Coins and presidents

How many different U.S. coins have portraits of presidents on them, and who chooses the presidents?

Even though millions of Americans come in daily contact with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, I suspect that very few of us could list the presidents we routinely "handle."

I'll answer your question in short order, but first some little-known background: Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress "to coin money." The first federal building constructed under the new Constitution was the U.S. Mint, in Philadelphia, which in the 1790s served as the nation's capital. It is said that President George Washington, who lived just a few blocks from the mint, personally donated some of the silver for the new republic's first coins.[1] That's better than providing a portrait!

Since the 1790s, the U.S. Treasury Department has been responsible for minting coins. I am told that no president's portrait appeared on a coin until the Lincoln penny came out in 1909 to commemorate the centennial of the 16th president's birth. (From the 1790s to the 1890s, however, presidential portraits appeared routinely on peace medals that were given to the Indians.) Traditionally Congress has gotten to choose which presidents are on which coins. Presidents are on at least a half-dozen coins in circulation today. They make up the lion's share -- but not all -- of portraits on circulating coins.

OBVERSE PORTRAITS

As the old saying goes, there are two sides to every coin. The portrait is on the front or obverse side, everything else on the reverse side. Following are the presidential portraits on the obverse side of currently circulating U.S. coins:

- penny: Abraham Lincoln, looking right;

- old nickel (before March 2005): Thomas Jefferson, looking left;

- new nickel (after March 2005): Thomas Jefferson, looking right;

- dime: Franklin Roosevelt, looking left;

- quarter: George Washington, looking left;

- half dollar: John F. Kennedy, looking left.

In addition to the circulating coins, listed above, you may encounter commemorative coins that are also minted by the U.S. Treasury Department:

- bicentennial dollar: Dwight Eisenhower, looking left (1976);

- half dollar: George Washington 250th commemorative coin (1982);

- dollar: Eisenhower centennial silver dollar (1990);

- dollar: Thomas Jefferson 250th silver dollar (1993);

- five-dollar coin: Franklin Roosevelt gold commemorative coin (1997);

- there were also commemorative coins of George Washington and Dolley Madison minted in 1999;[2] she is, I believe, the only first lady whose portrait is on a coin.

LEFT- VERSUS RIGHT-FACING

On circulating coins until recently, all the portraits but Lincoln's looked left. (Now Jefferson has joined Lincoln in looking right.) Why was Lincoln virtually alone in looking right? The answer has nothing to do with politics. The portrait of our 16th president was based on a plaque by Victor David Brenner done at the beginning of the 20th century. So taken was President Theodore Roosevelt with Brenner's Lincoln that he asked his Treasury secretary to use the design on a coin that was to be put into circulation in 1909, in celebration of the birth of Lincoln 100 years earlier.[3]

MORE COINS, MORE PRESIDENTS?

Collectors may get a new burst of coins to collect. Congress is currently considering minting dollar coins to commemorate all our past presidents. This follows the Mint's wildly successful state quarter program, which has generated $5 billion in revenue and turned some 140 million Americans into coin collectors. The coins would be minted at a rate of four presidents per year, starting with George Washington. Only sitting presidents would be excluded.[4]

THE STORIES BEHIND THE PORTRAITS

There is a story about the presidential portraits on each of our coins. Following is from the Website of the U.S. Mint:

The presidents that appear on the obverse (front) side of our circulating coins were all selected by Congress in recognition of their service to our country. However, they were chosen under slightly different circumstances.

Designed by Victor Brenner, the Lincoln cent was issued in 1909 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Felix Schlag's portrait of Thomas Jefferson, which began to appear on the obverse side of the nickel in 1938, was chosen in a design competition among some 390 artists.

The death of Franklin Roosevelt prompted many requests to the Treasury Department to honor the late president by placing his portrait on a coin. Less than one year after his death, the dime bearing John R. Sinnock's portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt was released to the public on FDR's birthday, January 30, 1946.

The portrait of George Washington by John Flanagan, which appears on quarters minted from 1932 to today, was selected to commemorate the 200th anniversary of our first president's birth.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy generated such an outpouring of public sentiment that President Lyndon Johnson sent legislation to Congress to authorize the Treasury Department's new 50-cent pieces. Bearing the portrait designed by Gilroy Roberts, the first Kennedy half-dollars were minted on February 11, 1964.[5]

(Question from Lupe M. of Fresno, CA)
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[1] See the U.S. Mint Website at http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/mint_history/

[2] http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/CoinLibrary/index.cfm

[3] http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/index.cfm?action=fun_facts4

[4] Jennifer Brooks, "Presidents May Replace Sacagawea on Some $1 Coins," Lansing State Journal, April 27, 2005, p. 1A.

[5] http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/index.cfm?action=fun_facts3

Franklin Roosevelt as a leader

Your two-part question goes to the heart of our mission at the Hauenstein Center. Using the presidents as case studies in leadership, we inquire into what makes some chief executives more effective than others in office, and what makes some greater than others to posterity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt provides rich case studies in executive leadership and presidential rankings. He was a complex, controversial leader; but whatever combination of DNA and experience made him, he was extremely effective while in office, especially during his first and third terms, and posterity has persistently seen him as one of the most powerful leaders in U.S. history.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Love him or loathe him, most people admit that FDR was an effective leader. Numerous writers have tried to dissect the qualities that made Roosevelt able to attract followers. Better than most, Stanford historian David Kennedy has tagged several characteristics: the 32nd president, he notes, was a quick study; he could connect with people; he was self confident; he was committed to public service; he developed a strong character; he had a clear vision of the nation and its role in the world; he had the political skills to get his vision off the drawing board; and -- he had luck.[1] Let's examine these various elements.

1. FDR was a quick study. He possessed an insatiable curiosity, a boundless appetite for knowledge that combined with his capacity to absorb a striking range of facts through conversation. Talking was his preferred mode of learning -- there were not many books he had the patience to read from cover to cover -- and he supposedly could talk at length about anything.

2. FDR possessed the charisma to connect with large numbers of the American people. A good looking man, in his prime he stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighed 190 pounds. His stentorian voice made him one of the powerful orators of the twentieth century. It especially helped that he could project his voice, along with a sunny disposition, by means of that newfangled technology, the radio, to millions of people.

After Roosevelt had been in office a week, he delivered his first fireside chat, on March 12, 1933, to announce that the nation's banks would reopen. The president's performance was stellar -- in David Kennedy's words, cultivated yet familiar, commanding yet avuncular, masterful yet intimate. And the response was unprecedented: almost a half million letters poured into the White House over the ensuing week, written by Americans expressing appreciation for the president's reassurance. (For comparison, consider this: during the Hoover administration, the White House mailroom was staffed by one person; after FDR's first week in office, some 70 individuals were needed to staff the mailroom.) It might be said that FDR, like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, founded the charismatic presidency. In an age of mass democracy, both leaders self consciously harnessed the power of their personality as an instrument of government.

3. FDR possessed vaulting self confidence. Indeed, he possessed such a high degree of self confidence that his utterly untroubled conception of the presidency conformed to the image he cultivated of himself in it. FDR's confidence would enable the president to disagree with advisors when confronting major decisions; his early support of Britain at the beginning of World War II confounded most of them.

4. FDR possessed noblesse oblige, a sense of patrician duty or responsibility toward others. His sense of service was ingrained by his parents, by his extended family (including TR), and by his headmaster and teachers at Groton. He apparently never contemplated any other career than that of public servant. Uncannily like cousin Theodore, FDR rose through the ranks from New York state senator, to assistant secretary of the Navy, to vice presidential candidate, to New York governor, and finally to the presidency. Virtually all his life was spent in public service.

5. FDR possessed a strong character. Look at the way he dealt with the polio he contracted at 39 years of age, and the resulting paralysis that made him handicapped. All those who knew him agreed: he faced the malady with courage, tenacity, and hopefulness. These same character traits would be communicated when, as commander in chief, he sought to encourage a nation struggling against the Great Depression and then against the Axis powers in the Second World War. As David Kennedy puts it, FDR's "polio proved to be a political and even a national asset."

6. FDR possessed a clear vision of America and her role on the world-historical stage. David Kennedy believes the 32nd president "made a shrewd appraisal of the vectors of development that had brought him and his countrymen to their own moment in time -- a rendezvous with destiny, he once called it; and he made a no less shrewd appraisal of what possibilities for change the great engines of history might now be compelled to yield up, if they were skillfully managed."

Take FDR's handling of the Great Depression. To him the Depression was not just another cyclical downturn, but a long-brewing crisis whose dislocations could wreak permanent economic, political, and social havoc if not managed smartly. Capitalism had been largely unregulated for more than a century. It had produced unprecedented wealth for unprecedented numbers of people but it had also been unstable and unsettling for millions of other people. During rough times, the temptation was to abandon free markets for statist isms. In the pressure cooker of the Great Depression, FDR wanted to steer a middle course between unregulated capitalism and socialism. The crisis-management plan he enacted came to be known as the New Deal, which represented new policies and attitudinal changes about the role of the federal government in American life.

