Do We Want the Next JFK?

Arthur Schlesinger liked to defend his decision during the 1960 campaign to defect from the Adlai Stevenson camp to the John F. Kennedy camp in terms of the idea that Stevenson had a discomfort with the idea of power that, while arguably admirable in some respects, was fundamentally inconsistent with the realities of political leadership. I've seen analogies to this situation applied to the Clinton-Obama race several times. Available on the internet is this post from George Packer which lays the analogy out in some detail, and this interview with Sean Wilentz in which he refers to it more elliptically but explicitly draws the conclusion that Clinton is like Kennedy and Obama is like Stevenson and that this is the reason to support Clinton.

This doesn't make a ton of sense to me. For one thing, Schlesinger's morality play in which Stevenson is an honorable man but maybe too honorable to beat the GOP in '52 and '56 whereas the slightly seemier Kennedy gets the job done in '60 is a pretty weird interpretation of the politics of the 1950s. In 1952, the Democrats had been in the White House for 20 years, Harry Truman's approval ratings were in the low twenties, and the Republican nominee was one of the most respected and popular men in the world. What's more, instead of taking advantage of Truman's unpopularity and his personal popularity to try to revive American conservatism, Ike just ditched all of the GOP's less popular positions and ran, won, and governed as a moderate. Under the circumstances, Stevenson was doomed.

Meanwhile, the reality of the Kennedy Administration -- as opposed to the Myth of Camelot -- is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton. A 50%+1 win followed by a domestic agenda that goes nowhere in congress and a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by a unshakeable fear of looking soft on defense.

Comments

Funny--I just wrote an article on the same exact topic on my blog a few minutes ago. My take on this Obama-as-Stevenson talk is that it's just an excuse to try to make Obama a liberal loser just by some cursory links between him and Adlai.

http://battlestar-pegasus.blogspot.com/2007/11/is-obama-another-adlai.html

Posted by Lev | November 18, 2007 4:45 PM

Wilentz' interview responses are among the weirdest, least grounded, most literarily metaphorical arguments for a candidate I've ever read. It's completely unconvincing in the slightest, unless you simply feel that an experienced and good historian should be indulged in his pronouncements.

I think Hillary is important because the election really is the culmination of what's been a 40 year struggle for the Democrats to rediscover who they are. A 40-year struggle against what we'll call Nixon-slash-Reaganism. And, simply put, she's in the best position to be a president. Which is to say, she understands how American politics works. She understands the trajectory of American political history for the last 40 years because she's lived it in a way that the others haven't, really. She's seen it at all levels, from Arkansas to Capitol Hill. The country needs someone who can take us beyond this struggle--this long, long fight we've been having.

Uh huh. Because the person who immediately comes to mind to carry us past 30 years of American Reaganite / New Right thought is, er, Hillary Clinton.

Or this weird, personalistic analysis of an actual event:

Triangulation was a tactic in the aftermath of 1994, after he screwed up big-time in his first term -- he was not ready for primetime, in my view. He had his back against the wall. He was reduced pathetically to saying, "The President is still relevant." He had himself to blame for that, in part. But he was smart enough to deal with political reality. He had to establish a position that was not only independent of the Republican party, but independent of the left-wing of the Democratic party, which wasn't taking us anywhere -- except to doom.

So, it was the left wing of the party which lost Congress for a dozen years? It was the wacky left which designed a health care plan which would hand control to the 5 largest HMO's, who actually designed the health care plan, and because of this it stirred up the opposition of the small and medium sized insurers -- not "the right"? It was the wacky left seeking "doom" who pushed through the Business Roundtable NAFTA?

And "triangulation" -- which was a Dick Morris term for seeking common ground with Republicans so as to undercut the "doom" leading liberals -- this is some brilliant political maneuver because, erm, er, because of what?

Is that what passes for brilliance in politics for professional historians? The notion that it's somehow difficult to come up with the idea of cooperating with the right wing in order to undercut liberals? That was some great mystery waiting for Bill Clinton to decode?

I was screaming at my Democratic representatives in 1993 that things like supporting NAFTA would hurt them and discourage Democratic support. But, no, in the Approved Memory section of the nation, it was them damn dirty stinkin' hippies what locked the Democrats into a minority status for 12 years.

It seems to me that far too many people are convinced that you always have to imagine yourself in the personal and psychological position of a political figure, rather than identifying with, say, yourself, who is actually the one who will be affected by that political figure's decisions.

