Category Archives: People

Why It’s Always Morning in America: The Legacy of Carter’s Malaise Speech

Thirty five years ago this evening, President Jimmy Carter went on nationwide television to give his infamous “malaise” speech. You can watch the speech in its entirety here.

[youtube.com/watch?v=KCOd-qWZB_g]

If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that he never actually uses the word “malaise”. Instead, he talks about the “crisis of confidence” that threatened the nation’s “will” and “unity”. It is an emotionally searing speech, noteworthy for the candor and level of introspection Carter displayed to a national audience that has rarely, if ever, been expressed by any elected official again. Unfortunately, through the years, the “malaise” speech has come to symbolize all that went wrong with the Carter presidency. As a result, pundits – and presidents too – have tended to draw the wrong lesson from this event.

Some context is useful in understanding why Carter gave the speech. Three years into his presidency Carter’s approval ratings had dropped below 30% and were at the low point of his presidency to date. While he was preoccupied with two important overseas trips – one to sign the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union and then a diplomatic visit to Japan and South Korea – Americans back home were waiting in long gas lines as they suffered through another energy crisis triggered in part by the Iranian revolution that overthrew the American-backed Shah. Initially Carter planned on giving still another speech urging Congress to address the energy crisis, but ultimately he decided that it would be waste of his time, since he had already given several talks on this topic. Instead, he retreated to Camp David, and summoned leading public figures, including many prominent religious leaders, to meet with him to discuss the state of the nation. Then, like Moses coming down the mountain, Carter went on television to give his famous address, one that went well beyond discussing the energy crisis, although he discussed that too. But most of the speech showcased Carter, the former Baptist preacher, as the nation’s “minister-in-chief”, beginning with his self-flagellation as he recounted criticism of his leadership, and then addressing what he believed to be a growing loss of confidence in the nation’s leaders and institutions.

As you might expect, the speech generated a mixed reaction. In part this was because Carter undercut the message of unity by which he ended the speech when three days later he asked for the resignations of his entire cabinet and key White House advisers (he accepted three cabinet resignations). Gallup polling data that I can find suggests a modest boost, from 29% to 32% in his already tepid approval ratings, although the polls are taken so far apart (the first on July 10 and the next on July 30) that it’s hard to know how much movement to attribute to the speech and subsequent firings. (Reportedly, internal White House polling showed a much bigger overnight boost in approval, but this was before the cabinet firings.)

The long-term impact of the speech, however, may have been more significant. Like the ebullient FDR running against the dour Hoover during the depths of the recession in 1932, Ronald Reagan, with his sunny optimism, was immensely successful during the 1980 campaign at portraying Carter as the nation’s “scolder-in-chief” who was too willing to blame Americans rather than his own inept leadership for the nation’s ills. Although polling suggested that many Americans’ views on the issues were closer to Carter’s than to Reagan’s, it did not prevent Reagan from winning the election. When Reagan won reelection in a landslide four years later by campaigning on the “It’s morning again in America” theme, the die was cast. But it wasn’t just Reagan who capitalized on Carter’s failed attempt to level with the public – Ted Kennedy later noted that the speech convinced him to challenge the incumbent president for the Democratic nomination.

Mindful of the purported lesson of Carter’s “malaise” speech, no national candidate would ever again make the mistake of speaking so candidly, and in such critical tones, about the American people even if much of that criticism was self-directed and perhaps even true. Instead, candidates on the hustings are much more likely to take a page from the Reagan playbook by emphasizing the indomitable American spirit, can-do work ethic, etc. And woe to any candidate who slips up and leaves himself open to the charge that Americans might be at fault for anything, as in this Romney reaction to an Obama statement. That is the lasting legacy of the “malaise” speech.

Meanwhile, Carter went on to have a much more successful post-presidency – indeed, he has arguably been one of the most effective ex-presidents in history due to his philanthropic efforts through the aegis of the Carter Center. He has never expressed any regret to my knowledge regarding the “malaise” speech – indeed, the only regret I have ever heard from him regarding his presidency was his failure to include one more helicopter in the ill-fated Iran rescue mission. But that is a topic for another day. For now, let’s remember when it was morning, again, in America.
[youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY]

Sunday Shorts: How A President’s Polyps Led to Scandal and Who Won’t Rock

Here are Sunday’s Shorts:

On this day in 1985, a 74-year old Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove a benign polyp from his intestine. While under the knife doctors discovered a cancerous polyp which necessitated a second surgery to remove a portion of his intestine. The event would be of little historical interest (Reagan made a full recovery) were it not for the fact that this also marks the period during which Reagan first approved what became the Iran-contra affair – the ill-fated effort to trade American arms to Iran in return for their help in securing the release of Americans held hostage by Mideast terrorist groups. In his July 17th diary entry, Reagan writes, “Some strange soundings are coming from some Iranians. Bud M. [Robert McFarlane, Reagan’s National Security adviser who initiated the plan to trade arms for hostages] will be here to talk about it. It could be a breakthrough on getting our seven kidnaps victims back. Evidently the Iranian economy is disintegrating fast under the strain of war” [excerpt reprinted in Lou Cannon’s Role of a Lifetime]. McFarlane met with Reagan in the hospital the next day, with only Chief of Staff Don Regan present, and informed the President that it might be possible to open up a communication channel, using Israeli officials as intermediaries, with members of the Iranian government. McFarlane’s goal in initiating contact was largely strategic; he sought to better position the U.S. to address the power vacuum likely to occur in the aftermath of the death of the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. However, it is clear that Reagan’s primary motive in agreeing to McFarlane’s plan was to secure the release of the hostages, which included the Mideast CIA station chief William Buckley. Reagan had just come off a meeting with one of the hostage’s families and was visibly moved by their appeals to him to do something. However, there is no evidence that either McFarlane or Regan made it clear to Reagan that by subsequently approving the sale of arms to Iran in order to secure the hostages’ release, Reagan was in effect negotiating with kidnappers, thus violating administration policy. Indeed, there is some question whether Reagan, who was recovering from major surgery, was in the best frame of mind to consider such a momentous decision. When pressed later by members of the Tower Commission to recall when he actually approved sending arms to the Iranians, Reagan gave conflicting accounts and it became clear that he simply didn’t remember when, or even if, he gave the initial approval. It is a reminder that although we quite rightly hold presidents solely accountable for the decisions they make, those decision are based in part on the information, expertise and advice of their advisers. In this case Reagan’s advisers failed the President, with significant consequences.

Here’s Reagan’s national address almost two years later, on March 4, 1987, in the aftermath of the report of the Tower Commission which he appointed to investigate the Iran-contra affair, in which Reagan finally admits he traded arms for hostages:

[youtube.com/watch?v=R67CH-qhXJs]

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the announcement that the Republicans will hold their 2016 nominating convention in Cleveland, Harry Enten presents the following data regarding the impact of convention siting on election results. If conventions boost a candidate’s performance in that state, one would “expect to see a party’s candidate improve relative to his national performance as compared with the same party’s candidate four years ago. For example, the GOP convention in 2012 was held in Tampa, so Mitt Romney should have done better in Florida than John McCain did in 2008, once we control for the fact that he did better nationwide.” But that’s not what Enten finds. Consistent with my post on the matter, Harry concludes: “There is no proof that a convention site has much effect on a state’s voting patterns.”

Hope you had a great Sunday!

How One President Spent His Year, Summarized In One Table: Ronald Reagan, 1984

As I wade into drafting the final version of my manuscript documenting the growth of the White House staff, I’ve been working my way through years of archival material I’ve accumulated from visits to 11 presidential libraries (not to mention material from scores of interviews with former White House aides). I thought it might be interesting to periodically present some of the historical documents as I come across them – I’ll try to do this every Saturday. This first installment is from the start of Ronald Reagan’s second term as president.

In January 1985, Don Regan was preparing to transition to his new job as Reagan’s chief of staff, replacing James Baker who was slated to become the Secretary of the Treasury in Regan’s stead. (Baker and Regan, both seeking new challenges, had decided to switch jobs. It does not appear that Reagan gave much thought to the switch which, with the benefit of hindsight, was probably not a good idea. Regan was ill-suited to managing the White House and was largely responsible for allowing the Iran-contra affair to take place on his watch.)

As part of the transition, Regan commissioned a number of studies regarding the various functions of the White House offices, including one from the Scheduling Office, which operated under the supervision of Michael Deaver. Deaver was part of a triumvirate of senior aides, along with Baker and Ed Meese, who served as Reagan’s primary first term advisers at the top of the White House organization. When Regan became chief of staff at the start of the second term, he essentially took on all of their jobs.