Think of what the New Deal meant in U.S. history: Up to the Great Depression, the storyline of American history had been about freedom. During the 1930s, the storyline changed to security. Through such legislation as the National Industrial Recovery Act, National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), Fair Labor Standards Act, Securities Act, and Social Security Act -- an alphabet soup of programs, as detractors put it -- FDR tried to wrestle industrial capitalism to the ground. His aim was to expand security in American culture and reduce insecurity in modern life. The Depression showed that not enough people felt secure in their homes, secure at their jobs, secure in the marketplace, secure through the life cycle. So in his idiosyncratic, ad hoc way, Roosevelt "tested the Left-most limits of American culture" (David Kennedy's words) to bring about a revolution in security. According to some historians, it is not too much to say that FDR should be credited with saving industrial capitalism in the U.S., for his programs coopted and pre-empted more radical calls for a thoroughgoing revolution. The head of the Socialist Party, Norman Thomas, was once asked if FDR had not carried out socialism's aims in the U.S. Thomas answered, "Yes, he has -- on a stretcher."

Roosevelt's vision also led to boldness in the conduct of foreign affairs. Already in the 1920s and '30s, FDR was committed to transform the American people from isolationists to global citizens. He believed it would be fatal for the U.S. to do nothing in the face of militant Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Long before Pearl Harbor he stubbornly persisted in wanting to help the British resist the Nazis, over the opposition of a majority of the American people as well as senior advisors like his Army chief of staff, George C. Marshall, and his ambassador to the U.K., Joseph Kennedy.

7. FDR possessed the political skills to get his vision communicated and his programs enacted. By the time he became president, he knew how to get things done. He understood the art of consensus building in Washington and the importance of mass communication to the nation.

8. As for reputation, FDR enjoyed an element of luck. He was in the White House during 12 event-packed years that saw huge developments unfold on the world-historical stage. Having to deal with the greatest economic depression of all time in the 1930s, and the worst totalitarian threat the U.S. ever faced in the 1940s, allowed Roosevelt to take center stage and make the best use of his talents. In photographs he cut a strong figure alongside Britain's great leader, Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Union's powerful dictator, Joseph Stalin.

Indeed, historian Robert Dallek notes that FDR's reputation was saved by World War II. The New Deal stalled out by the late 1930s, and if Roosevelt had been a two-term president, posterity probably would have ranked him in the middle of the pack, near, say, Lyndon Johnson. But the outbreak of war gave FDR a new focus that he handled masterfully. His handling of the war encouraged historians to look more favorably on his handling of domestic crises as well, so he tended to get higher marks all around. Such is the curious way luck works.

It is ironic that presidential rankings work like this, but the presidents who live in the darkest times usually get the greatest spotlight, and thus the highest rankings: Washington during the first unstable years of the republic, Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR during the Great Depression and World War II. Fewer historians and readers are drawn to presidents who kept crisis at bay -- James Monroe, Chester Arthur, Calvin Coolidge. For this reason, historian H. W. Brands jests that presidential historians are the "ambulance chasers" of the profession.

FDR'S FAULTS

Now, Franklin Roosevelt had his faults -- he was no marble statue. His self confidence could slide into hubris, as when he tried in 1937 to pack the U.S. Supreme Court; his overreaching in effect stopped the New Deal dead in its tracks. Likewise, he sought to stay in office -- successfully, we should add, since he was elected a record four times -- long after he should have retired from public life due to failing health. Also, argument has raged over Roosevelt's economic IQ; more than a few economists and historians have questioned whether his policies actually made the Depression worse.[2] Further, FDR was the consummate "party man"; no one questions his patriotism, but there is merit to the charge that his agenda was less about doing what was best for the nation and more about undercutting Republicans and making the Democratic Party the permanent governing majority.

On a personal level also, FDR could be duplicitous, as when he lied to Eleanor about the status of his love affair with Lucy Mercer, which supposedly had ended in 1918; recall that it was Lucy Mercer who was at FDR's side when he passed away on April 12, 1945.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Ultimately most presidents are measured by their achievements. Admirers believe that Franklin Roosevelt resolved the historic tension between two major strains in the Founders' thought -- between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians -- between those who wanted a strong central government, and those who sought to champion the common man. To his admirers, FDR combined the best qualities of both sides of this very American argument -- he embraced "Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends."[3]

David Kennedy observes that FDR had three significant achievements to his credit. First, he successfully steered the nation through the Great Depression by fighting for lasting reforms that kept revolutionary change at bay. Second, he led a reluctant nation through the most devastating war in human history by actions that would minimize the war's negative effects on the U.S., yet maximize our nation's international leadership; let us recall that the United States was the only nation in the world to come through World War II with a higher standard of living than when we entered the conflict.

This combination -- of bringing about lasting reforms during the Depression, of minimizing the war's negative impact while maximizing the nation's international leadership -- contributed to the third great achievement: more than a half century of relative peace and prosperity. FDR's vision, policies, and style did much to make possible the American Century. As wrong-headed as he could be in his day, as controversial as he remains to this day, FDR's presidency nevertheless brought about structural changes that contributed to the U.S. remaining the most prosperous nation in world history, and avoiding a cataclysmic war with its archrival in the nuclear era. All in all, not a bad contribution. It is telling that his vision and policies, his style and manner of being president, would influence subsequent presidents in both parties (not least of whom was Republican Ronald Reagan). That's why Franklin Roosevelt is widely regarded as one of America's greatest presidents.

(Question from Douglas M. of Atlanta, GA)

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[1] From start to finish this answer draws heavily from a lecture by Stanford historian David Kennedy, "The Life of FDR and the Meaning of History," given at the National Conference for History Education, held in Los Angeles, October 16, 2003.

[2] See, for example, Jim Powell, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (New York: Random House/Crown Forum, 2003).

[3] James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, George Washington (New York: Henry Holt/Times Books, 2004), pp. 89-90.

LBJ and the Texas Hill Country

Question: One of Lyndon Johnson's biographers, Robert Caro, claims that it is impossible to understand LBJ's character without knowing the Texas Hill Country. What exactly is the Texas Hill Country?
From: Vera N. of Los Angeles, CA
Date: March 15, 2005

Gleaves answers: Many Texans believe that the Hill Country is the best part of the Lone Star State. Certainly it is "deep in the heart of Texas." It has a distinctly western feel, a hardscrabble land of scattered cedar, pecan, and oak trees. Geologists call the region the Edwards Plateau, whose raised limestone strata have been incised with canyons and crisscrossed by caves carved by millions of years of erosion. The Hill Country offers scenic entrance points, for it is set off by an escarpment that rises from the plains north of San Antonio and west of Austin. Indeed, if you fly in a westerly direction over central Texas, you can observe the abrupt change in land use from a quiltwork of cropland on the coastal plain to dark green forests alternating with open pasture in the Hill Country. Every April the land bursts into bloom with Indian paint brush, bluebonnets, and other wildflowers.

The Hill Country has not just a vivid natural history, but a fascinating human history. In the mid-19th century, once the Comanche and other Indian tribes were removed from the Hill Country, a variety of ethnic groups of European origin settled there: mostly people whose ancestry was English, Scotish, Irish, German, and Czech. They mixed with people whose ancestry was Mexican (Texas had been a state of Mexico until 1836), and African. During the Civil War, a large number of Hill Country Germans opposed Texas's entry into the Confederate States of America and fought battles on Texas soil on behalf of the Union.

In this independently spirited place, Lyndon Johnson was born on August 27, 1908. His father, a Texas legislator, and his mother, a college-educated teacher, lived in the heart of the Hill Country, near the hamlet of Stonewall, Texas, about an hour west of Austin by car. His ancestors had pioneered the land, and as a child growing up he heard about the hardscrabble existence that they eked from its stoney soils. He also learned of how his ancestors had driven cattle on the Chisholm Trail, which runs past the Hill Country. He knew rural poverty first hand growing up, and worked his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos, at the edge of the Hill Country; his compassion for others in economic distress sharpened when he taught students of Mexican descent in the little town of Cotulla, not far from the Hill Country.

So the Hill Country is the land that formed the man who would grow up as our nation's last pioneer president. During boyhood he would have learned much about the American experience in a land that was part Southern, part Western, and formerly Spanish and Mexican. He would have been steeped in its fiercely independent way of life. He would have heard the colorful lore of the cowboy way. And he would have known rural isolation and poverty.

After 15 years on Capitol Hill, first as a representative then as a senator, Johnson bought what was called "the old Martin place" on March 5, 1951. The 246-acre spread was near his birthplace and from 1963-1969 would serve as the Texas White House. There was some political calculation in the purchase. As civil rights heated up, LBJ wanted to downplay his Southern roots and emphasize his Western sensibilities.[1] But there can be no mistaking that he loved the Hill Country. Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson called their ranch "our heart's home." It was a sacred refuge.