Posted by El_Cid | November 18, 2007 4:57 PM

Karl Rove's been pushing the "Obama=Adlai" meme. And Rove's worth listening to on this, as he led the successful project to create a permanent Republican majority.

Posted by Dave Weigel | November 18, 2007 4:58 PM

The story is the economy. The trouble in the financial world is gigantic. The manufactured conventional wisdom about the economy being "fundamentally sound" is false. The MSM's coverage of politics is a Mount Everest of accuracy and probity compared to the coverage of economic issues, especially as they relate to the markets and finance.

The world is about to shift on it's axis economically speaking. A recession only as bad as 81 82 would be good news.

There is zero difference between the parties on issues related to the financial world. Clinton/Rubin institutionalized the Wall Street Paradigm which has resulted in the tower of bad debts which is now on fire. There is going to be a political vacuum which is going to make things much much worse.

Perhaps the system can absorb the trillions of dollars in losses on bad debt and the trillions of more dollars in missing new credit which has fueled the system especially since 01. By absorb I mean survive in recognizeable form. Maybe we will only be talking about the R word but the D word is not out of the question.

Obviously I am just some schmuck on the internet and it's stupid to listen to what I am saying. Just watch for news that your not getting all your money back on your money market account, and by the way, you have to wait to get that.

Posted by rapier | November 18, 2007 5:10 PM

I think the analogy breaks in the parts where Clinton isn't as inspirational as JFK and Obama isn't as naive as Stephenson.

Other than that spot on! Not!

Posted by Nick Kaufman | November 18, 2007 5:17 PM

It's worth noting that much of JFK's New Frontier programs were ideas first proposed by Stevenson during his presidential campaigns against Ike.
Is there any indication that Clinton will appropriate Obama's ideas, particularly in the realm of foreign policy? From the evidence so far, it looks like Clinton is more like LBJ; she will portray her Republican opponent as being batshit-crazy (particularly if her opponent is Giuliani), but she will continue to perpetuate foreign policy mistakes because of the fear of appearing soft on defense

Posted by eltoro | November 18, 2007 5:18 PM

While Stevenson obviously lost in 1952 for reasons largely having to do with Truman, and little with his own weaknesses, I don't think this assessment is particularly fair, in that even after 1956, there were a lot of people who wanted Stevenson to run again, and there was a boomlet for him in the 1960 convention. Schlesinger is defending his decision not to support Stevenson in 1960, because he thought he would lose again, which is probably true - the election was intensely close, and while Stevenson probably would have done better in 1960 than he did against Ike, I doubt he would've beaten Nixon.

The point isn't that Stevenson was too honorable to get the job done in 1952 or 1956. It's that he was too honorable to get the job done in 1960.

Posted by John | November 18, 2007 5:18 PM

El Cid,

Many professional historians find Wilentz just as vapid when he chooses to write about historical politics.

see William Shade's review of The Rise of American Democracy:

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=38061160759745

Posted by another historian | November 18, 2007 5:33 PM

If Matt's point is that Stevenson did not actually possess the traits Schlesinger describes, I don't agree. Stevenson's reticence, Hamlet-like indecisiveness and apparent discomfort with the realities of the executive power he was seeking were much commented on at the time.

The real problem is that the Obama-Stevenson link just doesn't hold water. Obama is a young man by presidential candidate measures, and yet it still didn't take much effort to convince him to leap into the fray. The sense that Obama is holding back does not derive, in my opinion, from any lack of ambition or ambivalence about power on Obama's part, but is mainly due to the peculiar challenge he has in running a campaign against Hillary Clinton. The Clintons have a huge and sentimental fan club in the Democratic party who, while willing to listen to some comparisons, don't want to see the First Lady roughed up. If JFK - the Kennedy clan's ruthlessness, brass knuckles proclivities, tackle football competitiveness and gangster connections notwithstanding - had to run against Eleanor Roosevelt instead of Hubert Humphrey, LBJ and Stevenson, we would have seen the same delicacy and carefulness from him.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 18, 2007 5:45 PM

a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by a unshakeable fear of looking soft on defense.

I think your being too cynical on Kennedy's rationale for his and his successor's foreign policy decisions; I pretty sure he and Johnson did what they did because they thought it was the right thing to do. (Whether or not it was actually the right thing to do is a separate issue.)

Remember also, it wasn't until Vietnam that the US had a foreign intervention that was not a least a qualified success for US interests at the time: 19th c Asian gunboat diplomacy & Latin American interventions, Sp-Am war, WW1&2, and even Korea.

