Death of a Statesman

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"What did the president know, and when did he know it?"

Sen. Howard Baker
While questioning John Dean
June 28, 1973

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Howard Baker, who died today at the age of 88, might have been vice president. Or president.

When Gerald Ford won the 1976 Republican nomination, Baker reportedly was the front–runner to be Ford's running mate. But Ford chose one of Baker's colleagues in the Senate, Bob Dole, instead.

The Ford–Dole ticket went on to lose to the Carter–Mondale ticket. It also lost Baker's home state of Tennessee — but, even if one assumes that Baker's presence on the ticket would have given Tennessee to the Republicans (which is not much of a stretch, given that Tennessee had voted Republican in five of the previous six presidential elections and was close on Election Night 1976), that wouldn't have been enough to change the outcome of the national race.

By itself.

In hindsight, though, it is possible that Baker could have helped Ford win a few more Southern states — such as Mississippi (which remained too close to call until nearly 3 a.m. on Election Night), Louisiana (which gave a rather tepid 51% of its vote to fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter, who won every Southern state but Virginia that year) and North Carolina (which was even closer than Baker's home state) — and claim a narrow victory.

Baker was considered the "safe" choice for running mate, journalist Jules Witcover wrote, but, in the end, Ford opted for Dole for a number of reasons: Surveys suggested that Baker didn't have as much name recognition as most observers thought, and the public's perception of his performance during the Watergate hearings was "fuzzy," which dramatically lowered his potential value to the ticket.

Another factor, wrote Witcover, was that "Ford did not feel particularly comfortable with Baker."

If Ford had won that election, he would not have been eligible to run in 1980 because he had served more than half of his predecessor's term — and if Baker had been Ford's vice president, he probably would have sought the nomination.

He actually did seek the 1980 nomination, but he fared poorly in the Republican primaries, and Ronald Reagan eventually won the GOP nomination. It seems likely that, as the incumbent vice president, he would have been in a stronger position than he actually was — and might well have been the nominee.

At the very least, he probably would have done better than he did.

Baker might also have been a Supreme Court justice. Richard Nixon reportedly wanted to fill one of two vacancies with Baker — but Baker apparently took too long to tell Nixon whether he would accept, and Nixon offered it to William Rehnquist.

Baker finally did make it to the White House — as Ronald Reagan's chief of staff.

He had the kind of biography that even a skilled fiction writer couldn't make up. Baker was married twice, both times to women with prominent ties to the Republican Party. His first wife, Joy, was the daughter of longtime Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. She died of cancer.

His second wife, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, was the daughter of 1936 Republican presidential nominee Alfred Landon. She survives him.

Howard Baker was the kind of man most people say they want in political office — a man of integrity. He was known as the "Great Conciliator" for his skill at brokering compromise agreements between seemingly irreconcilable groups while (usually) preserving civility.

He was also very personable, soft spoken, a political centrist. America always seems to have a shortage of genuine statesmen, but Baker was one of them. He always seemed motivated to unite, not divide.

I've heard it said that a reporter once told a Democrat senator that the reporter's informal survey indicated that more of the senator's Democratic colleagues would support Baker for president than anyone else.

It is hard to imagine anyone on either side of the political fence commanding that much support from the opposition party today.

Choosing a Running Mate

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With the primaries over and the battle for the Republican presidential nomination apparently decided, political writers find themselves in an historically dreary period until the parties gather for their conventions.

It is at this time when there is much speculation about the ultimate identity of at least one of the major parties' running mates.

Of course, in 2012, we already know the name of one of the running mates. That would be Joe Biden, the incumbent vice president.

Four years ago, it was a much less common situation — in which no incumbent was running — so there was a great deal of speculation regarding the identities of both party nominees' running mates.

But this year, as I say, we already know who will be the running mate on the Democrats' ticket — unless, as a few folks have predicted, Barack Obama decides to drop Biden and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket.

I have argued repeatedly that this is highly unlikely. In their zeal to whip up a discussion about a non–issue, such observers show an appreciation only for drama, not history.

Realistically, only Republican Mitt Romney will be selecting a running mate in this election cycle.

Recent speculation about Romney's eventual running mate has focused, as usual, on the most well–known names — but history tells us that presidential nominees, in what is often described as their first presidential–level decision, are likely to surprise just about everyone — perhaps spectacularly so.

I believe the reason for that is, while it is always possible that a vice president could become president at any time, presidential nominees don't tend to treat the decision with the kind of reverence it deserves.

Don't get me wrong; it's an important decision, but the overriding consideration is usually political — which potential running mate can give the ticket the most bang for the buck on Election Day?

Thus, the decision offers a fascinating glimpse into the logic of the nominee, but, as a barometer for the kind of decisions he might be likely to make in office, it is virtually worthless.

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Like four years ago.

There was a lot of speculation about the running mates Obama and John McCain would choose, but, in the end, the selections of Biden and Sarah Palin were complete surprises — and seemingly motivated by entirely different considerations (even though both choices came down to politics — as usual — no matter how the campaigns chose to spin the decisions).

They addressed weaknesses — either real or perceived — of the presidential nominees.

Domestically, in 2008, there had been concerns about gas and food prices, but there were also international tensions that summer, and foreign policy was an area in which McCain, a Vietnam–era prisoner of war, was believed to have an advantage.

As a presidential candidate, Biden hadn't attracted much support, and he came from a tiny state that was already believed to be in the bag for the Democrats, but he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and, as such, he brought foreign policy credibility to the Democratic ticket.

So, while conventional wisdom holds that a running mate is chosen in large part because of the votes he can bring or the states he can help the nominee carry, that didn't appear to play much of a role in Obama's decision. The selection of Biden was praised because it was believed to have addressed an administrative need, not an electoral one.

But it was political in the sense that it was designed to reassure voters who saw the war on terrorism and border security as the most crucial issues in 2008 (remember, when the Democrats convened in Denver, the economic collapse had not yet happened.)

McCain's apparent motivation in selecting a female running mate, on the other hand, was to appeal to the millions of women who had supported Hillary Clinton's campaign and were said to be lukewarm on Obama.

It was an electorally motivated decision, and it was seen for the transparent maneuver that it was. The Republicans entirely overlooked the fact that women who participated in the Democratic primaries had an ideological agenda, too. Palin was simply too extreme for most of them.

In fact, after the votes had been counted, I heard several people second–guessing McCain's choice. They argued — correctly — that there were centrist Republican women who could have had broader appeal to female voters.

(Most of those people, it is worth noting, had nothing but praise for Palin when she was chosen and during the campaign.)

But, on the other hand, Palin had to be extreme to keep the conservatives in line. There was already a widespread perception of McCain as a "RINO" (a "Republican in Name Only"), and he needed to give the conservatives a reason to show up at the polls.

Also — although it was hardly mentioned — Palin was the only candidate who, as a governor, brought executive experience to the table.

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Traditionally, there are many factors involved in choosing a running mate, most aimed at providing some kind of balance to the ticket. Everyone has shortcomings, and the philosophy behind running mate selection has emphasized minimizing them.

As I said, Palin's executive experience carried some weight with voters who saw nothing but legislative experience from Obama, McCain and Biden.

In 2004, John Kerry apparently felt party unity was the most important factor so he chose North Carolina Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate.