The 36th president explained what the land meant to him:

"I guess every person feels a part of the place where he was born. He wants to go back to the surroundings that he knew as a child. This is my country, the Hill Country of Texas. And through the years, when time would permit, here is where I would always return, to the Pedernales River, the scenes of my childhood. There's something different about this country from any other part of the nation. The climate is generally pleasant. The sun is generally bright. The air seems to be always clean. And the water is pure. The moons are a little fuller here. The stars are a little brighter. And I don't know how to describe the feeling other than I guess we all search at times for serenity, and it's serene here. And there's something about this section that brings new life, and new hope, and really a balanced and better viewpoint after you've been here a few days."[2]

Since you mention Robert Caro, it should be said that he is convinced the Texas Hill Country had an unusually strong influence on Lyndon Johnson the man and politician. He observes that LBJ "came out of the Hill Country formed, shaped -- into a shape so hard it would never change."[3] When Caro writes in his magisterial multi-volume biography of LBJ that knowledge of the Hill Country is crucial to understanding the 36th president, he backs the assertion up. He and his wife Ina are from New York City, but they spend many months at a time in Austin doing research at the Johnson Library, and walking the land that Johnson knew, loved, and identified with as a Texan.
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[1]Hal K. Rothman, LBJ's Texas White House (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001), pp. 52-63.

[2]My appreciation to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, and to the National Park Service, Stonewall and Johnson City, Texas, for providing the audio file of LBJ's oral interview.

[3]Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 1, The Path to Power (New York: Knopf, 1982), p. 201.

How many Johnsons?

Question: My son-in-law and I are having a friendly argument and have a dinner at Olive Garden and $20 riding on this. He says that the only president to be impeached was Andrew Johnson. He claims that Andrew Johnson was president after Grant. I say that there never was a president named Andrew Johnson. There was a president named Andrew Jackson and a president named Lyndon B. Johnson. Please help straighten this out!! Thank you.
From: Susan G. of Lake Charles, LA
Date: February 10, 2005

Gleaves answers: As in so many arguments, you win on some points, and lose on others.

First: There was a president named Andrew Johnson; he was the 17th president of the United States.

Second: He became president upon the death of Abraham Lincoln, served in the White House from 1865-1869, and was succeeded by U.S. Grant.

Third: Andrew Johnson was one of two U.S. presidents who were impeached. Bill Clinton was the other. (Both were acquitted in the Senate trial.)

Looks like your son-in-law should still buy you dinner at the Olive Garden -- after you've paid him $20!

Cost of Inaugurations

Question: Can we get a comparison of presidential inauguration costs for the last 6 to 10 presidents?
From: Bob S. of Albuquerqui, New Mexico
Date: January 21, 2005

Gleaves answers: Many visitors to http://www.allpresidents.org/ have been asking this question or some variation of it. There are two primary costs of inaugurations. One is the cost of the swearing-in ceremony, which is paid for by taxpayers; the funds are appropriated by Congress; in 2001, George W. Bush's swearing-in ceremony cost $1 million. Second is the cost of the balls, the candlelight dinners, the parties, the concerts -- all the festivities that surround the swearing-in ceremony, which are paid for by private donations.

If there is criticism of how much a modern inaugural costs, it is usually directed at this latter cost, the parties and festivities, even though the burden is not borne by taxpayers. Going backward in time, from the most recent to the most distant inaugurals, here are the private-sector costs of the festivities surrounding some inaugurations:

George W. Bush's 2nd inaugural will cost in the neighborhood of $40 million. That's what the Presidential Inaugural Committee is trying to raise through private donations and ticket sales to the nine balls and three candlelight dinners.

George W. Bush's 1st inaugural in 2001 also cost nearly $40 million.

Bill Clinton's 2nd inaugural in 1997 was comparatively lean by the inaugural standards of the times, $23.6 million.

Bill Clinton's 1st inaugural in 1993 cost approximately $33 million.

George H. W. Bush's inaugural in 1989 cost approximately $30 million.

Ronald Reagan's 2nd inaugural in 1985 cost in the neighborhood of the 1981 inaugural, around $20 million.

Ronald Reagan's 1st inaugural in 1981 cost $19.4 million, significantly more than his predecessors. One reason is that inflation had been sky-high between Carter's and Reagan's inaugurations. A second reason is that several balls were added to the festivities. A third is that the swearing-in ceremony was moved to the west front of the Capitol. Because of topography, that aspect of the building is much more dramatic than the east front; it was also symbolic of Ronald Reagan's western roots.

Jimmy Carter's inaugural in 1977 cost $3.5 million. Elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal, he deliberately downplayed anything that appeared to aggrandize the presidency.

Richard Nixon's 2nd inaugural in 1973 cost $4 million. Bob Hope, a Nixon supporter, joked that the three-day extravaganza commemorated "the time when Richard I becomes Richard II."

Lyndon Johnson's inaugural in 1965 cost $1.5 million.

Woodrow Wilson's inaugural was relatively lean since on his orders there would be no ball. He disliked dances. Congress appropriated $30,000 for the event.

James Madison's inaugural ceremony in 1809 cost more than previous inaugurals in part because it was the first to include a ball. Dolley Madison, the federalist era's social maven, had also served as hostess for President Jefferson.

Landslide Lyndon

Question: Where did the moniker "Landslide Lyndon" come from, referring to Lyndon B. Johnson?
From: Pat O. of Gainsville, FL
Date: January 4, 2005

Gleaves answers: Lyndon Johnson did win the 1964 presidential race in a landslide over the hapless senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, but that's not when LBJ got his famous nickname. The bigger-than-life Texan picked up "Landslide Lyndon" in 1948, in a runoff race for the U.S. Senate, and it was meant ironically.

When the votes were counted on election day (Saturday, August 28, 1948), it seemed that Johnson had been narrowly defeated by one of the most popular governors in Texas history, Coke Stevenson. LBJ, no pushover, had served for 11 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and developed the reputation of being a "Texas wunderkind."[1] Nevertheless, the result looked bad for Johnson. Presidential historian Robert Dallek writes:

"According to the Texas Election Bureau, an unofficial election agency run by Texas newspapers, Stevenson led at midnight by 2,119 votes out of 939,468 counted. 'Well, it looks like we've lost,' Lady Bird told Dorothy Nichols on the phone."[2]

Or so it seemed. The votes kept coming in and the results went back and forth; victory was now declared for Stevenson, now for Johnson, now for Stevenson. After most of the tallies, the governor held a slight advantage. Then, six days after the election, a funny thing happened: 203 votes turned up in Box 13 from the pint-sized town of Alice, Texas. Even funnier: 202 of those votes were for Lyndon Johnson. The Stevenson campaign smelled a rat when it was discovered that the votes had been cast at the last minute and in alphabetical order. Charges of election fraud ensued, and the disputed contest went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Justice Hugo Black upheld Johnson's 11th-hour win. He was declared the winner by 87 votes.

It would take almost three decades for the truth to out. As Thomas Woods reports, in 1977 "the election judge in Alice admitted that he had helped rig the election."[3] "Landslide Lyndon" always found a way to win.

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[1]Robert J. Dallek, "Lyndon B. Johnson," in The American Presidency, ed. Alan Brinkley and Davis Dyer (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2004), p. 411.

[2]Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 327.

[3]Thomas E. Woods Jr., The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004), p. 216.

Person of the Year

Question: President George W. Bush was just selected by Time magazine as the Person of the Year in 2003. How often have presidents been awarded this distinction?
From: Diane N. of Charleston, SC
Date: December 31, 2004

Gleaves answers: Time magazine began naming a Man or Person of the Year 77 years ago, in 1927. In 19 of those years, the sitting president or president-elect was dubbed. Another way of looking at it: Of the 14 presidents since 1927, 11 were selected Person of the Year when they were either the sitting president or president-elect. An interesting assemblage of chief executives they make: one was assassinated; one had a physical disability; one felt totally unprepared for the job; one was impeached; one would be driven from the White House in disgrace. (Remember, the Person of the Year is not always a saint. Time's list, after all, includes Hitler, Stalin, and the Ayatolluh Khomeini.)

These are the 11 U.S. presidents whom Time has named Person of the Year.
1932 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1934 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1941 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1945 -- Harry S. Truman
1948 -- Harry S. Truman
1959 -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 -- John F. Kennedy
1964 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1967 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1971 -- Richard M. Nixon
1972 -- Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger
1976 -- Jimmy Carter
1980 -- Ronald Reagan
1983 -- Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov
1990 -- George H. W. Bush
1992 -- Bill Clinton
1998 -- Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
2000 -- George W. Bush
2004 -- George W. Bush

As the above list shows, one president earned the distinction of being named Man of the Year three times: Franklin D. Roosevelt, in fact, holds the all-time record.

Six presidents have been named Person of the Year a total of two times. (But note this caveat: while Dwight Eisenhower received the distinction twice, the first time was in 1944, when he was supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, eight years before he was elected president.)

Four presidents have been named Person of the Year once.

Timing is important. Of the 11 presidents who achieved Person-of-the-Year status, 8 did so in their first year in office.

The only president named Man of the Year two years in a row was Richard Nixon, in 1971 and 1972; he shared the second time around with his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger. The only administration that received the nomination three years in a row was FDR's, from 1932-1934; in 1933 the administrator of the National Recovery Administration, Hugh Johnson, got the nod.

All four presidents with a Texas connection -- Eisenhower, LBJ, and the two Bushes -- have been named Person of the Year.

Since 1927 three presidents never made it onto Time magazine's cover as Man of the Year: Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Gerald R. Ford.

