Jay Cost: Will Obama Follow Truman's Example?
[Jay Cost is a staff writer for the Weekly Standard.]
All signs are that the Republican party will retake the House of Representatives on November 2. If that happens, the president will find himself at a fork in the road, the first of his presidency. How he responds to a new Republican majority will set the tone for the rest of his term and could determine whether he will win reelection in 2012.
History offers guidance on this point. Since World War II, two Democratic presidents—Harry Truman and Bill Clinton—have found themselves in similar situations. Their first midterms swung control of Congress decisively to the Grand Old Party. Understanding how each reacted to the new Republican majority, and why he succeeded in winning reelection, may suggest President Obama’s best approach to a new Republican majority.
Vice President Truman became president upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt in the spring of 1945. Initially embraced by the American people, the new president quickly lost popular support, as he mismanaged the various crises arising from the transition to peacetime. Inflation, strikes, and the emerging Soviet threat pulled his job approval ratings far into negative territory by the time of the 1946 midterm elections. “Sherman was wrong,” Truman joked to the Gridiron Club, “I’m telling you, I find peace is hell.”
The GOP ran on a simple slogan in the midterm cycle, “Had enough?” The country answered resoundingly in the affirmative. The Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House, winning the majority for the first time since the Great Depression. The labor unions, which did not much care for Truman’s vacillating positions on their issues, sat on their hands in November, and it showed. The Republicans won congressional victories in big cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago, and they swept the field in Philadelphia. When the dust settled, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas publicly commented that Truman should nominate a Republican as secretary of state, then resign so the public mandate could be fully implemented....
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All signs are that the Republican party will retake the House of Representatives on November 2. If that happens, the president will find himself at a fork in the road, the first of his presidency. How he responds to a new Republican majority will set the tone for the rest of his term and could determine whether he will win reelection in 2012.
History offers guidance on this point. Since World War II, two Democratic presidents—Harry Truman and Bill Clinton—have found themselves in similar situations. Their first midterms swung control of Congress decisively to the Grand Old Party. Understanding how each reacted to the new Republican majority, and why he succeeded in winning reelection, may suggest President Obama’s best approach to a new Republican majority.
Vice President Truman became president upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt in the spring of 1945. Initially embraced by the American people, the new president quickly lost popular support, as he mismanaged the various crises arising from the transition to peacetime. Inflation, strikes, and the emerging Soviet threat pulled his job approval ratings far into negative territory by the time of the 1946 midterm elections. “Sherman was wrong,” Truman joked to the Gridiron Club, “I’m telling you, I find peace is hell.”
The GOP ran on a simple slogan in the midterm cycle, “Had enough?” The country answered resoundingly in the affirmative. The Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House, winning the majority for the first time since the Great Depression. The labor unions, which did not much care for Truman’s vacillating positions on their issues, sat on their hands in November, and it showed. The Republicans won congressional victories in big cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago, and they swept the field in Philadelphia. When the dust settled, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas publicly commented that Truman should nominate a Republican as secretary of state, then resign so the public mandate could be fully implemented....