How to Achieve Greatness? Obama and the One-Term Promise

Is Obama the worst president in the post-World War II era?

Not quite.  That distinction, according to a Harris Poll taken this past January, goes to Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.  (The poll includes FDR, who died during World War II, but never mind.)   Obama, however, is running second to Bush as the worst modern president, largely because of the judgments of Republicans and independents.  Here’s a chart summarizing the results of Harris poll:

WORST PRESIDENT SINCE WORLD WAR II

“Looking at the list of presidents since World War II, which one do you think was the worst president?”

Note: Totals may not add to 100% because of rounding.

Note: * indicates less than 0.5%

What are we to make of these results?  First, note that this is an online interactive poll of  2,576 adults.  Although Harris claims to have weighted the sample to match most major demographic variables of the population at large (age, gender, race, partisan i.d.) it remains the case that this is not truly a random sample of the adult population.  So, we need to keep the imprecise nature of these results in mind. As further evidence that these results may not be reliable, note that the poll also asked respondents to name the greatest president of all time.  Here it appears that the online respondents weren’t provided a list of names, so they had to come up with a president on their own.  Among those rated the greatest president,  Obama finished 7^th – just behind Bill Clinton’s 6^th place finish, but four spots ahead of Bush the Younger who came in as the 11^th greatest president. (The top four greatest presidents were Lincoln, Reagan, FDR and Washington.)  One suspects that when asked to name presidents on their own, the online population’s collective knowledge of the pre-Reagan presidents drops off precipitously once they get beyond the big three of Lincoln, Washington and FDR.  So those in recent memory received the most votes.

But even if we somehow take these results at face value – that we believe Obama is the 7th greatest president but also the second worst in the modern era – it’s not clear what they signify. As I have said repeatedly – most recently on my VPR gig – it’s far too early to assess Obama’s historical ranking.  Indeed, I think it’s too early to evaluate Bush’s presidency – where he ends up in the historical rankings will depend heavily on the outcome of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and assessments of the war on terror more generally. (To provoke my more liberal friends, I often lay out a not entirely implausible scenario in which Iraq becomes a stable, oil producing democracy amid a growing appreciation for Bush’s anti-terrorism campaign, with the result that Bush goes down as one of the five greatest presidents of all time.  It is fun to watch their heads explode.)  My point is that any effort to “rank” Obama this early is an interesting parlor game, but not much more.

Then why cite these results?  For two reasons.  To begin, this is the first effort I have seen in which the population is asked to compare Obama with other presidents, as opposed to simply asking whether one approves of Obama’s job as president.  Second, unlike most previous efforts to rank presidents, these results are based on the public’s evaluations, as opposed to rankings made by presidential historians and other “experts”.  Why does this matter?  Because Obama made an interesting statement in an interview with Diane Sawyer two days before his State of the Union address (as reported in the NY Times):  “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president …I don’t want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity.” His made this point in response to Sawyer’s question about his falling poll numbers.

One is tempted, at first glance, to applaud Obama’s evident willingness to stand on principle – to make the hard decisions – even if it costs him popularity and, eventually, a second term in office.  We can argue, of course, whether in fact Obama has exercised this kind of leadership, or whether he has been all too sensitive to public opinion and unwilling to make unpopular decisions.  We might also remember that this “polls be damned” leadership style was precisely what his predecessor, George W. Bush, was criticized for exercising when he escalated the U.S. military presence in Iraq despite falling polling numbers and growing popular opposition to that war.  Of course, Bush embraced the surge after winning reelection.

But should Obama be applauded for his apparent willingness to risk reelection in order to do what’s “right”? I want to suggest here that Obama’s statement (assuming we take him at his word) betrays a fundamental misreading of what it means to exercise presidential leadership in the American political system. He seems to suggest that presidents face a choice: they can do what’s “right”, or they can pander to popular opinion in order to win reelection.  But upon closer inspection, that statement seems to suggest that the public is not capable of rewarding a president for making the “hard choices.”  For better or for worse, we operate under a political system in which ultimate authority is exercised by the people through regular elections.  This is the means by which they signal support for, or opposition to, a president and his policies.  It is not foolproof – the public can make mistakes – but that is the price we pay for embracing a republican form of government.  Under this system, the ultimate test of presidential effectiveness is whether they win reelection.  If one looks online at the Harris Poll cited above, the top 12 presidents on the list of  “greatest presidents” all won reelection.  But one need not agree with the Harris Poll  to know that there are almost no one-term presidents who are considered “great” or even near great.  This is not, I would argue, because greatness is bestowed on those who win reelection – it is because presidents who are great, or at least effective in the eyes of the public, are almost always rewarded with a second term in office.

As we celebrate President’s Day, it would do well for Obama to remember that the greatest presidents – Washington, Lincoln, FDR and Reagan (at least based on the Harris Poll!) were all fundamentally great politicians who never lost sight of the fact that their ability to lead depended on maintaining the support of The People.  That support came not because of presidents’ artifice or pandering, but because they pursued policies that were consistent with American ideals and that attracted broad popular support.

Obama may yet end up a one-term president.  But if he does, he likely won’t also be considered “great”.  Instead, it is far more likely that he will be viewed as mediocre – or worse.