Yet ten additional individuals who were never themselves president were named Man of the Year because of their close association to the White House:
1929 -- Owen Young was a famous financier associated with the Hoover administration.
1933 -- Hugh Johnson was head of FDR's National Recovery Administration.
1943 -- General George Marshall oversaw the commander in chief's war effort.
1944 -- General Dwight D. Eisenhower took the offensive against Hitler's Third Reich.
1946 -- Secretary of State James F. Byrnes served under Truman.
1947 -- Secretary of State George C. Marshall also served under Truman.
1954 -- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles served under Eisenhower.
1965 -- General William Westmoreland served under Lyndon Johnson.
1972 -- Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon's national security advisor.
1973 -- Judge John Sirica presided over the Watergate scandal proceedings.
1998 -- Kenneth Starr led the investigations against Bill Clinton.

Adding these names to the presidents, you see that our chief executives or individuals closely associated with them made Time's list on 30 occasions during the past 77 years.

For the complete list of Time magazine's Man or Person of the Year from 1927-2003, see
http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/archive/stories/index.html

Cabinet members from the opposing party

Question: With all the talk about Bush's cabinet leaving or changing posts, I was wondering how often a president reaches out to the other party to fill vacancies.
From: Rachel R. of Salt Lake City, UT
Date: November 9, 2004 [revised January 20, 2005]

Gleaves answers: As a nation we will probably never again achieve the balance that George Washington did when there were just three cabinet members. He hired the nation's brilliant Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, to serve as secretary of the Treasury at the same time that he had the nation's stellar Democratic-Republican, Thomas Jefferson, come on board as secretary of state. That was an era -- brief in duration -- when a lid was kept on openly partisan politics because Washington willed it so.

Washington's precedent of trying to bridge factional differences has held up symbolically. It is not unusual for a president to nominate a cabinet secretary from the opposing party, even in the harsh climate of modern politics. For example, Republican Dwight Eisenhower had Democrat James P. Mitchell serve as secretary of labor. Because of his efforts on behalf of migrant laborers and other working people, Mitchell was called "the social conscience of the Republican party."

Democrat John F. Kennedy had Republican C. Douglas Dillon serve as secretary of the Treasury. Dillon had previously been in the Eisenhower administration and was known as a strong advocate of tax cuts. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, kept Dillon on.

Democrat Bill Clinton had Republican William Cohen serve as secretary of defense during his second term.

Republican George W. Bush has had Democrat Norm Mineta serving in the top spot at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Prior to that post, Mineta served as secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration.

As you suggest, the question at the beginning of the second term is whether President Bush is inclined to expand the Democratic roster among his cabinet. David Frum puts the matter in historical perspective: "The only president to have derived political benefit from naming members of the opposing party to his cabinet was Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, when he named Henry Stimson secretary of war and Frank Knox secretary of the Navy. But Roosevelt was accepting a tough bargain: Bidding for an unprecedented and shocking third presidential term, he tried to allay Republican fears by handing operational control over the pending war in Europe to the leading GOP foreign-policy figure of the day and over the pending war in the Pacific to the most recent Republican nominee for vice president. It would be as if George W. Bush made Richard Holbrooke secretary of state and John Edwards secretary of defense."[1]

Much of the post-election discussion over the composition of the cabinet is symbolic, in any case. As Thomas Patterson points out, "Although the cabinet once served as the president's main advisory group, it has not played this role since Herbert Hoover's administration. As national issues have become increasingly complex, the cabinet has become outmoded as a policymaking forum: department heads are likely to understand issues only in their respective policy areas. Cabinet meetings have been larely reduced to gatherings at which only the most general matters are discussed."[2]

Looking further back in American history, we see that there was an attempt to elevate the status of the cabinet in the nineteenth century. Bret Stephens briskly observes in the Wall Street Journal: "Although the administration of William Henry Harrison isn't the most acclaimed in American history, it did contribute one intriguing idea to the theory of executive government. According to historian John Baker of Louisiana State University, 'Harrison had agreed that executive decisions would be based on a majority vote among members of the cabinet, with the president having one vote.' As fate would have it, Old Tippecanoe died within a month of taking office and his successor, John Tyler, promptly did away with the cabinet government concept. Good thing, too: Had Abraham Lincoln allowed his cabinet to govern with him (or for him) the Union would probably have gone to war against Great Britain, per the suggestion of his Secretary of State William Seward, instead of the Confederacy."[3]

In the end, having cabinet members from the opposing political party or contrary viewpoints must not mask a chief requirement of the presidency -- that "the executive office must be single -- that is, occupied by only one person -- to guarantee the necessary executive power and responsibility." This follows from Alexander Hamilton's defense of the presidency in Federalist 70, where he called for "energy in the executive."[4]

CABINET TURNOVER

According to presidential historian Richard Shenkman, 60 percent of George W. Bush's cabinet had changed over by Inauguration Day -- the highest over the past century. The average is about 50 percent.

___________________

[1]David Frum, "A New Style for a New Mandate," Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2004, p. A18.

[2]Thomas E. Patterson, We the People: A Concise Introduction to American Politics, 5th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 386.

[3]Bret Stephens, "What Is a Cabinet For?" Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2004, p. A15. It should be noted that William Seward had not been thinking of threatening war just with Great Britain. Between the Inauguration and the Sumter crisis, the secretary of state wrote a letter to the new president headed, "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." Geoffrey Perret records that Seward "wanted Lincoln to unite the country by waging war -- or at least threatening war -- against France and Spain. The Spanish had recently seized Santo Domingo and, with French connivance, were poised to grab Haiti. This violation of the Monroe Doctrine could not be allowed to stand. Tell them to get out of our hemisphere, or else, he urged." [Geoffrey Perret, Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President and Commander in Chief (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 23.

[4]Peter Woll, ed., American Government: Readings and Cases, 15th ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2004), p. xv.

All the presidents' roles

Question: What are the different roles that a modern president has?
From: Walter A. of Portland, ME
Date: November 8, 2004

Gleaves answers: "My God, this is a hell of a job!" exclaimed President Warren G. Harding, who died during his first term, perhaps in part due to the mounting stress of his work. Harry S. Truman described the job using a vivid comparison: "Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed."[1]

"The American presidency," observes the splendid Smithsonian exhibit on the subject, "has the brutal power to line a face with age, and to do so more swiftly than ever in an age of instant communication and nuclear arsenals. It is a position for which no training can be adequate, no preparation complete, no counsel sufficient -- an office that outstrips anyone's capacity to negotiate the ever-widening circle of its responsibilities."[2]

No doubt about it, the president has the toughest job in the world. Citizens expect their man in the White House to be a miracle worker; to do everything from ginning up jobs to winning wars to congratulating people on making it to a hundred years old. True, the presidency has changed with the times and with the men who have served in the office, but throughout U.S. history the office has been "a glorious burden."[3]

CONSTITUTIONALLY STIPULATED DUTIES

Nowadays we speak of an "imperial presidency," and it is true that the office looks and feels a lot like an elected monarchy. Already at the dawn of the new republic, John Adams tried to convince George Washington that he should act like a king. Adams suggested that the indispensable man should wear robes instead of plain clothes and be addressed as "Your Excellency" instead of "Mr. President." Washington demurred; his one monarchical tendency was that he loved big cars. His canary-colored coach, pulled by six white horses and attended by a bevy of black slaves, must have made quite an impression in New York City, site of the nation's first capital.

Despite some monarchical vestiges that persisted at the creation of the presidency, the U.S. Constitutional is really rather modest about what a president is charged to do. Article II specifies only a half-dozen duties for the chief executive must perform:

(1) As a citizen like the rest of us who himself must live under the law, "he shall take [an] Oath or Affirmation" to uphold the Constitution.
(2) As our chief executive, "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and "shall commission all the Officers of the United States."

(3) As the head of the nation's armed forces, he "shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

(4) As head of state, "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties...."
(5) He shall nominate, with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, "Judges of the Supreme Court." Additionally, "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls ... and all other Officers of the United States." On a related note, "he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers."
(6) As a kind of legislator in chief, "He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."[4]

Look at the verbs that express the chief executive's power. A president can ... take, take care, commission, be, have, make, nominate, appoint, receive, give, recommend, and judge. Not a cipher of an office, to be sure, but executive action is bounded by constitutional, legal, bureaucratic, and political restraints, as well as by custom, media influence, and popular opinion. You would hardly know from the foregoing that the president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world.

THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER

It is in the framework of restraints and responsibilities that we can begin to understand the "glorious burden" of the presidency. By looking at a president's roles in greater depth, we will see how the office has evolved since George Washington was sworn in some 215 years ago. Following are some of the roles the modern president is expected to fill:

Chief Executive. At the top of the president's job description is making sure the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed. No small task, given how busy Congress is. That's why the president has a staff of 3,400 people who not only work in the Old Executive Mansion and West Wing, but also out in the bureaucracies.

One of the most important tasks of any president is to nominate outstanding jurists to the federal bench and Supreme Court. That may be the most important legacy presidents leave the nation. If they are in power long enough to shape the judiciary, they can also contribute significantly to the culture of the nation.

Chief Diplomat. In his Farewell Address, George Washington advised future presidents to maintain good relations with other nations. A state of peace would allow the United States to grow and prosper and build up the armed forces necessary to defend herself. We were the world's first large republic -- an experiment in ordered liberty -- and maintaining good relations with other nations would require exceptional diplomatic skills.

