Post-Partisan Politics

This weekend, an op-ed appeared in the Washington Post which is causing much discussion. Doug Schoen and Patrick Caddell made an argument that President Obama should not seek reelection in 2010. With the mess that this country was in even before the financial crisis began in the fall of 2008, I wondered why anyone would want to run for president as the tough choices that were going to have to be made were likely to ensure the next president would be a one-term president. Two years later that prediction seems to be playing out, whether it’s by the President’s choice or not. Like it or not, President Obama is the target of the frustrations many have about our current problems. Instead of just thinking in the short-term, I urge the President as well as my fellow citizens to think long-term. Should the President take a one-term pledge, it would allow him to do what he could now while someone else is able to fight the battle to ensure that a Democrat is returned to the White House in 2012. Look at how much of the President’s time and attention was taken up by the mid-term elections, and it’s hard to fathom how he’s going to be able to devote much attention to push any agenda through the next two years while campaigning to stay in office. If Democrats are truly worried about a return to Bush era policies, then the party and all of its members should start thinking strategically to ensure that a Democrat retains the seat in the Oval Office. Otherwise, we could end up with a president worse than Bush ever had a chance of being. Imagine – President Christine O’Donnell, President Haley Barbour, or President Sarah Palin. Anyone could be run in 2012 if the President is allowed to run while continuing to serve as a lightning rod for the nation’s anger at economic conditions that most agree will likely be here for the long-term. There is a precedent for this action in trying times.

One is hard-pressed to find an election as interesting as the 1844 presidential election.  The president at the time, John Tyler, was literally a president without a party. He still had a few people who urged him to run, and he wanted to seek a full-term after succeeding to the presidency after the death of William Henry Harrison. However, he had teed off most everyone on every point of the political spectrum at one point. Thus, the race was thrown open. Henry Clay had the Whig nomination pretty much locked up, the third election in which he was a party nominee (though he had tried for the nomination even more times than that). On the Democratic side, it seemed like anyone who was anyone in the Democratic Party was trying for the nomination including former President Martin Van Buren, former Vice-President John C Calhoun, former Vice-President Richard M Johnson, and Senator (and future President) James Buchanan, reflecting the divide in the party as well as the nation overall on various issues, including national expansion and slavery. Then there was James K Polk of Tennessee. At the time, Polk had been written off as dead and buried in the political graveyard after losing two gubernatorial elections in a row, but Polk lived up to the tradition of his mentor Andrew Jackson and his nickname, Young Hickory. Polk was able to secure the Democratic election for himself and squeak into the White House. During the election, Polk did something unusual in Presidential politics. Though still a young man, Polk pledged only to serve one term so that he could focus all his energies to fulfill his four primary election promises: securing the Oregon Territory for the US, the acquisition of California and New Mexico for the US, tariff reduction, and the reestablishment of the Independent Treasury System that Van Buren had established during his Presidency but was repealed by the Whigs. When Polk left the White House in 1849, the Oregon territory was indeed a part of the US, as was California and New Mexico, tariffs were lowered, and the Independent Treasury System had been reestablished and would last until the Federal Reserve System was established in 1913.  Thus, in a time of political divide following an unpopular president, a young energetic candidate comes to the forefront and pushes an aggressive agenda through bringing about controversial yet undeniably substantial change to the nation. Sound familiar? It could very much be that, instead of Lincoln, FDR, Reagan, or Clinton, the president that Mr. Obama needs to emulate is Mr. Polk if he truly wants to achieve change.

In the modern day, our President has a choice. Either he can devote his entire energies into doing the job which he had been elected to do, as tough as it may be, or he can try to buy himself some more time, knowing that most presidential second terms are typically rougher and even more arduous to get agendas accomplished than the first term. As difficult as this first term has been, I’m not sure why the President would want to run for a second term, but that’s his decision to make. All we as citizens can do is offer our two cents, and I commend Schoen and Caddell for expressing their opinions in spite of criticism being directed in their direction for saying what I’m sure others had been thinking but were afraid to speak aloud. It’s an idea that deserves consideration at least, whether it ultimately plays out or not.

For the original article, please see here.