Here is an article which explores the nature of failed presidencies and applies it to President Obama. Using this predictive model, the author makes several interesting predictions about the up coming Presidential election and the lack of success in the remaining years of President Obama's administration.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/on-obama-and-the-nature-of-failed-presidencies-2014-11-19?page=1
An interesting article. I read Friedman's book, The Next Ten Years and found it to an objective and broad view that is lacking in most of the political discussions in this country. I find it a bit curious that he states Carter was not a failed president. I think quite a few would disagree with him on that. I guess I kinda get his point that if a president's popularity falls to a point where he has lost even part of his base in addition to the center, that's a pretty bad distinction.
ReplyDeleteConsidering I voted for W. Bush once, I believe I get to put myself as independent, others here would likely disagree I'm sure. Considering where the country was when Obama started and where it is now, I dont' believe Obama is a failed president. When I read some of the polls about what people are pissed about, and when I look at some of the races where the local population voted for measures that Republicans are pretty stridently against, I think it's a little odd to say our political schizophrenia is truly an indicator of whether a president has failed. When and if we elect a Republican president who basically does exactly what W. Bush did, I doubt the country will be any more approving than they were of Bush.
Hey Max, back for a few days.
DeleteHow do you measure a failed presidency is the question.
Read this article a while ago.
Analyzing a President's Strength
I assume that underneath all of the churning, about 40 percent of the electorate is committed to each party. Twenty percent is uncommitted, with half of those being indifferent to the outcome of politics and the other half being genuinely interested and undecided. In most normal conditions, the real battle between the parties — and by presidents — is to hold their own bases and take as much of the center as possible.
So long as a president is fighting for the center, his ability to govern remains intact. Thus, it is normal for a president to have a popularity rating that is less than 60 percent but more than 40 percent. When a president's popularity rating falls substantially below 40 percent and remains there for an extended period of time, the dynamics of politics shift. The president is no longer battling for the center but is fighting to hold on to his own supporters — and he is failing to do so.
When the president's support has fragmented to the point that he is fighting to recover his base, I considered that a failed presidency — particularly when Congress is in the hands of the opposition. His energy cannot be directed toward new initiatives. It is directed toward recovering his base. And presidents who have fallen into this condition near the end of their presidencies have not been likely to recover and regain the center.
Historically, when the president's popularity rating has dipped to about 37 percent, his position has been unrecoverable. This is what happened to George W. Bush in 2006. It happened to Richard Nixon in 1974 when the Watergate crisis resulted in his resignation, and to Lyndon Johnson in 1967 during the Vietnam War. It also happened to Harry Truman in 1951, primarily because of the Korean War, and to Herbert Hoover before World War II because of the Great Depression.
However, this is not the final historical note on a presidency. Truman, enormously unpopular and unable to run for another term, is now widely regarded as one of the finest presidents the United States has had. Nixon, on the other hand, has never recovered. This is not therefore a judgment on Obama's place in history, but simply on his current political condition. Nor does it take failure to lose the presidency; Jimmy Carter was defeated even though his popularity remained well in the 40s.
DeleteObama's Presidency
Of the five failed presidencies I've cited, one failed over scandal, one over the economy and three over wars — Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Obama's case is less clear than any. The 40 percent who gravitated to the opposition opposed him for a host of reasons. He lost the center for complex reasons as well. However, looking at the timing of his decline, the only intruding event that might have had that impact was the rise of the Islamic State and a sense, even in his own party, that he did not have an effective response to it. Historically, extended wars that the president did not appear to have a strategy for fighting have been devastating to the presidency. Woodrow Wilson's war (World War I) was short and successful. Franklin Roosevelt's war (World War II) was longer, and although it began in failure it became clear that a successful end was conceivable. The Korean, Vietnam and two Iraq wars suffered not from the length, but from the sense that the presidency did not have a war-ending strategy. Obama appears to me to have fallen into the political abyss because after six years he owned the war and appeared to have no grip on it.
Failure extends to domestic policy as well. The Republican-controlled legislature can pass whatever legislation it likes, but the president retains veto power, and two-thirds of both houses must vote to override. The problem is that given the president's lack of popularity — and the fact that the presidency, all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for re-election in two years — the president's allies in Congress are not as willing to be held responsible for upholding his vetoes. Just as few Democrats wanted Obama campaigning for them, so too do few want to join the president in vetoing majority legislation. What broke Truman, Johnson and Nixon was the moment it became clear that their party's leaders in Congress wanted them gone.
