By Edwin Cooney
As an enthusiastic partisan of President Barack Obama, I’m
disappointed that the president’s prestige is sufficiently low for him to be
blamed for his party’s debacle in last Tuesday’s election. Disappointing or discouraging as the results
are for Democrats and Progressives, most two-term presidents have suffered
serious political, and very often personal, setbacks in their sixth year in
office.
The relevant question here is, how popular or politically
strong have past two-term presidents been at the end of their sixth year? The answer is their apparent lack of
influence has been pretty constant throughout history. For the sake of brevity I’ll review the political
fates of only recent two-term presidents although sixth year woes go back to
George Washington’s unhappy second presidential term. As the legendary Alfred E. Smith, the “wet
Catholic” governor of New York and losing Democratic 1928 candidate, used to
say: “let’s look at the record!”
In the 20th Century, absolutely no two-term
president escaped embarrassment in his sixth year. Teddy Roosevelt’s GOP gained three votes in
the Senate in 1906 but lost 25 in the House.
Keep in mind that back in 1906, U.S. senators were still largely elected
by state legislatures, not by popular votes.
Hence, to some extent the 25 seat Democratic gain was something of a referendum
on TR.
In the year 1918, Woodrow Wilson’s sixth year in office, the
president as Democratic Party leader made the conduct of World War I an issue
asserting that only Democrats could bring peace. That November 5th, Democrats lost
19 seats in the House and a vital 4 seats in the Senate. Thus, Wilson’s mortal Republican enemy, Henry
Cabot Lodge, Sr. of Massachusetts, gained the chairmanship of the Senate
foreign relations committee and the president’s postwar dream, the League of
Nations, died an inglorious death.
In 1938, Franklin Delano Roosevelt inadvertently scuttled the
New Deal. To begin with, he was still
suffering politically for his 1937 Supreme Court packing plan. Second, the country was in a severe recession
because he had decided to stop financing the economy. He then tried unsuccessfully to purge the
southern conservative element of the Democratic Party. Thus, that November, Democrats dropped 72
seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.
The GOP, which had been steadily declining since 1930, gained six seats
in the Senate, a modest gain, but gained 80 seats in the House going from a mere
89 to 169. (Not all of these were
Democratic Party seats; some were held by fringe parties.) Although the Wagner Labor Relations Act was
passed in 1938, the New Deal was over. “Dr.
New Deal” became “Dr. Win the War.”
In 1950, during the Korean War, Harry Truman’s Democrats
lost four vital seats in the Senate while the Republicans gained five and came
within one vote of taking over that body.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, President Truman’s party lost 31 seats in
the House, dropping from 265 to 234.
Dwight David Eisenhower was always personally popular, but
his influence wasn’t enough to prevent an overwhelming Democratic victory in
1958, his sixth year of presidential service.
The GOP lost 13 seats in the Senate and 48 in the House.
By Richard Nixon’s sixth year, he was gone from the
presidency. However, his party was severely spanked in the 1974 election. Although it only lost five Senate seats, it
lost 46 in the House. Ronald Reagan in his sixth year saw his party lose its
majority, dropping from 53 to 46 Senate seats.
In the House, Republicans dropped from 183 to 177 seats. That was the year of Iran Contra.
In 1998, Bill Clinton was about to be the target of two
articles of impeachment. Gleefully and
hungrily, Republicans anticipated big gains from Clinton’s alleged misconduct.
Republicans were shocked when they lost five seats in the House while holding
steady in the Senate.
Bedeviled by the Iraq War in his sixth year as president,
George W. Bush saw his party lose both Houses of Congress. Republicans lost six Senate seats with their
majority going from 55 to 49. Democrats picked up 5 seats, going from 44 to 49. Two Independents, Joe Lieberman of
Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would caucus with the Democrats,
giving them the majority. Nancy Pelosi
became the first woman Speaker of the House when Democrats gained 31 seats,
going from 202 to 233. Republicans lost
30 seats, ending up with 202.
President Obama’s setback in the 2014 congressional
elections is substantial. However,
unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt (whom many still regard as the most capable 20th
Century president and politician), Obama didn’t come close to losing 72 seats
last Tuesday. Nor did he come close to
losing 48 House seats as the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower did in 1958. (Note: he did come close to the Roosevelt
record in 2010 when the Democrats lost 63 seats to the GOP, but Obama recovered
enough to win re-election in 2012.) At
this writing, Republicans are expected to increase their seven-seat majority by
nine votes giving them a sixteen-seat advantage. In the Senate, the Democratic majority is
expected to evaporate by seven seats giving Republicans a 53 to 47 majority.
As the centerpiece of the recent victorious Republican
campaign, President Obama appears likely to be politically shackled for the
remaining 26 months of his Presidency or so his opposition believes. Don’t count on it, however. President Obama still has the presidential
veto pen and the power to rule by executive orders which needs a two-thirds total
vote in both Houses to override. The
continuing economic recovery may also be a presidential ally, although the
economy as anyone’s ally can be pretty fickle!
As to whether the president deserves this setback, sure he
does. However, a setback is just that –
it is by no means a sentence.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, remember no one is elected
president because he is made of “sugar candy.”
Anyone who thinks the president is “cowed” by Tuesday’s vote is
delusional!
If you’re in doubt as to the president’s nerve and determination,
remember who finally engineered the elimination of Osama bin Laden!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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