Edwards had been Kerry's chief rival and the second–leading vote getter in the Democratic primaries — even though he won only two. It must have been a disappointment indeed for the Kerry team when their candidate received virtually no post–convention bounce in the polls. I'm sure they expected something, if only from the disgruntled Democrats whom they sought to appease.

Party unity never seemed to be a factor when George W. Bush made his choice in 2000. In fact, he appointed Dick Cheney to lead his vice–presidential search committee, but then Bush took the remarkable step of asking Cheney himself to be his running mate.

Had party unity been at the top of Bush's concerns, he probably would have picked McCain, his main rival for the nomination, to be his running mate.

Party unity apparently was behind Ronald Reagan's selection of George H.W. Bush in 1980.

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Things got a little out of hand at that year's Republican convention. A rumor that former President Gerald Ford would be Reagan's running mate swept through the delegations like wildfire.

The idea was that Ford and Reagan, who had waged a bitter campaign for the GOP nomination four years earlier, would be co–presidents.

But negotiations broke down, and the dream ticket never came to fruition. In the end, Reagan picked Bush, who had been his chief rival for the nomination that year.

One of the longest–standing considerations in choosing a running mate has been geographical. The idea was to attract votes in states and/or regions that the presidential nominee might not otherwise get. I'm inclined to think that was more important in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but, with the rapid emergence of technology in the last 50 or 60 years, geographical factors have become less important.

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Certainly Bill Clinton, in 1992, did not feel it was necessary to select someone who would provide geographical balance.

He chose Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, one of the states that borders on Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Perhaps Clinton wanted to double down on his Southern credentials; most Southern states, after all, had only voted for Democrats once, perhaps twice, in the previous 30 years.

Also, with two Southerners on the ticket, the Bush campaign could not portray either candidate as a Northern liberal like previous Democratic candidates (i.e., George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis), and Gore's military service negated criticism Clinton had received on that during the primaries.

In his memoir "My Life," Clinton said of Gore, "I liked him and was convinced that he ... would be a big addition to our campaign."

Sometimes personal chemistry trumps everything else.

Presidential nominees choose their running mates for reasons that probably wouldn't occur to most people.

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In 1968, Richard Nixon reportedly was so impressed with Spiro Agnew's speech placing his name in nomination that he offered him the second spot on the ticket.

Agnew was virtually unknown outside his home state of Maryland, but Nixon believed Maryland could be his beachhead in the South.

Nixon didn't carry Maryland in 1968, but he did carry five Southern states as he introduced the Southern strategy to modern American politics.

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And, in 1964, Barry Goldwater picked New York Rep. Bill Miller to be his running mate because Miller was known to be the congressman who annoyed Goldwater's opponent, President Lyndon Johnson, the most.

There will be a lot of talk in the next two months about who will run with Romney in the fall, and the names you're likely to hear the most are the rising stars in Republican circles — Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and others.

But don't be surprised if, when the smoke clears, someone you never heard of is standing on that podium with Romney in late August.

The Silver Lining

As I have observed here before, I grew up in Arkansas.

And when I was growing up, there was a saying that nearly everyone around me could be heard to utter, at one time or another: "Thank God for Mississippi!"

I don't know how long they were saying that in Arkansas — and it's been awhile since I lived there, so they may well be saying it still ... for all I know. But it was always an article of faith, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it still is.

It stemmed from the fact that Arkansas usually ranked 48th or 49th in nearly every category — but Mississippi was usually 50th.

That was the silver lining for Arkansans — who weren't proud of the fact that the state lagged so far behind the others in nearly every meaningful category but who were grateful for the existence of Mississippi, without whom Arkansas would have been dead last in so many important things.

In the wake of yesterday's abysmal jobs report, supporters of Barack Obama have been grasping at anything that can give the news a positive spin. A negative jobs report at this stage of the president's re–election campaign cannot possibly help his cause, but that hasn't stopped his backers from trying to give the news a positive spin.

Call it their "Thank God for Mississippi" moment.

As usual, the White House got its rah rah from the New York Times. But it didn't strike me as being quite as enthusiastic as it usually is.

"The slow economy is getting slower," wrote the Times, apparently ignoring the influence of public policy while seizing the opportunity to criticize the president's congressional critics.

"Republicans in Congress seem more determined not only to block any boost that President Obama wants to give the economy," opined the Times, "but they are preparing to take the nation's credit rating hostage again over the debt ceiling. Mitt Romney, the Republican presumptive presidential nominee, has no new ideas."

The Times did acknowledge, however, that the numbers were "daunting." Unemployment went up (0.1%, to be sure, was not an astonishingly high number by itself, but it was alarming and disappointing for an administration that saw much more robust job creation a few months ago and was hoping for clear evidence of steady improvement); weekly wages went down (thanks to a drop in average hours worked); and nearly 5½ million Americans are now regarded as long–term unemployed.

The hardly unexpected news caused a chain reaction, along with Europe's economic woes, on Wall Street as each of the stock exchanges lost more than 2% of its volume.

But the Times chose to blame congressional Republicans, who have controlled only the House (and that for barely more than a year) since the 2006 midterm elections — "There's no sign that Washington is prepared to shoulder this responsibility," said the Times, declining to hold the president accountable — although it did acknowledge that, "[i]n the meantime, millions of Americans need jobs."

The Philadelphia Inquirer blithely called the jobs report a "letdown" that "baffled" economic experts who had anticipated better. I can assure you of one thing: When the experts are baffled, the rank and file become jittery, and they express themselves at the ballot box.

Many experts suggested that a (temporary) scapegoat is the fact that many of the unemployed who had given up the search were encouraged by job gains earlier this year to re–enter the workforce. The jobs still aren't there, but more people are actively looking for them.

Obviously, most of us would like to see those who have given up find a renewed resolve within themselves to seek employment. But, when they do, they can be so darned inconvenient.

I don't know if it was all those formerly discouraged job seekers jumping back into the far from tranquil employment waters, but few of the president's usual defenders have had anything to say about the latest job report. I guess they couldn't find a silver lining.

Jimmy Carter has been an unapologetic supporter of Obama, but, after he lets the news sink in and he reviews the unambiguous election returns on November 7 — and recalls how he has been reviled for more than three decades as the worst modern American president (which lets some rather notorious 19th–century chief executives off the hook) — he may be the only Democrat who can truly find a silver lining ...

What will Jimmy Carter say on that November day? Thank God for Barack Obama?

You Can't Spin This

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I've seen this countless times before — and, as Weird Al Yankovic put it in his parody of MC Hammer's hip hop song, I can't watch this. I feel as if I have seen this before, and I don't want to watch this again.

But I don't really have a choice.

The monthly jobless report was released today, and, in the wake of recent economic reports, it came as no surprise to learn that unemployment went up to 8.2% in May. It was, however, a bit of a surprise that only 69,000 jobs were added to the economy in May — and, considering the fact that job gains in recent months were revised downward, it may well be that, when the dust finally settles, there may be no net job gains in May — there may even be net job losses.

Sixty–nine thousand jobs doesn't even cover average monthly population gains — let alone make a dent in the number of long–term unemployed.

Barack Obama's re–election campaign has been banking on continued evidence of an economic recovery — even the 0.1% gains that have been witnessed in some recent months would be preferable to the loss that was reported today. Economic experts have been saying for several weeks that they think the jobs situation will deteriorate this summer.

In other words, the worst is yet to come.