Acting Within Constraints
DeleteThis does not mean that the president can't act. It simply means that it is enormously more difficult to act than before. Gerald Ford, replacing Nixon but weakened by the pardoning of his predecessor, could not stop Congress from cutting off aid to South Vietnam during the final Communist assault. George W. Bush was able to launch the surge, but the surge was limited in size, not only because of strategic conditions but also because he had lost the ability to force Congress to fund alternative expansions of the war. In each of the failed presidencies, the president retained the ability to act but was constrained by the twin threats of an opposition-controlled Congress and his own party's unwillingness to align with him.
At the same time, certain foreign diplomatic initiatives can continue. Nixon initiated negotiations between Egypt and Israel that culminated, under Carter's administration, in the Camp David Accords. Truman tried to open negotiations with China, and the initiative's failure had little to do with opposition to a negotiated settlement in Korea.
The president has few domestic options. Whatever Obama does with his power domestically, Congress can vote to cut funding, and if the act is vetoed, the president puts Congressional Democrats in mortal danger. The place where he can act — and this is likely the place Obama is least comfortable acting — is in foreign policy. There, the limited deployment of troops and diplomatic initiatives are possible.
Obama's general strategy is to withdraw from existing conflicts in the Middle East and contain and limit Russian actions in Ukraine. The president has the ability to bring military and other pressure to bear. But the United States' opponent is aware that the sitting president is no longer in control of Washington, that he has a specific date of termination and that the more unpopular things he does, the more likely his successor is to repudiate them. Therefore, in the China-North Korea model, the assumption is that that continuing the conflict and negotiating with the successor president is rational. In the same sense, Iran chose to wait for the election of Ronald Reagan rather than deal with Jimmy Carter (who was not a failed president).
This model depends on the opponent's having the resources and the political will to continue the conflict in order to bargain with the president's successor, and assumes that the successor will be more malleable. This is frequently the result, since the successor can make concessions more readily than his predecessor. In fact, he can make those concessions and gain points by blaming the need to concede on his predecessor. Ironically, Obama used this strategy after replacing George W. Bush. The failed president frequently tries to entice negotiation by increasing the military pressure on the enemy. Truman, Johnson and George W. Bush all took this path while seeking to end their wars. In no case did it work, but they had little to lose politically by trying.
Therefore, if we follow historical patterns, Obama will now proceed slowly and ineffectively to increase military operations in Syria and Iraq, while raising non-military pressure on Russia, or potentially initiating some low-level military activities in Ukraine. The actions will be designed to achieve a rapid negotiating process that will not happen. The presidency will shift to the other party, as it did with Truman, Johnson and George W. Bush. Thus, if patterns hold true, the Republicans will retake the presidency. This is not a pattern unknown to Congress, which means that the Democrats in the legislature will focus on running their own campaigns as far away from Obama and the next Democratic presidential candidate as possible.
The period of a failed presidency is therefore not a quiet time. The president is actively trying to save his legacy in the face of enormous domestic weakness. Other countries, particularly adversaries, see little reason to make concessions to failed presidents, preferring to deal with the next president instead. These adversaries then use military and political oppositions abroad to help shape the next U.S. presidential campaign in directions that are in their interests.
DeleteIt is against this backdrop that all domestic activities take place. The president retains the veto, and if the president is careful he will be able to sustain it. Obama will engage in limited domestic politics, under heavy pressure from Congressional Democrats, confining himself to one or two things. His major activity will be coping with Syria, Iraq and Russia, both because of crises and the desire for a legacy. The last two years of a failed presidency are mostly about foreign policy and are not very pleasant to watch.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/obama-and-nature-failed-presidencies#axzz3JLqPMRF7
Failure or successful is in the opinion of the person measuring success or failure.
Every time the word legacy is mentioned in context with a politician I want to puke.
DeleteIt's not about Obama, or Hillary, or Bush.
Legacy is their claim to fame in the future.
Delete"Every time the word legacy is mentioned in context with a politician I want to puke."
DeleteFor a man who worships Reagan, this a curious comment indeed William.
