz — just outside its margin of error. The latest Gravis Marketing poll reported that Trump has a four–point lead, right on that poll's margin of error.

Trump enjoys leads of seven and eight points in the NBC News/WSJ/Marist Poll and Public Policy Polling survey.

Now because of the history of Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses, it seems that anyone who really wants to win the nomination would not want to finish first in Iowa. Historically Republicans who won the battle in Iowa wound up losing the war for the nomination.

Finishing in the top four has been best — Reagan came in second in Iowa in 1980, George H.W. Bush was third in 1988, and John McCain was fourth in 2008. No, you certainly don't have to win in Iowa to win the nomination, but apparently it is necessary to finish in double digits in Iowa if you want to be the standard bearer. If your share of the Iowa caucus vote is less than 10%, you probably won't be the nominee.

So that is my bottom line on the caucuses. Who won on the Democrats' side? That probably will be the party's nominee. Who won on the Republican side? That probably will not be the party's nominee.

Well, that is what history says. But students of political history never would have believed that someone with no political experience would be running so far ahead of his rivals for the Republican nomination. Donald Trump is an enigma — and even if he wins tomorrow night, that does not mean he will be denied the nomination.

At this point, the only thing of which I am certain is that, if not this week, then certainly next week (after the New Hampshire primary), we will start to see candidates dropping out of the races. Sanders may last to Super Tuesday or beyond if he can win Iowa. If not, he may be a casualty; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is almost sure to be finished after New Hampshire.

On the Republican side, Jeb Bush is likely to remain in the race no matter what happens. He still has more than enough money to finance a run through the spring primaries. But those who finish in single digits in Iowa or New Hampshire or both will be re–evaluating their situations, and my guess is that, by the middle of February, the Republican race will be down to a more manageable five or six candidates. That group is likely to include Trump, Cruz, Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, possibly Chris Christie and maybe someone else.

Two Weeks to Go Until Iowa Caucuses

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I have mentioned here before that I have little faith in polls except for the ones in which actual voters participate on Election Day.

And the first such actual vote will take place two weeks from today in Iowa — where it won't be an actual vote, as in a primary. It will be a caucus, and results from caucuses are less precise than those from primaries.

Until that happens, though, we really won't know if the polls are right or wrong. For now, the polls are all we have, whether the findings turn out to be accurate or not.

Another point about caucuses: Participating in one require more — much more — of a commitment of one's time than merely walking into a voting booth and selecting the candidates for whom one wishes to vote so caucuses are notorious for attracting the diehards, the extremists. Consequently, it would not surprise me if the extreme element among Iowa's Democrats hand a victory to Bernie Sanders.

Earlier in 2015, Sanders was far behind Hillary Clinton in Iowa polls. But that was months before the caucus — and Hillary has had some setbacks — and the latest polls show the race tightening. Just in time for the caucus.

Hillary still leads in the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll, but only by two points, 42% to 40% — and that falls within the poll's margin of error.

Sanders leads in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, 49% to 44%.

I guess Hillary can take some solace in the fact that she leads in the latest CBS/New York Times poll, 48% to 41%, although that lead shows some slippage.

For Hillary backers who are nostalgic for the days of summer, Gravis Marketing finds Hillary leading, 57% to 36%.

I wouldn't count on anything that lopsided, though.

On the Republican side, the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll finds Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas leading Donald Trump by three points, 25% to 22%.

But as much as Trump has appeared to be preparing his followers for a defeat, I think he may actually be trying to lower expectations so the victory he anticipates will be that much more meaningful. Gravis Marketing has Trump in front by six points, 34% to 28%. Public Policy Polling says Trump is ahead but by a narrower margin, 28% to 26%.

I'm thinking we could be in for a couple of cliffhangers two weeks from tonight.

A Rare Event

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Tonight at 7 (Central) we will witness something that has been a rare event in this presidency — an address to the nation from the Oval Office.

People can — and do — call Barack Obama many things, but one thing no one could call him is camera shy. He seldom hesitates to say what is on his mind (which is the very definition of loose cannon, is it not? But I digress ...) yet, in fact, this will be only the third time in nearly seven full years as president that he has spoken to the American people from the Oval Office.

It took an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to prompt the first one. The second was a victory lap after the short–lived departure of troops from Iraq — and now it is (presumably) to clarify his position on ISIS, a fully functioning and extremely threatening terrorist group that Obama has famously dismissed as "the jayvee team" and, more recently, as being "contained."

Both assessments have been demonstrably false.

Presidential addresses from the Oval Office were commonplace for every president I can remember prior to Obama — and I'm not speaking of the weekly five–minute radio addresses that are usually delivered from the Oval Office. An Oval Office speech was usually (but not always) a good indication that the subject was an important one and every American needed to hear what the president had to say about it. That wasn't always true, of course. Presidents from both parties misused the bully pulpit, and because the forum has been abused in the past, I can appreciate the notion that an Oval Office address should be reserved for truly significant moments and issues.

