Soccer Dad: Iowa echoes

January 4, 2008

Iowa echoes

Michael Barone thinks he sees a cycle.

An unusual preference, but not unprecedented. In 1992 voters elected a 46-year-old Arkansas governor as president, and in the spring of that year, if the polls are to be believed, they were ready to elect a Texas billionaire whose governmental experience included serving as a junior naval officer and running a firm that provided computer services to local welfare departments. In 1976 voters elected a one-term former governor of Georgia who'd served as a state senator and a naval officer.
The metrically minded will see a common thread. Every 16 years--in 1976, 1992 and now in 2008--American voters have seemed less interested in experience and credentials and more interested in a new face unconnected to the current political establishment. What can explain this 16-year itch?

Of course he also points out some counterexamples

Going back in history, it's hard to fit 1960 into a 16-year itch pattern (when John F. Kennedy edged out Nixon) and impossible to make it fit 1944 (when World War II was far from won and FDR was re-elected to a fourth term). Plus, we don't know who's going to win this year.

Maybe sometime between 1960 and 1976 changed. Maybe it's the improvement in communications as televisions became much more common and news even more involved. We know a lot more about our leaders and their decision making processes (not to mention their personal lives) than the citizenry ever did. Maybe it's a case of TMI and it's making us cynical and giving our leaders shorter shelf lifes.

Speaking of shelf lifes, I bring your attention to Jonathan Rauch's Who Can Win in 2004?

Herewith, Rauch's Rule. Actually, it was pointed out to me by a young political genius named�but I can't tell you his name, because he works in a government job and asked me to keep his name out of my article. Sadly, I must myself take credit for the Law of 14:

With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

George W. Bush took six years. Bill Clinton, 14. George H.W. Bush, 14 (to the vice presidency). Ronald Reagan, 14. Jimmy Carter, six. Richard Nixon, six (to vice president). John Kennedy, 14. Dwight Eisenhower, zero. Harry Truman, 10 (to vice president). Franklin Roosevelt, four. Herbert Hoover, zero. Calvin Coolidge, four. Warren Harding, six. Woodrow Wilson, two. William Howard Taft, zero. Theodore Roosevelt, two (to vice president). The one exception: Lyndon Johnson's 23 years from his first House victory to the vice presidency.

If we applied it this year that would give Sen. Obama and Edwards a leg up on Hillary. (Assuming that her ascension as First Lady counts as an election. Hedgehog Report has an amusing observation in this regard.) And it would give Sen. Thompson, Gov. Huckabee and Romney an advantage over Mayor Giuliani (who misses the cutoff by a year) and Sen. McCain.

Perhaps the expiration date is what David Brooks is observing in The Two Earthquakes.

Obama has achieved something remarkable. At first blush, his speeches are abstract, secular sermons of personal uplift � filled with disquisitions on the nature of hope and the contours of change.

He talks about erasing old categories like red and blue (and implicitly, black and white) and replacing them with new categories, of which the most important are new and old. He seems at first more preoccupied with changing thinking than changing legislation.

Yet over the course of his speeches and over the course of this campaign, he has persuaded many Iowans that there is substance here as well. He built a great organization and produced a tangible victory

.
and

In that sense, Huckabee�s victory is not a step into the past. It opens up the way for a new coalition.

A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

Will Huckabee move on and lead this new conservatism? Highly doubtful. The past few weeks have exposed his serious flaws as a presidential candidate. His foreign policy knowledge is minimal. His lapses into amateurishness simply won�t fly in a national campaign.

So are we seeing a new generation in both parties. If we are, then Brooks' prediction bodes ill for the Republicans.

So the race will move on to New Hampshire. Mitt Romney is now grievously wounded. Romney represents what�s left of Republicanism 1.0. Huckabee and McCain represent half-formed iterations of Republicanism 2.0. My guess is Republicans will now swing behind McCain in order to stop Mike.

If there's a new Republicanism then the last thing you need is someone who's 14 year expiration date has passed leading it.

Of course I'm reasonable convinced that Brooks seeing a pattern has drawn a much too quick conclusion. But then I was convinced that Gov. Huckabee was this year's Gov. Dean.

(via memeorandum)

2008 election.