Posted by Kenny | November 18, 2007 6:08 PM

If the alternative is a 50%-1 loss followed by a repressive domestic policy and a rapid march towards foreign policy disaster, HRC looks pretty good.

Posted by jim | November 18, 2007 8:38 PM

"Schlesinger is defending his decision not to support Stevenson in 1960, because he thought he would lose again, which is probably true"

John calls it. Does MY think Adlai could have beaten Nixon? I sure don't.

MY's post has all the earmarks of a clever argument spun chiefly to convince the arguer himself. Right now we hear all about how Congress' inaction is due to the filibuster and a thin Senate majority--that is, circumstances and not the leadership of the people supposedly in charge of Congress. But in JFK's time, according to MY, the inaction was somehow due to JFK personally and not to the Southern-GOP majority found during Kennedy's first term.

We're supposed to believe that JFK's term was all about "foreign policy disaster," w/ no mention of the Cuban missile crisis and the test ban treaty.

We're also supposed to believe that "the reality of the Kennedy Administration ... is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton." What people? It's not like anyone thought they might like Hillary but then figured she was too much like JFK.

Posted by Kyle | November 18, 2007 8:43 PM

Re: I was screaming at my Democratic representatives in 1993 that things like supporting NAFTA would hurt them

How did NAFTA hurt the Democrats? It's not like the GOP ran on an anti-NAFTA platform. Ross Perot did, but he did not defeat Clinton in 1996. And Pat Buchanan did again in 2000 but he hurt the Democrats only because of a stupid ballot design in Florida. The NAFTA thing in a red herring. The 90s saw an employment boom, not Perot's "giant sucking sound".

Posted by JonF | November 18, 2007 9:17 PM

"Meanwhile, the reality of the Kennedy Administration -- as opposed to the Myth of Camelot -- is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton. A 50%+1 win followed by a domestic agenda that goes nowhere in congress and a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by a unshakeable fear of looking soft on defense."

Matt, you may not have been around at the time, but you've got it down good. Beyond that, there's little to add.

Posted by Henderstock | November 18, 2007 10:16 PM

The GOP didn't have to run on an anti-NAFTA platform. This was part of the Democrats' rebranding themselves away from the Old Democrats they thought they'd get away from.

In my district, like many, for example, a safe Democrat was defeated that year by a Republican, apparently by weakened turnout by many Democratic voting segments.

NAFTA in itself was harmful to US and Mexican workers, exactly as was predicted, it is no red herring, and no one in power cared in the slightest. The agreement wasn't meant to improve the lot of workers nor the electoral chances of Democrats, and anyone who thought that those were priorities of the agreement it were simpletons.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp173#pt1

That's okay, though; those crusading New Economy Democrats who worked with Republicans to pass NAFTA over Democratic opposition somehow knew EXACTLY what they were doing, even though they lost power in Congress for a dozen years, and it was just us DFH's who imagined that there were any problems, and in reality we achieved a temporary paradise unknown in human history, there were no significant problems that Clinton and the Republican Congress failed to solve, and all structural difficulties in the U.S. economy were fixed, up until Bush Jr. came in and ruined everything.

Posted by El Cid | November 18, 2007 10:21 PM

I don't know any historians who think Adlai could have beat Ike, but I do many who think that he ran very poor campaigns regardless. (As Truman put it, We got him to the trough but we could never get him to drink very deeply.) As for JFK, Matt essentially reverses himself: that Stevenson couldn't get elected was beyond his control, but that JFK couldn't enact a properly liberal domestic and foreign policy is evidence of flaws in Kennedy (rather than that America as a whole still bought into the idea of monolithic communism and that the Civil Rights struggle quite possibly required JFK's martyrdom-which LBJ ably exploited-to get anything through Congress).

Posted by tdraicer | November 18, 2007 11:00 PM

Was anyone other than Adlai Stevenson really considering Adlai Stevenson as a possible candidate in 1960?!? He'd lost two consecutive elections! Take the hint!

Posted by Jason C. | November 18, 2007 11:02 PM

Or I could have just written: What Kyle said.

Posted by tdraicer | November 18, 2007 11:03 PM

"Was anyone other than Adlai Stevenson really considering Adlai Stevenson as a possible candidate in 1960?!? He'd lost two consecutive elections! Take the hint!"

Eleanor Roosevelt for one. She gave a very impassioned speech at the convention in 1960, pleading with the party on behalf of Stevenson.

