Looking Ahead to 2016

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Bet you thought that, once the midterms were over, we'd get a reprieve from politics for awhile. Well, you were wrong! At best, all you get is a chance to catch your breath.

America's political pendulum is always swinging. Sometimes the swing is so modest you need a microscope to see it. Other times it swings wildly. In recent years, both parties have made the mistake of misreading election results and assuming they had longer–term implications than they had. Success is fleeting in American politics.

The midterm election was held in early November. By Thanksgiving, I had already read/heard several reports about people who were considering seeking their parties' nominations; then, Jeb Bush put his foot to the gas pedal and accelerated the process. Interested parties need to jump in soon, or all the resources in money and advisers will get locked in for Bush.

As it stands, 2016 will be a non–incumbent year, which means both parties' nominations are up for grabs. Technically speaking, that is. At this point in the process, it's still mostly a name recognition contest. Bush has the name — which isn't as toxic as it was a few years ago — and he's been grabbing up the money and the people even though few people outside of Florida know much more about him than the fact that he is the son of one president and the brother of another.

That was enough for 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, I guess. Romney wisely withdrew yesterday.

I didn't get to see his announcement, but it sounded like an impression of Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront."

Recent polls showed him in the lead, he said, particularly in the states whose primaries come early in the calendar, and he was "convinced" he could have won the nomination a second straight time — something no non–incumbent candidate in either party has been able to do since Adlai Stevenson.

("I coulda been a contendah.")

Once these guys (and gals) get the fever and start looking at themselves in the mirror each morning and imagining "Hail to the Chief" being played when he/she enters a room, the only cure for it seems to be the grave. Maybe it's an addiction. I don't know. But the word addiction has been expanded considerably in recent years. I wouldn't be surprised if politicians are prime prospects for addiction. Many already have addictions of other kinds as well, and being a narcissist almost seems like a key component of a politician's DNA.

I believe Romney is a sincere, well–meaning man who allowed himself to be defined by his opposition. Those things happen in campaigns. Both parties have done it so neither party is innocent; no point in pointing fingers on that one. There's plenty of blame to go around. The bottom line is, once you have been defined by the opposition, it is even more difficult to prevail the next time. To a great extent, Romney had been defined within his own party by his previous campaign for the nomination and by the opposition party in the general election.

Recent speculation of which issues Romney would choose to champion this time seemed to revive the old stereotypes of Romney as elitist, cold and calculating. It reminded me of what I heard when I was a child during Richard Nixon's comeback campaign of 1968. The emphasis was on the new Nixon. Nixon was always reinventing himself, and Romney has slipped into that mode as well.

But he resisted its lure. Good for him. It was the smart thing to do, and it most likely closes the door on his presidential ambitions. If the 2016 GOP nominee fails to win the election, Romney would be 73 in 2020. That isn't too old to win the nomination, but, historically speaking, it is too old to win the election. But my guess is he will continue to hear "Hail to the Chief" when he looks in the mirror each morning.

Barack Obama is barred by law from seeking a third term so, unless he issues an executive order repealing the 22nd Amendment, the Democrats will need a new nominee. Conventional wisdom insists it will be Hillary Clinton.

Really, how often does the frontrunner win the nomination? (I am speaking, of course, about non–incumbent presidential elections. Incumbents are rarely challenged for the nomination if they decide to seek another term — and even more rarely are those challenges serious.)

In the last 40 years, I suppose it has happened more often on the Republicans' side than on the Democrats' — Romney, John McCain (2008), George W. Bush (2000), Bob Dole (1996), George H.W. Bush (1988), Ronald Reagan (1980) and Gerald Ford (1976) all were frontrunners. The narrative on the Republican side was that the nominee always was the runnerup the last time the nomination was up for grabs. That hasn't always been the case, but it has been close to it for nearly 40 years. And those frontrunners almost always faced viable challengers from within before claiming the nomination.

Democrats have been more freewheeling. Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner heading into the primaries and caucuses of 2008 but lost to Obama, a newcomer to the national stage. The argument can be made that the nominees in 2004 (John Kerry) and 2000 (Al Gore) were frontrunners when the primaries began, but they, too, had to fend off challenges.

Clinton's husband was lightly regarded when his 1992 campaign began, but Mario Cuomo decided not to run, and Bill Clinton emerged from a pack of supposedly second–tier candidates dubbed "the Dwarfs."

Heading into 1988, Gary Hart — an insurgent challenger from 1984 — was regarded as the frontrunner until his campaign imploded. Michael Dukakis emerged from a group of largely unknown candidates to win the nomination.

Hart's insurgent candidacy made things uncomfortable for former Vice President Walter Mondale, the original frontrunner who went on to win the nomination. Mondale's former boss, Jimmy Carter, first won the nomination as an unknown riding a populist wave. Four years before that, the extreme left wing of the Democrat Party seized the nomination in the person of George McGovern.

Hillary Clinton may well go on to win the nomination, but she will have to overcome the problems we already know about — she really wasn't a very good candidate the last time, and her recent public remarks suggest that a lifetime in the public eye hasn't taught her much about diplomacy, her years as secretary of State notwithstanding.

What's more, there are rumblings about members of the liberal base pressing for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to seek the nomination. Not surprisingly, Clinton has been trying to improve her standing with the far left wing.

Historically, a non–incumbent presidential election has been an opportunity for both parties to write a new chapter in their history. Unfortunately, it appears that both parties are taking a trajectory that seems likely to give both nominations to dynastic retreads.

The Great and Powerful Name Dropper

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"You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun
Step into the light"

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For as long as I can remember, someone has been running around and whispering names of potential presidential candidates in the ears of anyone who would listen — and even some who wouldn't.

The great and powerful Name Dropper probably predates me, which tells me there must be a family of Name Droppers, not one individual. Maybe it's kind of like a family business with the younger generation taking over at some point.

If that is so, then the family business has really been booming in the last couple of decades, thanks to the proliferation of cable TV and the internet. I doubt that we'll ever be rid of them.

But there is never a shortage of prospective nominees. Most never leap to the next level and become presumptive nominees. But they serve their purpose. They reinforce the credentials of the great and powerful Name Dropper.

Every time you turn around, someone is dropping someone else's name. Then, before you know it, there will be an article in a newspaper or a magazine or on the internet or on cable news proclaiming someone to be an up–and–comer, a rising star. The buzz builds.

Rising stars seem to flame out rather quickly, though. Sometimes it is more like the flavor of the month, falling from favor almost as rapidly as it ascended. When that happens during a presidential election, it can be a disaster for a party. But when it happens at this point in the election cycle, it really doesn't mean anything.

You know how this works, don't you? The great and powerful Name Dropper mentions that [INSERT NAME HERE] is a possible presidential candidate — even if he/she is not really thinking about it. (Oh, I know, once they're in Washington, they all think about it at some point, even if only fleetingly, but they will really think about it when others start talking about them.)

When the buzz has been generated, he/she will be thinking about it, might even form an exploratory committee to look into it.

The formation of such a committee fuels more talk, and, before you know it, [INSERT NAME HERE] is showing up in public opinion polls. [INSERT NAME HERE] may have done little to encourage such talk and may only be generating a support level that falls within the poll's margin for error, but, as they say in show business, any publicity is good publicity.

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Speculation always seems to be especially rampant at this point in the election cycle — the midterms — when all that the polls really reflect is name recognition, not whether Candidate A or Candidate B would be a successful nominee who connects with voters outside the party.

And that really is what both parties need, right? Their nominees can't win with their parties' votes alone, especially since more than 40% of voters self–identify as independent these days, so the parties need nominees with across–the–board appeal.

That doesn't mean that an insurgent can't win a party's nomination, but such nominees usually come from a party's extreme wing, and they take advantage of deep divisions within the party's mainstream to win the nomination. They seldom heal those divisions or win general elections. For every Ronald Reagan who wins in November, there is a Barry Goldwater and a George McGovern who got no traction after the convention.

There have been relative unknowns who went on to win the presidency — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama come to mind — but, usually, the Frank Churches and Gary Harts of presidential politics fizzle out long before they can start working on an acceptance speech.

Vice presidents often seem to think they will be anointed as the successor for the president whom they have served, but that isn't usually how it works — at least, not for a couple of centuries. After Vice President Martin Van Buren was elected to succeed Andrew Jackson in 1836, the only vice presidents who succeeded the presidents with whom they were elected were the ones who were in office when those presidents died or resigned — until George H.W. Bush was elected to succeed Reagan in 1988.

