A parallel political universe...

Great Debates
1

So, the election is over, finally, and I finally get to post this thread, which is a brilliant thought I had on election eve, and which I thought would make a great thread if Bush won. Indeed, based on this theory, I predicted to my mother-in-law that night that Bush would win. Little did I realize that I could have predicted a few other things about this election as well…
Anyway, the theory is as follows: Reagan reset the political clock to midnight of a new political day. He ended the Roosevelt era, IMO. Each president since Reagan has been both analogous to the president in the same sequential position and an opposite of that same president who served in that sequence during the Roosevelt era. Thus, we are given the following, that:

[ul]
[li]Reagan equals Roosevelt (in reverse, of course), after which[/li][li]Bush is analogous to Truman, the vice president who gets to carry on the legacy of the man who changed the political debate, but he is also the opposite of Truman - where Truman is famous for sticking to his guns, Bush utters “No new taxes!” and then, famously, gives in.[/li][li]Clinton is analogous to Eisenhower, the president of the opposing party who affirms the terms of the debate. In Clinton’s case, this is that deficits are bad, surpluses are good, welfare needs reforming, and “the era of big government is over”. Eisenhower, OTOH, by not touching Social Security or most of the rest of the structure of the New Deal, relaxes the nation into accepting that the New Deal will be unassailable. Both Clinton and Eisenhower had a Congress of the same party for the first two years of their terms, and then a Congress of the opposing party for the remaining six years. Of course, Clinton is the opposite of Eisenhower in that he was an antiwar protester and almost a draft dodger, whereas Eisenhower was the hero of WWII.[/li][li]Bush #2, by this reasoning, would be analogous to Kennedy. Being that we’re at the beginning of his term, we can get to pick in what ways: will he be as charismatic, for instance? We already know three ways in which he is similar to Kennedy: he won by a hairsbreadth, he has a politically involved brother, and he comes from a family political dynasty, equipped with a famous name. We also know some of the ways in which he will be the opposite, besides the usual political ways: whereas Kennedy was a minor WWII hero, Bush avoided war service through the device of the National Guard, and was possibly even AWOL for a year. Where Kennedy was Catholic, a big deal back then, Bush fits squarely into our tradition of Protestant presidents. And somehow, I don’t see Bush sneaking starlets through the back door of the White House for the periodic, back-pain relieving quickie.[/li][/ul]
Which brings us to how I decided Bush would win on election eve. I had a flash in which I realized, if this theory I just laid out above is correct, and Bush is like Kennedy, as I just said in the previous paragraph, then Gore would have to be analogous to Nixon. And indeed, the parallels are striking: both are famous for their awkwardness in public, both had fundraising scandals behind them (Nixon had Checkers, Gore the Buddhist fundraising scandal), both were vice-presidents attempting to get elected after successful presidencies, and both, I decided on election eve, if the analogy were to be completed, would lose by razor-thin margins in the popular vote and lose the electoral vote and the election.
This is where it turns opposite, as it turns out: where Nixon lost the popular vote by a hair, Gore won it. Where Nixon accepted the results in public, while privately making some attempts at investigating the election, Gore very publicly disputed the results.
So, based on the above, three questions for debate:

[list=1]
[li]In what ways would Bush turn out to be like Kennedy? Will he indeed be charismatic? Will Laura be anything like Jackie? Will Jeb make a run for the Presidency, like RFK did?[/li][li]Will 2004 be 1964 in reverse, with the Democrats fielding an extremist candidate who is as far to the left as Goldwater was to the right, and who proceeds to get quashed in a landslide? Or will it be the opposite, where, just to take one possibility, Gore, riding the momentum of good feeling created by his concession speech, makes it close or possibly even wins? Which brings up the question…[/li][li]Will Gore make a comeback like Nixon did?[/li][/list=1]

2

This is really interesting! You have identified a fascinating pattern here.

So where does the assasination fit in? And what about the Johnson/Cheney question? Do we skip that part? (I sure hope so!)

stoid

3

And note the possibility of Tecumseh’s curse!

4

Well, the curst was broken with Reagan in 1980.

stoid

5

Might be another case of opposites – the VP dying of natural causes rather than the prez dying of unnatural ones. Knock on wood!

I think you have a good insight with 2004 – especially after Nader helped untrack Gore’s core, perhaps the Dems will run a real left winger for a change. Gephart, perhaps? Gephart and Goldwater both start with the letter G, too.

Gore does have a fair chance of coming back.

There’s also the possibility of Vietnam in reverse. Will Bush keep us out of some major conflict, only for Gore to get us in it 8 years later for a quick and decisive victory?

6

Hmmm…very interesting, except for only one problem. You claim confirmation of your theory both if a president is like his counterpart or unlike his counterpart. Since any two people are going to either be like or unlike, we can pair any two human beings in this fashion and say that in confirms a pattern.

For instance: You and me both post on the SDMB, so we’re alike. We both have brown hair (just guessing). And you’re my opposite because (again, guessing) you’re short and I’m tall. And you’re credulous, while I’m a skeptic. See, perfect match!

For every quality we can name, each presidential pair will either be similar or different. Since your theory predicts that they will either be similar or different, it doesn’t exactly have a lot of explanatory power…

7

Good argument, if you are going to pick any random quality or experience. But here he is talking mostly about very signifcant qualities and experiences. The fact that each time it seems to bear out seems to be more than the random likelihood you are asserting.

ooooeeeeooo…

Wouldnt’ it be completely weird if Hillary ran and won in '04? Then Jeb Bush after that…the presidency would have been in the hands of only two families for 3 decades. That would be really strange.

I hope Hillary runs some day and we do elect her, just for the weirdness of it. And what would we call Bill? We’d probably cheese out and just call him President Clinton. But then again… how could we? President and President Clinton? This sounds like a job for Cecil!
( Someone said “First Gentleman” - hmmm.)

stoid

8

Not to bring up that messy election business, but This Modern World for this week is still somewhat on topic…

9

Mmm, a bit like astrology, eh?
Still, I figured the proof would be in whether or not Bush could squeak by. Which he did.
What I was trying to get at is that the Presidents so far have wound up fitting into the sequence as far as that they are of the opposing party from the one in the previous sequence, and also opposite in terms of personal characteristics. But they do things in this political cycle that are like what the previous presidents did in the preceding cycle. Thus,

  • Reagan, like Roosevelt, changes the terms of the debate.
  • Bush, like Truman, followed up.
  • Clinton, like Eisenhower, did a lot of what you would expect from someone from the opposing party, but at the same time affirmed the terms of the debate by not touching the core of it: in Eisenhower’s case, the New Deal, in Clinton’s case, that the era of big government was over.
  • Bush#2, thus, would have to be a kind of Republican Kennedy: the Reagan mandate waning to the point that the election was split down the middle, he attempts some things but has a hard time getting them through Congress. Kennedy’s proposals mostly couldn’t pass while he was alive.

After Bush#2, things of course get hazy. I don’t wish any harm on Bush#2, and given that the theory presupposes that the president as a person is the opposite of the previous guy, perhaps this will extend to his personal longevity. '04 becomes a tough call in that case, though.

10

Hillary running might be just the ticket to getting the Dems buried in '04. It doesn’t get any more divisive than her. Running against a total nonentity, she still wound up with only a respectable showing, instead of the kind of landslide that would normally occur when an unpolished, unknown newcomer attempts to run agains someone with huge name recognition.
Even Dems like myself don’t like her. In my mind, she is forever linked to the Dems losing the Congress in '94, after that health plan that they (Bill and Hillary) bungled so badly.