If a gain of any kind had been registered in May, it might still have been possible (if the economy managed to lower the unemployment rate by 0.2% per month) for the rate to be as low for Obama this November as it was when the voters re–elected Ronald Reagan in 1984.

And that is what the Obama campaign craves — an opportunity to run for a second term with a jobless rate equal to the one that existed for the Gipper.

Ain't gonna happen.

The first half of Reagan's first term resembled Obama's, with unemployment rates in double–digit territory. But the economy began to recover in 1983, and Reagan was re–elected, even though the unemployment rate was higher than it had been for any incumbent seeking a second term since the days of FDR.

However, the recovery of 1984 was more sustained, far more robust than this one, which has gone in fits and starts, like all the other "recoveries" since we were told the recession ended three years ago. Where Reagan sprinted to the finish line under the "Morning in America" banner, Obama is limping in that direction.

And jobs reports like the one that came out today are pressing the president into the "stay the course" mode that Reagan followed in the 1982 midterm elections — and resulted in the loss of 26 House seats for Reagan's Republicans — which doesn't have the inspirational quality of hope and change.

"Obama sees the glass as half full, arguing the economy is slowly improving and asking voters to trust him to help nurture a full recovery," writes Tom Raum of the Associated Press.

"No president since Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression has won re–election with an unemployment rate as high as it is today," continues Raum.

"It was 7.2 percent when President Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984."

That doesn't inspire confidence, especially since Obama has shown a marked inclination to lecture people (one of the prominent criticisms of Jimmy Carter when he ran against Reagan in 1980).

Even the New York Times, normally a cheerleader for the Obama administration, has found it hard to put a positive spin on this.

"Economists can explain away a month or two of disappointing numbers," writes the Times' Shaila Dewan. "But this was the third consecutive disappointing monthly performance by the job market, following a winter of solid gains, convincing many that the economic recovery has, for the third year in a row, lost momentum."

Three strikes and you're out.

I can't watch this.

Joe Biden Is Not the Problem

I first heard the rumblings nearly two years ago.

In August of 2010, I wrote about former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder's suggestion that Barack Obama should replace Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton in 2012, but my tendency then was to dismiss it as idle talk by people who really didn't know what they were talking about.

The topic reappeared last fall, and, when I heard it said that good ol' Joe Biden had to go, that he was a drag on Obama, I responded by writing that "too much emphasis is placed on the vice presidential nomination."

I wrote that "I don't think replacing Biden with anyone, Hillary or anyone else, is the answer for what ails Obama."

And I still believe that, even though I read articles at least once a week now suggesting that Obama needs to drop Biden.

It seems to me that, whenever incumbent presidents have been preparing to run for a second term, this kind of talk always seems to surface.

Sometimes it makes sense. In 1992, for example, there was a lot of talk about how George H.W. Bush needed to replace Dan Quayle on his ticket. Quayle had gained a reputation, whether fairly or unfairly, for always saying something stupid, and some people felt he was a drag on the ticket.

Now, in 1992, I was never going to vote for Bush, anyway, but I could sympathize with the sentiment. Quayle was ridiculed so much in those days that it really didn't take much persuading to convince anyone that Bush was bound to do better with someone else on his ticket.

Bush wound up keeping Quayle on the ticket, though, and, in hindsight, it is hard to imagine anyone who could have helped Bush win more than 100 electoral votes from Clinton. I think the challenger was going to win that election.

Some years are like that. I have to say that 1980 was like that. President Jimmy Carter was on shaky ground in all aspects of his presidency, and the talk that surfaced during his battle with Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination about dropping Vice President Walter Mondale probably had a lot to do with strategy and little, if anything, to do with Mondale's actual performance in office.

Mondale remained on the ticket, and I can't see how any other Democrat could have helped Carter avoid his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan.

Usually such talk is frivolous. I don't know where it comes from. Perhaps it is a trial balloon to see if there is any way the incumbent can ratchet up his vote total with a fresh face.

If that is what it is, the conclusion usually is that changing the running mate won't make that much difference. Voters judge incumbent presidents on their records, and the voters' sense of fairness (to which Obama ceaselessly, relentlessly, seeks to appeal) tells them that, unless a vice president is guilty of some egregious offense — that if he has been doing his job (which, constitutionally, only requires him to preside over the Senate and break ties when they occur) — he does not deserve to be dropped.

So Reagan kept George H.W. Bush in 1984. Clinton kept Al Gore in 1996. George W. Bush kept Dick Cheney in 2004. Each was, at some point in those re–election campaigns, the focus of a drop ______ movement.

If Obama does drop Biden, my sense is that the voters, many of whom have become super sensitive to workplace fairness in recent years, would demand to know the reason — and, of course, there are few things that the administration could plausibly blow out of proportion to justify such a move.

The truth is that there is precious little that Obama can point to that will validate his claim that he needs and deserves a second term.

He can't run on his economic record. Unemployment was 6.5% nationally when Obama was elected in November 2008. It has been well above that level throughout his presidency.

His signature achievement, Obamacare, is likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.

Instead of bringing people together, Obama has polarized this nation to a greater extent than it was before he was elected.

None of those things can be blamed on Biden. Democrats knew when he was chosen to be Obama's running mate in 2008 that he was gaffe prone — but, for the most part, he's been a good soldier, doing the heavy lifting when he was asked to do it and generally keeping his tongue in check.

Gallup reports that Americans are divided on Biden. The latest survey is, as Jeffrey Jones observes, "the first time opinions of Biden have tilted negative since he became Obama's vice presidential pick," but the numbers are "not materially different" from the public's assessment of him from 2009 to 2011.

And this survey was conducted after both Biden's comments about same–sex marriage on Meet the Press and Obama's comments in an interview a few days later in which he said he supported the legalization of such marriages.

In the week that has passed, Biden has been criticized for forcing the president's hand. But I think it was done deliberately. Obama knows that the polls have shown a general softening in public opposition to gay marriage, and I believe this was an excuse for Obama to give lip service to an issue that he believes will energize groups who helped him win last time.

And, with the last president's experience fresh in his mind, Obama is doing the same thing — he's using gay marriage to distract attention from the real issues.

I knew several women who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, it was mostly a ploy to attract Hillary's supporters, many of whom were thought to be up for grabs in the early fall of 2008.

That ploy failed for several reasons. Polls were showing a pretty close race between Obama and McCain until the economic collapse in September 2008. That, combined with Bush fatigue, pretty much assured that Obama would win.

Ironically, though, Obama had chosen his running mate in large part to bolster his ticket's foreign policy credentials. Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time he was chosen to run with Obama, and there had been some international tensions that summer.

But foreign policy is way down the list in 2012. And, even if it wasn't, Obama has been trumpeting his role in the killing of Osama bin Laden last year. He doesn't need Biden's help in that category anymore.

Of course, Hillary has been secretary of state under this president so her greatest selling point — other than her gender — is her expertise in foreign policy.

And foreign policy is not on most voters' minds this year.

All that Obama has left is class warfare, which is hardly the inclusive, hope and change banner under which he campaigned four years ago. It is the divide and conquer politics that people have been complaining about for years.

Changing running mates won't alter the fundamentals of this campaign. The voters will do what they always do when an incumbent is on the ballot — they will assess the incumbent's record and decide if they want four more years of it.

How Hot Is It?

It's been nearly 20 years since Johnny Carson left The Tonight Show, but, if you can remember when he was the show's host, you can probably remember many of his ongoing routines.

