Generations and presidential campaigns

[Dan '82]

When members of different generations have run for the presidency

Liberty Generation
 
First serious candidate: George Washington, 1788
First candidate to win nomination: n/a
First candidate to be elected: George Washington, 1788
Last president:  John Adams, 1797-1901
Last serious candidate:  John Adams, 1800
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 59

Republican Generation

 
First serious candidate: Thomas Jefferson, 1796
First candidate to win nomination: Thomas Jefferson, 1796
First candidate to be elected: Thomas Jefferson, 1800
Last president:  James Monroe, 1817-1825
Last serious candidate: James Monroe, 1820
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 54
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 54

Compromise Generation
 
First serious candidate: several, 1824
First candidate to win nomination: several, 1824*
First candidate to be elected: John Quincy Adams, 1824
Last president:  James Buchanan, 1857-1861
Last serious candidate: James Buchanan, 1856
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 57
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 65


*Technically there were no political parties in 1824 just factions of the Democratic-Republican party that contested the General election and later organized into parties.

Transcendental Generation
 
First serious candidate: James K. Polk, 1844
First candidate to win nomination: James K. Polk, 1844
First candidate to be elected: James K. Polk, 1844
Last president:  Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
Last serious candidate: Samuel J. Tilden, 1876
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 52
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 55



Gilded Generation
 
First serious candidate: George B. McClellan,1864
First candidate to win nomination: George B. McClellan,1864
First candidate to be elected: Ulysses S. Grant, 1868
Last president:  Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
Last serious candidate: Richard P. Bland, 1896
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 42
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 54



Progressive Generation
 
First serious candidate: William McKinley,1896
First candidate to win nomination: William McKinley,1896
First candidate to be elected: William McKinley, 1896
Last president:  Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Last serious candidate: Robert La Follette, 1924, or Leonard Wood and Frank Orren Lowden, 1920
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 53
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 61 or 65

 

Missionary Generation
 
First serious candidate: William Jennings Bryan,1896
First candidate to win nomination: William Jennings Bryan,1896
First candidate to be elected: Warren G. Harding, 1920
Last president:  FDR, 1933-1945
Last serious candidate: FDR, 1944
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 36
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 62


 
Lost Generation
 
First serious candidate: Alf Landon, 1936
First candidate to win nomination: Alf Landon, 1936
First candidate to be elected: Harry Truman, assumed office 1945, won his own term 1948
Last president:  Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1960
Last serious candidate: Ike, 1956
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 53
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 55



GI Generation
 
First serious candidate: Thomas Dewey 1940
First candidate to win nomination: Thomas Dewey 1944
First candidate to be elected: JFK 1960
Last president: George HW Bush 1989-1993
Last serious candidate: Bob Dole 1996
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 39
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 72


 
Silent Generation
 
First serious candidate: RFK 1968
First candidate to win nomination: Walter Mondale 1984
First candidate to be elected: n/a
Last president: n/a
Last serious candidate: Bernie Sanders 2016?
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 43
Age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate: 74


 
Baby Boomers
 
First serious candidate: Al Gore 1988
First candidate to win nomination: Bill Clinton 1992
First candidate to be elected: Bill Clinton 1992
Last president: ??
Last serious candidate: ??
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 45

Generation X
 
First serious candidate:  Barack Obama 2008
First candidate to win nomination: Barack Obama 2008
First candidate to be elected: Barack Obama 2008
Last president: ??
Last serious candidate: ??
Age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 47

[Odin]

TIL that Dewey was a GI.

And that the time between the first and last serious GI candidate is 56 years shows very well how much power and influence the GIs had as a generation.

And the poor Silents, they got screwed...

[Dan '82]

An observation, prior to the Missionaries generations had a relatively periods(about 30 years) where they competed for the Presidency; Missionaries and subsequent generations(excluding the Lost) have been able to stay on the political stage for longer periods of time(about 50 years). This includes the Silents, who despite never winning have been able to run candidates for close to 50 years.

[pbrower2a]

Obama 2008 may be the most unlikely 'serious' Presidential candidate in this group. He's a typical mature Reactive, the sort of President that one usually gets as the Crisis winds down or after it has wound down. The gross failure of Dubya made him possible. Would he have followed a better Boom (Gore?) or Silent (Lugar? Voinovich?) President than Dubya? Probably not.

