History has always been - well, in my more mature years, not so much in my youth - of great interest me. And we all are aware of the curious fact that history repeats itself. Usually this is due to the unwillingness of people to learn from the past.
The continuously repeated proclamation coming from Republicans today is that President Obama has to be defeated at all costs. This makes no sense at all based purely on facts and seeing that the dismal condition of our nation, following the dismal lack of leadership over two previous terms, has finally begun to slightly mollify. And certainly people (opponents) do not want to admit there is a substantial list of actual accomplishments produced by this current president; such an admission would reveal to themselves that they are thinking not of sincere desire to help our country but of their own private advantages and their own damnable prejudices. The added fact that the opposition has no reasonably competent person in position to take over the enormous job of the presidency, once it's handed to him by piles of money poured into the "beat-him-at-all-costs" coffers of whatever candidate, seems to also elude Republicans. The candidate they have finally (well, almost) settled on is not even satisfactory to most of his party. It would not shock me if the Republican convention turns into one of those like they had more than a century ago, in which some dark-horse candidate finally is chosen due to unrest in the ranks. At this juncture, Mitt Romney appears to be one of the least straight-forward, possibly downright dishonest, persons to ever seek the top office in our country. Republicans have proven themselves capable of dumping the guy they once believed it - in fact have done so multiple times in the past.
So all the rhetoric being bandied about nowadays concerning making sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president made me curious about those who were our one-termers from history. I took a look back:
John Adams
Amazingly capable in so many ways and a vital cog in the wheels of independence for our nation, he nonetheless failed to gain a second term as president. Because of actual failures during his one term? No. Because of a failure to curry favor of other men. He cared more for the country than for his own popularity, and that basically cost him a chance to continue. This first one-term-president had so much more to offer our fledgling nation than have many of more recent presidents, yet he was voted out because some powerful people simply didn't like him. Fortunately for us all, it was a Thomas Jefferson who was available to take the helm.
John Quincy Adams
Much like his father, he failed only in gaining popularity. His utter devotion to his country shows in that he returned to Congress following defeat for a second term and served eighteen more years before dying in Washington DC, having worked in his office until physical collapse. His lack of people skills (the Adams curse) made him a total mis-match for the rugged Andy Jackson, a war hero who had fought even in the revolutionary war and had risen to rank of general by the war of 1812. He was something of a Lincoln type (log-cabin born) with the added public exposure attendant on his battle prowess. Naturally, the unimposing Adams lost the race.
Martin Van Buren
Here was the strong and detail-oriented politician who helped Jackson do a better job in his second term and who then took on the big job on his own. But the first debilitating economic downturn in our history began during that same year he took office and his (unfairly placed) blame for that condition, coupled with his Adams-like lack of personal popularity, spelled his demise for a second term.
John Tyler
This man probably would never have been elected to the highest office. He was put into the vice presidency in a Whig party political maneuver and then became the first to ascend to the presidency due to the death of a president. He possibly was as incompetent in the top office as was the second Bush, and the populace back then weren't as easily duped or as threatened by the party line backing him. Then in a cruel twist, he suddenly had no party backing at all. The Whigs, due to Tyler's policy decisions, readily disavowed any relationship to him. He was ousted easily.
James K. Polk
Another very capable politician and a protege of "Old Hickory," former president Andy Jackson, Polk was popular enough to be nick-named "Young Hickory." He was forceful in his expansionism, an effort that consumed his term in Mexican wars and the settling of the Texas annexation, as well as pushing the northern Oregon Territory border to its eventual position. He literally wore himself out in four years, dying only three months following his term. But his one term ended because the still strong Whigs made another push for dominance by nominating the swash-buckling and popular General Zachary Taylor - who proved a good choice for his party because he soared in the popular vote.
Millard Fillmore
No plan by the political machine had been made for him to ever hold the office. He came to the job after the death of Zachary Taylor and no matter how hard he tried, he could not impress his own Whig party bosses. They didn't even allow him to run for a second term.
Franklin Pierce
Stumbling into the presidency as no one's favorite candidate, on the convention's 49th ballot, he then suffered unspeakable personal tragedy prior to his inauguration, followed by virtual abandoning by his wife who hated politics. Pierce was a damaged man and never popular; another incumbent dropped by his own party.
