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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Lichtman Logic Triumphs
Good points being made here, in the string below. Glad to see it. I’d like to address some of them, in due course.
For now, though, what’s really on my mind is this (a point I just made in my column for my day job):
Seems to me that what’s happening is the triumph of the Lichtman logic. The strategy of both parties is built around it entirely.
After all, the Lichtman theory boils down to one point, pretty much: History shows conclusively that when things are going badly enough for the country and the government, the presidency will change parties.
That’s because independent voters will decide that the status quo in government isn’t good enough and will demand, yes, change.
It’s all about change.
So if you’re Barack Obama, you present yourself as the change option. And if you’re John McCain, you do everything you can to separate yourself from the incumbent, to say that your party is starting out new and that those old people in Washington better look out.
Some people will say that the Republican politicos didn’t need Allan Lichtman to tell them that McCain should run away from Bush. Bush is unpopular; end of story. But consider this:
In 1952, Adlai Stevenson was in much the same position as John McCain today. He was the nominee of the party that held the presidency, but he was not the incumbent, and the incumbent was decidedly unpopular.
The Democrats had held the presidency for 20 years, but were enmeshed in scandal and an uninspiring war, Korea. And they were just seeming old hat.
So nominee Stevenson had to run away from President Harry Truman, had to represent himself as an agent of “change,” just as John McCain is running away from President George W. Bush. That’s obvious, right?
Except that Stevenson didn’t do that. (You can see his convention speech at www.americanrhetoric.com. It’s a short speech.)
Stevenson insisted that “change for the sake of change” has no merit. Try to picture McCain saying that.
And, as for the Democratic scandals, all Stevenson said was that there was no reason to believe that the party couldn’t put its own house in order “without (its) neighbor having to burn it down.”
So much for change.
Adlai Stevenson was a pretty smart guy, and he was surrounded by the best political people of his time. And yet he didn’t arrive at the “change” formula. Neither did Hubert Humphrey in a similar situation in 1968.
Somebody had to lay out how things actually work. Lichtman’s work is familiar to the politicos; it has influenced others to whom they listen.
Now, there’s one potential problem with this analysis (at least): If McCain wins by running on change, then maybe — contrary to the title of this column — campaigns do count. But I haven’t said anything about McCain winning. I’m just talking about strategy here.
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