thinking about Kerry's troubles now and wodering whether the ability to wage an effective campaign tells us anything about a candidate's ability to govern effectively? 1976 and 1992 show us it's possible to be a brilliant campaigner, but a mediocre, or average, president. is the reverse true? can you run a bad campaign, but be a great president? was truman a poor candidate? i realize it's too early to say kerry's out of it, but does how a cndidate responds to the daily attacks of his opponents, and the events of the day, tell us how he'll govern?
If you are referring to Clinton, I would argue that he has been easily the best president in my lifetime so your analysis falls down there for me. And that is coming from someone who didn't even vote for Clinton in '96.
i wasn't really referring to any one candidate. i think there are many examples of effective campaigners who have turned out to be marginal presidents. it could be argued that most presidents have been effective campaigners, since they won. there have been few great presidents, and no matter what one might think of clinton the campaigner, it's way to early to offer a definitive judgement on his presidency. off the top of my head, however, i don't know of any ineffective campaigners who have made better than average presidents. so, my question is, given kerry's evident campaign trouble (granted, he may turn it around), what does that say about the prospects of a kerry presidency. i'd say it doesn't argur well.
Hopefully everyone here knows That politics is very personal and very very dirty. From Lee atwater to willie horton to swift vote, political campaigning brings out the worst in people who seem somewhat normal. Winning at all costs by whatever means necessary, no matter who gets screwed is all that matters. If bush sr. wasn't such a mediocre prez during his first term he would have been re-elected in 1992. So get over it already. How bad of a president was Clinton if he won another term? He not only won but he won in a landslide. If he were allowed to run again, he would beat shrub like a persian rug.
you say tomato, I say tom"o"to you say campaigning, I say fundraising, I believe the only way Bush gained the favor he did in the Republican party in the late nineties is because he is a fundraising machine. And the Republicans know it takes money to run an effective campaign.
It has been my observation that dogmatic unscrupulous campaigners make for unscrupulous dogmatic presidents.
No kidding. Part of my distaste for Bush comes from the tactics he seems to approve of in his campaigns. Granted it is Rove who is behind most of these dirty tricks, but since Bush has not put the kibosh on it, he is guilty by association.
This might have been an interesting topic if it was initially approached with objectivity. Of course, right off the bat that didn't happen because this was clearly a veiled attack on Democrats. "1976 and 1992 show us it's possible to be a brilliant campaigner, but a mediocre, or average, president." As a political scientist, that line offends me. You can't make a statement like that and treat it like fact just because Clinton was a democrat. A president's effectiveness can be measured in how many of their policies they manage to enact. The effects of these policies are another matter. Bush has been an effective President because he's gotten his way most of the time from the tax cuts to the war in Iraq. Of course, it can be argued that his party controls the congress, so it doesn't take much to get his policies passed. The results of his policies are a whole different matter and clearly, iterpretation is heavily affected by our own biases.
I would have said that he is guilty because he is Rove's boss, but what the hell. I disagree with the premise, basso. And, like Oski, find it interesting that you chose 2 Democratic Presidents as examples. Surely, you could have dug around and found a Republican somewhere in history. To play along, and to the delight of Republicans everywhere, the reverse is true, if I am understanding the subject. Ike and Bush Senior were lousy campaigners, but were very effective Presidents. They did things I didn't always agree with (well, in Bush I's case, a lot), but it can't be argued that they were effective Presidents, in my opinion. Truman rose to the occasion, and had one of the biggest upsets in history, so I'm not sure he fits. Of course, whether he was an effective President is, like with every President, a matter of opinion as well.
Actually, and I can't beleive I'm doing this, I have to defend Basso here. There was nothing negative about his initial post. He merely called Carter and Clinton mediocre or average. That's not really negative. Carter was a great man but not too many people will consider his presidency more than average. Now I disagree about Clinton, as I consider him a great President. But then again that's just my opinion. Being a Republican and not condeming Clinton, Basso in a way actually pays Clinton a compliment by not outright condeming him like most Reps do.
It's a valid question but one that I think is almost impossible to answer now. Maybe 40 or 50 years ago, you could say that the way a candidate maintained himself on the campaign trail would be a good reflection of his presidency because candidates had to be larger than life and have a clear, articulated message at all times. There was no TV and little press coverage, so they had to be real people that could reach everyday folks. Today, a candidate has to appeal to such a broad specturm of voters. He has to shore up his constituents, appeal to independents, appeal to people from both sides of the political aisle and even try to sway ideologically different voters. There are entire teams of image consultants and wardrobe consultants and people doing everything they can to formulate not just the OVERALL message, but the daily message and the message specific to that group on that day. Every word, every phrase, every look, every piece of clothing is all scripted and organized. It is hard to know what is real and what isn't. If a candidate attacks his opponent, he can be percieived as strong and decisive or a bully. If a candidate doesn't respond to attacks, he could seem weak and passive or even indecisive or he could seem ideological and unwilling to lower himself to attack another. I personally don't believe that anything we see on the campaign trail is real. There are certainly some things that resonate and some things candidates are held to if they reach office. But, they seem more like characters in a movie than actual people when they are trying to win votes. My guess is that for all we think we know about candidates, we really know very little.
i really wasn't trying to slam any particular president, or party, carter and clinton just seemed to fit the bil, at least among presidents of my lifetimel. GHWB was neither a great campaigner, nor a particulary effective president. i don't remember enough about how nixon campaigned to fit him into the equation, although he must've been doing something right in '68 and '72. the latter was a landslide of epic porportions, not fully explained away by the breakin at the watergate. ok, trivia time: who are the only two men to have run for national office on their party's ticket 5 times? and what were those five times?
Ooh Ooh Mister Kot-tear.. Eugene V. Debs of the American Socialist Party. How could a pinko like me forget.
Well, in 1968, Nixon's most potent adversary actually died before he could even become the democratic nominee (RFK). And Reagan was too inexperienced to compete for the Republican crown. I mean this is a guy who failed the last time he went head to head with a Kennedy.
saw this on abc's the note: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html -- 3. The newspaper stories in which various Kerry advisers trash each other on background and talk about what the candidate's message "should" be — exposing the rifts between the Boston-consultants-staffer-family camps and leaving Karl Rove scratching his chin wondering why less than two months before election day his opponent doesn't know what his message is: A. will continue all fall, giving the press its much desired "if he can't run a presidential campaign, how can he run the country?" storyline.