James Buchanan
Sixty-five years old at the time of his election, he announced in his very inaugural address that he would not be a candidate for a second term. Then he managed to split his party due to indecisiveness over the states that began to secede from the union prior to 1860. No chance he could have served another term.
Andrew Johnson
Another man who was thrust upward from the vice-presidency due to the death of the president. Uneducated and not very well-liked, he began early to offend many in his own party. Some of these, the Radical Republicans, began to fight him at every turn and eventually impeached him, failing his conviction by only one vote in the Senate. His party could hardly wait to get rid of him when his (Lincoln's) term ended.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Assumed the office as a result of the first "stolen election" for president. It was all arranged by the strong Republican party, still powerful following Lincoln and Grant and unwilling to let the Democrats take the office. Yes, the popular vote showed the Democratic candidate had won; so did the electoral college. But back-room deals were to be made. Conniving Republican power brokers threw together a deal that utilized a 15-man committee that was supposedly impartial, made up of five Republicans, five Democrats and five justices of the Supreme Court. You guessed it, three of the five supposedly "neutral" justices were Republican and the committee's weight went to the backing of Hayes. Shocking? Oh, sure it is! His term was turbulent in many ways but ended without a chance for re-election mostly because it started as an exercise in chicanery and the public never fully accepted Hayes.
Chester A. Arthur
Once again, we have a man no one expected to be president but who succeeded a slain chief executive. He was in the vice presidential office only because of the powerful Republicans who had to thank him for his great organizational skills behind the scenes. Then when he had to take over the top spot and actually used his management skills for the betterment of the country, those same Republicans hated him. They even started a rumor that he was not actually qualified because he was born in Canada. That's right, birtherism was alive among Republicans 130 years ago. Arthur was so honest and dedicated to the nation's governance that his own party could not allow him to continue carrying their banner. Instead, they undermined him and placed the commonly mistrusted and known political crook, James G. Blaine, into nomination. The country knew enough to reject this man and the Democratic candidate won the office.
Grover Cleveland
I'm listing him here because, though he served two terms as president, his were the only two terms interrupted by four years. He was unseated after his first term because once again, the powerful Republican party (and especially the New York Tammany Hall corrupt political machine) could not abide his reforms. He vetoed more than twice as many legislative bills in his first term than had all 21 former presidents combined. And he created the Department of Labor, trying to protect workers and promote equality. This was not something Republicans could accept.
Benjamin Harrison
The guy who Republicans were able to push into the presidency after Cleveland's four amazingly prosperous years for the country, was a man with an impressive political pedigree but with practically no ability to govern. The Republican-heavy congress ran the country for his first two years as he took little notice of their destructive new bills. But the nation was watching and the midterm elections saw a sweep by Democrats who came back to power and began halting some of the drain of the national wealth. The same electorate had wised up and when Cleveland ran again, this time he was elected in a landslide.
Wm Howard Taft
"Big Bill" Taft never cared for the office of president and was goaded there by his wife and his brothers. For some reason, Teddy Roosevelt had groomed Taft as his successor and the party nominated him. He won handily. However, he soured most of the more liberal Republicans and angered Roosevelt early in his term. By the time he ran again, his Republican party was split in its support of his policies and when Teddy started a third party movement, running as a "Bull Moose" candidate, the vote was split and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won easily. Party in-fighting to blame once again.
Warren G. Harding
I have not been including men who died in office, but in this case, his death was a relief to the presidency and to his party. He almost certainly could not have been given a second term. There was never a clear cause of Harding's death and some believed he might have been poisoned to hide much of his failure to the nation. Corruption was rampant throughout his three years in office. He was in the office only by default because the Republican convention couldn't decide on a more qualified candidate, and they (in their typically facile way of using whatever advantage they can grasp) put him into nomination because he was likable and handsome - and the 1920 election would be the first one to allow females to vote! Fascinating.