Posted by mad6798j | November 18, 2007 11:08 PM

As for me: What tdraicer said.

MY does indeed change scoring in the middle of the game. JFK fails, Adlai is simply thwarted by circumstances.

Posted by Kyle | November 18, 2007 11:15 PM

Instead of doing endless comparisons to Stevenson, Kennedy and kennedy, ect. How about this.
Hillary is just like Hillary and Obama is just like obama.
I swear, all this comparing is just silly. Like the republicans who are so desperate to dig up Reagan's grave and run him again. They bugged Thompson to run until he finally did and when he was not just like Reagan, they dumped him.
And now we endlessly compare Clinton or Obama to everyone from jefferson to Dean.
Barack Obama is just himself. He is unique and not not like anyone else.
Same for Hillary.

Posted by vwcat | November 19, 2007 12:29 AM

Someone should be working on who Edwards is since he is going to be the next president.

Posted by Andrew Jackson | November 19, 2007 1:51 AM

I think you need to take a closer look at the 1952 campaign rather than just considering the simplistic view. The Republican tactics then were just as nasty and dirty as they are now - albeit with a different technology. That stuff didn't suddenly originate in the 70s with Nixon. Also, don't forget that there was a real war going on - and that the most respected military general from WWII was running on a platform to end it (politicians today should take note) - how can you ignore that?

Even though Truman had a low personal popularity, the Republicans weren't particularly well liked either. People genuinely liked the New Deal programs such as Social Security, and it was a big question as to whether the Republicans really would roll them back the way they threatened - it was not a sure thing at the time that IKE would govern as a moderate. People remembered the very disasterous and nasty GOP Congress elected in 1946 and thrown out in 1948. Having the genial and much-loved IKE at the top of the ticket definitely helped soften things (but also don't forget that the House quickly threw the Republicans out again in 1954 and stayed Democratic for the next 50 years).

It wasn't necessarily a fait acomplii at the time that the Republicans would sweep solely because of IKE's popularity and that the Dems had been in the White House for 20 years. People genuinely didn't like or trust the Republicans at the time - the Stevenson morality thing in response to Republican distortions and dirty tricks and setting an emotionally inflammatory agenda ("who lost China?" - as if China was ours to "lose") was an important part of the mix.

There were a lot of things going on in the dynamices of the 1952 election - a simplistic "IKE was popular - Dems had been in the White House for 20 years" that ignores everything else is what is a "a pretty weird interpretation of the politics of the 1950s"

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | November 19, 2007 5:57 AM

I think Wilentz's point was that Obama, like Stevenson, professes to be *above* politics, whereas Wilentz thinks candidates who embrace actual American politics are more likely to be successful.

Whether Obama is really much like Stevenson or not, he's this year's "fresh, not-an-insider" candidate, the guy to "bring us all together", the majority of whom end up in the gutters once the campaign warms up, or like Carter, once the campaign's over.

Posted by Desider | November 19, 2007 9:00 AM

Kennedy had one big failure (the Bay of Pigs) and a number of notable successes. He did impressive work in reversing foreign views of the US, faced off with a challenge from De Gaulle and Adenauer (who wanted to go it alone and seemed to be on the verge of developing a German nuclear program), and made real strides toward detente in 1963.

Vietnam is of course the tricky question, but Kennedy inherited a commitment from Eisenhower and was far more open to conceding South Vietnam than Johnson. We don't know what he would have done, but there is good reason to think he would have stopped short of war.

And, like folks above, it seems doubtful that Stevenson would have beat Nixon. It was close enough with Kennedy, who ran a very energetic, literally 50 state campaign.

Posted by Tom | November 19, 2007 9:00 AM

"Instead of doing endless comparisons to Stevenson, Kennedy and kennedy, ect. How about this.
Hillary is just like Hillary and Obama is just like obama."

A good point, but the Dems do have a recurring trope where a high-minded candidate with a silver tongue shows up and then proves a bit wobbly and ineffectual when it comes to the mean side of the political life -- not just Stevenson but also Eugene McCarthy and (minus the silver tongue) Mo Udall. Obama bears the same markings, and I hope he is not one of the tribe.

Back in the Kennedy years, of course, JFK was being compared to FDR, hence the same triple-initials gimmick. The argument ran that FDR was a lion and a fox who had the cunning and hard nose necessary to turn high-minded ends into actual results, and that JFK would be more of the same. I think the argument was right on both counts.