Lou, that was the article that Mick posted. I generally get what Friedman is driving at. If you accept his premise that 40% are Dem, 40% are Pub and 20 odd percent are independent, it makes some sense to say you are a failed POTUS when you have lost all of the middle and part of your base. Still, this reduces the assessment to opinion. In know you disagree with parts of what I am going to say next, but I'm just making a statement rather than trying to persuade you to agree.
For context sake, I think the current state of America is simply whacked. Plenty of people are unhappy with Obama, which is fair enough, but while Obamas approval is in the 30s, the approval for congress is less than 10% and the message here seems to be that the country is going to punish Obama by giving more control to a group they like even less? This is kind of like a teenage girl giving herself a bad haircut because she was rejected by some boy at school. I don't understand the logic of Democrats who chose not to vote just as I didn't understand the logic of Republicans who chose to skip voting in 2006.
Further, though the sample size is small, several states had initiative ballots about legalizing pot and raising minimum wage and though voters support that, they elected Republicans who clearly do not support those things. When only 36% of possible voters believe it is important enough to show up and actually vote, I tend to be a little dismissive of the petty bitching of the rest of them who aren't satisfied with the president.
Heres the sharp disagreement part. I believe Obama has faced an unprecedented level of opposition from day one that goes far beyond just being a Democrat. He hasn't kissed a single ring of Republican leaders who have been there a long time, and this has clearly not sat well with the entrenched old white men pooh bahs like McConnell, McCain and Graham and countless others. Plenty could have been done on simple majority votes, and McConnell said no. Immigration passed the senate and Boehnor said no and continues to live by the Hastert rule established by that fat bag of crap from my home state of Illinois. At this point, it's moot. Obama didn't kiss their ass and they weren't going to work with him anyways.
I don't really like Friedman's metric, but it's likely going to be the logical measure of our presidents for some time.
The simple reality is that there is no immigration legislation bad enough for Obama to sign that could possibly be reasonable enough for even an immigration “moderate” to accept.
DeleteSo the attitude should remain: We in Congress didn’t act because we as the people’s constitutional representatives chose not to act, and the president must abide by that decision. Period.
There is no national will that has any legal merit unless Congress acts (national defense excepted, of course). This isn’t an official national emergency.
The only urgency here is a result of the administration’s unlawful decision not to enforce current law. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one.
"The simple reality is that there is no immigration legislation bad enough for Obama to sign that could possibly be reasonable enough for even an immigration “moderate” to accept."
DeleteRespectfully, I disagree. Most accounts I read indicated there were enough votes to pass the bill in the house. However, many of those votes would have come from Democrats and since this would have happened before mid terms, Boehnor chose to not let the bill come up. We can (and have) endlessly debated whether it is appropriate to block votes on bills. But unlike many of the truly partisan bills congress kept sending to the senate, the senate bill that went to congress had solid support from both parties.
I can't argue your last para. Obama is choosing to not put the country on lockdown in order to round up and catapult all the illegal mexicans out of the country.
It's like much of the legislation that Harry blocked in the Senate that never saw the light of day. Is the House dysfunctional? Only as much as the Senate.
DeleteWould the garbage legislation produced in the Senate have passed the House? I could also say that Romney would have been a better president. Neither provable.
In any case what's wrong with passing a secure the border act first, actually secure the border before addressing the non enforcement problem in the country? How do you prevent more people from pouring over the border without enforcement?
As to the existing illegals in the country, we have created a population of American citizens that no longer seek work allowing the government to take care of them Is that the goal an entitlement society? I don't think so either but it's the end results of the last 8 years of political madness. We must eventually turn that around before we can progress as a nation. We need to stop the flow to return balance to the work force. Wages will never rise as long as we have an ever expanding pool of labor willing to work for minimum wage.
"It's like much of the legislation that Harry blocked in the Senate that never saw the light of day. Is the House dysfunctional? Only as much as the Senate. "
DeleteIt doesn't change the reality of what I said. Romney might have been better, but it's immaterial because at least, we had a vote on that. 68 Senators voted for the bill that left the Senate, 14 of which were Republican, which is a third of their representation. Even if Democrats were totally locked out of the process, do you really believe the Republicans would pass a bill you approve of? That's an honest question.
