Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

I am familiar with this. Explanations:

1. This is a tough standard, one that few incumbent Presidents find working for them. Promises often come with costs, and what sounds wonderful often has problems -- including resistance from powerful interests. Just think of the massive reform that Barack Obama promised on health care that, if fully enacted, would cut costs and make medical care more accessible. The only problem is that some people waxed fat on high costs built into the system. Anyone who fails to recognize the virtue of profits irrespective of costs to the common man ignores that the people who make those profits will rebuke anyone who challenges those profits. If you think healthcare costs are difficult to challenge, then think of how difficult it was to put an end to chattel slavery.

2. I was unaware of a numerical value for such a challenge. I thought that it was enough to have someone with some widespread credibility as an opponent of the incumbent. Thus a Lyn Larouche or David DuKKKe, a fringe character, does not matter. The last five incumbent Presidents (Reagan, the elder Bush, Clinton, Dubya, and Obama sailed through the nomination process). Ford faced a challenge from Ronald Reagan, and Carter faced a challenge from Ted Kennedy. Good feelings within the Party don't get put together quickly, and if there is a meaningful challenge, then the opposition Party will exploit it in negative ads. Trump has violated plenty of canons of the center-right, and just about any Democrat will be able to exploit those.

3. Enough said. The incumbent President has control of the agenda, which is ordinarily a huge advantage.

4. Third Parties can ruin an incumbent Party's campaign by taking away part of the Party's natural constituency. To be sure, this criterion (Ross Perot) hurt the elder Bush in 1992 no more than it hurt Bill Clinton in 1996. The Nader vote in 2000 was much larger than the winning margins for Dubya in both Florida and New Hampshire -- and voters for Nader were not taking votes away from Dubya; either state would have tipped the election for Al Gore. The George Wallace candidacy of 1968 got a bigger share of the popular vote than the margin by which Nixon won in the following states:

OK 8
VA 12
NC 12
TN 11
FL 14
SC 8
KY 8
WI 12
DE 3
CA 40
IL 26
AK 3
OH 26
NJ 17
MO 12

Wallace really was a big-government pol, a veritable socialist. He differed from the Democratic establishment only in his racism. Nixon won 301 electoral votes, and Humphrey won 191... but it is relatively easy to see how Humphrey could have gotten 79 more electoral votes from this combination of states. You might ignore California because Nixon was from California.

5. Since Hoover, economic stewardship has become de facto a responsibility of the President who has some control over monetary policy (which Hoover bungled severely). Administrations can buy elections through loose fiscal and monetary policy, only to achieve stagflation; Nixon won big in 1972 only to cost re-election bids of Ford and Carter. Stagflation may not be a recession, but it implies under-investment for which society will pay heavily. It is far easier to challenge a President who has the misfortune to have high unemployment and falling securities prices.

6. Presidents get credit for economic growth out of a recession or a depression, and not doing as well as the predecessor at that does not look good. After a recession or depression is underway, expectations go down, which makes things easier for any incumbent President.

7. Nothing is said on whether the policy change is benign or catastrophic. A President capable of forcing change is more effective than one who can't.

8. Every President will face some dissent, but as long as it does not transmute into riots and ethnic or religious violence, things aren't so bad.

9. Scandals involving the Presidency are extremely rare. Getting away with a scandal might be possible for a while; Nixon was doing fine until people thought that the Watergate scandal was more than a third-rate burglary. Dubya got away with a corrupt boom from shady lending... but that would lead to a financial panic that would destroy any chance of John McCain winning the Presidency. The Teapot Dome scandal fizzled out with honest prosecutions under Harding's successor.

At worst, scandals can result in an impeachment. The scandals implode the Trump Presidency, and those might be enough to take him down. Americans have shown that they have little tolerance for political corruption except under machine governments whether in such a giant city as Chicago or in some hamlet in Mississippi in which white people will vote for a corrupt white Republican over an honest black Democrat or in which black people will vote for a corrupt black Democrat over an honest white Republican solely due to the tribal (ethnic) split in the electorate.

10. What is a major failure? The 'loss' of a seemingly reliable ally that is shakier than people realize. Military defeat (rare in American history). Republicans were never going to let Truman get away with "losing" China, and they were never going to let Carter get away with "losing" Iran.

11. The opposite of #10... turning an enemy into a mere rival... military success... getting a peace treaty or an arrangement to reduce the stock of nuclear weapons.

12. You know charisma when you see it.
13. Ditto.