Bush is still the only sitting vice president in nearly 180 years to be elected president — so, if I were Joe Biden, I don't think I would be looking to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in January 2017.

Biden has another strike against him — his age. For a country that blatantly practices age discrimination in most professions, American politics does offer opportunities for older Americans. Many folks have been returned to Congress in their 80s and 90s, and Americans have valued seasoning in their presidents, too — up to a point.

Reagan was first elected president a few months before his 70th birthday, and he was re–elected a few months before his 74th birthday, but he was the historical exception. Since Reagan's presidency, only the first Bush, the one who succeeded Reagan, was over 60 when he was elected. The three presidents who have succeeded Bush were in their 40s and 50s when elected.

Hillary Clinton, too, will be pushing the historical age barrier if she runs in 2016. She will be 69 just before the election.

The great and powerful Name Dropper doesn't need to drop Clinton's name. After eight years as first lady, eight years as a senator and four years as secretary of State, she is familiar to Americans. She has sought the presidency before, and most people are assuming she will do so again, even though she has not made a formal announcement.

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It does not benefit the great and powerful Name Dropper if there is no campaign, though, so Name Dropper has been trying to promote the idea that, whether Biden runs or not, Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat who took back Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in 2012, would make a plausible candidate.

A few problems, though. She is only a couple of years younger than Clinton so any age argument that could be made against Clinton could plausibly be made against Warren, too. The bigger problem, though, is that Warren doesn't seem to be interested in running — as Politico observed in a headline that said so many things.

For a long time, the pattern in presidential politics was that Democrats were more open to freewheeling races for their nominations than were Republicans, thus making it more likely that Democrats would nominate insurgents; Republicans had a tendency to award their nomination to "the next in line," whoever that was perceived to be.

These days, though, the parties have switched places. If Clinton does indeed win the nomination, she will be seen by many as being the next one in line.

Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to be setting themselves up for a Democrat–like free–for–all in 2016. Their 2012 standard–bearer, Mitt Romney, is mentioned by some as a possible candidate, but that can't be Name Dropper's doing. Romney is hardly an unknown.

Besides, once–beaten presidential nominees have rarely attempted it a second time, no matter how close they came to winning the first time. My guess — and I am sure it is Name Dropper's guess, too — is that Romney won't run.

Many of the names being mentioned on the Republican side are reasonably well known — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush. At least one prospective candidate, outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry, sought the GOP nomination in 2012.

Some of the others from that campaign — Rick Santorum comes to mind — as well as other prominent Republicans are said to be considering a run in 2016. Name Dropper has had his/her hand in that, too, I am sure, but Name Dropper really excels when dropping names that few have heard.

As we embark on the 2014 primary season, there may well be candidates who spring from virtual anonymity and articulate the popular mood strongly enough that they win their party's nomination — and then the election — launching them into the 2016 conversation.

Then the great and powerful Name Dropper, fresh from a few months of restful observation, will leap into action and begin whispering in the ears of party leaders that so–and–so is an alternative to Clinton or that so–and–so can unite Republicans.

And the influence continues.

Inaugural Day 2013

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According to the 20th Amendment, today is the day the president takes the oath of office.

And Barack Obama did take that oath today. But he did so in private.

I suppose that is a fitting metaphor for a president who prefers to bypass the constitutionally prescribed system of checks and balances, but this is done with the blessing of American tradition, if not the Constituton itself.

The 20th Amendment, which was ratified 80 years ago this Wednesday, changed Inauguration Day from March 4 to Jan. 20. That was a necessary change. When the country was founded a couple of centuries ago, it made sense to have the inauguration in March. It was likely that a newly elected president would need all that time to tie up any loose ends in his private life and then travel to Washington to begin his presidency.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the trip to Washington could be long and arduous for a president—elect. But in the 20th century, with the train and the automobile already established as means of transportation and the airplane emerging as one, it wasn't necessary to wait an additional six weeks for the new president to take office.

Especially if the new president was taking office during an economic or international crisis.

The 20th Amendment doesn't mention anything about what is to be done when Inaugural Day falls on a Sunday. I presume that is a tradition dating to the 18th century that continues today.

And, although I consider myself well–versed in American history and traditions, that was a tradition of which I was unaware until 1985. That was the first time in my lifetime that Inaugural Day fell on a Sunday.

Ronald Reagan had been re–elected a couple of months earlier so he took the oath of office for the second time. Nevertheless, I began thinking of how awkward it could be for an outgoing president to have to watch an incoming president take the oath of office twice.

After all, the outgoing president must be on hand for the transfer of power — if at all possible. If the outgoing president is leaving because he has served his two terms, that is one thing, but if the outgoing president was defeated in the most recent election, that is another.

The outgoing president must greet the incoming president at the White House and then ride with him to the Capitol for the public ceremony. It's a short ride up Pennsylvania Avenue, but it could seem interminable if the two are still angry at each other over things that were said during the campaign.

And, for an outgoing president who has been rejected at the polls, it may seem like cruel and unusual punishment to have to stand by and watch his successor take the oath twice.

I don't know if that has ever happened. This is only the third time since the ratification of the 20th Amendment that Inaugural Day has fallen on a Sunday. Each time, the president being sworn in was the incumbent who had been re–elected a couple of months earlier.

If that tradition of a private ceremony on Sunday and a public one on Monday was being observed prior to the ratification of the 20th Amendment, the last time that March 4 fell on a Sunday was in 1917 — when Woodrow Wilson was taking the oath of office for the second time.

I suppose I began thinking about this in 1985 because I had been a supporter of Reagan's opponent in the 1984 election, former Vice President Walter Mondale (who lost in a 49–state landslide).

Maybe I was indulging in a little wishful thinking. It's not as if Mondale was ever really in that race.

But Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney, was in the 2012 race. Some people think he had the momentum until Superstorm Sandy halted it in the final week of the campaign.

If Sandy had not been a late factor in the race, Romney might have won the election.

And, today, Obama would have been forced to stand by while Romney took the oath of office — and then he would have been forced to do so again tomorrow.

Obama was spared that, however. Time will tell if that was a blessing — or a curse.

A Big Election About Small Things

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"If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things."

Barack Obama
2008 Democratic National Convention

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Presidential elections are seldom about what they should be about.

I probably should have learned that on this day in 1972 — or, at least, not long thereafter.

As I have mentioned here before, my mother was a huge supporter of George McGovern, the quixotic Democratic nominee who ran against President Richard Nixon that year. McGovern tried to run on the big issues of the day — the biggest of which was the Vietnam War, which had so divided America four years earlier when Nixon had been elected president.

And I frequently went with Mom when she was campaigning door to door for McGovern that fall.

She admired the fact that McGovern spoke about the difficult issues of war and peace, poverty and prosperity, and, while I don't remember McGovern's loss on this day being a surprise to her, as I mentioned on the occasion of McGovern's death last month, she must have known what was coming. Everyone did.

It was a different time, which is something, I suppose, that younger Americans simply cannot understand any more than they can understand how their elders used to listen to recordings on discs several times the size of modern CDs that were deceptively heavy and could only be played with — of all things — needles.

It was the last election in which the major party nominees did not debate at least once — Nixon had learned his lesson from the experience of debating John F. Kennedy and declined all such offers.

Such a move probably would be greeted by a huge public outcry today. Modern voters expect presidential candidates to debate each other, but it merited only a couple of references by most observers and then it was dropped when it drew no traction.

Neither, for that matter, did the Watergate break–in and coverup. Oh, Watergate was mentioned from time to time, but, as Jason Robards observed in the movie version of "All the President's Men" — "Half the country never even heard of the word 'Watergate.' Nobody gives a s***."

And that is my memory of the general attitude toward the break–in. It was one of those things that may happen in a political campaign. It was deplorable, everyone agreed; the people who participated in the planning and the execution of the plan should be brought to justice, but it wasn't the candidate's fault. The candidate, especially if he was an incumbent, could not possibly be expected to know everything that went on within his campaign organization and in his name.

People today — perhaps foolishly, given what we learned about human nature from that episode in our history — expect better than that from their candidates. They wouldn't stand for any of the old–school shenanigans and dirty tricks that, in hindsight, marked all of Nixon's campaigns in one way or another.

"It was customary, during and after the campaign, to say that the American people did not care," wrote Theodore H. White in "The Making of the President 1972."

"Wise men agreed, and the polls supported them, that it meant little — that Americans had become callous, too cynical to worry about morality in government."

White was torn on the issue in what was the final volume in his "The Making of the President" series. Based on his observations from the campaign trail, White wrote, people were concerned about what they were hearing about the president's men and what they had been up to.