What's wrong with passing a secure the border act? I guess, as I have said before, at some point I believe enough is enough. We have spent billions. We HAVE slowed the flow. To a point, I don't mock how insanely pissed off people get about the immigration because it does fuck up our wage scale, to a point. But again, when have we ever punished those who employ them? When has our police forces trailed a contractor to the job site who just picked up a small army of Mexicans hanging outside a home depot?
Outsourcing our production and letting China dump here is what has destroyed our labor. Where you see a Obama as a socialist, I see our trade policy as an open door of exploitation. You can put drones and land mines on the border Lou and it will not a damn thing to raise wages. I get your argument, but this is a specious point. I don't see illegal immigrants fighting me for my job as an RN
We punish only people in the US.
DeleteBusiness get a pass. Hire who you want, little repercussion.
CEO's unless it's blatant, they get a pass.
Government gets a pass, they bloviate, posture, ready for the next round.
In the mean time citizens weather the storm waiting for better days.
Free trade agreement the death of our manufacturing base. They really need to address it seriously. Easy to stop immigration from Mexico and south America. End NAFTA, add a 30% tariff to all goods imported end all foreign aid and divert the money to border enforcement and then perhaps they will get the message. In any case business will.
In the name of foreign policy we have stabilized China, trading our middle class for their middle class. We jet cheap junk, they get jobs. Not many of our free trade agreements work out in our favor.
No, Max you don't see anyone competing for a job. My daughter a teen for another year, fought for a part time job for 3 years. The local employers preferred the illegals as they work what ever hours are given a teen in HS is limited to 20 hours a week. Why would any low skilled employer hand out raises when there are 10 waiting to take the job?
With the increase in construction, the fast food places are hurting for workers. The teens here have given them the finger and said bite me. The called my daughter asked if she was interested in working, she said she tried for 3 years to get a job and only when the illegals bailed were they interested in hiring her.
The BK went out of business, the Mc D's is changing over to American workers before it happens to them. The replacement for BK a Good Times, all American workers starting pay, 9.25. At least they are trying to do it right.
I see obama as a nothing. He certainly isn't a leader, he certainly doesn't care what the majority of American want. He certainly doesn't want to work with the new congress as he rushes to do what he wants before the new congress in Jan. is seated. The next 2 years will likely be hell for him as he has never figured out the Clinton way of getting things done with the other party.
As a side note, the police picks up illegals turns them over to ICE who releases them. What's the point? Free room and board for a few days till ICE collects them? O has chosen to deport few though they do turn them back at the border sometimes.
Maybe when we hit 50 million illegals and we can no longer function on a state level people will finally demand the border be secured.
You know we agree on trade agreements and kudos to your comment at the top. Without business hiring them, there is a lot less incentive to come here. We don't punish business for much of anything. But as we have both lamented before, American's also don't seem to want to pay higher prices to help support each other even when people do want to work. There is not remotely a shortage of profits, but as has been pointed out here before, you have large corporations who are emboldened to pay as little as possible because 1) there is no social backlash, and 2) the workers making shitty wages can get government benefits.
DeleteThe country will be good if we reach a point where labor again becomes something sought after. Until then, anyone who is an hourly worker can suck it. It's a shame because it doesn't need to be that way and if it wasn't that way, there would be more incentive to work, spend money and grow the economy.
Couple the trade agreements with unbridled illegal immigration and we have our current fiasco. Imagine if 5 million illegals went home tomorrow. It would create a labor shortage and business would compete for the available workers, wages would rise with supply and demand. As long as we have an unlimited supply of labor, why should business raise wages?
DeleteAs the story goes… President Obama is no Lincoln… however much he wishes he was. While people may ask “what will people say of me when I die”, those with the greatest legacies actually sought to invoke the courage of their convictions and the legacy for better or worse, found them. This president has lied, deceived and obfuscated his positions to Americans from the start of his presidency. He has lead one of the least transparent administrations ever and far too many questions still remain about his past. While history may be kind to him… it will first have to get to know him and believe him.
ReplyDelete“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
― William Shakespeare
Obama care will not be repealed and he will be the POTUS who succeeded in getting this done where others failed.
DeleteI have a hunch, TS, that Obama has actually done the Republicans a favor. They can wail and gnash their teeth about this and then move on to creating a bill that militarizes the border with drones and land mines.