I'm thinking of one in particular that was usually likely to surface during Carson's monologue, but it could happen at any time. It frequently popped up when something really extreme had been happening — for example, a lot more (or a lot less, for that matter) rain than usual.

He would say something like, "It was so wet (or dry) today that ..." and, before he could finish the joke, the audience would roar as one, "How wet (or dry) was it?"

As I say, it could be anything extreme — or anything, at least, that was perceived to be extreme. It could be "Dan Quayle is so dumb" or "Al Gore is so wooden."

Weather was always a good source, but it could be anything. Carson and his writers could be very creative at times.

(All together now — How creative were they?)

Lately, as the nation has been enduring the kind of heat wave that usually seems to be reserved only for Texas, I've been missing Carson.

Well, actually, as far as I am concerned, late night TV has never been the same since he left — so missing Carson is not a new thing for me — but, when there's something in progress like this heat wave, I really miss him.

These times cry out for an opportunity for heat–weary people to shout in unison, "How hot is it?"

Jacy Marmaduke of the Dallas Morning News has been keeping area residents advised as local temperatures have cracked triple digits daily for four straight weeks now.

Recently, this summer's heat wave claimed the second slot on the historical list. It overtook the summer of 1998 a few days ago.

I was living in Dallas in the summer of 1998, and that was, indeed, a brutal summer. I was working for a trade magazine and I had to cover a trade show in Chicago that July. While I was there, I encountered quite a few people who had come from places to the north — and some were complaining of the heat.

Personally, I didn't find the heat in Chicago nearly as severe as the weather I had just left. The difference was noticeable upon my return.

I don't think that would be true this summer. Nearly the entire country has been sweltering. It's been easing lately in places where it usually doesn't get that hot, but much of the country remains in the heat wave's grip.

Depending upon the cloud cover we have, our streak of triple–digit days may come to an end around here tomorrow — but, even if it does, the immediate forecast suggests that a brand–new streak is likely to begin on Sunday, and that one seems certain to continue for awhile.

Besides, as a meteorologist told Marmaduke, there isn't much difference between 99° and 100°. The difference is almost entirely psychological.

If the streak does not end tomorrow, the summer of 2011 may well go down as the hottest on record — at least in terms of consecutive 100° days.

To accomplish that, it will have to exceed the triple–digit streak of 1980 — and it just might do that, but it will never match the intensity of the summer of 1980.

I remember that one, too.

I wasn't living in Dallas in those days, but my grandmother was, and I remember coming here with my mother to visit my grandmother, who was starting to experience symptoms of dementia.

Daytime highs in 1980 seemed to get past 100° before noon and just kept climbing through the afternoon. I remember several days when temperatures flirted with 110° (the worst actually exceeded 110° a few times) — and I remember driving on the streets of Dallas and hearing the asphalt squish beneath the tires.

In 1980, a daytime high of only 100° was seen by some as a sign of an imminent cool front (it never was, but hope sprang eternal. Those triple–digit temperatures were daily facts of life for more than six weeks).

Needless to say, you could do a lot more than fry an egg on the pavement.

This summer's heat wave has been a scorcher, but the summer of 1980 (if it possessed human characteristics) would scoff. I can just imagine the things it would say. "Amateur!" it would sneer. "In my day, I gave 'em heat they're still talking about three decades later."

If some have their way, though, that consecutive triple–digit streak will tumble, and the summer of 2011 will be atop the list when all is said and done.

Marmaduke quotes a 15–year–old from Plano who wants a streak he can tell his grandkids about.

All I can say is, be careful what you wish for.

2012 Is Only Nine Months Away

I guess I've always been something of an election junkie.

As far back as I can remember, I've been fascinated by political campaigns.

I was always interested in history. I guess I was drawn to the exciting stories about the birth of this nation and the decisions that shaped it along the way, but you could rightfully say that just about everything that has happened in America since the Revolutionary War has come to be because of the always–evolving democratic process.

In short, history is about America's leaders and how they carried out the will of the people. It is through a free and democratic election that the will of the people is imposed; thus, elections are the points of origin.

Much of the attention these days is on the Republican prospects for 2012 — who will win the nomination? But, at this point, I think that is still more of a popularity contest, a measure of name recognition, than anything else.

No votes have been cast, other than public opinion polls, which can be useful but have no real affect on the nominating process. No delegates, after all, are committed through the results of opinion polls — other than the polls that count, the ones on Election Day.

Until Iowa holds its caucuses and New Hampshire holds its primaries, no one is leading in either party, not even the incumbent — who, in large part because of foreign policy, may yet draw opposition from within his own party, as Jimmy Carter did in 1980.

It is only natural, I suppose, to speculate about the identities of the nominees, even if one assumes that Obama will be renominated, perhaps unchallenged.

But, at this point in the nominating process, I think it is more instructive to think about what is likely to dominate the political dialogue next year and how it might play with the voters.

I expect the economy to take center stage next year, but I don't expect much to be done about it this year. Anything that is done can only benefit Barack Obama — and Republicans clearly do not want to do anything that will strengthen Obama's hand.

They were cautious at first, unsure of how he would fare as president but conscious of the fact that his initial approval ratings were astronomical; thus, they were hesitant. As those ratings fell, Republicans were emboldened and more inclined to resist White House initiatives.

That wasn't necessarily a problem for Democrats early on. They enjoyed legislative advantages that made it possible for them to enact virtually anything they wished — but, given their disinclination for organization, they were reluctant to seize the moment during the six or seven months in 2009 when all things truly were possible.

They seemed less interested in actually governing and more interested in rationalizing and refining their excuses for why they couldn't do things instead of insisting that they would achieve them — even if it seemed impossible.

That is not leadership. That isn't vision.

It sure isn't "Yes we can." It's more like "Well, we could, but we won't." Or, perhaps, "Turns out we can't."

Democrats can argue, of course, that things are a lot more difficult once you're on the inside than they are when you're still on the outside. But that argument has a limited shelf life. It usually expires in a matter of months, not years.

The time for the Democrats to do something about the economy was between June 2009, when Al Franken's victory was certified in Minnesota, and January 2010, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. But Obama dithered and so did the Democrats in Congress, and they squandered their window of opportunity.

Since Democrats no longer have the majority in the House and no longer enjoy a "filibuster–proof" majority in the Senate, any initiative that they present in 2011 is all but certain to go down in flames. Ditto anything the Republicans may propose because Obama and the Democrats will not be inclined to hand them any legislative victories, either.

Today, jobs aren't being lost at the rate they were when Obama first became president, but they aren't being created in large numbers, either. That is a stalemate that seems certain to continue — which probably suits Republicans just fine.

It doesn't let the Democrats off the hook because they haven't been making very many attempts to find some common ground. It's one thing to talk about bipartisanship when you really don't need it to accomplish your goals; it's another to sing its praises when it is the only way to achieve something.

What I'm saying is simple: I really don't expect either side to put any arrows in its quiver this year. Therefore, the records on which they will campaign are set. That campaign is under way.

It is a contentious, polarized time in American politics, a time when — I believe — voters are more likely than ever to return to their historical tendencies.

And I am very interested in Chris Cillizza's recent observations in the Washington Post. He is absolutely right when he points out that the battle for the Senate and the battle for the presidency may be decided by which party wins the same group of states.