And, based on the number of voters who came to the polls compared to four years earlier, White concluded that Nixon "failed to maximize his potential support."

"[I]t is possible," White wrote, "that at least 3 or 4 million Americans were so disillusioned by both candidates that they chose not to vote at all."

For those who did vote, however, there was "an open choice of ideas, a free choice of directions, and they chose Richard Nixon."

And, while some people did try to make the 1972 election about the big things — the war, the economy, Watergate — my memory is that the Nixon campaign focused on small things — inconsistencies in McGovern's voting record or verbal missteps — and didn't spend too much time talking about what Nixon had done or what he hoped to do.

Nixon had told voters in 1968 that he had a "secret plan" to end the war in six months, a plan he could not reveal because of the sensitivity of the information and the strategy. The war was still going on in 1972. He had failed to achieve the thing that most Americans wanted more than anything else.

If the campaign had been about that, Nixon probably would have faced — in the words of one of his successors — a "one–term proposition." And, privately, Nixon was bitter about the war with which Kennedy and Johnson had saddled him.

There were arguments that Nixon could have made that there had been real improvements on long–term propositions — because ending the war and reviving a sagging economy that was just beginning to experience long–term issues on energy really were long–term problems. It was unrealistic to regard them as anything else.

Of course, promising to end the war in six months was unrealistic and probably ill–advised, but even more ill–advised was any decision to vote based solely on that remark. McGovern did mention that promise from time to time in 1972, but my memory is that most people were dismissive of it. I don't remember any fist fights breaking out over the pledge.

Nixon could — and did — focus on big accomplishments, like forging new relationships with the Chinese and the Russians. But, mostly, his campaign was about little things.

Much like the campaign that just concluded.

While their political philosophies were different, Mitt Romney reminds me a lot of George McGovern — a decent man who sought to speak about big things but was frequently mischaracterized and belittled, first in his own party and then in the general election.

Romney handled it better than McGovern did. He didn't have to drop his running mate, after all. But, nevertheless, his was the first major–party ticket to lose both its home states since the 1972 election.

(Paul Ryan, of course, is a native of Wisconsin, but plausible arguments could be made that Romney's home state could be Michigan, the state of his birth, or Massachusetts, the state that elected him its governor. For the purpose of the argument, though, it doesn't matter. The GOP lost both.)

And Romney didn't lose in a huge landslide. It was a squeaker by historical standards. Obama's successful re–election was the most tepid I have witnessed in my lifetime — and he is the fifth president in that time to be re–elected.

Of course, three sitting presidents (including Gerald Ford, who is an exception because he was never elected president or vice president) have been rejected by the voters, too.

I believed Obama would join them. I was wrong.

He may yet join Nixon. I believe there is a lot about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi that has not been revealed. I don't know if it will be revealed before Obama's term is over. That may depend upon whether mainstream journalists are willing to explore the troubling questions that have been raised, no matter where those questions may lead them.

It should be a source of enduring shame to journalists the way they have often shilled for the administration and failed to act as the watchdogs of the truth they are supposed to be. (I see more egregious examples of this in broadcast journalism than I do in print — but, unfortunately, Americans seem less inclined to read than ever.)

It was the role of watchdog, perhaps more than any other, that attracted me to journalism when I was young — the dogged determination of the press to pursue Watergate wherever it took them. I hope American journalists will rediscover the value of that role.

Perhaps then, if we allow a big election to be defined by little things, it will not be because the press did not do its job.

And the Winner Will Be ...

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For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by presidential elections.

Mind you, I'm not talking about election campaigns. Modern experience is that political campaigns are nasty, dishonest and undignified — although American history does have a few inspiring tales of elevating campaigns that go a long way toward redeeming the rest.

No, I have never been fascinated by the campaigns. I covered some political campaigns when I was a general assignment reporter, and I know that one political rally is pretty much the same as the next. In fact, with their scripted messages of the day and their identical backdrops, any rallies that take place on the same day really could substitute for any of the others on that evening's news broadcast — and hardly anyone would be the wiser.

What has fascinated me is the numbers that come in on election night, what they say about who we are and what we care about — and the most important numbers of all, of course, the tallies in the Electoral College.

I enjoy analyzing the vote by various demographic groups because it tells us a lot about our priorities, but I guess I have always been more intrigued by the raw state totals that usually determine how each state's electoral votes will be cast. Generations come and go, the faces in the voting lines change but political alliances seldom do.

I suppose that explains why certain states always vote for one party or the other. And I have a healthy respect for the lessons of history.

In the lead–up to this year's elections — in large part, I'm sure, because of our national experience with the recounts of 2000 — some have been openly worrying about the possibility that the popular vote winner will not be the electoral vote winner.

Paul Brandus, for example, recently wrote in The Week about nail–biters in American presidential election history.

And he pointed out something that no one else, to my knowledge, has in this election cycle — the possibility that the electoral vote would be inconclusive and the matter would have to be decided by the Congress.

Brandus wrote about the slim mathematical possibility that both Obama and Romney would finish with 269 electoral votes — one short of the required 270. (Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that a "faithless elector" — or two or three — would prevent a candidate from winning in the Electoral College.)

If that happened, the House would select the president, and the Senate would select the vice president. That is how such an impasse is to be resolved, according to the Constitution.

The catch is that the newly elected Congress — not the one that is presently in power — would make the decisions. Congress has adjourned and is not scheduled to be in session again until January, when the newly elected members will be sworn in.

And their first order of business, in the event of an Electoral College tie, would be to choose the president and vice president.

Most people expect the House to remain in Republican hands — the GOP would have to lose about two dozen seats to lose control of the chamber, which is something that almost never happens (historically), but, in the last three elections, we have seen double–digit seat shifts in the House so it is possible.

However, the fate of the Senate, which is narrowly held by Democrats (who must defend about two–thirds of the seats that will be voted on Tuesday), has been less certain for many observers, but the emerging consensus seems to be the Democrats will hold on to their majority in that chamber.

If that turns out to be the breakdown of the next Congress, Brandus observed, the House would be expected to elect Romney president — and the Senate would be expected to re–elect Vice President Joe Biden. Talk about gridlock.

It's a season for silliness, I suppose. Most of the time, the electoral vote winner is the popular vote winner so, historically speaking, talk of such a split belongs under the heading of worst–case scenario. It is possible but not probable, even in a very close race.

And, usually, a candidate's share of the electoral vote tends to mirror that candidate's share of the popular vote (if not exceed it) as well. But not always. The only requirement for winning a state is to get more votes there than the other guy. It can be by a few hundred votes (see Florida in 2000) or by a million or more (see California, Texas, New York in just about every election in the last 30 years).

For that reason, many political scientists have observed, Democrats (like Al Gore in 2000) may be more vulnerable to a popular vote/electoral vote split because — in recent elections, at least — they have been winning heavily populated states like California and New York by wide margins.

The flip side is that most of the states that are popularly labeled red states these days are primarily smaller states (with the noteworthy exception of Texas) — so if a Republican is winning a majority of the popular vote, recent history suggests that he must be winning (perhaps handily) in the Electoral College because his margins in most states will appear tiny when compared to the Democrat's margins in the larger. more urban states.

(While we're on the topic of silliness, I feel torn between hilarity and horror at the suggestion that the president could postpone the election because of the recent hurricane that devastated the East Coast.

(The Constitution spells out when a federal election is to be held, and only an act of Congress — which is not in session, as I mentioned earlier — could do that. Lawmakers from the interior U.S. almost certainly would sympathize with the plight of the folks in the Northeast but would not see any reason to inconvenience their own constituents, many of whom have already voted early, anyway.

(So I find it hilarious that people even suggest this. It may be in jest or it may be serious. I think both may be at play here because I am sure that at least some are being facetious. But I am inclined to feel horror at the thought that there are citizens out there who not only believe the president possesses such sweeping powers that he can reschedule a national election — but are actually comfortable with one individual having such totalitarian power in a democratic republic.)

Speaking of history, I can't recall a week preceding a presidential election that was quite like last week.

I didn't have access to a wide range of news sources when I was growing up, but I've been online for about 15 years now, and I have witnessed all sorts of columns and articles prior to presidential elections during that time.

And, frankly, I was astonished at the number of post–mortems for the Obama campaign that were appearing in print and online editions of publications last week — almost as if the votes had already been counted.

Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun–Times wrote that Obama has "eroded" the American dream.

Foremost in these post–mortems was a column by Richard Cohen, who wrote in the Washington Post of watching a documentary about Ethel Kennedy that showed her husband on his trips to Appalachia and Mississippi and how he "brimmed with shock and indignation, with sorrow and sympathy" over the plight of the poor.

