ROMNEY’S GOLDEN OASIS!

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 4^th, 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 17^th, 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 8^th, 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