One of the greatest diplomatic coups in human history was the Louisiana Purchase. Never in human history had a large republic doubled its territory by diplomacy rather than by war. That in itself was a magnificent legacy bequeathed by Thomas Jefferson.

Since Jefferson's time, the president of the U.S. has acquired disproportionate burdens in the global arena. In the first place, we are the world's lone hyperpower, capable of projecting more power and influencing more people than any other nation in history. Second, we have the world's greatest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, capable of destroying more people than any other nation in history. Third, in contrast to most ancient and modern empires, we do not think it enough merely to exert our will abroad in the national interest -- we put a premium on using power morally. This has made some of our presidents not just chief diplomats, but chief crusaders or chief missionaries.

The Smithsonian exhibit on the presidency puts it this way: "To the outside world, the United States president is both a national spokesman and a world leader. As a representative of a nation of immigrants with cultural and economic ties around the globe, the president is not only expected to defend the country's national security and economic interests but also to promote democratic principles and human rights around the world."[5]

Commander in Chief. The Preamble to the Constitution observes that one purpose of government is to "provide for the common defence." The framers of the Constitution believed that civilian control of the military is a cornerstone to liberty in times of war and peace. General George Washington demonstrated this commitment at Newburgh, New York, when he had to bring to heel insubordinate officers who wanted to march on Congress.

The nation was still in its youth when a series of crises forced our first four presidents to act in the role of commander in chief. Washington had to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. John Adams had to wage the Quasi War against the French in the Caribbean. Thomas Jefferson had to go after the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean. And James Madison had to finish the War for Independence from Great Britain by waging the War of 1812 (America's first congressionally declared war). Our first presidents sported swords on ceremonial occasions; now they go to rallies with the "football," the briefcase that contains nuclear codes and other information needed in a military crisis.

No other duty has caused our presidents more anguish than being commander in chief in time of war. Every president has said the most wrenching decisions he faced, by far, involved sending men into battle knowing that somebody's son, brother, or father wouldn't make it home. A stark photograph of Lyndon Johnson captures the agony of being a wartime commander in chief. LBJ is slumped over in a chair in the Cabinet Room, his head down; a reel-to-reel tape recorder is in front of him. The photo captured LBJ listening to a recording by his son-in-law, Charles Robb, who was a captain in the U.S. Marines serving in Vietnam. "When I left for Vietnam," Captain Robb explained, "the president gave me a small battery-operated tape recorder ... so that I could send Lynda occasional recordings. I think [those tapes] gave him some of the texture of the war at company levels."[6] And that photograph gives Americans some of the texture of being a wartime commander in chief.

There is often an idealism to which presidents appeal to justify American war-making. While Jefferson, a passivist, spoke of expanding the Empire of Liberty, it was Abraham Lincoln who truly infused war with transcendent aims. To Lincoln it was not enough to preserve the Union; by 1863 he also meant to emancipate all black slaves on American soil. To Woodrow Wilson it was not enough to go to war to defend United States interests against German aggression; we had to "make the world safe for democracy." To Ronald Reagan it was not enough to maintain detente with the Soviet Union; communism was an evil system destined for the dustbin of history; we had to help liberate the people in its shackles. To George W. Bush it is not enough to defend the U.S. against jihadists; we have to establish democratic governance in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Imagine if the president were Ghengis Khan, a law unto himself. His ability to make war would be infintely easier than a U.S. president's ability, hemmed in as he is by constitutional, institutional, legal, and democratic restraints. Indeed, the commander in chief cannot appropriate the funds to wage war; for that he must work with Congress. The commander in chief cannot be indifferent to the law when he wages war; he has federal courts with which to contend and ultimately the threat of impeachment and removal from office. The commander in chief cannot have a tin ear when it comes to public opinion in times of war; as the people exercise their sovereignty every four years, he must respect the public and the media who help shape their opinion, assuming he or his party wants to stay in power. (See the Ask Gleaves column, "Wartime presidents," for historical trends regarding wartime presidents running for re-election.)

The following story illustrates the limits on a president's power, even during wartime. Since 9/11, President George W. Bush has been leading the fight against Al Qaeda. He wanted terrorist detainees at Guantanamo to be tried as war criminals. But shortly after Bush's re-election, a "federal judge ruled ... that President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions in establishing military commissions to try detainees at the United States naval base here [at Guantanomo Bay] as war criminals."

It was a blow to the president, who is trying to win a war. A spokesman at the U.S. Department of Justice explained the administration's position: "The process struck down by the district court today [November 8, 2004] was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process, and the department will make every effort to have this process restored through appeal.... By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war."[7] (See the Ask Gleaves column, "Bush Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary," for pre-emptive wars in U.S. history.)

Manager of the Economy. Among the reasons the founders called delegates to Philadelphia in May of 1787 were that a number of economic problems had arisen under the very imperfect Articles of Confederation."[8] The framers knew that a leadership position had to be created that gave more power to execute the laws of the land. There were enormous economic consequences to that decision back in 1787.

The Preamble to the Constitution observes that one purpose of government is to "promote the general welfare." What that means in a free-market system is that the president does not create jobs; rather, he fosters the conditions in which jobs are created. Despite limitations on presidential power, citizens have high expectations of what the CEO of America can do in the economic arena. He must endeavor to keep the country prosperous and make sure markets are functioning well by pursuing a responsible fiscal policy, negotiating treaties that are fair to American workers, resolving disruptive strikes, and appointing judges whose jurisprudence is sound and predictable and not unsettling to markets.

"Even though they have very limited power to control the economy, woe to the president who governs during an economic downturn and is perceived as not doing enough."[9] Herbert Hoover will forever be remembered in an unfavorable light because of Hoovervilles, the shantytowns built on the outskirts of cities in the early years of the Great Depression. (See the Ask Gleaves columns on the presidency and jobs.)

Party Leader. This is an example of a modern-day presidential role that is nowhere prescribed in the Constitution. In fact, George Washington in his Farewell Address urged fellow citizens not to succumb to faction or party. As a fallback position, if parties developed, he wanted presidents to remain above the fray -- to no avail. No sooner had George Washington retired than presidents became the leaders of their parties. And that fact has made them much more effective executives.

Some might quip that the development of political parties has led to the opposite of domestic tranquility -- one of the purposes of government in the Preamble of the Constitution -- but in historical perspective, our parties have served America well. As I've said in another Ask Gleaves column, parties "are the way Americans have long organized and channeled political disputes. They certainly beat the alternatives seen elsewhere around the globe -- little things like tribal wars, putsches, revolutions, assassinations, and mobs at the barricades. We should be grateful that our politics are so relatively genteel."

The men who have been ambitious for their parties have also, on occasion, been ambitious and effective presidents. As the Smithsonian puts it, "Several presidents rose to the office by building political parties or reshaping those that already existed. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican party in the 1790s to counter the Federalist party of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Andrew Jackson created the new Democratic party in the 1820s and won the presidency in 1828 by consolidating the remnants of the Democratic-Republican party and attracting newly enfranchised voters. Others such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan reshaped their party structures, establishing new coalitions and bringing in new supporters."[10]

Ceremonial Head of State. At his Inauguration, the president takes an oath before fellow citizens and before the divine that he will uphold the laws of the land. This is appropriate, considering that the Preamble states that a purpose of government is to "secure the blessings of liberty." The operative word is "blessings." Americans expect presidents to govern, to be sure. But they also want them to inspire, console, comfort, and even lead the nation in prayer when the situation warrants -- in other words, to be their high priest. Think about it: no other individual in America can effectively call the entire nation to prayer when there is a D-Day Invasion, a Challenger tragedy, or a September 11th. And not just in crises -- the president also leads Americans when laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Moreover, through the years many of our presidents have called for days of "fasting and prayer." We have even had a preacher become president: James A. Garfield.

These symbolic events provide occasions when a president can connect with the American people. They are a vital source of presidential power.[11]

CONCLUSION

From the above, we see that there is a correspondence between the six presidential roles set out in Article II of the Constitution, and the six general purposes of government set out in the Preamble:

(1) The president is to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed; this is necessary to "insure domestic tranquility."

(2) The president is to nominate judges; this is necessary to "establish justice."

(3) The president is to serve as commander in chief and make treaties; this is necessary to "provide for the common defence."

(4) and (5) The president is to give Congress information about the state of the Union and recommend measures to improve it; this is necessary to "promote the general welfare" and "to form a more perfect union."

(6) The president is to take an oath at his Inauguration; this is necessary to confirm that ours is a system of laws over men, which in turn is necessary to "secure the blessings of liberty."
_______________________________________

[1]Harding quoted in Lonnie G. Bunch, Spencer R. Crew, Mark G. Hirsch, adn Harry R. Rubenstein, The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden, Introduction by Richard Norton Smith (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), pp. 67, 70.

[2]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. xii. The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum teamed up to host the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit, "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden," on October 2, 2003.

[3]Bunch, et al., American Presidency.

[4]For a good overview of Article II, see Linda R. Monk, The Words We Live By (New York: Hyperion, 2003), pp. 62-88.

[5]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 76.

