R&L 2008 Election Blog

The 2008 Election: 1952 All Over Again?

By Gary A. Donaldson

As elections approach, pundits want to compare this presidential campaign to that campaign, these candidates to those candidates, this situation to that. The 2008 campaign is, of course, no different.

It seems reasonable to peg this campaign to 1952. Perhaps the most important comparison, the one that is made most often, is that 2008 is the first campaign since 1952 in which no seated president or vice president made a run for the office. Neither candidate—Adlai E. Stevenson (then the Democratic governor of Illinois) nor Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower—had ever been in the Oval Office. Yes (for those trivia experts out there) old Alben Barkley, Harry Truman’s VP, was officially a candidate for about 20 days in July. But when the AFL-CIO said they would not support his candidacy (they said he was too old, at 74) he took his hat out of the ring.

Both elections (1952 and this one, 2008) followed extremely unpopular administrations. Truman had sunk to probably the lowest point of any president in American history. In March 1952 his approval ratings crashed to a dismal 23 percent. Most historians usually find this fascinating because today Truman is revered as a sort of presidential hero: the little guy who stood up to the Russian Bear, “The buck stops here” president who took the heat, “Give’em hell, Harry,” all of that. But while he was in office he was not popular. Most Americans saw him as an interim president—between FDR and what would come later (probably the Republicans). There was corruption in his administration. And, oh yes, there was that unpopular war in Korea.

It should not be surprising that George W. Bush, on his way out of Washington, has taken Truman’s legacy to heart. Bush’s approval ratings are not quite as low as Truman’s. A fair assessment for our current president runs at about 28 percent. More than once, Bush (and several around him) have cited Truman’s dazzling legacy as a reason for the president’s lack of concern for his own poor approval ratings. Ah, presidential legacy. What will historians say about me?

Both presidents found themselves enveloped in an unpopular Asian war. In the summer of 1950, communist North Korea invaded non-communist South Korea. With no input from any advisors on any level, Truman decided to intervene. In fact, he later said that he made the decision, alone, in the plane flight back to Washington from his home in Missouri just hours after being notified of the attack. It seemed to be the right thing to do, at least at first. It was officially a United Nations operation, albeit under U.S. command. And Truman tried to minimize the impact of the event by avoiding the nasty word “war” and calling it a “police action.” But by October the Chinese had entered, and there was no denying that it was a genuine war—with genuine casualties reported daily in the press. Despite the rhetoric that the United States needed to contain the spread of vile communism, by the time of the 1952 campaign the war had become a stalemate in a far off land and the nation had grown tired. To make matters worse for Democrats (who were shackled by the war) Eisenhower, in the last weeks before Election Day, announced “I will go to Korea.” To most Americans, the implication was clear: The great general would deal with this awful problem.

How does a newly-elected president stop an unpopular war? The nation might be asking that question after November 4, 2008. Ike went to Korea in late November 1952, just after the election, as promised. But as president-elect he could do nothing except boost the national morale. To most Americans, however, it seemed to be a signal that he would end the war. And he did that—probably as soon as he reasonably could, in about six months after his inauguration. There were those at the time (particularly those on the right in Ike’s own party) who insisted that the U.S. should have initiated a total war (a euphemism for nuclear weapons) and driven the communists off the Korean Peninsula and even out of China. And there are still those today who argue that the world’s problems with North Korea have developed from that premature armistice signed in July 1953 that ended the Korean War, but that allowed the Stalinist regime to continue above the 38th Parallel. Perhaps there are lessons here for the next president: One candidate wants to end an ill-conceived and unpopular war. The other would say that a premature end to the war would bring on additional problems for the future, and that the nation should carry the war to its final conclusions—despite the cost.

It was Eisenhower—the Republican, man with the military background, the man who orchestrated the liberation of Europe—who ended the nasty war in Korea, the war that the Democrats had started and could not end.

