Why Gerald Ford Will Always Be President

By Kleinheider Posted on November 3, 2009 at 5:33 pm

James Pinkerton on the likely result of the elections of 2009:

The point here is that the political equivalent of the statistical concept of regression always kicks in after an election: Things are never as good as you hope, nor as bad as you fear. The middling middle triumphs: Hello, President Ford.

There have been exceptions, of course, to this muddle-through rule. Such instances are sufficiently rare in American history that they get their own special term: “realignment.” And there have been only four of five realignments in American history. Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers led one one the 30s and 40s, and Ronald Reagan and his Reagan Revolutionaries led another in the the 80s–although once again, the level of change the Reaganites achieved was deeply disappointing to “movement” conservatives.

A year ago, Obama might have thought that he was going to be another FDR–an admiring media told him he could do it–but it hasn’t happened. Perhaps the situation might have been different if Obama had put more emphasis, sooner, on the primary issues of jobs and mortgages, thus cementing the loyalties of worse-off swing voters. But instead, Obama chose healthcare and global warming, and he pursued those secondary issues with no great competence.

So no Rooseveltian realignment for Obama, just Clintonian regression.

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