[6]Photograph and caption in Robert Dallek, "Lyndon B. Johnson," in To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents, ed. James M. McPherson (New York: DK, 2001), pp. 264-65.

[7]Neil A. Lewis, "U.S. Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantanamo," New York Times, November 9, 2004, p. A1.

[8]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 83.

[9]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 83.

[10]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 85.

[11]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 81.

Election 2004 in perspective -- part I

Question: What lessons can be learned from the 2004 presidential election?
From: The editorial desk of The Detroit News (Detroit, MI)*
Date: November 7, 2004

Gleaves answers: The dust of Election 2004 is starting to settle. The Democrats are everywhere seeing red, which is giving them the blues. At this point it is helpful to take a step back from the fray and try to put the election in historical perspective. When it comes to the presidency:

1. Republicans who run as conservatives (not moderates) win. Conservatives have prevailed in four of the last seven elections. Two-term President George W. Bush calls himself a "compassionate conservative." But an earlier two-term president, Ronald Reagan, was arguably the most conservative president in the 20th century, and he won both the 1980 and 1984 elections in landslides.

Back in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower ran as a staunch conservative during his first campaign, winning by a large margin even while vowing to abolish Social Security. Richard Nixon, who early in his first term reached out to the "silent majority" of Americans in Red states, positioned himself as a conservative, and went on to be re-elected in a landslide in 1972.

Moderate Republicans typically don't do as well. Consider the ill-fated campaigns of Gerald R. Ford in 1976, George H. W. Bush in 1992,[1] and Bob Dole in 1996. Indeed, only once in the last half century -- in 1964, when Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson -- has a self-consciously conservative Republican been rejected at the polls.

2. Democrats who run as liberals (not centrists) lose. The political landscape is filled with the detritus of left-of-center candidates -- George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry -- every one of them defeated at the polls.

In response to Ronald Reagan's stunning electoral success, Democrats formed the Democratic Leadership Council to champion more moderate candidates who could talk like -- well, Republicans. DLC Democrats wanted to cut taxes, reform welfare, and shrink significant sectors of the federal government. Not coincidentally, Bill Clinton, who hitched his ideological wagon to the DLC star, was the Democrats' only two-term president after Franklin Roosevelt.

California Senator Dianne Feinstein commented on the election from a Democratic perspective: "When you look at a presidential election where we lost in every age group except one, I think it's time to do some reassessment. I have noticed," she continued, "that all the gravitas [of our party] has slid to the left. All one has to do is look at the map to know that you can't win a presidential election that way. If we keep going on this way, we'll be a minority party."[2]

3. Religion, morals, and values matter. Hardly any pundits anticipated the shock fact of Election 2004: 22 percent of Americans cited moral values as the primary reason they voted the way they did; not the sluggish economy or the war in Iraq, but moral values; and 80 percent of these voters cast their ballot for Bush. Whoever occupies the office, the president has become a kind of high priest in American life; the people want the person in the Oval Office to reflect their mores.

What went wrong for the Democratic nominee was apparent. On the hustings, Kerry was clearly less comfortable talking about his faith than was Bush. Kerry also had a Senate record that included votes for partial-birth abortions. Because he supported civil unions and was supported by Hollywood liberals, he was damaged goods to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, who came out in droves to support Bush, the candidate with whom they could more closely identify.

As reported by Chris Matthews on MSNBC, about a week prior to the election John Kerry received a phone call from former President Bill Clinton, who advised the Democratic candidate to come out firmly against gay marriage. Kerry declined to take the advice and paid the price.

The backlash against liberals was particularly obvious in the 11 states that offered voters the chance to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage; in all 11 the conservative position prevailed by large margins (indeed, by a 6 to 1 margin in Mississippi and by a 3 to 1 margin in Arkansas and Kentucky). The landslides even occurred in states where Bush lost the popular vote; in Michigan, voters approved constitutional amendments that upheld the traditional definition of marriage and restricted gambling. For some time now, the great cultural and political divide in this nation has been not between Protestants and Catholics -- as in decades past -- but between those who go to worship services at least once a week, and those who hardly go at all.

4. The "mainstream media" continue to get it wrong. Whether it's the anchor desk at CBS or the reporting desk at the New York Times, an unabashed bias is apparent, and Americans in the heartland reject it. It was widely observed, for example, that CNN's Judy Woodruff was visibly distressed Tuesday when Florida went to Bush. Does she know -- does she care -- how silly she looked to folks out in the Red states?

A wise commentator observed that, in Election 2004, it was not the media who were teaching Americans, but Americans who were teaching the media.

5. A final lesson: If many in the media got this election wrong, who got it right? The organization that called it right this time -- as it has in 12 of the last 13 presidential elections -- was the WRC, yes, the same WRC that publishes the Weekly Reader that surveys school kids every election year.

As reported two weeks ago, our youngest citizens predicted that Bush would beat Kerry in a landslide. More to the point, they wanted Bush to beat Kerry in a landslide.

Of course, these kids are America's future.

_________________________________

*A shorter version of this op-ed appeared in the Detroit News on Sunday, November 7, 2004.

[1]George H. W. Bush had a conservative background, gleaned from many of his early political races. When he ran for president in 1988, he also could appeal to conservatives because of his eight years of service as vice president in the Reagan administration. But Bush was abandoned by conservatives over two issues: (1) his decision to raise taxes after the famous "Read my lips -- no new taxes" pledge made at the GOP convention in New Orleans; and his nomination of David Souter to the United States Supreme Court, who proved to be more socially liberal than Main Street as well as the mainstream judiciary.

[2]Dianne Feinstein quoted in Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse, "For Democrats in Senate, Leader of a Different Stripe: Red State Survivor for Party with the Blues," New York Times, November 14, 2004, p. A22.

Wartime presidents

Question: How have presidents in wartime fared in seeking a second term?
From: WUOM listener (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
Date: October 22, 2004 [revised November 3, 2004]

Gleaves answers: When the United States is at war, Americans don't like to change horses mid-stream. Six presidents have run for re-election when U.S. forces were involved in blockades, naval battles, or major ground operations -- and in each case the incumbent won. During the first Barbary War, voters returned Thomas Jefferson to office. During the War of 1812, they sent James Madison back to office (1812). During the Civil War, they returned Abraham Lincoln (1864). During World War II, they kept Franklin Roosevelt (1944). During the Vietnam War, they retained Richard Nixon (1972). And during the Iraq War, they kept George W. Bush (2004).

The lesson is, when wartime presidents seek re-election, Americans keep them. But there is a twist; for the pattern to hold, the president has to seek re-election. Two presidents declined to run for re-election because they were so downcast by war: Harry Truman did not seek re-nomination in 1952 because Americans had grown weary of the Korean War, and Lyndon Johnson did not seek re-nomination in 1968 for a similar reason during the Vietnam War. (Coincidentally, both Truman and Johnson were Democrats who had become president upon the death of their predecessor, then won an election on their own, then declined to run four years later during a major war when they were afraid of being jettisoned by voters; indeed, in both cases voters chose the candidates -- that old team, Eisenhower and Nixon -- from the ranks of Republicans. Does history repeat itself?)

Also, if major combat operations have ceased, it's hard to discern any meaningful re-election pattern. While some presidents win big after a war (William McKinley in 1900 after the Spanish-American War), others are thrown out of office (John Adams in 1800 after the Quasi-War with France, and George H. W. Bush in 1992 after the Persian Gulf War). After still other wars, the commander in chief's successor was rebuffed (as happened in 1848 and 1920).

In November 2004, George W. Bush was the sixth president to seek re-election when the U.S. was conducting major combat operations. Because history so often is prologue, his re-election fit the pattern.

Reaganomics

Question: What is Reaganomics, and did it outlive the Reagan administration?
From: Bob S. of Minneapolis, MN
Date: October 9, 2004

Gleaves answers: Reaganomics -- the economic program named after President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) -- has been one of the most controversial programs in American politics, much mentioned but little understood since first bolting onto the scene in the early 1980s. Reagan's long-time friend and advisor Edwin Meese III observed that Reaganomics "was the most consistently attacked and most ardently defended of all the president's initiatives."[1] Another Reagan domestic and economic policy advisor, Martin Anderson, tried to explain one source of popular misunderstanding: "There is a great deal at stake in the writing of the history of the Reagan presidency. For the past 25 years most of the men and women on the political Right ... have focused their energies on creating new policies, forging political coalitions, electing presidents, and fomenting peaceful worldwide revolution. They have been successful far beyond their wildest fantasies. But while many of us have been basking in warm contentment and self-satisfaction, those who were beaten have been busily writing our history."[2]

DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS

Reaganomics was the name given to the economic program of our 40th president, who championed fiscal restraint and smaller government, tax cuts for individuals and less red tape for businesses. Reaganomics is based on "supply-side economics," a counter-intuitive set of policies that aims to increase revenues by decreasing taxes. Here is how it supposedly works: Significant tax cuts can lead to greater economic activity, since people have more money to spend and invest, which in turn can lead to greater tax revenues for the government.