He may have been 47 when he took the Presidency, but he certainly acted about 15 years older.

[Dan '82]

Average age of oldest cohort at time of first serious candidate: 47.3
Average age of youngest cohort at time of last serious candidate 61.5

[Dan '82]

Projecting the future

Last serious Baby Boomer candidate: range 2016-2032; most likely based on historic averages 2020
Last serious Gen X candidate: range 2036-2056; most likely based on historic averages 2044
First serious Millennial candidate: range 2020-2040; most likely based on historic averages 2028
Last serious Millennial candidate: range 2060-2080; most likely based on historic averages 2064
First serious Homelander candidate: range 2044-2060; most likely based on historic averages 2052

[Mikebert]

The pattern for political party realignments seems to be (1) an unstable coalition is formed (2) it wins a "critical" election. (3) A period of heighted political activity, what Daniel Elazar calls “a New Deal” ensues (4) the new coalition turns out to have legs, allowing it to win a third presidential term. (5) the parties then realign to adjust to the new political reality created.

Sometimes steps 3 and 4 can flip order

This sequence comes from Daniel Elazar's generational periodization of American history which works quite well for the periods anchored by critical elections in 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932.  (Elazar also considers the Continential conventions in 1774 and 1776 as serving the same function as "a critical election".  Elazar's scheme is a synthetis of Schlesingers' cycle and crtiical election theory. I have combined his scheme with S&H and note that Elazar "half generations" correspond S&H generations and that critical elections mark social moment turnings (2Ts and 4Ts).

The following is an employment of this combined Elazar-S&H scheme to recent history.

For example, (1) during the 1955-1968 period movement conservatism emerged as a unifying ideology for the Republican party.  Civil rights had created a new minority constituency in the Democratic party, but also led to  split which allowed the GOP to (2) win in 1868, as it did in 1860.  Over the 1968-1980 period, middle and upper-class Southern whites began voting Republican at the presidential level giving Republicans strong victories in 1972, 1980 (3) Thus emerged an unstable coalition between big business and big-business-hating Jacksonian populists which gave GOP victories in 1984 and a third GOP term in 1988. (4) This coalition enabled Reaganomics as the “New Deal”.  (5) After this New Deal, as the GOP grew increasingly Southern and populist, northern and more educated Republicans drifted into the Democratic party. Minority populations grew as a % of the electorate, increasing the size of this Democratic constituency.    
 
(1) In 2008 a new Democratic coalition had emerged of minorities (including immigrants), educated people, and a new generation (millies) who came of political age (age 14-24) during the perceived successful Clinton, unsuccessful Bush  and Obama's more successful adminstration *. (2) They won the 2008 critical election. (3) There followed two active years which serve as a “New Deal”. (4) It now looks like the “Obama collation” will give Democrats a third term. 

Sometimes as part of the post-New Deal realignment (step 5 of one cycle and step 1 of the next) there is a second “New Deal” following the first.  Civil Rights and the great Society was one, which triggered the realignment of the parties around identity politics, rather than economics.  The model holds that Clinton will attempt to try another New Deal, this one oriented away from identity politics as the realignment in this direction is now complete. Economics might be the new axis of political competition.  It could be something else.

*To get a bead on the "core generation" associated with these three administrations, subtract 24 from 2016 and 14 from from 1992 to yield 1978-1992 as a crude estimate for thsi generation.  Folks born between 1995 and 1998 will join this generation if they perceive the Clinton adminstration to be successful and work to give it a second term.  In this case the generational years move to 1978-2000.  Typically these political generations lag the S&H one by a few years. S&H hold that the millie generation extends into the 1980's.  This favors the later ending date for the political version of the millie generation and this "predicts" a Clinton victory in 2016 AND 2020 and a more favorable assessment of it in the eyes of millennials that the realistic alternatives.

Now Neil Howe does not see this because they proposed a mechansim for their cycle that usings a generational constellation and peer personalities that does not work.  The political generational mechanism comes from the  empirically established theory of generational imprinting.