Herbert Hoover
Not much to be said. He inherited a high-flying economy but no fiscal course corrections had been made since before Wilson's administration. When the market crashed after seven months of Hoover's term, he naturally got blamed for every financial woe of the great depression. Probably a good man and he had many personal accomplishments in life - but no one could survive in office after the country took that fall.
Gerald Ford
The man was honorable as far as we could tell, but after his finishing of the second term of the de-throned and disreputable Nixon, who had appointed Ford as his recent new vice president, the otherwise acceptable candidate fell prey to a disillusioned public who needed to "Trow da bums out."
James Earl Carter
"Jimmy" Carter smiled his way into the hearts of a nation that was tired of secrecy and dishonorable tactics, even though the tactics were not Ford's but his predecessor's. Still, the nation cried out for change. Carter was one of the most intelligent men to ever hold the office, but he admitted he was unschooled in much of what was required. Chiefly, he could not play that massive and often out-of-tune organ called congress. And he was the second president to be pushed out of office because he was too honest. Same fate that befell Arthur, but it was not Carter's own party shenanigans this time but an electorate stirred by a great communicator with visions of national greatness that sank Carter's ship of state.
George H.W.Bush
The rosy glow in the country as unemployment reached a long-time low near the end of the Reagan years almost propelled the vice president into his own top office. He essentially promised the nation that all the good stuff of the previous years would continue and that we would be a "kinder and gentler America." Following Reagan's eight years and almost a dozen tax hikes, Bush promised no new taxes which was to haunt him a few years later when the economy started to decline. And he urged us "forward, always forward...for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light." I wonder whether that forward encouragement hurt his re-election chances. Republicans today have jumped on the term when used in President Obama's campaign, calling it a socialist slogan. At any rate, G. H. W. Bush was denied a second term and the reason had to be "the economy, stupid!"
* * *
So these are the presidents who failed to win a second term. If our current president fails to win in November, it will no doubt be "the economy, stupid!" that does him in. Unfortunately, there wasn't (and isn't today) a human alive who could in less than four years turn around the horrific economy that resulted from the devastating wars and policies of the G.W. Bush administration. And he had eight years to exact such destruction on our financial well-being, then handed off the expensive wars along with the impossible economic woes to a new president. Obama may not be able to solve all the problems even with a second term, but his dedication to the recovery and the absolutely imperative policies he has fostered for growth and solvency should have the chance to mature. FDR was given two full terms and then elected to an unprecedented third term because he had the capacity to get us back on track. Obama won't get a third term due to the changed law of the land, but he certainly deserves the two full terms to bring us closer to the fiscal health we enjoyed prior to G. W. Bush.
Be that as it may, I wonder whether you noticed any trends through the reading of the history of one-term presidents. Here's one that should glare from the page: Republicans (and their progenitors, the Whigs) were in almost every case, guilty of corrupt practices to fight against all candidates who dissatisfied the party's top strong-arms. And several times, it was their own man they had put into the office that they turned against and failed to re-nominate. It was the group called Radical Republicans who impeached their own man, Andrew Johnson, and narrowly missed this chance to oust the second Republican to ever hold the office. It would seem today that using the term radical when referring to that party is redundant.
For the 2012 election, the Republicans, amid many internal squabbles and dissatisfactions, have nominated a man who does not inspire confidence even among those who are trying to show support. The problem faced by the Democrats then is not that a better candidate has emerged for the opposition, nor the prospect that a businessman background might somehow mount a stronger attack on the problems of our economy. No. The problem for our current election cycle is strictly legalized fiscal corruption. And this is the result of a damnable Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited money to influence the vote. As mentioned earlier, Republicans will use whatever advantage presents itself to attain their desired ends. This time around, we stand to lose all vestiges of our former democratic ideals in a sea of dark money. When any party of the people has no more possibility of competing against the party of the corporation due to corrupt management and ignorant (or purposeful partisan) abuses by our highest court, our democracy is finished.
If the best man for the job can be forced out of office purely under the financial crushing by the wealthy who have a vested interest in seeing Republicans at the helm, then our democracy can kiss it's ass goodbye and from now on, we can kiss the asses of our overlords. The one-man, one-vote concept may very well cease to exist as a practical call to patriotism as of November, 2012. Think! THINK! THINK!!!
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