Brendan Nyhan: The Misleading Story of Harry Truman's Comeback
[Brendan Nyhan is a political scientist currently serving as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan]
It's boring to point out that divided government is bad for President Obama, so journalists and commentators have been trying to make silly up-is-down arguments about why GOP control of Congress might help him politically.
These pundits frequently invoke the examples of Bill Clinton and Harry Truman, who both campaigned against an opposition Congress and won re-election. But as I've shown, Clinton's win was primarily driven by the booming economy, not his political maneuvering against the GOP Congress of 1995-1996....
Unfortunately, the dramatic narrative of Truman's victory and what it tells us about "the American character" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As James Campbell pointed out in 2004..., Truman's comeback was fueled by "sizzling" economic growth...
Read entire article at Brendan Nyhan's Blog
It's boring to point out that divided government is bad for President Obama, so journalists and commentators have been trying to make silly up-is-down arguments about why GOP control of Congress might help him politically.
These pundits frequently invoke the examples of Bill Clinton and Harry Truman, who both campaigned against an opposition Congress and won re-election. But as I've shown, Clinton's win was primarily driven by the booming economy, not his political maneuvering against the GOP Congress of 1995-1996....
Unfortunately, the dramatic narrative of Truman's victory and what it tells us about "the American character" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As James Campbell pointed out in 2004..., Truman's comeback was fueled by "sizzling" economic growth...