By Edwin Cooney
With his victory last Tuesday in the Texas GOP primary, it’s
all but official that Willard Mitt Romney possesses the Republican presidential
nomination. As for his chances of
winning the White House, dyed in the wool Republicans and Democrats will
naturally differ in their assessments.
Incumbent presidents are traditionally declared failures by the
opposition party almost from the very instant they lower their right hand after
taking the presidential oath. Barack
Obama -- black, liberal, and suspected by many of being foreign born -- has
been especially vulnerable to such speculation. Many people have declared that President Obama will be a
"one term president” every day of the 1,133 days that have passed between
Inauguration Day 2009 and June 4th, 2012.
So, what does history appear to tell us about Mitt Romney’s
chances of defeating President Obama's bid for re-election? The answer is that history’s signals
are mixed. Only fifteen of the 42
men who served as president before President Obama have been twice nominated
and elected. They are: Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, Wilson, Franklin
Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and G. W. Bush.
Four presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry
Truman and Lyndon Johnson, were elected to “full presidential terms” after
having served as Vice President and subsequently succeeding to the presidency
upon the deaths of Presidents McKinley, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt and
Kennedy. Grover Cleveland was
defeated in his 1888 bid for a second term, but came back four years later to
defeat President Benjamin Harrison, who had defeated Cleveland while losing the
popular vote in 1888. Gerald Ford,
who was not elected but was appointed vice president, lost his 1976
presidential election bid.
Thus, twenty-two presidents’ golden opportunity to serve the
American people lasted only one full term or even less.
Whatever anti-Republican partisans may say about him, Romney
-- a capable administrator and business executive -- is adequately qualified by
most measurements to serve as president.
Like the Adams, Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes, Mitt Romney comes from
a political family. His father,
after a successful career in the auto industry and as President of American
Motors, was thrice elected Governor of Michigan before being appointed and
serving as President Richard M. Nixon’s Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) from 1969 to 1973.
In 1970, Mitt’s mother, Lenore (La Fount) Romney was the unsuccessful
GOP U.S. Senatorial candidate in Michigan.
President Obama, like the ten major party presidential
incumbents nominated and subsequently defeated before 2012 (John Adams, John
Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William
Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush)
lugs heavy political baggage into his re-election campaign. (I exempted Theodore Roosevelt from
this list because he was a third party nominee when he was defeated in 1912
rather than a major party candidate and he also was not an incumbent
president.)
John Adams’ “cross” was the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798
that threatened to have the president’s critics imprisoned during the emergency
of a possible war with France.
John Quincy Adams’ baggage was the seeming corruption of his election
over the popular war hero Andrew Jackson in the House of Representatives on
February 17th, 1825.
Martin Van Buren’s unwieldy load was the Depression of 1837. Grover Cleveland was plagued by the
unpopularity of his vetoes of Civil War veteran’s benefits. Benjamin Harrison was dragged down by
the 1890-91 recession. William
Howard Taft was sabotaged from within the Republican Party by Theodore Roosevelt. Herbert Hoover was overwhelmed by the
1929 stock market crash and subsequent economic depression. Gerald Ford committed political suicide
when he pardoned former President Richard Nixon on Sunday, September 8th,
1974. Jimmy Carter was victimized
by inflation, high interest rates and the Iranian hostage crisis. George H. W. Bush was felled by the
third party candidacy of businessman H [Henry] Ross Perot and a sluggish
economy.
President Obama carries as many as three pieces of heavy
political baggage into the 2012 campaign: his perceived failure to mold
prosperity out of the mess he inherited from the severe 2008 recession, the
dubious effect of the healthcare program he signed into law, and the perception
that he holds economic and social views outside the American political
mainstream.
Thus Mitt Romney reaches a political oasis after nearly a
year’s journey across the searing political wasteland. During the next two months he may
privately gloat over the political corpses of Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Paul,
Bachmann, Huntsman and Cain. What
will really matter are the decisions he makes in anticipation of the daunting
arctic political Iditarod which he’ll be contesting against President Obama
just ahead of the cold November winds.
For the next sixty days, he may bask amidst GOP
congratulations, endorsements and fundraising banquets. How he assesses his presidential
opponent, the person he chooses to put forth to be his running mate, and how
effectively he masters the willful Tea Party element in the Republican Party
will be crucial to either his success or his ultimate political undoing.
Most of all, whether he becomes president or, like John
McCain before him, becomes President Barack Obama’s political trophy, is
ultimately not up to him. He may
plan, spend, perform and strategize, but you and I will decide!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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