Next year, Democrats will have to defend about two–thirds of the Senate seats that are up for election, in addition to trying to defend the White House.

What will it take to win? Which states are most likely to "flip," as the saying goes, in either battle?

Cillizza writes that there are nine states that are likely to play key roles next year.

Some are familiar battlegrounds — Ohio, Florida, Michigan. Others are less so, perhaps because they are smaller (but still potentially significant in a close race) — Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico.

And there is one — Virginia — that voted for Obama in 2008, but that was only the second time in the last 15 national elections that the "Mother of Presidents" voted for a Democrat. Polls suggest Virginia is gravitating back to the Republican column.

The importance of those nine states in the battles for both the presidency and the Senate cannot be overstated.

"Of the nine states," Cillizza writes, "Obama carried seven in 2008 — losing only Arizona and Missouri — but Republicans had considerable success in several of them in 2010."

And, unless the trend is reversed, they may continue to enjoy success in them — at more than one level.

Last month, Gallup reported that Obama's approval in all nine was below 50%.

That doesn't mean Obama cannot win those states, but the states' voting histories indicate that it may be an uphill battle to win a majority of them.

And if it is a struggle for the president, it is likely to be even tougher for the members of his party who are farther down on the ballot.

Because electoral politics is frequently a "trickle down" contest, how Obama fares in these key states can influence the fortunes of the Democrats who are seeking another term or attempting to hold seats for their party — and that's going to be very important.

Democrats hold seven of the Senate seats that will be on the ballots in those states next year — Bill Nelson (Florida), Debbie Stabenow (Michigan), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Herb Kohl (Wisconsin) and Jim Webb (Virginia).

Webb has already announced that he will not seek another term, and Kohl may choose not to run, either. Republican senators in Arizona and Nevada have announced they won't run in 2012.

The dynamics are different in Senate races, but they can be influenced by the president's performance.

Don't believe it? Just look at the results from November 1980, when nine Democratic senators were defeated and three open seats that were held by Democrats swung to the Republicans.

Missing the Point

I've been studying presidential elections most of my life, and it seems to me that Barack Obama and his campaign staff are missing a fundamental fact about presidential politics.

Let me explain.

There are, essentially, two kinds of presidential elections: One in which the incumbent is a candidate, and one in which the incumbent is not a candidate.

The last election was an example of the latter. There have been only a handful of those in my lifetime, but, typically, the party that has been out of power wins, as it did in 2008.

The issues are different in an open race than they are in a re–election contest.

In an open race, the emphasis is all on the future for there is no record to discuss, other than, perhaps, a candidate's legislative or gubernatorial record, which may be seen as a microcosm of what he would do as president.

(It isn't infallible, though. Most presidents seem to learn that governing a single state is an entirely different matter from governing a diverse nation that spreads over several time zones.)

Sometimes the nominee of the party in power is held accountable for the incumbent's record in what amounts to a case of transference. John McCain, for example, was often blamed for George W. Bush's shortcomings.

In a re–election campaign, however, the emphasis is almost solely on the president and his record. Obama might have had some familiarity with that if he had ever been re–elected to anything more significant than the Illinois state senate.

Obama and his advisers act as if they can win in 2012 the way they won in 2008, but they can't. As the outsider, he could criticize Bush and score points. He can't do that in 2012 unless his policies are clearly making things better. We don't know yet if that will be the case.

What we do know is what his approval ratings have been. Lately, they have been inconclusive. They suggest a president who has a lot of work yet to do — and not a lot of time to do it — to persuade the voters that he deserves four more years.

That is why it really doesn't matter who is nominated to run against Obama. It could be a centrist or an extremist. As I observed last month, Gallup reports that Obama and a generic foe are deadlocked.

Obama and his campaign staff are deceiving themselves if they think they can make this campaign about their opponent, whoever he or she may be. This is going to be about Obama and his policies.

If people don't like Obama's policies, they will not vote to re–elect him. If they do like his policies, they will. It's really just that simple.

In the next 20 months, if you want to know how Obama is doing in regard to winning a second term, seek out the poll results on job approval. They've been measuring presidential job approval since FDR was president and they can tell you a great deal — so let's see what those figures can tell us about the men who have been president in the last 70 years:

• At this point in his first term, George W. Bush had just launched the invasion of Iraq. Polls by CBS, Gallup and Newsweek all showed his approval in the 50s range — and that approval soared above 60% as American forces overwhelmed the Iraqis.
  
  It even climbed above 70% in some surveys — a rare occurrence once the shock of the 9/11 attacks wore off.
  
  Bush's popularity remained above 50% long enough for him to win a second term, but those who disapproved of his performance outnumbered those who approved for most of that term, starting with the response to the Terri Schiavo matter.
• In mid–March of 1995, Bill Clinton's approval rating tended to be mired in the mid–40s, but it climbed above 50% after the Oklahoma City bombing and Clinton's speech at the memorial to the victims the following month.
  
  The following year, Clinton was re–elected. It was the Democrats' second straight victory, but it was the fifth straight election in which the Democratic nominee failed to receive a majority of the popular vote.
• George H.W. Bush was the last sitting president who was denied a second term. Like Obama, he was elected in an open election, largely because he was the vice president under the remarkably popular Reagan, who was barred by law from seeking a third term in 1988.
  
  In mid–March of 1991, the elder Bush was still riding the enormous wave of popularity he enjoyed during the Persian Gulf War, and many of his potential challengers were concluding that he could not be beaten the following year. But things began to erode quickly for Bush as a recession (decidedly mild by today's standards) took its toll, and his popularity was below 50% by the start of 1992. He went on to lose to Clinton that November.
• As Ronald Reagan entered the spring of 1983, his approval ratings were beginning to emerge from the 30s range as the country finally began to recover from the recession. He saw his approval ratings begin to exceed 50% for the first time in more than a year after terrorists bombed the Marine barracks in Lebanon that fall and Reagan pledged a continued U.S. military presence there.
  
  By November 1984, Reagan's approval rating was way over 50%, and he won 49 of 50 states in his bid for re–election.

• In mid–March of 1979, Jimmy Carter had not yet given his so–called "malaise" speech, but his approval ratings had been experiencing a malaise, lingering in the 30s in the early part of 1979.
  
  It would get worse — his approval ratings would drop into the Nixonesque 20s range in the weeks prior to that speech. He enjoyed a bounce from the rally–'round–the–flag effect following the embassy takeover in Iran that November, but his approval settled in the high 30s and low 40s for much of 1980.
  
  He was defeated, of course, by Reagan.
• Gerald Ford is a unique case. He was appointed vice president in 1973 to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned. The next year, he succeeded President Nixon, who also resigned.
  
  So, when Ford ran for a full term in 1976, he was an unelected incumbent.
  
  The view from about 1½ years prior to that election has to be seen differently because Ford had only been president for about six months. Compared with the sullen, secretive Nixon, Ford was a breath of fresh air and enjoyed initial approval ratings in the 60s and 70s, but he pardoned Nixon a month later and never really got over the political fallout.
  
  About 20 months before the '76 election, Ford had a job approval in the 30s. His approval rebounded slightly, but he never really got into the 50s range again.
• Richard Nixon's approval ratings were in a decline in the spring of 1971. He was around 50% approval in mid–March and remained within a point of two of that for the rest of the year, but his job approval began to rise in 1972, in part, presumably, because of the activities that came to be part of the Watergate scandal.
  