To middle class Americans, Reaganomics was sold primarily as a tax cut that would let families keep more of their money, impose limits on big government, and increase consumer spending, savings, and investment. It was an idea that had broad appeal to many moderate and fiscally conservative voters when it was introduced in the early 1980s. To die-hard supporters, Reaganomics was more than an economic program. It was an idea inspired by nothing less than the American founding. In an era of creeping statism, it was a moral crusade to limit government power and restore individual freedom.

To critics, by contrast, Reaganomics was not based on sound economic policy at all, premised as it was on the "trickle down" theory of how wealth spreads. Critics liked to point out that it led to high budget deficits and provided the political cover to cut taxes for the rich -- invariably "on the backs of the poor." It is telling that George H. W. Bush, when he was competing with Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1980, referred to Reagan's economic plan as "voodoo economics." By whatever name, according to critics, Reaganomics was shorthand for bogus economic policies and the greed of the 1980s.

However viewed, Reaganomics was the centerpiece of the 40th president's domestic policy, forcefully articulated by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 campaign and persistently pursued during his first years in office. As the economists who formulated it explained, Reaganomics meant:
- slowing the rate of growth in federal spending (as opposed to shrinking the size of government),
- trimming personal income tax rates,
- reducing the regulatory burden on business, and
- cooperating with the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy to encourage a stable currency and robust financial markets.[3]

Meese notes that "The economic program was the first matter the administration tackled, and it dominated discussion of domestic policy for years."[4]

ROOTS OF REAGANOMICS

There are many sources of Reaganomics, most of them drawn from the experiences of Ronald Reagan himself. In the first place, at Eureka College he had majored in economics.

Second, as his movie career took off, Reagan became increasingly dismayed by the taxes he paid to Sacramento and especially to Washington.

Third, Reagan had to stay atop economic policy throughout his eight years as California's governor. As Meese points out, "When Reagan ran for president, one of his most obvious and impressive credentials was that he had been chief executive of the largest state in the Union. It would be hard to imagine a better training ground for the managerial job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With over 20 million people [in the late 1960s], California was larger than 90 percent of the countries on earth; had it been a separate nation, its gross national product would have been the seventh largest in the world."[5]

A few years later, when he ran for president, Reagan assembled an estimable team of advisors, some 460 policy experts who advised the candidate on everything from atom bombs to welfare reform; 74 of these experts were detailed to 6 economic task forces focusing on the federal budget, tax policy, spending control, regulatory reform, inflation, and international monetary policy. Some of the advisors are now familiar names: Alan Greenspan, Milton Freedman, William Simon, Jack Kemp, and George Schultz, who was chairman of the campaign's Economic Policy Coordinating Committee. These advisors formed the brain trust that gave Reaganomics its shape.

The economic malaise that arose on President Carter’s watch was the ostensible bogeyman that Reaganomics set out to slay. But Reagan also set his sights on a more formidable foe -- a three-headed hydra that was part Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, part Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and part Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. From the 1930s to the 1960s, these three Democrats pushed the size and scope of the federal government beyond anything the Founders intended, according to Reagan. The California governor set out on a quest to slow down the advance of Leviathan, realizing that it would probably only be a rear-guard action.

Reagan, it should be said, was also trying to distance himself from a previous Republican president, also from California. Richard Nixon (1969-1974) turned out to be as progressive on the domestic front as Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) had been. For example, Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed the Family Assistance Program to guarantee a minimum income for the poor, unveiled the start of national health insurance, and imposed wage and price controls to battle inflation. Nixon's was government on offense. As presidential historian Robert Dallek observes, "Everyone mistakenly assumed Nixon would scale back the Great Society, but he actually took up many traditional liberal causes."[6] Reagan believed that the Republican party needed to be the nation's conservative party, rather than a pale shadow of the nation's other party, the home of progressive Democrats.

OPPORTUNITY

Reagan's entry onto the national political stage occurred when he spoke on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign; from that point forward he was seen as a spokesman for the conservative (as opposed to Eastern Establishment) wing of the GOP. Reagan himself made a modest run for president in 1968, and launched a much more serious effort in 1976, when he challenged the Republican incumbent, Gerald R. Ford, and won a number of primaries. Both times he was turned back -- the time for his ideas was not ripe.

But the economic stresses that beset the United States during the 1970s made the public receptive to a change. After Jimmy Carter had been in the White House for four years (1977-1981), the economy "was in the midst of its worst crisis since the Great Depression. In January 1981 the unemployment rate stood at 7.4 percent, on its way up to 10 percent. Persistent double-digit inflation had pushed interest rates to an unbelievable 21 percent. Real pre-tax income of the average American family had been dropping since 1976, and -- thanks to bracket creep -- after tax income was falling even faster. The supply of oil and other raw materials seemed precarious. The outgoing president warned of a bleak economic future."[7]

It was these stresses -- and Carter's inability to manage them effectively -- that gave Reagan the opportunity to mount a serious challenge during the 1980 campaign. The movie star beat the incumbent Democrat in a landslide.

Reagan wasted no time trying to enact his economic program, the centerpiece of which was a 25 percent tax cut over three years. As I've written in another Ask Gleaves answer, although Reagan had campaigned lower taxes and leaner government, in 1981 he had to deal with a Democratic majority in the House. (In the '81 election Republicans gained control of the Senate.) True, an incoming president traditionally enjoys a honeymoon period of a hundred days or so, but in his first couple of months in office, Reagan was encountering stiff resistance among House Democrats. After Reagan proposed his Economic Recovery Plan, Speaker Tip O'Neill said, "We're not going to let them [the Republicans] tear asunder programs we've built over the years."[8]

The mood changed dramatically after John Hinckley fired his way into history. The would-be assassin shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, barely two months after the 40th president's inauguration. The president's grace and courage during the ordeal raised the esteem in which the American people held him. In such an atmosphere it was difficult for congressional Democrats to criticize the recovering president. Edmund Morris wrote of this critical period in Reagan's presidency:

"By April 24, [Reagan] was well enough to walk to the West Wing and chair a full Cabinet meeting. And four days later, live on prime time, he made the most dramatic presidential appearance in Congress since Franklin Roosevelt's return from Yalta.

"The millions watching saw a large and splendid man, literally death-defying, appear at the threshold of the House as the doorkeeper roared the traditional 'The President of the United States!' All members rose as required, but their respect on this occasion verged on reverence -- and also signaled a near-helpless capitulation to the message they knew he was bringing.

"'I walked in to an unbelievable ovation that went on for several minutes,' he wrote afterward. His speech -- a call for one hundred percent support for his Program for Economic Recovery -- was interrupted by fourteen bursts of applause and three standing ovations. 'In the 3rd of these suddenly about 40 Democrats stood and applauded. Maybe we are going to make it. It took a lot of courage for them to do that, and it sent a tingle down my spine.'

"Not forty but sixty-three Democrats subsequently joined the solid Republican minority, sending Reagan's budget to the Senate with a vote of 253-176. If not quite the total support he had dreamed of, it was a huge victory, and the first official register of his legislative power. As Speaker Tip O'Neill philosophically reminded reporters, Congress was ultimately responsible to the American people, 'and the will of the people is to go along with the President.'"[9]

All through the spring and summer of 1981, Reagan lobbied Congress to cut welfare, the food stamp program, school meals, and Medicare and Medicaid. Congress went along with most of the president's plan, passing the Economic Recovery Tax Act on July 29, 1981. Reagan signed the legislation the next month at his ranch in California, outside the house on the now-famous tax-cut table. The legislation cut taxes by $750 billion over five years, making it the largest tax cut in American history.

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF REAGANOMICS

Defenders of Reaganomics like to talk about how the bleak '70s gave way to the sunny '80s. "From 1982 to 1990 the United States experienced 96 straight months of economic growth, the longest peacetime expansion in its history [at that point]. Almost 20 million brand-new jobs, most of them high-paying jobs, were created. Inflation fell dramatically to low levels and stayed there as the American dollar once again became sound. Interest rates also fell dramatically and stayed down. The stock market soared, nearly tripling in value. Government revenues -- at the federal, state, and local levels -- nearly doubled, making possible the largest increase in social welfare spending in history. And, almost incidentally, we financed an enormous buildup in America's military power, checkmating the evil intentions of the old Soviet Empire, and ultimately causing the disintegration of Communism throughout the world."[10]

IMPACT ON THE NATION'S CLIMATE OF OPINION

Economists continue to debate the degree to which Reaganomics delivered economic recovery and prosperity. Whatever its contribution to the nation's economic recovery, there is no question of its impact on public discourse and policy. No sooner did Reagan leave office in 1989 than many of the nation's governors -- Republican and Democratic -- picked up the gauntlet and adopted the lower taxes/smaller government mantra.

Indeed, Reaganomics informed the economic thinking of the fiscally conservative New Democrats, of whom Bill Clinton was a leader. During Clinton's eight years as president, he never seriously entertained taking the nation back to the marginal tax rates of the Carter administration. In one of his State of the Union addresses, he disarmingly proclaimed, "The era of big government is over." It was because of Reaganomics.

Most recently, in the second presidential debate of the 2004 campaign, John Kerry was pressured into saying, in no uncertain terms, "I will not raise taxes" on the middle class. It was because of Reaganomics.