That's what the JFK-Stevenson-Clinton-Obama argument comes down to. Getting things done in politics involves not being good. It's easy and natural to dislike the Clintons, but Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in 40 years to hang on to the White House for two terms. We live in a shitty universe, which is why Machiavelle is still relevant half a millenium on.

Posted by Kyle | November 19, 2007 11:07 AM

Slightly seemier? Kennedy was far seemier than Stevenson, especially if you were one of the people who knew exactly how out of control he was, which Schlesigner did.

Posted by Marty Busse | November 19, 2007 11:45 AM

Meanwhile, the reality of the Kennedy Administration -- as opposed to the Myth of Camelot -- is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton. A 50%+1 win followed by a domestic agenda that goes nowhere in congress and a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by a unshakeable fear of looking soft on defense.

Don't forget a domestic policy of illegal espionage, checked only by the fact that the director of the FBI didn't like the President or Attorney General.

Posted by Marty Busse | November 19, 2007 11:47 AM

The problem with any Kennedy analogy is that we don't really know what kind of president he would have been given a full 8 years in office.

So people fill in the gaps with their own hopes and ideals. The Kennedy presidency is more mythology than reality, it's potential that was never fulfilled. Had he lived his legacy would probably have been far greater than it actually is, but far less than we imagine.

Posted by Jinchi | November 19, 2007 12:43 PM

"The argument ran that FDR was a lion and a fox who had the cunning and hard nose necessary to turn high-minded ends into actual results, and that JFK would be more of the same. I think the argument was right on both counts."

However, JFK lacked FDR's daring in trying to push through controversial legislative measures as part of his domestic agenda. It took LBJ, who also possessed the cunning, hard nose, and cojones of a FDR, to get Kennedy's domestic agenda passed.

Going by the record of the Clintons in the 1990s, where they displayed political timidity in pushing for LIBERAL items on their domestic agenda (as opposed to the relative boldness they displayed in advocating for NAFTA and welfare reform), it's not very likely that Hilary Clinton is actually going to employ that cunning and hard nose of hers in the service of her domestic agenda, especially if its contrary to the interests of her corporate friends.

Posted by eltoro | November 19, 2007 12:50 PM

Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in 40 years to hang on to the White House for two terms.

I think this point is oversold. 40 years isn't a very long time in presidential politics, particularly since there's typically an incumbent who starts out with unique advantages.

We're dealing with the statistics of very small numbers here and there are too many variables that go into why one candidate wins and another loses.

Posted by Jinchi | November 19, 2007 12:56 PM

Bill Clinton's success at being the 1st Democrat since Truman to be win a 2nd term in the White House came with a price. Under Clinton's presidency, the GOP gained control over both houses of Congresses, and stayed in control throught the remainder of Clinton's presidency. Like Truman, Clinton was adept at painting himself as a check on the extremes of the GOP-dominated Congress, but unlike Truman he failed to make the case to the American people to return Congress to Democratic control.

Posted by eltoro | November 19, 2007 2:41 PM

That's an awful big burden to rest on one man's shoulders. Who is this superman who, rather than Clinton, could have single handedly convinced the American public not to vote for republicans in 1994?

Posted by DRR | November 19, 2007 3:56 PM

DRR,

Clinton was used by the GOP in the 1994 Congressional elections both as the rallying point for the base, and as an object of anger with independent voters who were disappointed with Clinton's performance in office at the time.
The problem in 1994 then was that Clinton almost single handedly convinced enough of the American electorate to vote FOR the GOP. The problem is subsequent election years with Bill Clinton was that while he convinced the American people to vote FOR HIM, he didn't convince the American people enough to vote FOR DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS. If anybody has the power to convince Americans to vote for Democrats in Congress, it is a popular DEMOCRATIC incumbent Presidnet, particularly one that succeeded in getting re-elected.

Posted by eltoro | November 19, 2007 6:14 PM

The Kennedys themselves seem to think Obama is more Kennedyesque. I think Prof. Wilentz should stick to the 19th century - that's where his expertise is.

Posted by schmikka | November 20, 2007 6:40 PM

A 50 plus one win by a true Democrat like Clinton with a clear majority in both Houses which is likely whoever gets the nomination is a far better option than a win by a disguised centrist like Obama even with a Democratic Congress.

See progressivepunch.com for an objective source for who votes what way on which issues.

For Obama who is this year 43 in support on progressive issues attack the candidate who is up their at 29 as belonging to the other party is intellectually dishonest.

Posted by Jane | November 26, 2007 4:59 PM