  Nixon won by a landslide in November 1972.
• Like Ford, Lyndon Johnson took office under unusual circumstances. He was sworn in less than a year before the election, and Gallup consistently reported approval ratings in the 70s until after he had won a full term in 1964.
  
  Because he had not served half or more of his predecessor's term, Johnson could have sought re–election in 1968, but, by mid–March of 1967, after reports that the military was conducting germ warfare experiments and polls that indicated growing opposition to the war, his approval was in the 40s. Johnson decided to drop out of the 1968 race a year later.
• Who knows what might have happened if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated? He had encountered some opposition to his policies, as every president does, but, in mid–March of 1963, two–thirds of Americans expressed their approval of the job he had been doing.
  
  He is the only president since Americans have been surveyed about presidential job performance who remained above 50% (well above, in fact) throughout his presidency. He was at his lowest level in the months before his assassination, but any president would have loved to have his approval rating (58%) less than a year before asking the voters for another term.

• Dwight Eisenhower was always popular during his presidency. There were some occasions when his popularity dropped below 60%, even a few when his popularity dropped below 50%, but those who said they approved always outnumbered those who said they didn't.
  
  In March 1955, Ike's approval was in the upper 60s and lower 70s, which had been typical of the first two years of his presidency — and, as it turned out, was typical of most of his tenure. He had a serious heart attack in September of 1955 and spent several weeks in the hospital, but it didn't prevent him from seeking and winning a second term in 1956.
• Harry Truman had the unenviable task of succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt when he died in 1945.
  
  In mid–March 1947, Truman's approval rating was in the 60s following the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine to oppose the spread of communism. Truman's approval rating fluctuated, sometimes wildly, in the next year and a half, dipping into the 30s after he signed the Marshall Plan (which authorized billions in aid to more than a dozen countries) but rebounding enough for him to defeat Tom Dewey in the general election.
  
  Truman, having been the incumbent when term limits were imposed on presidents, was eligible to run again in 1952, but he chose not to. Perhaps he was influenced by his March 1951 approval ratings, which were in the 20s.
• Like Kennedy and Eisenhower, more people always approved than disapproved of the job performance of Franklin D. Roosevelt — at least since pollsters began asking that question early in his second term. Gallup only reported an approval rating below 50% once (it was actually 48%, but disapproval was at 43%) — a week before the Nazis invaded Poland.
  
  In both March 1939 and March 1943, the years prior to his campaigns for re–election in 1940 and 1944, distinct majorities approved of the job he was doing, and he was re–elected both times.

If you think the Republicans could shoot themselves in the foot by nominating an extremist like Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich, remember that Reagan himself was widely regarded as an extremist when he sought the presidency in 1980. In those days, many Democrats believed he would be the easiest Republican to beat, another Barry Goldwater. I recall hearing Democrats worry more during the primaries about other Republicans in the field, the centrists like Howard Baker and George H.W. Bush. Or maybe Ford would be persuaded to run again. Everyone remembered how close he came to defeating Carter four years earlier. Most Democrats didn't think Reagan could be nominated. And if he was, he couldn't win. Reagan, they said, was too old, too conservative, too much of a loose cannon with his off–the–cuff remarks about things like trees causing most of the pollution. I even remember many Democrats acting relieved that a "dunce" like Reagan had won the nomination that summer. They had no idea that a Republican wave was coming their way. But it turned out that the voters weren't happy with Carter, and Reagan won in a landslide. The Democrats of today are making a similar misjudgment. They look at polls that show high numbers of Americans who like Obama personally, and they see polls that show high negatives for Palin and Gingrich and midrange numbers for the other prominent Republicans on the list — and they conclude that Obama will win because people like him. But that really isn't the issue with an incumbent. Sure, it is important to be liked. But most voters won't be making their decision based on that. There is still time — not a lot, but some — to turn things around, but the fact remains that much of the record would not be kind to Obama if the voters were going to the polls today. Smart Republican operatives would have been running 30–year–old clips of Reagan asking voters if they were better off than they had been four years earlier — and linking Obama's policies with Carter's. Say what you will about the direction the economy may (or may not) be taking. The fact remains that unemployment is around 9% right now. It was around 6.5% when Obama was elected. And that was bad. No one is disputing that. But this is worse. For millions of unemployed or under–employed Americans, the answer is likely to be "No!" if they are asked Reagan's question. That is what Obama must change before the voters start casting their ballots next year if he hopes to remain in the White House past January 2013.

The Reagan Revolution

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"As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people."

John Adams

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Today, less than 48 hours after a crimson tide swept over the land, it seems appropriate to recall the events of Nov. 4, 1980.

Some called it the Reagan Revolution.

But that was an analogy, of course. There was no revolution as we understand the word. No Paul Revere's ride. No Old North Church. No Lexington and Concord. No Valley Forge. No Redcoats. No Minutemen.

Just millions of Americans armed with nothing more than a ballot.

But it is often mentioned as a transformational election, and there seems to be no doubt that it marked a departure from the past. Two years ago, Kenneth Walsh of U.S. News & World Report said the 1980 election was one of the 10 most consequential elections in American history.

Walsh's conclusion seems beyond dispute. The 1980 election had a profound influence on how things have been done in America for the last 30 years.

In 1980, most Christian fundamentalists were conservative, but neither party had really tapped into their potential at the polls — in large part, I suspect, because their conservatism was rooted more in social than economic issues or foreign policy. They responded to subjects like abortion and prayer in school — and, later, gay marriage and flag burning — but they didn't concern themselves much with trade issues or foreign relations.

Until 1980, it seemed, no one thought to exploit Christian fundamentalists for political purposes. Then Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority joined forces, and American politics would be different for the next quarter of a century.

Speaking of analogies ...

In politics, sports analogies abound. Always have.

So I guess it is only appropriate that the 1980s — the decade in which Mike Tyson became the poster boy for the quick knockout — began with a decisive — and controversial — presidential election.

The 1980 campaign was bizarre from the beginning. Even before the beginning. Precisely one year before the voters went to the polls, the hostage crisis in Iran began as Islamist extremists took over the American embassy in Tehran and proceeded to hold 52 Americans hostage for more than a year.

And the worst economy in my lifetime — until the last three years — complicated matters for President Carter.

I always believed the hard times of the late 1970s and early 1980s were brought on by the adjustment from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy. I felt Carter had the misfortune of being in the White House when the chickens came home to roost — and he paid the price for policies that were not his.

I was never an economics major, but I still believe that.

Anyway, Election Night 1980 is burned into my memory.

I was in college at the time, majoring in journalism at the University of Arkansas. I was enrolled in reporting, which was taught by a man named Roy Reed, whose professional experience included years of writing for the New York Times and the Arkansas Gazette.

As Election Day drew closer, Roy apparently was approached by someone in county government who needed some college students to come to the county courthouse on Election Night and help compile the vote totals that came in via telephone from the polling locations in the county.

My memory is that state law required polling places to close at 7:30 p.m., but anyone who was still in line at that time could be allowed to vote so there was a 30–minute window between the state–mandated closing time and the time when polling places could begin tabulating their votes. That was to allow those last voters to vote without seeing or hearing any results — and thus being unduly influenced in any way.