I really don't know if that is how Obama feels about it, but, whether it is or is not, the fact remains that, under Obama, the pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction. The American people have been left in the dark on too many important issues for too long. They are entitled to better than that from their leaders.

Obama's speech, of course, comes days after the horrific attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14. In the hours after that attack, Obama hemmed and hawed when asked whether it was terrorism even though his own FBI, which has followed the president's lead on terrorism in the past and hesitated to label such acts, was calling it terrorism within hours.

Breitbart.com says, "This is the first sign that the Obama White House is preparing to address the threat of terrorism seriously after appearing reluctant to define the attack in California as terrorism."

That's pretty generous. And, you must admit, it is remarkably fair, a virtual acceptance that White House spokesman Josh Earnest was correct when he said that, in addition to speaking about the shooting itself, "[t]he president will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved and how we will defeat it."

I already know about the nature of the threat — and, whether they will admit it or not, I think most Americans do, too — and how it has evolved. I need no presidential lectures on those.

Personally, I'm still waiting to hear the president call this what it is — Islamic terrorism. These acts are being carried out by Islamic extremists who have interpreted the Qur'an as permission from God to kill all who disagree with them. The president has yet to acknowledge this. He and Hillary Clinton insist on reminding us that Islam is a peaceful religion, and the United States is not at war with Islam.

That's a straw man.

No one (to my knowledge) has suggested that this is a religious war. It is a war against extremists who are hell–bent on killing others. They clearly don't care about the religious beliefs of their victims. Other Muslims have been killed in their attacks as well as Christians and Jews.

The fact that these extremists, these murderers all claim to be Muslims is an identifying trait. Some people will say that is profiling, and I suppose it is, but it is also a fact that cannot be ignored. It may be a regrettable fact of modern life that we must take a closer look at Muslims who try to enter this country. That doesn't necessarily mean that Muslims who live here are being or will be denied their right to freedom of religion.

Well, I guess I can't make a blanket assertion like that. Most assuredly, there will always be bigots for whom unpleasant but necessary restrictions on certain groups are nice little byproducts.

But that is one of the things about which we need to have a national — and rational — conversation. We may also need to talk about how and whether to monitor and have legal provisions for shutting down mosques or any similar facility where violence is encouraged.

I know. This kind of thing smacks of the Nuremburg Laws, doesn't it? But the key difference, it seems to me, is that the Jews of Germany and Europe were not hijacking airplanes, attacking diners in restaurants or shooting up Christmas parties.

To deal with a modern threat it is necessary for us to label the enemy.

Identifying the enemy is the first step in defeating it. Once Obama has done that, I will listen to what he has to say about defeating it.

Until then, I have no tolerance for useless drivel about closing gun show loopholes or issuing executive orders to make it even more difficult for Americans to arm themselves.

If someone is determined to kill — and the willingness, even eagerness, of these animals to kill themselves and leave orphaned children, even infants, behind in the process is pretty good evidence of just how determined they are — whatever is available will do. These terrorists do not need guns to kill. They share information about making bombs, and they are constantly experimenting with new ways to conceal explosives. They have used knives in the past when no other means for killing were available. No doubt they would resort to throwing rocks if that was all they had.

No, they don't need guns to kill, but they won't let a minor annoyance like a gun control law keep them from getting guns if they need them.

Instead of talking about closing gun show loopholes, we should be talking about closing the other loopholes that made the San Bernardino shootings possible. There is an enormous loophole along this country's borders. If Obama doesn't think there are terrorist "sleeper cells" all across this country whose members have practically waltzed across the border, he is truly living in a fantasy world.

Everyone wants to be fair on immigration. No one wants to deny the hope of citizenship to those who truly wish to come to America and co–exist with all kinds of people. But it only makes sense to have a process in place that safeguards the people who are already here from immigrants who, knowingly or unknowingly, threaten their safety.

In the Ellis Island days, that usually meant temporarily quarantining people who might have been exposed to a deadly disease. Today quarantining immigrants would be done with the intention of giving authorities enough time to do background checks.

And I'm not talking about the cursory background checks that have been conducted — if time and resources permitted them to be conducted at all — up to this point.

The time has long since past when we could keep terrorist cells out of this country or quarantine enough of the suspicious immigrants long enough for background checks to weed out the most dangerous ones.

For tonight's Oval Office address, as rare as they have been in Obama's tenure, to have any historical meaning, it must spark a serious discussion about the most effective way to keep the American people safe.

That doesn't mean belittling those who have dedicated their lives to being first responders when crisis strikes.

That doesn't mean letting political correctness overrule common sense.

It means being a leader. Under this president, who almost always leads from behind, being a true leader has been even more rare than Oval Office addresses.