Any way is acceptable right Max? I have always had the up most of respect for people who lie to me...
DeleteThe final word is certainly not in as to the effect his signature program will have on medicine and healthcare in our country and around the world. Most countries that have social medicine depend heavily on medical research done by private study... Much of the private study is done in the US. Much of the low cost of medicine has been subsidised by the high prices charged in the US... Time will tell what he has wrought.
"Most countries that have social medicine depend heavily on medical research done by private study... Much of the private study is done in the US. Much of the low cost of medicine has been subsidised by the high prices charged in the US.."
DeleteI don't buy this. There is plenty of research done around the world and I have spent the last year plus looking at when I was pulling studies for papers I had to write. Outside of drug company funded studies, the chief funder of studies is government subsidy. Undoubtedly, this deeply offends those in the world who see things the way Hugh Akston does. The only privately subsidized studies I came across were those sponsored by drug companies, who had a financial stake in doing the research. Nothing wrong with that but it's reality and again, this research is conducted all over the world.
I also don't buy that medicine is cheaper elsewhere because companies can make up for it in the US. Medicines are cheaper in places like the UK because the government negotiates for them. Our government is not allowed to do this thanks to lobbying efforts of big pharma.
Will you listen to yourself….” Our government is not allowed to do”… Not allowed to? And you want such an inept bureaucratic nightmare to actually run our medical system?
DeleteYou are of course correct that there is a lot of private and independent research being done… BUT rarely does it see the light of day. I have the pleasure of using the NHS and one of its features is the local clinic or ‘surgery’ as it is called.. First stop for any referrals. Because of funding for local GP’s and lack of appointment slots it is difficult to get to consistently see ‘your doctor’ thus giving me exposure to several different doctors, since coming here. I talked with several about both diabetes and cholesterol as I take issue with the widespread notion that the cholesterol bogyman is as bad as advertised. In fact (off the top of my head) a Swedish study spanning 15 years with some 168K participants showed that cholesterol at higher than WHO and US max levels actually increases longevity in women… you won’t see that in UK medicine.
In fact, beyond cholesterol control, the UK and indeed Europe is so smitten with Statins that they HAD a risk assessment for heart disease that recommended statins for anyone with just a 20% risk… they have since lowered that to 10%. They take recommendations for statin application straight from the phama companies and not well qualified independent research. As for diabetes, anyone who does due diligence knows that the recommended diet is totally wrong. No health organization will tell you to stop eating grains(including todays highly refined whole grains) and most root vegetables even though they metabolize almost identically to sugar and their effects on blood sugar and insulin resistance is the same. These facts aren’t shared or even understood by most doctor…because the only way we can feed the ever increasing population of the world is to push grains and it goes against ego warriors desire to destroy the meat industry but the facts are available… The NHS does not use the science though.
As far as costs of medicines. Yeah, they do negotiate prices but keep in mind that countries that don’t have a state run medical systems often have drugs cheaper than the US. A famous disparity is the cost of an anti-venom developed in the US for scorpion stings. While it is true that the number of stings in Mexico far exceed that of the US, the price per dose in Mexico is $100 and in the US…. $12,000! Mexico has no state medical system to negotiate that price. Also keep in mind, when I talk about the US subsidizing the rest of the world… the US is 70% of pharmaceutical market so if you were to extract the profits received from the US patients, you just might kill the R&D.
The fact that the high cost to bring a drug and the 7 year window for profits before going generic has the effect of high initial costs of a drug.
DeleteThirteen months before our recent mid term election Ted Cruz and Tea Party republicans shut down the government.
ReplyDeleteThe mid terms produced more republicans in congress, state, and local government than at any time in the last eighty years.
The House of Representatives should tell Mr. Obama that they will see him after they are sworn in in January.
No one will die if our sacred government spends a nice quiet Christmas at home.
FELIZ NAVIDAD!
"Thirteen months before our recent mid term election Ted Cruz and Tea Party republicans shut down the government.The mid terms produced more republicans in congress, state, and local government than at any time in the last eighty years."
DeleteI was telling some people at work yesterday that it would be chilly this morning. Lo and behold, it's chilly. I obviously have enormous power.
Wield it wisely.
DeleteLOL.
I wasn't planing on visiting DC over the holidays so I don't really care if Obama barricades the WWII monument again.
Delete