Well, the volunteers (of whom I was one) were told to arrive at the courthouse by 8 p.m. and take their places (as I recall, we had gone through a dry run a few nights before so everyone knew where he or she needed to be). I was living about a 10–minute drive from the courthouse, but I wanted to get there early so I planned to leave home around 7:30.

Astonishingly, at 7:15 p.m. Central time, as I was finishing my dinner and preparing to change my clothes before leaving for the courthouse, I saw NBC projecting victory for Ronald Reagan.

That was controversial (dare I say revolutionary?) at the time because NBC took the unprecedented step of using exit polling data to make its projections — and decisively beat the other two networks to the punch in calling the race that night.

About an hour and a half later, as I sat in the courthouse, taking calls from polling places, I could see a TV set in the corner of the room and I could hear Carter conceding defeat.

I can't tell you how amazed I was. As John Chancellor and Tom Brokaw recall in the attached clip, the presidential race went late into the evening four years earlier before any of the networks projected that Carter had defeated Gerald Ford.

That was the nation's most recent national experience in electing a president, and that had been a drawn–out Election Night. Everyone was expecting the same four years later; after all, opinion polls through most of the 1980 campaign had shown a tight, volatile race.

The lead fluctuated that fall, and there was a general sense, in that last week of the campaign, that Reagan had helped his cause with his debate performance against Carter and that Carter had not helped his cause in their debate, but no one — not even the most optimistic Reagan supporter or the most pessimistic Carter supporter — anticipated what happened 30 years ago tonight.

I recall seeing the latest news magazines a few days before the election, and they were focused on what might happen if, because of the presence of independent candidate John Anderson on the ballot, no one received enough electoral votes to be elected president and the matter had to be decided by the House of Representatives.

That didn't happen, of course. Anderson didn't receive a single electoral vote, but he did affect the 1980 campaign in unexpected ways.

Originally, the League of Women Voters intended to sponsor a series of debates like the ones between Carter and Ford in 1976, but problems arose with Anderson, who was turning out to be an attractive option for Republicans who weren't sure about Reagan and Democrats who didn't care for Carter. He was polling quite well in the early fall, and many states were considered too close to call as a result.

Because Anderson appeared to be so popular, there was a movement to include him in the presidential debates. Carter refused to participate in a three–person debate; Reagan refused to participate without Anderson.

Anderson and Reagan met in a debate in September, when Anderson was drawing a Perot–like 20% in public opinion polls. Observers thought Anderson would outshine Reagan, but his performance fell far short of expectations, and he plummeted in the polls.

A couple of weeks before the election, the Carter and Reagan camps agreed to a single, one–on–one debate, and the two met in Cleveland about a week before the voters went to the polls.

Reagan was generally regarded as the winner of the debate, but polls continued to show a tight race.

(Anderson, incidentally, was kind of a cross between Barack Obama and Ross Perot. A Midwestern Republican who ran against Reagan in the primaries, his independent candidacy energized young Americans, particularly many of the college students I knew, who were alienated by Carter and distrustful of Reagan, and he attracted liberals who had supported Ted Kennedy against Carter in the primaries and just couldn't support the president in the general election.)

No one was prepared for a 44–state landslide, and I got the sensation that evening — although I was busy with other things and could not devote as much attention to the TV coverage as I would have liked — that lots of people were making things up as they went along.

"Carter did not have a good job rating and was not personally popular," wrote Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa in "The Almanac of American Politics 1982."

"[B]ut no one expected that he would be beaten by 10% by a 69–year–old former governor; no one expected that the Democratic Party would lose control of the Senate."

Carter's decision to concede so early was criticized by many Democrats afterward. Some suggested that, by conceding so early, Carter discouraged late voters in the West (where the polls had not yet closed) from voting, possibly depriving some Democrats of votes that could have enabled them to win races they ultimately lost.

(In my personal research of the vote totals in the races in the West, I found little, if any, indication that this was true.)

But Carter defended his decision in his White House memoir, "Keeping Faith."

"I did not want to appear a bad loser," he wrote, "waiting until late at night to confirm what everyone already knew."

It wasn't immediately clear that night, but it was the worst defeat for an incumbent president since Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932. And it was the most one–sided loss for any incumbent in a race where only two candidates received electoral votes.

The Republicans, apparently sensing victory, began warning voters early that fall of an "October surprise." I guess they were fearful that the Democrats might work out a last–minute deal with the hostage takers in Iran and secure the release of the Americans in time to reap some political benefits.

Perhaps such suspicions were based on rumors from seemingly reliable sources, but, in the end, no "surprise" occurred. The hostages remained in captivity until January, after Reagan took office.

The very suggestion of an "October surprise" seems to have struck Carter as ludicrous. He never mentioned it in his memoirs.

The End of 'Recovery Summer'

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The summer of 2010 is coming to a close — and thus, I suppose, "Recovery Summer" also is ending.

But, while the administration may have had high hopes when it launched "Recovery Summer," things seem to have flatlined, at best, and a lot of folks just aren't feeling it.

They aren't all Barack Obama's political opponents, either. Some of them are like Velma Hart (see video), an Obama supporter who told the president that she was "exhausted" from having to defend him and his administration while she has seen little evidence of improvement.

Hart joked about having thought that she was past the "hot dogs and beans" stage in her life, then meekly asked Obama if that was the "new reality." If so, she seemed prepared to defend that — as if that's the way it is supposed to be.

But it may be hard for millions of unemployed Americans to see how her life has been affected by the recession. She has a high–paying government job, with all the benefits it provides, and she and her husband are putting their two daughters through private school — which is a choice that they made (as opposed to losing your job, which, in most cases, is a decision that is made for, not by, someone).

Perhaps they have had to make some sacrifices — most Americans, after all, have had to make some concession to the bad economy, even if it has been something as modest as not eating out as often or going to the movies as frequently.

If that's all that Hart's family must do to weather this economic storm, though, they're undoubtedly a lot better off than most blacks in America. Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times about how "black voters ... have been hammered disproportionately by the recession and largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party."

The Democrats' neglect of their black base "is likely to translate into lower turnout among blacks this fall," Herbert writes.

Well, it wouldn't surprise me. Black voters haven't exactly been turning out en masse in this year's primaries the way they did in 2008. Of course, neither are young voters or liberal voters. Without them, Obama could not have won the election in 2008, and it is highly unlikely that the members of his party will succeed without them this year.

It really must be difficult for the Obama apologists, and it's only going to get tougher. We're down to six weeks until the midterm elections. If there is no truly dramatic improvement in the economy between now and November 2, the only thing that can possibly (but not absolutely) reverse the Democrats' fortunes would be an international crisis.

And no one — other than the Democrats who are all but certain to be defeated in November — wants that.

But those who all too eagerly embraced an imprecise call for "change" are realizing, I think, that, in 2008, many people attached many interpretations to that call — and darn few are satisfied with the results, no matter how much Obama may protest that his solutions are long term.

In hindsight, a number of things should be clear, but hindsight is always 20/20, they say. All of which makes it even more ironic that Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker that former Vice President Walter Mondale sees many similarities between the Obama presidency and the one in which Mondale played a key role, the presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

Now, I voted for President Carter in 1980. It was the first presidential election in which I was old enough to vote, and I believed that President Carter had been doing a good job in spite of the obstacles that kept being thrown his way. I was also deeply suspicious — and, I still think, rightfully so — of Ronald Reagan's policies.

But I was in the minority that year.

