Peter Applebaum: Grover Cleveland did it
CALDWELL, N.J.
Viewed though a contemporary lens, the guy born in the church parsonage that now sits across the street from a Dunkin’ Donuts on Bloomfield Avenue would face a few problems if he were running for president.
There’s his Jackie Gleason physique. The admission that he fathered a child out of wedlock. The history of Democratic futility (Republicans had been in office for 24 years when he first ran). The propensity for failing to please his party’s powerful populist wing. And worst of all was a double-whammy of geography: He was born in New Jersey and became the Democratic governor of New York.
A visit to the birthplace of Grover Cleveland, the only president born in New Jersey, might not provide many definitive clues on American politics, but it’s not a bad place to ponder a simple question.
At a time when candidates from the Northeast are inexplicably falling over one another to run, can anyone from this part of the world really expect to be elected president these days? And the answer almost certainly is: only if he (or she) can overcome a lot of regional baggage, and perhaps if a few lessons are learned from Cleveland.
Once upon a time, we elected lots of presidents from the nation’s chilly climes. From Millard Fillmore (Lock Township, N.Y.) in 1850 to Franklin D. Roosevelt (Hyde Park, N.Y.) in 1944, all except Andrew Johnson (who wasn’t even elected and was impeached) were born or made their name in the Northeast or Midwest.
But the Democrats haven’t elected a president without a Southerner on the ticket since F.D.R. The Republicans have become a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern and Western conservatives.
So for all the local politicians either running, thinking of running, or getting sage murmurs from The Great Mentioner — among them Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — there’s not much in a half century of history (or the math of the Electoral College) to provide a lot of comfort.
“We suffer in the rest of the country as the seat of American secularism,” said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “And all the wrong images tend to get reinforced, like John Kerry windsurfing off Nantucket. The Northeast should do better with Democrats in control of Congress, but as far as presidential politics, I don’t think that’s a very fruitful orchard if you’re from the Northeast.”...
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Viewed though a contemporary lens, the guy born in the church parsonage that now sits across the street from a Dunkin’ Donuts on Bloomfield Avenue would face a few problems if he were running for president.
There’s his Jackie Gleason physique. The admission that he fathered a child out of wedlock. The history of Democratic futility (Republicans had been in office for 24 years when he first ran). The propensity for failing to please his party’s powerful populist wing. And worst of all was a double-whammy of geography: He was born in New Jersey and became the Democratic governor of New York.
A visit to the birthplace of Grover Cleveland, the only president born in New Jersey, might not provide many definitive clues on American politics, but it’s not a bad place to ponder a simple question.
At a time when candidates from the Northeast are inexplicably falling over one another to run, can anyone from this part of the world really expect to be elected president these days? And the answer almost certainly is: only if he (or she) can overcome a lot of regional baggage, and perhaps if a few lessons are learned from Cleveland.
Once upon a time, we elected lots of presidents from the nation’s chilly climes. From Millard Fillmore (Lock Township, N.Y.) in 1850 to Franklin D. Roosevelt (Hyde Park, N.Y.) in 1944, all except Andrew Johnson (who wasn’t even elected and was impeached) were born or made their name in the Northeast or Midwest.
But the Democrats haven’t elected a president without a Southerner on the ticket since F.D.R. The Republicans have become a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern and Western conservatives.
So for all the local politicians either running, thinking of running, or getting sage murmurs from The Great Mentioner — among them Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — there’s not much in a half century of history (or the math of the Electoral College) to provide a lot of comfort.
“We suffer in the rest of the country as the seat of American secularism,” said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “And all the wrong images tend to get reinforced, like John Kerry windsurfing off Nantucket. The Northeast should do better with Democrats in control of Congress, but as far as presidential politics, I don’t think that’s a very fruitful orchard if you’re from the Northeast.”...