Kennedy "was determined," Cohen wrote, "you could see it on his face — to do something about it. I've never seen that look on Barack Obama's face." He lamented that "I once wondered if Obama could be another RFK."

But, Cohen wrote, undoubtedly echoing the thoughts of many, "I wish he was the man I once mistook him for."

Anyway, let's get back to the business at hand.

Back in April, I examined the "emerging electoral map" and tried to explain historical voting patterns.

I started off by dismissing nearly half of the states as sure things for one side or another — and, with only one real exception, I'm standing by that forecast.

Of the sure things, Mitt Romney has 14 states — Alabama (9 electoral votes), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), Wyoming (3). Total = 120 electoral votes.

Barack Obama has 10 states (and D.C.) — California (55 electoral votes), Connecticut (7), D.C. (3), Hawaii (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (12). Total = 145 electoral votes.

The wild card in that group, I feel, is Oregon.

Yes, I know that Obama carried Oregon by more than 16 percentage points in 2008. And I know Democrats have carried Oregon in six straight presidential elections.

But I'm still doubtful about the state.

Last Monday, The Oregonian reported a six–point lead for Obama in its latest statewide poll.

That may sound good to Obama supporters, conditioned as they have been lately to disappearing leads in states they were counting on carrying, but it actually represents a decline from findings in polls taken in the last three or four months. It isn't a huge decline as these things go — and it falls within the typical margin for error so things may not have changed in Oregon.

But slippage would be in keeping with the apparent pattern in most states.

And, even though seven electoral votes from a single state doesn't mean much when there are 531 electoral votes in the other 49 states and the District of Columbia, seven electoral votes might make all the difference in a race that is expected to be as close as this one is believed to be.

(Personally, I don't think it will be as close as many people do.)

So, while I still predict that Oregon will vote for Obama, I also say that, if it is a very close race, Oregon will bear watching in the late–night hours when the votes on the West Coast are being counted.

I'm still inclined to keep Oregon among the sure things — but, in the shifting political climate, I'm not as sure of it as I was.

I labeled the next group of states the probables — states that are likely to vote in a certain way but, for one reason or another, their eventual leaning will remain unclear until the votes are counted on Tuesday.

Romney had nine states in this group: Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Georgia (16), Indiana (11), Montana (3), North Dakota (3), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), West Virginia (5). Total = 70 electoral votes.

I'm inclined to leave those states in the Republican column — including Colorado. Many observers have been listing Colorado as too close to call — but Colorado usually seems to be close. (Well, Obama did carry the state by about nine percentage points in 2008.)

It also seldom votes for Democrats. In the 14 presidential elections before 2008, Colorado only voted for Democrats twice. And it hasn't voted for Democrats in consecutive elections since it supported Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936.

Most recent polls show either candidate with a one–point lead or the two candidates tied. I expect it will be close on election night, but I'm sticking with my original prediction that Romney will carry the state.

Obama has five states among the probables: Delaware (3), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (14). Total = 51 electoral votes.

I still think Obama will win those five states, but I'm a little dubious about Minnesota and New Jersey.

Minnesota has a long history of supporting Democrats. It hasn't voted for a Republican since Richard Nixon's 49–state landslide in 1972.

A week ago, though, rumors were rampant that Obama was planning a visit to Minnesota, sparking speculation that Democrats were in trouble there. Obama, preoccupied with Hurricane Sandy, didn't go to Minnesota after all, but former President Bill Clinton came instead.

Minnesota voted for Obama by about 10 percentage points four years ago, and it is hard to imagine that it would flip to the Republicans. But Clinton's presence there about a week before the election can only be interpreted as a sign that Democrats are worried.

My next category was the leaners. Like the probables, they can be expected to vote in a certain way — but the chances that they actually will are less than they are for the probables.

Romney has two states in this group: North Carolina (15), Virginia (13). Total = 28 electoral votes.

They were both regarded as too close to call a few months ago, but I felt Obama effectively lost North Carolina when he announced his support for gay marriage the day after North Carolina voters resoundingly rejected it.

Virginia is still considered too close to call by many. But its support for Obama in 2008 was the first time it had voted for a Democrat in more than 40 years — and Virginia hasn't voted for Democrats in back–to–back elections since the 1940s — all of which leads me to believe Virginia will vote — albeit narrowly — for Romney. Especially if George Allen's Senate race is successful.

Obama also had two states among the leaners: Michigan (16), New Mexico (5). Total = 21 electoral votes.

New Mexico looks like it will remain in the Democrats' column, but I'm not so certain about Michigan. That, after all, is where Romney was born and where his father served as governor. Obama did win the state by more than 800,000 votes in 2008 — and a recent Detroit Newspoll showed Obama in the lead — but that lead, which has been cut in half since early October, was within the margin of error.

Ramussen recently found Obama leading in Michigan with 50%. I think Obama can count on it — but it may be late in the evening before he can secure Michigan's electoral votes.

That gives the following electoral vote totals: Romney = 218, Obama = 217. And it leaves eight battleground states — Florida (29), Iowa (6), Missouri (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Wisconsin (10) — worth 103 electoral votes.

I designated these states as battlegrounds back in April. Most are still regarded as battlegrounds today; a few are considered reasonably safe for one candidate or another, but I think all are in play to an extent.

Recent polls indicate that Missouri is likely to vote Republican, which would boost Romney's electoral vote total to 228. And, in fact, polls have been suggesting a Romney victory in Missouri was increasingly likely ever since I posted my first glance at the Electoral College.

But the other seven states still are generally regarded as too close to call — even if some polls suggest that one candidate or the other has a modest lead.

So let's look at them, one by one:

• Florida — The race appears close in Florida, with recent polls showing one– or two–point leads for either candidate. Florida voted for Obama four years ago, but the state hasn't voted for Democrats in consecutive elections since the days of FDR and Harry Truman.
  
  I think it will be close – no surprise there — but I think it will be in the Republican column. (Romney = 257, Obama = 217)
• Iowa — The Des Moines Register, which has endorsed Romney, reported Saturday that Obama leads by five points, but he is still below 50%.
  
  It will probably be tight in Iowa, but I think Obama will carry it. (Romney = 257, Obama = 223)
• Nevada — With one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, Nevada seems like fertile ground for Romney, and perhaps it will turn out that way on Tuesday.
  
  But even though the Las Vegas Review Journal, in a sharply worded editorial, endorsed Romney last Thursday, Obama's lead in Nevada appears to be growing.
  
  So I will pick Nevada to vote for Obama. (Romney = 257, Obama = 229)
• New Hampshire — New Hampshire was once considered reliably Republican, but it has voted Democrat in four of the last five elections.
  
  A recent University of New Hampshire poll found the candidates tied at 48–48. Since undecided voters tend to break for the challenger, I will call this state for Romney. (Romney = 261, Obama = 229)
• Ohio — It is an article of faith among political observers that no Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio. Sometimes Republicans have lost the national election in spite of winning Ohio (Richard Nixon in 1960, Tom Dewey in 1944).
  
  Most recent polls — MSNBC, CNN, WeAskAmerica.com — show the president at 50% or better in Ohio. And, without the auto bailout, it is hard to argue that Ohio would be doing as well as it is in the current economic climate.
  
  It is worth noting that Rasmussen says the race is a dead heat. Perhaps it is.
  
  But, right now, I'm inclined to pick Ohio to vote for Obama.
  
  Does that mean Romney will lose? Not necessarily. Twenty years ago, when George H.W. Bush sought a second term, polls showed him leading Bill Clinton in Texas — and political observers pointed out that no Democrat had won the presidency without winning Texas.
  
  But Clinton was elected president twice — and Obama was elected president once — without the support of Texas. A U.S. presidential election is actually 51 individual elections (50 states and the District of Columbia). If Romney loses Ohio, it is only 18 electoral votes — the fewest Ohio has been worth since the days of Andrew Jackson — and that loss can be made up with victories elsewhere. (Romney = 261, Obama =247)
• Pennsylvania — I'm sure no one in the Obama campaign thought Pennsylvania would be up for grabs in the closing days of the election, but I predicted it would back in April — and my reason was the strong Republican showing in the state in the 2010 midterm elections.
  
  Republicans won a U.S. Senate seat and the statehouse.
  
  Recent surveys by Franklin & Marshall and the Philadelphia Inquirer have Obama leading but with a plurality, not a majority.
  
