... probably because I took it as an almost insult to Reagan. Titus you wrote under, "I Can't Pass This Up":
Learn this lesson, Ryan... answer the questions, no matter what they are, as if your talking to your next-door neighbor. You may not like him, or even understand him... but you have to be civil and you want to CONVINCE him you are right. Sell the plan, not the candidate... the candidate wins when the PLAN wins.It worked for FDR. It worked for Truman. It worked for Ike. It worked for Bush Sr. (who voted for THAT candidate? No one... they just hated Dukakis), and it can work NOW too.
I thank you for your concern for my potential political future, if it becomes a reality (and I sorely hope it will) you and Jambo will no doubt have a large role to play. It's an interesting question actually. What makes a successful bid for the presidency - the candidate or his plan for the nation? First let me address the afore mentioned Ronus Magnumus. I think it's flawed reasoning to assume that George H Bush won because people "hated" Dukakis. He was a bad candidate, no doubt there, but Bush Sr. won because people liked (dare I say "loved") Ronnie. Electing Bush 41 was the final stamp of approval on the Reagan administration. Now it may still hold that people didn't vote "for" him, but they certainly were voting "for" something rather than against Dukakis, and that "something" was the Reagan administration. And although America liked and elected Ike twice, it didn't work for Nixon, due to Kennedy's personal appeal (although there was some questionable vote tallying ala Joe kennedy's associates).
And that brings us back to whether it's the candidate or the plan he brings? And that can be applied to post election as well in "approval ratings." Did people 'like" Reagan because of his policies and plans or did they connect with the man? Certainly the factors that go into a presidential win are more numerous then just these two aspects, but we can be certain that these two aspects play a large role. I'm sorely tempted to say that people simply vote their own economic fortune. That has always been what held bill Clinton together. Let's face it, combine his numerous scandals with a crap economy during those 8 years and he would have had 4. The dot com wave and the relative economic success (due to the Reagan tax cut reverberation ... imagine a hearty throat clear there) made his unbelievable political talent for "explaining" away his problems palatable to at least 60% of the electorate.
But let's get back to this question of plans vs the candidate. I tend to disagree with your emphasis on plans being the deciding factor in a win - although I wish that were true. Did Kennedy win due to his personal appeal or his plans? And Ike? The whole campaign was run on and won with the phrase "I LIKE IKE." And there was a reason it worked, outside of it rhyming - they did in fact like him for his achievments in WWII. How about Clinton's 92' run? I would have to ascribe a great deal of his success to his personal ability to sway the electorate, not his "plans." This is post election but after he failed on socialized medicine, open gays in the military, and the middle class tax cut (a plan he DID run on) he was still able to recover his poll numbers and that was due to his personal appeal (gross as that is to write), and not due to some new plan he offered up. My point is yes, "plans" are vital for doing what's right for the country but unfortunately today (and perhaps always) I think a successful campaign has more to do with the personal appeal of the candidate. Take Al Gore ... please (sorry, couldn't resist the old line). America had a 60% plus approval rating of Clinton at the end of his second term, yet Al Gore could not capitalize on that. Why? people just didn't like him the way they liked his boss. I mean he had been a part of that administration, of those "plans" as it were. I remember the way Chris Matthews described Gore's problem - "People just feel they could sit down and have a beer with George Bush, they're comfortable with him." And he was right. Gore seemed robotic, aloof, and just plain strange at times. This is my opinion but I think people remember his "sighs" in the debate and the satires on SNL more than his proposals. In other words if the candidate doesn't have a level of personal appeal then he'll never get a chance to present his "plans." The "likability" factor affords him the opportunity to talk about the plans rather than the plans giving him the chance to be liked. Now, I find that unfortunate but it's reality, especially in the world of 30 second debate responses and 5 second sound bites. They better damn well "like" you if they're going to buy into a plan that takes only seconds to explain.
I welcome your thoughts.
FR
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3 comments:
FDR didn't get elected because he had the New Deal mapped out to the electorate before the election. He did that after he was in office, and even then there wasn't a lot of mapping. More of a shotgun type barrage of legislation. He was the first to take advantage of that mind numbing slogan we hear now called the first hundred days. But he was elected because he was liked. Not because of his plan.
Let's keep in mind, you Reganites, that Reganomics was, in essense, a FAILURE. Think of it as a Defense department New Deal. He chopped taxes, true, then broke the bank in deficit spending, which led to his successor's downfall in the recession of '91. And to attribute Clinton's economic success to the legacy of Reganomics is wrong. Clinton's economic success can bow to the Congress of 94 and the Pay as you go legislation.
Anyway, Ryan's right. It's the guy, not the plan. But it HELPS, immeasurably, to have the plan. And it helps even more to have the personality to sell it. Something measurable, something specific. How did Regan get all his shit passed? During his weekly addresses, he told his constituents to write their congressmen and senators to vote for his legislation. And it worked. No one has done that since.
Do yo umean to tell me that FDR got elected because people LIKED him?
What a load of crap! I admit, it wasn't the New Deal that got him into the White House, either... it was the REPEAL of the Volstead Act, which was a MAJOR part of his election campaign from the very beginning.
Hoover said, time and again, that he BELIEVED in the "great experiment" of prohibition... and FDR promised to end it.
That was the PLAN that got FDR elected.
What personable trait do you suppose made America LOVE FDR prior to his election? His elitist New York family? His association with a past popular President? The numerous and quite public scandals associated with him while he was Governor of NY?
It was his promise to repeal the Volstead Act and end prohibition that won him the election.
Look, maybe I wasn’t clear when I said that PLANS win, CANDIDATES don’t (I’m paraphrasing myself here). I’m not suggesting that EVERY candidate that wins a bid for the Presidency has a rock-solid plan of action that has convinced the nation that HE is the ONLY man for the job. Not at all…
Kennedy had no real plan, as such… he was simply the leading political representative of the “next” generation after that of the Great War… the first of the WWII vets to run (that hadn’t served in WWI as well, I mean… Ike served in both)… a graduate of a prestigious college with a rapid rise in his political career over a very short time frame.
Guess what, though? So was Nixon. Nixon served in WWII, he graduated from Stanford with honors (and was a football star) and was elected the Vice President of the United States of America at the early age of 39 (meaning he was 4 years younger than Kennedy when he got his first Executive seat).
Why then the landslide victory? Kennedy had no blueprint for a better America that he could espouse from the rooftops, and I still think he had a shorter grasp of politics than Nixon had (he certainly lacked the experience)… so why the disparity?
Nixon failed the first and foremost rule of modern Presidential politics… you MUST look good to the camera.
So, NO, not all Presidents have won their spot in history due to their ability to sell a PLAN to the voting public… but many have.
Hillary has that kind of personality and popularity that could win her a bid with no PLAN… but no one on the GOP side does, so they NEED a PLAN. It just has to be a plan that people can grasp and get behind (with a minimum of thought and pondering, judging by today’s rational “yardsticks”) to beat the “popular” candidate.
Truman beat the popular candidate in ‘48 (recall the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline) by an unending whistle-stop campaign blitz with a PLAN… Dewey simply ran on an opposition ticket. FDR wanted change from the status quo (read: a PLAN), while Hoover was simply running on “more of the same”.
The best example EVER though (and Ryan will LOVE this) is that Carter stated, in clear and certain terms, that America was in decline and that the current generation expected worse for their kids than they had now. Reagan had all his work done for him… his PLAN was simply to show that America could (and would) be great again, as soon as he was President.
The BEST Presidents have PLANS as well as PERSONALITIES… but the PLAN comes first.
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