One of the prevalent interpretations of the election results is that "it was always going to be an uphill struggle to defeat a sitting commander in chief during wartime."
True, and history suggests that the only way to do it was to convince the electorate the war was going badly, or to reduce the significance of the war. That Kerry had to make the two wars America was fighting separate as campaign issues, and then say different things about each made the task doubly difficult.
It's true that during the most significant conflicts in American history, incumbent Presidents who run again have won. However, when you get right down to it this conclusion seems to rest on just the elections of 1864, 1944, 1964, and 1972. You could stretch and say that 1916 and 1940 support the conclusion too.
But in 1952 and 1968 when America was certainly at war, and the incumbent president stood down, the incumbent's party lost.
What this suggests [on a tiny number of observations] is that for the opposition to take the Presidency in wartime, the war has to be going badly enough to force the President to stand down.
In a way this probably vindicates Bush's decision to stare down reality and pretend Iraq is going well. It also suggests that if we reach again for a Vietnam analogy this was not 1968 when the war clearly was not being won, but 1964. Of course, we are in deeper in 2004 than we were in 1964.
Once the fascination with the "values and morals" vote is over, it will probably become a little clearer that not everyone perceives Iraq as a morass in the making. 1200 troops dead is too many, but spread that out across the country, and it's like road accident deaths. It doesn't make an impression. More to the point, the costs of having so many troops tied up in Iraq will not become apparent until they're needed at home or elsewhere.
Looking abroad, the record of incumbent governments during wartime is one of re-election. The most significant loss I can think of was the Australian election of 1940. Perhaps someone with a good knowledge of World War I European domestic politics can add another example, but there weren't a lot of elections going on outside Australasia, North America, and Britain in World War II.
In short, to defeat incumbent governments in wartime the war has to be going badly or the opposition party has to define the war as being less than all consuming in order to shift the campaign to other issues, without appearing to discount the threat entirely.
This meant the Kerry campaign had to do three things
And do this in the space of 9 months. That they very nearly succeeded in the electoral college is pretty impressive.
Not only do governments not get defeated in wartime, they generally don't win 51-48 either. They win big.
Posted by robe0419 at November 4, 2004 01:53 PM | TrackBack