There is no question that economic and social debate at the state and federal level are different because of the credibility Reaganomics gained in the 1980s. "In retrospect, the initial Reagan economic program was the most ambitious attempt to change the direction of federal economic policy of any administration since the New Deal.... In the end, for various reasons, there was no 'Reagan Revolution' -- but considerable evolution occurred in economic policy during the Reagan presidency."[11]
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[1]Edwin Meese III, With Reagan: The Inside Story (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1992), p. 148.

[2]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.

[3]Willaim Niskanen, William Poole, and Murray Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions in Economic Policy: The First Economic Reports of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, ed. James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), p. 280.

[4]Meese, With Reagan, p. 148.

[5]Meese, With Reagan, p. 27.

[6]Robert Dallek, To Lead a Nation: The Presidency in the Twentieth Century (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), p. 75.

[7]Ed Rubenstein, Introduction to "The Real Reagan Record," National Review, August 31, 1992.

[8]Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), p. 203.

[9]Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (New York: Modern Library, 1999), pp. 438-39.

[10]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.

[11]Niskanen, Poole, and Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions, p. 289.

Presidents and jobs

Question: As a follow-up to my previous question, which recent presidents have had the best record of job growth?
From: Sherry J., Phoenix, AZ
Date: September 15, 2004

Gleaves answers: This answer is going to surprise many people, especially if they are partisan and have a dog in the fight. Going back to 1929 and the Hoover administration, following are the presidents who presided over the most job growth (expressed as a percentage).
1. Bill Clinton -- 11.6 percent increase in jobs during his first term (1993-1996).
2. Bill Clinton -- 11.4 percent increase in jobs during his second term (1997-2000).
3. Ronald Reagan -- 10.8 percent increase in jobs during his second term (1985-1988).
4. Jimmy Carter -- 10.5 percent increase in jobs while in office (1977-1980).
5. Lyndon Johnson -- 9.8 percent increase in jobs during his one full term (1965-1968).
6. Franklin Roosevelt -- 7.7 percent increase in jobs during his third term ((1941-1944).

The winner, in five of the top six instances, was a Democrat.

Going back to 1929 and the Hoover administration, following are the presidents who presided over the least job growth (expressed as a percentage):
1. Herbert Hoover -- 6.4 percent decrease in jobs while in office (1929-1932).
2. George W. Bush -- 1.2 percent decrease in jobs during his first 3 and 1/2 years in office.
3. Dwight Eisenhower -- 0.8 percent increase during his second term (1957-1960).
4. George H. W. Bush -- 2.5 percent increase while in office (1989-1992).
5. Dwight Eisenhower -- 2.8 percent increase during his first term (1953-1956).

The least impressive performances, in all five cases, were those of Republicans.

The other presidents -- Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford -- occupied the Oval Office when the Help Wanted ads expanded between 3 and 6 percent.

ECONOMIC STEWARDSHIP

Technically presidents don't create jobs; what they really do is help create the conditions in which jobs are added to or subtracted from the economy. That's why one of a president's chief tasks is economic stewardship. Presidential stewardship of the economy has a storied past, going back to the beginning of our nation, when George Washington hired Alexander Hamilton to be Treasury secretary. Hamilton wrote a series of perceptive reports and proved to be a brilliant architect of economic growth that has influenced presidents and policymakers to this day.

How do presidents carry out the task of economic stewardship? First, foremost, and hopefully by doing no harm. Presidents have to watch what they say because their words can make the stock market rise or fall. They have to think through their fiscal policy since it usually involves changes in tax policy, the regulatory burden, a budget surplus or deficit, and the national debt. Whether they sign or veto the legislation sent to their desk from Capitol Hill can similarly have an impact, as can the trade agreements they negotiate. And since the president is the commander in chief, do not forget the impact of war, which usually has an enormous impact on the economy.

Presidents have historically taken quite different tacks to influence the economy. Those in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt spoke of "stimulus packages" -- i.e., government programs -- to pump money into the economy to try to create jobs. Those in the tradition of Ronald Reagan have spoken of tax and regulatory cuts to stimulate the economy. Whatever their economic approach, by word and deed modern presidents can have an impact on trade, outsourcing, income, savings, investment, the gross domestic product, consumer confidence, home ownership, business expansion, and job growth.

Now, since presidents are constrained by the Constitution, Congress, Supreme Court, the bureaucracy, public opinion, election year politics, term limits, and custom, there are limits to their power over the economy. Moreover, they exercise economic leverage through fiscal policy, not monetary policy, which is the province of the Federal Reserve Board.

How is the economic stewardship of any given administration measured? One measure is the percentage change in jobs, which your question seeks to plumb. Two other common measures are the unemployment rate and inflation rate. These two can be added up to reckon the Misery Index, devised by Jimmy Carter's campaign in 1976 to criticize President Gerald R. Ford's economic performance. Four years later, Ronald Reagan turned the Misery Index against its creator to discredit Jimmy Carter's economic stewardship.

This answer started with some surprise facts. But over the past several decades, polls have consistently shown that voters regard Republican presidents as better economic stewards than Democratic presidents. Republicans tend to run as fiscal conservatives. Most voters and a good many economists believe that fiscal conservatism -- lower tax rates, a balanced budget, fewer regulations -- leads to better conditions for job growth than the alternative -- higher taxes, budget deficits, and more regulations. However they are measured, virtually all modern presidents want to be remembered as good stewards of the nation's economy.

Job growth and elections

Question: Is strong job growth the best predictor of an incumbent president's re-election chances? Likewise, is weak job growth the best predictor of a challenger's chances to unseat an incumbent?
From: Sherry J. of Phoenix, AZ
Date: September 14, 2004

Gleaves answers: Yes and no -- how do you like that for an answer?

Seriously, the answer is more complex than many voters may realize.[1] The conventional wisdom is that if presidents are in office when there is double-digit job growth, they or their hand-picked successor will win re-election. We are constantly told that people vote their pocketbook. But tell that to Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Lyndon Johnson, each of whom lost following double-digit job growth.

The truth is that pocketbook issues are extraordinarily complex; job growth is just part of the calculus that involves inflation, interest rates, consumer confidence, consumer debt, home ownership numbers, and other factors.

The best that can be said is that some presidents who presided over double-digit job growth won re-election. This is true of Bill Clinton, who owns the record; there was 11.6 percent job growth during his first term (1993-1996), and he handily beat back challenger Bob Dole in 1996. Similarly, Vice President George H. W. Bush did quite well because of Ronald Reagan's legacy; there was 10.8 percent job growth during Reagan's second term (1985-1988), and Bush easily defeated Michael Dukakis in 1988.

On the other hand, double-digit job growth did not insure victory for others who had been in office. There was 11.4 percent job growth during Bill Clinton's second term (1997-2000), but it did not secure Vice President Al Gore's victory over George W. Bush in 2000. Likewise, the fact that jobs grew by 10.5 percent during Jimmy Carter's term (1977-1980) -- a statistic that really surprises people -- did not guarantee his being returned to office when Ronald Reagan challenged him.

So: twice in recent times the electorate rewarded incumbents after double-digit job growth, and twice the electorate turned them out.

It is hard to discern a meaningful political pattern based on robust or anemic job growth. During Dwight D. Eisenhower's first term (1953-1956), there was only 2.8 percent job growth, yet he was easily returned to office. During Lyndon B. Johnson's term (1965-1968), there was 9.8 percent job growth, but his successor was defeated.

And think about this. Franklin D. Roosevelt became president during the depths of the Great Depression, when one in four workers was unemployed -- there was nowhere to go but up. Yet he was re-elected when there was 5.5 percent job growth in his first term (1933-1936), 3.3 percent growth in his second term (1937-1940), and 7.7 percent growth in his third term (1941-1944), when the nation was totally mobilized for war. Hardly exceptional numbers, any of them.

Not that job performance is irrelevant to one's chances of re-election. Consider poor Herbert Hoover: the nation's economy lost 6.4 percent of its jobs during his term (1929-1933), and the Great Enginneer failed to win re-election. Is there a causal link? Absolutely.

So what about the current president, George W. Bush? Based on data through July of 2004, it appears that Bush will be the first president since Hoover to reside in the White House when there is a net job loss; there are 1.2 percent fewer jobs today than in 2000. Come November 2, will there be a causal link between the economic fact and the political performance? Yes. Will it be enough of a link to determine the outcome of the election? Not likely. As of this writing, Bush is ahead of rival John Kerry in the polls.

What to make of such a statistical hodge podge? Only this: In the end, many factors determine who wins presidential elections. It is not always true -- as was said in 1992 -- that "It's the economy, stupid!" The context of the times is always a factor. If the nation is at war, then the country is judging the candidates as commanders in chief. If the nation is grappling with past wrongs, then citizens are judging candidates' sense of justice. If the nation is impatient for reform, then voters are sizing up candidates' relations with Congress, and whether they have the ability to get legislation passed and signed.

Citizens are sensitive to many dimensions of the people who run for high office: vision, character, personality, sense of justice, political skills, communication skills, economic stewardship, administrative skills, international relations, leadership in a crisis -- all play a role. In the end, the choice often seems to be a mystery.

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[1]For the data used in this answer, I am indebted to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bloomberg Financial Markets, and Dylan Loeb McClain, "In Elections, It's Not Always about Jobs," New York Times, August 8, 2004, p. 2 of Week in Review.