When Mondale tells Mayer that the American people "just turned against us — same as with Obama," I know exactly what he's talking about. I lived through it. And it has had a profound influence on how I perceive political movements in America.

Mondale is candid about the things that Carter did wrong — and the lessons Obama and the other members of his party should have learned from that experience 30 years ago but apparently didn't.

The former vice president does seem to have learned from the Clinton experience, noting that Obama "needs to get rid of those teleprompters, and connect. He's smart as hell. He can do it. Look right into those cameras and tell people he's hurting right along with them."

In other words, make sure the voters know that he feels their pain. With his professorial demeanor, he often comes across as a cold fish — which was one of the criticisms of Carter the engineer.

Carter, Mondale reminded Mayer, had an impressive list of legislative and diplomatic accomplishments, but they didn't seem to help him with the voters. And his image wasn't enhanced by his handling of Congress.

In all, Mondale favors a more hardball approach. "[T]he idea of turning things over to Congress — that doesn't work even when you own Congress," Mondale said, and he spoke from experience. Democrats enjoyed large congressional majorities in the post–Watergate years. "You have to ride 'em."

And he was critical of Obama's quixotic quest for bipartisanship. "You should explain clearly what you want, and, if [the Republicans] oppose you, attack them for it."

Mondale is somewhat encouraging in his assessment of Obama's future prospects. Unlike 1980, when President Carter was challenged for the nomination by Ted Kennedy, Mondale does not envision anything like that for Obama.

But I'm not sure about that. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended more than a year ago, but millions of Americans remain unemployed 15 months later. If things get worse in 2011, it isn't hard for me to imagine a Democrat challenging the president for the nomination — either seriously (i.e. Kennedy) or symbolically (i.e. Pat Buchanan).

That really isn't the worst of it for the administration.

As Catherine Rampell observes in the New York Times, "The announcement also implies that any contraction that might lie ahead would be a separate and distinct recession, and one that the Obama administration could not claim to have inherited."

Well, that's not really true. The Obama administration could still claim — although not plausibly — to have inherited it. Maybe they could get away with it. Probably not, though.

And the race card probably wouldn't work, either. And "change" can't be brought back for an encore because the voters already have seen how that one worked.

I guess the strategy will depend on how much Obama and the Democrats are forced to neglect the economy while trying to defend the tenuous turf they won in their extended skirmish over health care reform.

Because Republicans are making no secret of their desire to chip away at, if not repeal outright, the health care reform law.

Such talk was the fodder of jokes a year ago. It's no joking matter for Democrats today.

And things are looking bad for Democrats in places they never would have expected a year ago. Such as:

• West Virginia, where the state's voters must select a replacement for late Sen. Robert Byrd. Public Policy Polling says the Republican candidate leads the state's popular Democratic governor by three percentage points in a poll of likely voters.


• Wisconsin, where a Daily Kos/PPP poll of likely voters shows the Republican challenger holding a double–digit lead over three–term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Many races in states and districts are volatile this year, more volatile than just about anyone predicted 18 months ago.

I remember, after Obama had been elected and Democrats were giddy with their victory, there was plenty of talk about which great American president Obama's administration would most resemble.

Not whether he would be up to the enormous challenge he faced. It was taken for granted that he would be.

Would he be another Lincoln? Or another Washington? Or another FDR? In some scenarios, he was going to be another JFK because, like Kennedy, he broke a barrier that many thought could never be broken.

But we're almost halfway through Obama's term, and the question must be asked by Democrats when they ponder the 2012 campaign. It can no longer be avoided.

Is it possible? In an electoral context, could he be another Jimmy Carter?

When You Promise Change, You'd Better Deliver

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And pronto.

Sometimes I think Barack Obama and the Democrats would rather not talk much about the 2008 campaign — unless it means an easy opening for bashing George W. Bush some more.

But that "hope" and "change" rhetoric is going to ring rather hollow in the ears of the vanishing middle class, especially those who have been out of work for awhile.

I have no doubt that Obama's diehard supporters will insist that he has delivered change in his first 19 months in office.

The validity of that position, I suppose — to borrow another president's words — depends on what your definition of is is.

Perception — as I have said many times — is reality. So I understand the rationale of those in the Obama camp who believe they can reason their way out of an electoral disaster.

And, for them, it may be sufficient to recite those achievements in the apparent belief that the voters simply need to be reminded who was running the show when the economy imploded and what the Democrats have been doing to try to salvage it.

For the most part, theirs seems to be a record that is consistent with their apparent objectives and beliefs (whether stated or unstated).

Obama and his fellow Democrats did enact a massive stimulus, even though unemployment continued to go up through 2009 and now appears stuck between 9.5% and 10% (not counting those whose benefits have expired or who are part–timers or otherwise "underemployed") — and even though many economists said at the time, and continue to say, that it wasn't large enough.

He pushed through a massive health care reform package — which, actually, won't be implemented for several years.

He nominated two women to the Supreme Court, both of whom were approved without much opposition.

The voters — those crummy ingrates — aren't giving the president and the Democrats the credit they deserve, Obama seems to feel, so he has been reminding voters lately of all the things he's done for them, how his initiatives are going to make things better in the future. And this looks like something he'll be doing quite a bit between now and November.

Now, all that long–term stuff is good, and all the lovely projections are nice to talk about. But let's be honest here. If you're a working man who has lost his job and can't pay his mortgage and can't feed his kids, that is what is going to dominate your agenda from one election to the next.

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A lot of those people voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008 (especially 2008). In 2010, they're frustrated by the slow pace of job gains — which, last month, weren't gains at all — and they aren't concerned about political philosophy or anything else except jobs.

From where they sit, if the Democrats haven't been able to deliver, maybe the Republicans have learned something from spending the last few years in the wilderness. Or, like the woman in the video, they just might not bother to vote at all this time.

When you are elected president under a banner of "CHANGE," that is what the voters expect.

Now.

Clearly visible change.

The initiatives and the appointments for which Obama can claim credit may well bear fruit many years from now — and future historians may sing his praises, as modern historians do today for some one–term presidents who acted in what they believed were the long–term interests of the nation but ignored the short term by which they and the members of their party were judged.

Now, like Ronald Reagan 28 years before, Obama wants voters to "stay the course." But voters in 1982 were much like the voters in 2010. They changed parties in the White House two years earlier, and improvements were hard to see by the time the midterm elections rolled around.

That was bad news for Republicans, who had made much of the Democrats' quarter–century hold on congressional power with their "Vote Republican. For a Change" campaign in 1980 (see clip at top of post).

They had persuaded voters to give them both the White House and control of the Senate. They hadn't won control of the House, but they gained 34 seats, and Republicans were able to persuade enough of the remaining Democrats to vote with them to implement what became known as the "Reagan Revolution."

But the revolution seemed to have profited the rich and the elite, not the working class — and the working class gave 25 House seats back to the Democrats. At this point in 1982, Reagan (whose approval rating was in the 50s and 60s for most of his first year in office) had an approval rating of 41% — which just happens to be where Obama's job approval currently stands, according to Gallup.

By the time Americans went to the polls in November 1982, Reagan's approval had crept up to 43%.

A pretty face, John Lennon wrote nearly four decades ago, may last a year or two "but pretty soon they'll see what you can do."

And, at a time when Americans have been crying out for job creation, the answer to that one is, "Not much."