Robert W. Merry: The Myth of the One-Term Wonder
[Robert W. Merry, the publisher of Stratfor, is the author, most recently, of “A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent.”]
No doubt President Obama was sincere when he recently told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he’d “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” The president seemed to be saying that he would make decisions with history in mind rather than voter sentiment, even if voter sentiment would get him tossed out at the next election....
...With few exceptions, history has not smiled upon one-term presidents. Only one such chief executive has managed with any consistency to get into the historians’ “near great” category.
That president is James K. Polk, who announced upon getting his party’s nomination in 1844 that, if elected, he would serve only one term. He did this in part because, as a small-government man, he possessed a philosophical aversion to entrenched power. But his vow was pragmatic, not just idealistic: he felt the powerful figures of his party would be more likely to unite behind him in the general election if they thought they would have their own shot at the presidency in four years....
But if Polk is the exception, and one-term presidents tend to get history’s brush-off, who gets its accolades? As the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted in 1996 — in conjunction with his own poll of presidential scholars — surveys since 1948 have been consistent in identifying nine greats and near-greats: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt (usually in that order), followed in various rank order by Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman....
The typical one-term president generally falls into the “average” category, occasionally showing up as “above average.” This generally means no unavoidable crises, no scandals of consequence and no serious new directions for America. A 2000 Wall Street Journal poll of historians ranked John Adams as above average and then populated the average category mostly with one-termers: William Howard Taft, John Quincy Adams, George H. W. Bush, Rutherford B. Hayes, Martin Van Buren and Chester A. Arthur....
Mr. Obama can certainly anticipate a one-term fate if he gets crosswise with his citizens. And if that happens, it isn’t likely that on future President’s Days he will ever be remembered as a great chief executive.
Read entire article at NYT
No doubt President Obama was sincere when he recently told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he’d “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” The president seemed to be saying that he would make decisions with history in mind rather than voter sentiment, even if voter sentiment would get him tossed out at the next election....
...With few exceptions, history has not smiled upon one-term presidents. Only one such chief executive has managed with any consistency to get into the historians’ “near great” category.
That president is James K. Polk, who announced upon getting his party’s nomination in 1844 that, if elected, he would serve only one term. He did this in part because, as a small-government man, he possessed a philosophical aversion to entrenched power. But his vow was pragmatic, not just idealistic: he felt the powerful figures of his party would be more likely to unite behind him in the general election if they thought they would have their own shot at the presidency in four years....
But if Polk is the exception, and one-term presidents tend to get history’s brush-off, who gets its accolades? As the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted in 1996 — in conjunction with his own poll of presidential scholars — surveys since 1948 have been consistent in identifying nine greats and near-greats: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt (usually in that order), followed in various rank order by Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman....
The typical one-term president generally falls into the “average” category, occasionally showing up as “above average.” This generally means no unavoidable crises, no scandals of consequence and no serious new directions for America. A 2000 Wall Street Journal poll of historians ranked John Adams as above average and then populated the average category mostly with one-termers: William Howard Taft, John Quincy Adams, George H. W. Bush, Rutherford B. Hayes, Martin Van Buren and Chester A. Arthur....
Mr. Obama can certainly anticipate a one-term fate if he gets crosswise with his citizens. And if that happens, it isn’t likely that on future President’s Days he will ever be remembered as a great chief executive.