Gary A. Donaldson is professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana and author, most recently, of The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960.

The Fresh Faces in American Politics

By Gary A. Donaldson

This election cycle has exhibited an important American political phenomenon: the fresh face, the political outsider, the candidate who is the antidote to politics as usual. Accompanying the fresh face is the rhetoric
of renewal, change and the implied promises of new ideas and attitudes and solutions toward old problems.

Since the end of World War II both parties have looked in the direction of the political outsider and the fresh face to bring renewed excitement and victory to their parties. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a political fresh face was Eisenhower. Ike had been in the public eye for some time, but he had only been discussed seriously as a politician since the end of the war. He was always perceived in the American mind as someone outside the political spectrum; and in fact, Ike worked hard to show his disdain for politics by insisting often that he would not run for office, that he had no intention of
getting down into the mud and slugging it out with politicos like Truman. At one point, he even admitted that he had never found a need to cast a ballot, and he often let it be known that he had no party affiliation (although behind the scenes he told those close to him that he was a life-long Republican.) In 1953, when Ike became President, he brought to Washington the new outlook he promised—perhaps the fulfillment of the fresh face in politics.

In 1960 the Democrats tapped John Kennedy, the freshest of all fresh political faces. Although Kennedy had been in national politics since the end of the war, he campaigned in 1960 as a political outsider who would bring a new atmosphere to Washington, take the nation in a new direction, and change the old rhetoric—then portrayed by the eight years of the now stale Eisenhower administration. He worked hard to cast Nixon, the presumptive successor to Ike and the Republican nominee that year, as the keeper of the ancien regime, the man who would carry on the old Eisenhower policies.

This placed Nixon in an awful position as the 1960 election approached. Kennedy was winning points (and presumably votes) with his “let’s get American moving again” slogan. If Nixon tried to step out on his own
by proposing new ideas he appeared to be criticizing Eisenhower and his policies, even ungrateful to his mentor. If he simply parroted the Eisenhower line, he appeared to have no new ideas, and was little more than Ike’s “lapdog with a five o’clock shadow,” as one pundit described Nixon in this period. So, Nixon fought the 1960 campaign mostly with one hand tied behind his back.

By portraying himself as an outsider and a new comer with new ideas, Kennedy also placed himself at a disadvantage—although he did not have nearly the problems Nixon had. Kennedy found himself answering claims that he was too inexperienced to be president. Clearly, Kennedy could not have it both ways. He could not be the new young fresh face in politics and an experienced politician as well. He spent much of the campaign defending his record in Congress and making such statements that he was older than Christopher Columbus when he came to American, and older than Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Kennedy spent much of the 1960 primary season trying to show that he was experienced enough to attract votes. In office, JFK’s promises and hopes translated into very little legislation, despite a
Democratic Congress.

In 1976 the Democrats turned to another outsider, Jimmy Carter. The nation was clearly fed up with the antics of Washington insiders in those years. The conduct of the war in Vietnam and then finally the Watergate scandal had turned the nation away from Washington insider politics. Carter stepped into the breach. A Georgia governor and peanut farmer, Carter actually prided himself on not understanding the workings of Washington—and that seemed to endear him to voters. He was a wonderful campaigner. He spoke good words; he energized the Democratic Party and the nation. But when Carter got to Washington he could not work his will, and to most observers it was because he did not know the nuances of Washington politics. And he foundered. Four years later he was vulnerable to attacks from a Republican outsider, a new fresh face with new ideas from the other side of the political spectrum, Ronald Reagan. Carter went from the outsider to the insider, from the new fresh face to the old politico who needed to be bumped from office.

That brings us back to the current election cycle and Barak Obama, the new fresh face, the candidate with the charisma and the good words. He has energized the Democrats with talk of new ideas and change.
Democrats have to ask, will that translate into a good president?

Gary A. Donaldson is professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana. He is the author of many books on American history in the 20th century, including The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon,
and the Election of 1960.