  And, since Pennsylvania was assumed to be a lock for Obama, it was spared the barrage of anti–Romney commercials that flooded other battleground states in the spring and summer — so the voters there had few preconceived notions that Romney had to refute
  
  To be fair, that wasn't an unreasonable conclusion. Pennsylvania voted for Obama by a 10–point margin in 2008, and the state hasn't voted Republican since 1988.
  
  In a close race, Democrats usually hope for a strong turnout in Democrat–leaning Philadelphia to help them win Pennsylvania. But I wonder just how strong the turnout in Philadelphia will be, given its close proximity to the area that was most directly affected by Hurricane Sandy.
  
  I believe few, if any, Americans hope that the pain and suffering caused by the hurricane will influence the election in any way, but, if turnout in Philly is lower than usual — and I'm inclined to think it might be — that could tip the balance of power to Romney. And that is what I think will happen. (Romney = 281, Obama = 247)
• Wisconsin — Usually, Wisconsin could be expected to be even more Democratic than Michigan, perhaps about as Democratic as Minnesota.
  
  But a couple of things make me think Wisconsin will vote for Romney.
  
  For one, Wisconsin has been the site of many recent Republican victories — the 2010 election of Scott Walker as governor and the rejection of the recent recall effort, the 2010 election of Republican Ron Johnson to the U.S. Senate, and the shift of two of its eight House seats from Democrat to Republican hands.
  
  For another, Wisconsin does not usually have a candidate on the national ticket. But this year it has one in Rep. Paul Ryan, who ran 13 percentage points ahead of Obama in his southeast Wisconsin district in 2008.
  
  I think Wisconsin will vote for Romney. (Romney = 291, Obama = 247)

A Brand New Ball Game?

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I've heard the question asked by several people in the last 24 hours.

Is this a new race now?

The subject, obviously, is Wednesday night's debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The Los Angeles Times reports that more than 67 million Americans watched it.

And I am — as the Batman character Two–Face said — of two minds on the question of whether things have changed. At least in a long–term sense.

On the one hand, of course, there is that election campaign.

If the polls have been correct (and I'm not convinced that they have been) and Obama's lead has been growing in recent weeks, then my answer would be "yes, it probably is a new race now" because Romney clearly and decisively won the debate. Virtually everyone is saying so. Even the president's staunchest defenders have conceded that point.

In the short term — and, with fewer than five weeks to go, short term is really all there is in this presidential election campaign — will it be enough?

To truly win the hearts and minds of the voters takes more than a single debate and longer than five weeks — but, if the viewership of this year's conventions is any indication (and I believe it is), way more than half of the electorate doesn't pay close attention to the campaign until only a few weeks remain.

And many, many more people are undecided — or at least willing to reconsider voting to re–elect the president — than we have been led to believe.

Candidates don't have much choice. They must first be elected before they can start doing the work of governing that will ultimately define them so they must go for the quick scores and hope that will be sufficient to win enough votes.

It's different for incumbents. They already hold the office they seek, and voters want reasons to justify re–electing incumbents.

There will be three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate before they count the votes on Nov. 6. Winning the election is what matters at this point, and Romney almost certainly could not have been seen as the debate's winner if the general perception had been that he had had a bad night.

Winning the debates — especially the first one — and winning the election are the immediate tasks. The hearts and minds can be won later.

Wednesday night's debate was indisputably more important for Romney than Obama. The polls, whether they are accurate or not, were showing Romney behind Obama nationally and in nearly every so–called "swing state;" if he had been seen as the loser of this debate, I think it would have been almost impossible for him to bounce back and win the election — even if he won the last two debates.

But Romney wasn't seen as the loser in the immediate assessments of Americans who watched the debate.

Now, I am curious to see what the post–debate surveys, which are being conducted as I write this (and sampling probably will continue for a few more days), reveal about the voters' impression.

My gut tells me that, by Sunday or Monday, the overwhelming perception still will be that Romney won the debate with a president who was widely expected to win. I say that because Romney (who had been criticized for being too vague) provided as much detail as a 90–minute debate would allow, he was relaxed and smiling and he even managed to work in a few humorous comments (who woulda guessed that Mitt Romney had a pretty decent sense of humor?).

He made a favorable impression on many voters who had believed much of the negative stuff that was spread about Romney by Obama's campaign.

That may have been the thing that irked Democrats the most — that Obama never really used their favorite (albeit faulty) talking points about who Romney is. Those talking points were completely at odds with what viewers saw and heard.

And, in my experience, when people conclude that they have been deceived about one thing, they become suspicious of other things that are said by that person or whoever is authorized to speak on that person's behalf.

Now, that's largely what I believe happened last night. Conservative commentators had their own interpretations. I share some of their conclusions, and I'm lukewarm on others. Guess that's proof that I really am a centrist.

There have been many theories offered today by Obama's defenders about why the president was "off his game," if he was — and I am not convinced that he was.

Some have suggested that he was simply mindful of the need to uphold the dignity of his office — but, having observed this man in the presidency for more than 3½ years, I simply do not find that plausible.

Others have tried to put the best spin possible on an epically bad debate performance.

Aw, gee, folks, Gail Collins writes in the New York Times. Do debates really matter?

Until last night, my answer would have been "not that much." But, in fact, we don't really have that much to go on. Debates have only been regular parts of presidential elections since 1976.

And I have watched most of them. Believe me, I have seen some pretty bad performances over the years, sometimes by incumbents, but I have never seen an incumbent perform as poorly in a debate as Obama did Wednesday night.

It wasn't really as bad as your eyes and ears told you it was, Jonathan Chait suggests in New York Magazine.

Oh, yes, it was. For viewers who expected to see the scripted, teleprompter–aided president they've watched for the last four years, it was a shock.

Where was Obama, moaned a distraught Chris Matthews.

Former Vice President Al Gore — who knows a few things about presidential debates — theorized that Obama hadn't had enough time to adjust to the altitude of Denver.

I've been to Denver. Yes, the air is thin up there, but I wasn't light–headed or anything like that. It didn't affect my judgment or my coordination. I was able to function normally (of course, I didn't have 67 million people watching me do it, either).

I drove there from Oklahoma, where the altitude is about one–fifth that of Denver. If I suffered any ill effects physically, it probably was from such a long drive.

And I'm pretty certain that Obama didn't have to operate Air Force One when he flew to Denver.

I worked in the newspaper business for many years. I have a lot of experience as a professional journalist, and I know that post mortems on a debate are fun for journalists, especially since one person's theory about why such a gifted speaker as Obama should do so poorly in a debate is as good as another person's.

Frankly, though, I don't really think it was a matter of Obama losing the debate. I think Romney won the debate — substance over style.

No matter what the polls show in the next few days, however, there is still much work to be done by Romney.

But the thing I have been thinking about today is the role of the press in this disaster for the Democrats.

No, I am not going to suggest that there is some sort of liberal conspiracy within the media. I would guess that most of the employees of newspapers or magazines or radio stations or TV networks are liberals — but probably the majority of the owners of those media outlets are conservatives.

And it is the owners who have the real influence.

That leads me to the thing I've been wondering about all day.

When Obama ran for president in 2008, he promised a transparent presidency that would include regular press conferences. But he has delivered precisely the opposite. He seldom answers questions from the White House reporters in a press conference setting, preferring instead to have one–on–one interviews with journalists who could be counted upon to toss him softball questions:

Is the earth round, Mr. President? It is? You are truly wise, blessed with keen insight, Mr. President.

I'm not one of those who wails about media bias because it smacks too much of an allegation of conspiracy, and I don't believe a conspiracy on that kind of scale is possible.

But I do believe a kind of passive acceptance of the progressive narrative of the moment has been going on for the last 3½ years. Many (not all) journalists have treated this president with kid gloves. He has been pampered and has rarely, if ever, been challenged.

I doubt that Obama ever believed he would be challenged within his party for renomination so there was no reason to think he would have to debate anyone the way he had to debate Hillary Clinton. And the debates with John McCain were pretty easy because they were held a few weeks after the economic implosion, and the voters were turning from the party that had been in power for eight years.

The president often complains about the lousy hand he was dealt, but the truth is that the road to the White House would have been a lot rockier for Obama without that implosion. Polls just before the implosion indicated that Obama and McCain were running neck and neck, and there had been symptoms of buyer's remorse among Democrats over the selection of Joe Biden as running mate.

So it had been close to 4½ years since Obama had participated in a debate, and many of his supporters have been pointing that out today. He was simply out of practice, they say.

I think there is some truth in that, but I also believe the give and take of regular presidential press conferences keeps a president on his toes. Apparently, Obama simply decided not to hold press conferences, and the press acquiesced.