[Warren Dew]

(05-24-2016, 11:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Obama 2008 may be the most unlikely 'serious' Presidential candidate in this group. He's a typical mature Reactive, the sort of President that one usually gets as the Crisis winds down or after it has wound down. The gross failure of Dubya made him possible. Would he have followed a better Boom (Gore?) or Silent (Lugar? Voinovich?) President than Dubya? Probably not.

He may have been 47 when he took the Presidency, but he certainly acted about 15 years older.

He also acted more like a boomer than Gen X in many ways.

[Marypoza]

(08-12-2016, 06:37 AM)Mikebert Wrote: The pattern for political party realignments seems to be (1) an unstable coalition is formed (2) it wins a "critical" election. (3) A period of heighted political activity, what Daniel Elazar calls “a New Deal” ensues (4) the new coalition turns out to have legs, allowing it to win a third presidential term. (5) the parties then realign to adjust to the new political reality created.

Sometimes steps 3 and 4 can flip order

This sequence comes from Daniel Elazar's generational periodization of American history which works quite well for the periods anchored by critical elections in 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932.  (Elazar also considers the Continential conventions in 1774 and 1776 as serving the same function as "a critical election".  Elazar's scheme is a synthetis of Schlesingers' cycle and crtiical election theory. I have combined his scheme with S&H and note that Elazar "half generations" correspond S&H generations and that critical elections mark social moment turnings (2Ts and 4Ts).

The following is an employment of this combined Elazar-S&H scheme to recent history.

For example, (1) during the 1955-1968 period movement conservatism emerged as a unifying ideology for the Republican party.  Civil rights had created a new minority constituency in the Democratic party, but also led to  split which allowed the GOP to (2) win in 1868, as it did in 1860.  Over the 1968-1980 period, middle and upper-class Southern whites began voting Republican at the presidential level giving Republicans strong victories in 1972, 1980 (3) Thus emerged an unstable coalition between big business and big-business-hating Jacksonian populists which gave GOP victories in 1984 and a third GOP term in 1988. (4) This coalition enabled Reaganomics as the “New Deal”.  (5) After this New Deal, as the GOP grew increasingly Southern and populist, northern and more educated Republicans drifted into the Democratic party. Minority populations grew as a % of the electorate, increasing the size of this Democratic constituency.    
 
(1) In 2008 a new Democratic coalition had emerged of minorities (including immigrants), educated people, and a new generation (millies) who came of political age (age 14-24) during the perceived successful Clinton, unsuccessful Bush  and Obama's more successful adminstration *. (2) They won the 2008 critical election. (3) There followed two active years which serve as a “New Deal”. (4) It now looks like the “Obama collation” will give Democrats a third term. 

Sometimes as part of the post-New Deal realignment (step 5 of one cycle and step 1 of the next) there is a second “New Deal” following the first.  Civil Rights and the great Society was one, which triggered the realignment of the parties around identity politics, rather than economics.  The model holds that Clinton will attempt to try another New Deal, this one oriented away from identity politics as the realignment in this direction is now complete. Economics might be the new axis of political competition.  It could be something else.

*To get a bead on the "core generation" associated with these three administrations, subtract 24 from 2016 and 14 from from 1992 to yield 1978-1992 as a crude estimate for thsi generation.  Folks born between 1995 and 1998 will join this generation if they perceive the Clinton adminstration to be successful and work to give it a second term.  In this case the generational years move to 1978-2000.  Typically these political generations lag the S&H one by a few years. S&H hold that the millie generation extends into the 1980's.  This favors the later ending date for the political version of the millie generation and this "predicts" a Clinton victory in 2016 AND 2020 and a more favorable assessment of it in the eyes of millennials that the realistic alternatives.

Now Neil Howe does not see this because they proposed a mechansim for their cycle that usings a generational constellation and peer personalities that does not work.  The political generational mechanism comes from the  empirically established theory of generational imprinting.

-- ok so what kind of new deal will the Donald give us?

[Eric the Green]

The Raw Deal

[Eric the Green]

(11-14-2016, 12:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 01:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Raw Deal

Because of the PotUS term limit a repeat of the New Deal is not possible. This time it will be in fits and starts, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back.

For 40 years now, it's been 3 steps forward, 5 steps back.