LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Luce proclaimed “The American Century.”⁷

      While I was writing this book, it became clear that everyone has an opinion about the most important presidential elections in history; indeed, debating the merits of one’s list is part of the fun of being a political junkie. But there is more to it than personal preference. Many a former political science major will be familiar with the theory of “realigning” elections, which argues that certain years have been watersheds in terms of both partisan affiliations and policy innovations. Historians, too, once embraced the idea that political history was cyclical, and that the nation’s mood swung back and forth from left to right in successive eras.⁸ As the criticisms of these theories have showed, however, abstract formulations can ignore the contingencies, the messiness, and the unpredictability of history. Relying heavily on data about voter turnout and preferences, such approaches tend to isolate the process of politicking and voting as something separate from the broader tapestry of economic, social, and cultural change. This obscures the intricate and fascinating interrelationship between formal politics and lived experience, between governments and markets, between the rhetoric of the leaders and the actions of the voters.⁹

      The four electoral contests profiled here reveal these rich connections, and underscore the important dynamics of political change that occur in nearly every presidential election cycle. Each of them opens a revealing window not just into their moment in history but into particular aspects of the American political process: its interdependence with economic and social realignment, its distinctive partisan organization, its changing modes of mass communication, and its periodic disruption by particular interests, factions, and third parties.

      To be sure, there are many other elections of the past century that served as both hinges of history and windows into a wider landscape of social change. The story of the era’s “pivotal Tuesdays” could cover twenty-five elections just as easily as only four. My point here is not to pick favorites. In fact, I deliberately avoided profiling some of the most familiar races and personalities, for to focus on them alone can keep us in the conventional wisdom comfort zone.

      Alone, each of these four races is a terrific story. But by putting them together in one book, we can also see the connective tissue between them and better understand the patterns and continuities of history, as well as the remarkable disruptions and pivot points. They reveal the messiness of the past, the foibles of our leaders, and the fractious, frustrating, two-steps-forward, one-step-back nature of politics and policy. Taken together, the cases also challenge modern notions of what is “left-wing” or “right-wing.” Candidate and party ideologies in this pluralistic, bumptious political system are rarely black or white, but often made up of many shades of gray. The reality is that elections are evolutionary, not revolutionary; they provide clues to bigger changes that have happened, that are underway, that are soon to come.

      It’s hardly surprising that presidential contests have received so much attention from scholars and writers, not to mention pundits, policy wonks, Hollywood screenwriters, and pop-culture commentators. Filled with oversized personalities, overheated rhetoric, and unpredictable twists and turns, American presidential campaigns can make for some of the most entertaining kind of history. Yet they are more than just ripping yarns. They are moments that both reflect their times and shape what comes next. They remind us that leadership matters, and that certain individuals have had an outsized effect on the course of national and international affairs. That’s not all. The stories of presidential campaigns remind us that political leaders are one part of a vastly larger picture, and that presidents and would-be presidents are products of their times. Their electoral success and failure depend on a whole host of factors, including ones far out of the candidates’ control.

      Elections hinge on whether the nation is in economic boom times or recessions, as well as reflect the shifting social and economic priorities of a country as it moved from being predominantly rural and agricultural to urban and industrial, and then suburban and postindustrial. They hinge on who can vote, who is motivated to vote, and the technologies of communication that influence choices at the ballot box. The advisors, campaign managers, and party organization that surround a candidate can make or break an election. Demographics, economics, culture: all these things make the difference between winning and losing. In turn, the elections and their outcomes can have a profound effect on nearly every other aspect of society.

      While these connections were present in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was in the twentieth century that they truly took center stage. After decades of largely unmemorable chief executives who took a back seat to power brokers in Congress, the twentieth century’s first elected president, Theodore Roosevelt, enlarged the prominence of the office and embarked on a steady expansion of executive branch powers. Roosevelt’s oversized personality helped create a new template for the modern presidency, a role that demanded a leader to be both policy-savvy and paternal, commanding and charismatic, powerful and populist. While the framers of the Constitution had originally envisioned the legislative branch as the instrument of the people’s will, the corruption and ineffectiveness of Gilded Age Congresses made the moment right for the presidency to assume the mantle. The growth of the federal government over the course of the century reinforced the centrality of the White House and its occupants. America’s dominant role in world affairs further propelled the president to the center of popular consciousness. Innovations in communication technology—from radio to television to Internet—continually upped the demand for a president, or presidential candidate, to be persuasive and likeable.¹⁰

      In the twentieth century, it mattered tremendously who was president, and thus the process of getting presidents elected took on a significance unparalleled in earlier eras. Elections themselves became windows into broader changes. They revealed the remarkable evolution of the two major parties, the campaign process, and the modern presidency. They also revealed shifting currents in the American economy and society, in how people lived, worked, dreamed, and voted.

      In the election of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt returned from the political sidelines to run a fiery third-party campaign against Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt’s old friend and political disciple William Howard Taft. No third-party candidate before or since has won such a large portion of the vote. Propelled by modern campaign machinery like barnstorming tours and savvy use of the media, the candidates of 1912 sidestepped traditional party organization and brought their appeals directly to voters. The election also laid bare the great tensions and debates generated by the rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration of the Gilded Age. The laissez faire approaches of earlier presidencies seemed to be a thing of the past. Now, all parties agreed that something had to be done by the government to regulate and alleviate the inequities of the industrial economy.

      The 1932 election unfolded amid the depths of the Great Depression, in a nation where industrial production had plummeted and nearly 25 percent of Americans were out of work. The two major candidates offered voters different solutions to the crisis. President Herbert Hoover argued that government’s role was to encourage business to fix itself, while his challenger Franklin Roosevelt declared that bold government action was the only way to restore prosperity. Voters sided with boldness, and Roosevelt—and his vision of a “New Deal” with the American people—won, fundamentally changing the relationship between citizens and the state. As with nearly every twentieth-century president, Roosevelt won not just because of the substance of his message, but because of the style of his delivery. He used the new medium of radio to deliver powerful, personal messages into voters’ living rooms. His campaign staff used stagecraft as well as tough-minded political strategy to edge out the other Democratic challengers and, ultimately, Hoover himself.

      Full of political plot twists, electrifying moments, and unbearable tragedies, the election of 1968 redefined both liberal and conservative politics. It also set the stage for the next four decades of presidential campaigning. An incumbent president chose not to run again, hobbled politically by an escalating and increasingly unwinnable overseas war. Inner-city neighborhoods were in flames, protests rocked college campuses, and assassins’ bullets felled iconic leaders. Television brought all this strife and cultural transformation into American living rooms. The tensions between the political establishment and the youthful counterculture erupted violently at the Democratic convention, helping set up a Republican victory in November

Скачать книгу