The press should have protested this — vigorously. Not because being able to question those in power is essential to a free society — although it is.

And not because regular press conferences would have benefited a president trying to win re–election with a bad economy that was bad when he took office but was made worse when he failed to turn it around in his first term — although they would.

But because many of those in the press have abdicated their responsibility to be the public's watch dog. The press' allegiance is to the citizens of the United States — not to any president, regardless of party affiliation or political ideology.

It is my deep hope that, whoever is elected president, press conferences will become commonplace at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue once again.

The press should insist on it.

No False Notes

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I guess one of the things that attracted me to the study of history was its little (and not so little) ironies.

Sometimes the ironies are poignant. Sometimes they are humorous. Sometimes they are, well, ironic (I just can't seem to think of an appropriate synonym).

Four years ago, it was ironic that Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech at his party's convention 45 years to the day since Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

I don't think anyone believed Obama would be a failure if he did not surpass King's performance. In the long–term perspective of history, both men will stand as symbols of progress in America.

But there may have been certain expectations that Mitt Romney had for himself before his speech in Tampa tonight. And, while his address likely will not be remembered as one of the great speeches of the 21st century, it was a workmanlike performance for a country hungering for a workmanlike leader.

In 2012, I suppose the way — or even whether — one defines the irony of Mitt Romney's nomination for the presidency this week depends upon where one sits on the political spectrum.

You see, it was 45 years ago tomorrow that Mitt's father, Michigan Gov. George Romney, a candidate (temporarily) for the 1968 Republican nomination, made his infamous assertion that he had been a victim of "brainwashing" during his trip to Vietnam nearly two years earlier.

George Romney's intention was to make the point that he had been deceived, just as the nation had been deceived, on the subject of Vietnam. And, if he had put it that way, he might well have been his party's nominee.

But his selection of the word "brainwashing" doomed his candidacy. It made him appear weak, easily manipulated and ill–prepared to stand up to the bad guys of the world.

That really seems to be a problem for the Romneys, this tendency to insert a single false note into what would otherwise be, if not inspiring, certainly adequate and sincere discussions of the issues of the day — and some that became faux issues because of those linguistic shortcomings.

But, I must confess, I heard no false notes in tonight's acceptance speech by Mitt Romney. Perhaps he exorcised the ghost of his father's "brainwashing" remark. After all, if George Romney had not used that word 45 years ago, he, not Richard Nixon, might have been the GOP's standard bearer in 1968.

Just think of it. America might have been spared the Watergate scandal — if not for that word. Would George Romney have felt compelled to drop out of the race if he had claimed that he had been deceived by the administration? Or that he had been led to believe things that were not true?

That "brainwashing" remark ended forever George Romney's dream of being president.

Tonight his son may have reclaimed his father's dream.

Does Ryan Put Wisconsin in Play?

Politically, Wisconsin is a fascinating place.

(I'm sure it is fascinating in other ways, too. I have never lived there, but, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been a Green Bay Packers fan all my life.)

It is mostly regarded as a progressive "blue" state, having produced Robert La Follette, 1924 presidential nominee of the Progressive Party. La Follette got nearly 17% of the national vote that year, the best showing for a third–party candidate between 1912 and 1992.

La Follette began his political life as a Republican. Joe McCarthy, a controversial right–wing Republican senator, came from Wisconsin, too. In fact, although Wisconsin is often thought of as a Democratic state today, the truth is that the Republican Party got its start in a meeting at a school in Ripon, Wisconsin, in the mid–19th century. Opposition to slavery was the unifying theme at the time.

In 2008, Barack Obama won Wisconsin by more than 400,000 votes. Obama's 56% share of the vote was the highest in that state for any presidential candidate since 1964.

With the exception of the southeastern corner of the state (where Milwaukee is — although Milwaukee County itself voted 2 to 1 for Obama), the Democratic ticket cruised to victory in just about every county.

Based on that — and the fact that Democrats have carried Wisconsin in every election since 1988 — Wisconsin has acquired a reputation as a decidedly blue state.

But that six–election streak is a bit deceiving. Before 2008, Wisconsin was more of a purple state.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry beat Republican George W. Bush in Wisconsin by about 11,000 votes. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore beat Bush there by about 5,000 votes.

Prior to that, Bill Clinton did win the state by comparatively comfortable margins, and Michael Dukakis did get a majority of the vote against George H.W. Bush (even though his margin was less than 100,000 votes).

But Republicans won Wisconsin in four of the five elections prior to the Bush–Dukakis race — and the only exception was a narrow victory for Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Wisconsin's political allegiance seems to shift every couple of decades. The state often seems determined to march to the beat of a different drum. It even voted against Franklin Roosevelt the fourth time he sought the presidency in 1944.

There were indications in the midterms of 2010 that such a shift could be happening in Wisconsin now. Wisconsin's House delegation went from being majority Democrat to majority Republican, Republican Scott Walker was elected governor and survived a recall election in June of this year, and Ron Johnson upset three–term Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold, becoming the first duly elected Republican senator from Wisconsin in a quarter of a century.

Obama is still popular in Wisconsin, but consider this: Ryan's district re–elected him with 64% of the vote in 2008. In the same election, that district gave Obama 51% of its vote. Clearly, many of the residents of that district who voted for Obama also voted for Ryan.

In fact, even if one assumes that every voter in the district who voted for John McCain also voted for Ryan — and experience tells me that some did not — the conclusion that more than one–fourth of Obama's supporters must have voted for Ryan, too, is inescapable.

But Ryan has never been in a statewide race before. The elections of Walker and Johnson two years ago suggest that Wisconsin is receptive to the idea, but the most recent polls I have seen indicate that Obama is poised for a narrow victory in the state. Marquette University's latest poll shows Obama leading Romney, 50 to 45, which is about what most polls have been showing.

And conventional wisdom holds that, in an election involving an incumbent, undecided voters usually (but not unanimously) tend to break for the challenger. In that pre–Ryan environment, Democrats could anticipate a slim win in Wisconsin.

Of course, none of the polls were taken after Ryan was introduced as Romney's running mate.

Presumably, new surveys are being conducted now, which will give us some context for comparison as we get closer to Election Day.

If subsequent polls show the race tightening, Democrats may be forced to fight for Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes.

Random Thoughts About Paul Ryan

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The first thought I had this morning when I saw Paul Ryan being introduced as Mitt Romney's running mate was of Dan Quayle, vice president under George H.W. Bush.

Nearly 24 years ago to the day, Bush presented Quayle as his presumptive running mate at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. Bush, of course, had been Ronald Reagan's vice president for eight years and was running more or less as the Gipper's substitute.

And, consequently, he benefited from Reagan's popularity.

But his choice of a running mate was widely criticized. Quayle, who was only about a year younger than Ryan is today, was bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm, yelping and squealing like a kid on a sugar high. Even some Republicans found it difficult to swallow.

In fact, none other than Ed Rollins, who managed Reagan's re–election campaign in 1984, lamented that the convention "was supposed to be [Bush's] showcase week," but that "got stomped on" by the selection of Quayle.

Initially, Ryan reminded me of Quayle, doing a little whooping and cheerleading as he walked to and then stood before a microphone. But, as he got into his remarks, it was clear that Ryan is no Dan Quayle. In comparison to Quayle, Ryan could be judged a success if he simply gets through his acceptance speech with a little maturity — and he showed more than a little of that in his introduction this morning.

In fact, Joe Biden is likely to realize rather quickly — probably well in advance of the vice presidential debate in a couple of months — that Ryan is no Sarah Palin, either. Palin's lack of knowledge on key issues was widely ridiculed, but nothing remotely like that could be said of Paul Ryan.

Ryan, wrote Michael Barone and Chuck McCutcheon in the 2012 Almanac of American Politics, "is regarded as an intellectual leader in the GOP for his unrivaled influence on fiscal matters."

Speaking of debates, Quayle made the observation in his debate with Lloyd Bentsen that his congressional career was as lengthy as John F. Kennedy's when he was elected president — which was almost, but not quite, correct and gave Bentsen the opening for his famous line that Quayle was "no Jack Kennedy."

(Ryan's congressional service actually does match Kennedy's in length.)

The Bush–Quayle ticket went on to win that 1988 election in spite of Quayle, but it was a different time, and no one yet knows the kind of impact Ryan may or may not have on the race. True, the Democrats led in the polls when both running mates were announced, but Bush overcame that during the general election campaign.

Romney doesn't face the kind of mountain to climb that Bush did, but he doesn't have the benefit of being a member of a successful lame–duck president's team, either.

Romney's task is just the opposite — to make the case that the Obama administration has been a failure — and Ryan seemed well qualified to make that argument.

No, Paul Ryan is no Dan Quayle. And he is no Sarah Palin.

Accept it.

The Arc of History

History really is a funny thing, isn't it?

I've been studying history all my life, but I have only recently (well, comparatively speaking) come to realize certain things about it.

I always realized those things, I guess, but in a compartmentalized sort of way. It is only recently that I have seen how subtly intricate is the link that binds them.

And I can say that it does help to connect the dots. It puts things in context.

See, I have always believed that history really does repeat itself. It doesn't do so precisely — well, not usually — but, at least in hindsight, it is possible to see the repetition.

Every presidential election year seems to inspire articles from people that demonstrate the similarities between that year and some year that preceded it — which, in turn, provides some kind of predictive advantage.

See, all this happened in the year XXXX. That means it will happen again this year. That is the logic of such people, and it is flawed.

For some reason, the 2012 campaign seems to have inspired more than its share of such historical speculation, which seems rather odd because we've never had a non–white incumbent seeking re–election before. From that standpoint, it seems to me that we're really in uncharted waters here. Whatever Obama has done or not done as president, it seems he is always being judged in a racial context — by both his supporters and his foes.

But it isn't just the racial element that makes this campaign different. The fact is that no two elections are the same. There might be similar factors, but there are always differences. Different times, different candidates, different issues.

For awhile, when Barack Obama was frequently being compared to FDR, I heard his supporters arguing that his bid for a second term would be a lot like Roosevelt's campaign for a second term in 1936.

They continued to make the case for that scenario even when Obama's approval ratings slipped well below the level most political scientists consider viable for electoral success.

There has been no real way to compare pre–election job approval numbers for Obama and FDR because such surveys were not being conducted in 1936.

However ...

FDR overcame bad poll numbers, too, I have heard Obama's supporters argue, which is true — but it is also misleading. Polling really was embryonic in those days, and pollsters only sampled people with access to telephones or cars.

Millions of Americans could afford neither and, therefore, were not polled — but they showed up to vote on Election Day.

More recently, I've heard the 1936 analogy used to explain why Obama, in spite of a jobless rate that historically means sure defeat for an incumbent, will win. With an unemployment rate that is currently 8.3%, Obama faces the kind of obstacle that only one president in modern times has been able to overcome.

That president was FDR in 1936, but it is important to remember that, when Roosevelt was elected in 1932, roughly one–quarter of working–age Americans had no jobs. The unemployment rate was still in double digits when Roosevelt won his second term — but it was dramatically lower than it had been when he took office four years earlier.

The unemployment rate under Obama has been worse — at times, dramatically so — on every day of his presidency than it was the day he took the oath of office.

The comparison to Roosevelt simply isn't plausible.

I've also heard the 2012 campaign compared to the 1948 campaign, in which an unpopular president, Harry Truman, defied the polls and won an upset over Republican Tom Dewey.

But polling wasn't much more sophisticated in 1948 than it was in 1932. Pollsters saw a significant lead for Dewey in October and stopped polling under the assumption that the election was a done deal.

Thus, they missed the surge in Truman's direction late in the campaign.

I've been intrigued by how both Obama's campaign and Mitt Romney's campaign have drawn inspiration from successful campaigns run by the opposition in modern times.

Obama, for example, undoubtedly would like for 2012 to resemble 1984, when Ronald Reagan was re–elected by a landslide in spite of a jobless rate that exceeded 7.0%, but I have heard no economists who believe there is a chance that something like that could happen this year.

If that outcome isn't likely, Democrats probably would settle for a narrow victory like the one George W. Bush enjoyed eight years ago.

And that does seem like the playbook they're following.

Bush achieved his victory with a series of negative ads that raised doubts about John Kerry's greatest strength, his service during the Vietnam War. Obama already has spent millions of dollars on negative advertisements intended to raise doubts about Romney's greatest strength at a time of economic distress, his success in the business world — but with little movement in the polls to show for it.

(That scenario, I expect, has additional significance for Obama — an incumbent running for re–election against a bland, wealthy candidate from Massachusetts.)

Romney would like for 2012 to be more like 1992, when an incumbent president was defeated by another governor. The economy is worse now than it was 20 years ago, but there was a very popular independent candidate in that race, a factor that — so far, at least — has not materialized this year (and we're running out of time for it).

(Frankly, I have always wondered if Ross Perot's campaign really made that much of a difference in the ultimate outcome. Exit polls at the time indicated that, if Perot had not re–entered the race that fall, 40% of his supporters would have voted for President Bush, 40% would have voted for Bill Clinton and 20% would not have voted at all.)

Mostly, though, Romney and his people seem to draw inspiration from 1980, when Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. There was a third candidate in that race, too, but he didn't draw nearly the support that Perot did and had no real influence on the outcome.

That scenario may be possible, although there are still a few noteworthy differences.

For one, Carter was beset by both economic adversity and a hostage situation. The anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy in Iran happened to fall on Election Day, which may well have pushed some fence–sitters into Reagan's column at the last minute.

Obama has plenty of economic issues working against him, but he seems to be on reasonably stable ground with voters on his foreign policies. Something could happen to make voters question the wisdom of those policies, but, right now, Obama is highly unlikely to face the same kind of double whammy that Carter did.

And there is another factor about 1980 that must be considered. Many people romanticize that time and confuse the Reagan of the campaign trail with the Reagan he became in office.

I am really not certain how that kind of variable might be applied to this year's campaign, if at all.

In 1980, the popular impression of Reagan was that he was a crazy old man who would start a nuclear war with the Soviets, and the Carter campaign used that relentlessly.

The record shows that, in eight years as president, Reagan never fired a single nuclear weapon at anyone. True, he was a hawk on military matters, and he favored a strong defense, but he launched no nuclear wars.

Nevertheless, there was a nugget or two of truth in the charge that he would be a reckless commander in chief. Reagan did have something of a history of being defiant when challenged. He could be angry at times, as he was when he protested at the debate in New Hampshire that he was "paying for this microphone."

Republican primary voters responded to that kind of show of strength. It contrasted with Carter's apparent timidity. But Democrats and independents had to be won over. At a time of tension with the Soviet Union, Reagan frightened many voters.

How well did Reagan succeed in neutralizing those fears? Well, his aw, shucks approach to his one and only debate with Carter — and his "There you go again" response to the president's insistence on repeating his negative charges — reassured voters that Reagan was not the loose cannon they had been told he was.

The popular image of Reagan today is of an amiable, kindly man whose presidency produced a booming economic recovery, which was what most Americans wanted in 1980 — along with the release of the hostages.

But there probably will be no similar foreign crisis this year — unless it is of an economic nature.

However, I have heard talk from some people that an October surprise is already planned — in Iran. Oh, the irony!

History does not repeat itself, Mark Twain supposedly said, but it does rhyme.

Winning By Losing

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Occasionally in the past, I've heard it said that, at times, it is possible to win by losing.

I heard that — or its equivalent — said a lot in the lead–up to today's Supreme Court ruling on the legal challenge to the so–called Obamacare legislation.

Initially, I was inclined to think it was pre–emptive spinning — to mitigate defeat, not boast of victory.

Because, you see, both sides seemed to be convinced — to some extent — that the High Court was going to rule against them. And, I suppose, in these times of incredible uncertainty, that was the prudent thing to do: Prepare for the worst.

Therefore, this was the logic — on both sides.

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If the Supreme Court rules against us, it will mobilize our people in the fall, and we will overwhelm the opposition with the backlash.

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Now, on the surface, I supposed, that is a reasonably effective case for making chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.

But it seemed to me that it perpetuated the mindset that believes in complacency politics — that success makes people complacent.

That has not been my experience.

In my experience, whether it is business or politics or whatever, success only whets one's appetite for more. I never expected the side that was perceived to be the winner today to sit back and relax.

Americans have always been competitive. Historically, success seldom makes people complacent. If anything, having acquired power, they put that power to work in an attempt to keep it.

Well, most do. Some don't, I admit. But those people don't tend to last too long.

Anyway, now that the Supreme Court has ruled the legislation to be constitutional — and in the most improbable way imaginable, by upholding the mandate as being within congressional taxation authority — I have been re–thinking my opinion on that.

And I'm beginning to think that, yes, there could be a considerable backlash on this at the polls in November.

In the first place, the introduction of that word tax is something the Democrats in Congress — and Barack Obama himself — sought to avoid when they were ramming through the health care reform act.

Legal defenders of the legislation only threw it into the mix in their Supreme Court arguments as a last–minute thing — yet that turned out to be the argument that the Supreme Court bought.

The High Court didn't go along with the commerce argument. It upheld the constitutionality of the legislation with that last–minute taxation argument — which, ironically, was never part of the original deal.

And it made things a bit sticky for the Obama campaign. Obama has repeatedly assured Americans that, during his presidency, there would be no tax increase on anyone making under $200,000/year.

Now, with the help of the Supreme Court, he has pulled off the greatest bait and switch in American taxation history.

And, if there are any folks who need a quick reminder of how the American people feel about anything that is labeled a tax, let me refer them to the election returns from 20 years ago — when President George H.W. Bush was defeated in large part for going back on his 1988 campaign pledge to resist any tax increases.

And make no mistake about it. This will amount to a massive tax increase — mostly on the middle class. Countless people will look at their annual incomes and do the math — and they will conclude that it will be cheaper for them to pay the tax than purchase the insurance.

That doesn't mean they will like it. It just means they will do it.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Supreme Court handed Obama a victory with today's ruling. It would have been indescribably embarrassing for the signature legislation under a president who was once a constitutional law professor to be declared unconstitutional.

Obama was spared that embarrassment — and, because of that, he has to be regarded as the winner of today's round. His signature legislation — virtually the only accomplishment he has to show for his 3½ years as president — survived.

Without it, he would have had no case at all for re–election.

But the Republicans have been given a huge banner to follow into battle this fall — and, with it, I think Romney may well win the war.

Choosing a Running Mate

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With the primaries over and the battle for the Republican presidential nomination apparently decided, political writers find themselves in an historically dreary period until the parties gather for their conventions.

It is at this time when there is much speculation about the ultimate identity of at least one of the major parties' running mates.

Of course, in 2012, we already know the name of one of the running mates. That would be Joe Biden, the incumbent vice president.

Four years ago, it was a much less common situation — in which no incumbent was running — so there was a great deal of speculation regarding the identities of both party nominees' running mates.

But this year, as I say, we already know who will be the running mate on the Democrats' ticket — unless, as a few folks have predicted, Barack Obama decides to drop Biden and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket.

I have argued repeatedly that this is highly unlikely. In their zeal to whip up a discussion about a non–issue, such observers show an appreciation only for drama, not history.

Realistically, only Republican Mitt Romney will be selecting a running mate in this election cycle.

Recent speculation about Romney's eventual running mate has focused, as usual, on the most well–known names — but history tells us that presidential nominees, in what is often described as their first presidential–level decision, are likely to surprise just about everyone — perhaps spectacularly so.

I believe the reason for that is, while it is always possible that a vice president could become president at any time, presidential nominees don't tend to treat the decision with the kind of reverence it deserves.

Don't get me wrong; it's an important decision, but the overriding consideration is usually political — which potential running mate can give the ticket the most bang for the buck on Election Day?

Thus, the decision offers a fascinating glimpse into the logic of the nominee, but, as a barometer for the kind of decisions he might be likely to make in office, it is virtually worthless.

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Like four years ago.

There was a lot of speculation about the running mates Obama and John McCain would choose, but, in the end, the selections of Biden and Sarah Palin were complete surprises — and seemingly motivated by entirely different considerations (even though both choices came down to politics — as usual — no matter how the campaigns chose to spin the decisions).

They addressed weaknesses — either real or perceived — of the presidential nominees.

Domestically, in 2008, there had been concerns about gas and food prices, but there were also international tensions that summer, and foreign policy was an area in which McCain, a Vietnam–era prisoner of war, was believed to have an advantage.

As a presidential candidate, Biden hadn't attracted much support, and he came from a tiny state that was already believed to be in the bag for the Democrats, but he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and, as such, he brought foreign policy credibility to the Democratic ticket.

So, while conventional wisdom holds that a running mate is chosen in large part because of the votes he can bring or the states he can help the nominee carry, that didn't appear to play much of a role in Obama's decision. The selection of Biden was praised because it was believed to have addressed an administrative need, not an electoral one.

But it was political in the sense that it was designed to reassure voters who saw the war on terrorism and border security as the most crucial issues in 2008 (remember, when the Democrats convened in Denver, the economic collapse had not yet happened.)

McCain's apparent motivation in selecting a female running mate, on the other hand, was to appeal to the millions of women who had supported Hillary Clinton's campaign and were said to be lukewarm on Obama.

It was an electorally motivated decision, and it was seen for the transparent maneuver that it was. The Republicans entirely overlooked the fact that women who participated in the Democratic primaries had an ideological agenda, too. Palin was simply too extreme for most of them.

In fact, after the votes had been counted, I heard several people second–guessing McCain's choice. They argued — correctly — that there were centrist Republican women who could have had broader appeal to female voters.

(Most of those people, it is worth noting, had nothing but praise for Palin when she was chosen and during the campaign.)

But, on the other hand, Palin had to be extreme to keep the conservatives in line. There was already a widespread perception of McCain as a "RINO" (a "Republican in Name Only"), and he needed to give the conservatives a reason to show up at the polls.

Also — although it was hardly mentioned — Palin was the only candidate who, as a governor, brought executive experience to the table.

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Traditionally, there are many factors involved in choosing a running mate, most aimed at providing some kind of balance to the ticket. Everyone has shortcomings, and the philosophy behind running mate selection has emphasized minimizing them.

As I said, Palin's executive experience carried some weight with voters who saw nothing but legislative experience from Obama, McCain and Biden.

In 2004, John Kerry apparently felt party unity was the most important factor so he chose North Carolina Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate.

Edwards had been Kerry's chief rival and the second–leading vote getter in the Democratic primaries — even though he won only two. It must have been a disappointment indeed for the Kerry team when their candidate received virtually no post–convention bounce in the polls. I'm sure they expected something, if only from the disgruntled Democrats whom they sought to appease.

Party unity never seemed to be a factor when George W. Bush made his choice in 2000. In fact, he appointed Dick Cheney to lead his vice–presidential search committee, but then Bush took the remarkable step of asking Cheney himself to be his running mate.

Had party unity been at the top of Bush's concerns, he probably would have picked McCain, his main rival for the nomination, to be his running mate.

Party unity apparently was behind Ronald Reagan's selection of George H.W. Bush in 1980.

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Things got a little out of hand at that year's Republican convention. A rumor that former President Gerald Ford would be Reagan's running mate swept through the delegations like wildfire.

The idea was that Ford and Reagan, who had waged a bitter campaign for the GOP nomination four years earlier, would be co–presidents.

But negotiations broke down, and the dream ticket never came to fruition. In the end, Reagan picked Bush, who had been his chief rival for the nomination that year.

One of the longest–standing considerations in choosing a running mate has been geographical. The idea was to attract votes in states and/or regions that the presidential nominee might not otherwise get. I'm inclined to think that was more important in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but, with the rapid emergence of technology in the last 50 or 60 years, geographical factors have become less important.

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Certainly Bill Clinton, in 1992, did not feel it was necessary to select someone who would provide geographical balance.

He chose Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, one of the states that borders on Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Perhaps Clinton wanted to double down on his Southern credentials; most Southern states, after all, had only voted for Democrats once, perhaps twice, in the previous 30 years.

Also, with two Southerners on the ticket, the Bush campaign could not portray either candidate as a Northern liberal like previous Democratic candidates (i.e., George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis), and Gore's military service negated criticism Clinton had received on that during the primaries.

In his memoir "My Life," Clinton said of Gore, "I liked him and was convinced that he ... would be a big addition to our campaign."

Sometimes personal chemistry trumps everything else.

Presidential nominees choose their running mates for reasons that probably wouldn't occur to most people.

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In 1968, Richard Nixon reportedly was so impressed with Spiro Agnew's speech placing his name in nomination that he offered him the second spot on the ticket.

Agnew was virtually unknown outside his home state of Maryland, but Nixon believed Maryland could be his beachhead in the South.

Nixon didn't carry Maryland in 1968, but he did carry five Southern states as he introduced the Southern strategy to modern American politics.

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And, in 1964, Barry Goldwater picked New York Rep. Bill Miller to be his running mate because Miller was known to be the congressman who annoyed Goldwater's opponent, President Lyndon Johnson, the most.

There will be a lot of talk in the next two months about who will run with Romney in the fall, and the names you're likely to hear the most are the rising stars in Republican circles — Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and others.

But don't be surprised if, when the smoke clears, someone you never heard of is standing on that podium with Romney in late August.