Deaver’s primary responsibility was orchestrating the public face of the Reagan presidency, which included overseeing communications, scheduling and travel. Among the many documents Deaver passed along to Regan was this one, which offered a monthly breakdown of Reagan’s schedule, organized by subject matter, for 1984. Note that the summary does not include time spent in his daily staff meetings with his senior aides. Nor does Deaver (or the aide who created it) specify how the table was constructed.

Not surprisingly, considering this was a period of escalating tension with the Soviet Union, Reagan spends about 25% of his time dealing with his NSC advisers. Much of that time occurs early in the year, as Reagan struggles to extricate the U.S. from its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon after the tragic terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks there that killed 241 American servicemen.

By the fall, however, Reagan is in full-bore campaign mode, with over 50% of his scheduled time dealing with politics in September, and more than 80% in October. (The Republican Convention that renominated Reagan took place in late August that year.) All told the time Reagan spends in political meetings for the full year equals his time spent on national security issues and together they account for about half his scheduled time. Everything else pales in significance; the third biggest chunk of time is with his cabinet (8%) and the press (8%).

This is just one year from the Reagan presidency, and it is an election year to boot, so I wouldn’t want to generalize too much from Deaver’s chart to other presidencies. But my sense is that the preoccupation with national security issues is not unusual for the modern presidency, in large part because there is no other office that can take the lead in this area. Certainly Congress has proved itself ill-suited to exercise a leadership role in the national security realm. As it turned out, however, Reagan was about to embark on perhaps his most significant foreign policy initiative – the ill-fated effort to trade arms for hostages that ultimately cost Regan his job, and almost cost Reagan his presidency.

Hillary Clinton: Is She Rich Enough To Be President?

Democratic Party activists and leading pundits have of late begun speculating whether Hillary Clinton’s wealth might prove to be an obstacle to her presidential aspirations. But history suggests their concerns are misplaced. The problem is not that Hillary’s too rich. It’s that she’s not rich enough – at least not rich enough to achieve presidential greatness!

As Clinton understands, a major drawback to being the front-runner for your party’s presidential nomination, with no clear rivals in sight, is that the media has no one else to talk about. Journalists, of course, view their mission as speaking truth to power and, not incidentally, they also have a strong preference for a competitive presidential nominating race. For this reason, they have spent considerable time of late, aided by issue activists and other party players, probing for weaknesses in Clinton’s candidacy. This is part of the candidate vetting process that Marty Cohen et al describe in their The Party Decides. Part of that vetting involves testing possible negative campaign frames to see which ones might have legs on the campaign trail. So far the vetters have discussed Benghazi against the backdrop of Clinton’s record as Secretary of State, her evolving views on gay marriage and, most recently, her personal wealth. The wealth issue was triggered by Clinton’s statement, at the start of her recent book tour, that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House. Critics immediately pounced, noting that given her $200,000 speaking fees and current net worth hovering at an estimated $15 million, the comments made her seem out of touch with ordinary Americans. More enticing still, pundits speculated that her wealth made her vulnerable to a challenge from a populist candidate (Elizabeth Warren, anyone?) who was not perceived to be so closely tied to Wall St. and the “1 percent”. (See also here and here.)

What are we to make of this effort to characterize Hillary as the poor-woman’s Mitt Romney – a plutocrat out of touch with the average American? History suggests Hillary’s critics are drawing the wrong lesson. Let’s face it – to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway (perhaps apocryphally) paraphrasing F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Presidents are different from you and me. They have more money.” Lots more, in fact. You don’t find very many presidents who were not men of considerable means when they took office.

Interestingly, the wealthier the President, the more likely he (someday she) will be considered one of the greater presidents, based on evaluations by historians and political scientists. (In previous posts I’ve discussed some of the problems with presidential rankings, so I won’t belabor the point here.) Consider the presidents typically ranked as the nation’s greatest: Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. With the exception of Lincoln (and who knows where he would be ranked had he served out his second term) all took office possessing great personal wealth – in fact, they are among the wealthiest of all the presidents. Washington ranks second in net worth, just behind JFK. Jefferson is third (although he was mired in debt in his post-presidential years), and TR fourth. Even FDR, the poorest among them at a wealth ranking of only nine (again, excluding Lincoln) based on an estimated net worth in current dollars of $60 million, has 4 times Clinton’s fortune. All told, at least 17 presidents outrank Hillary in personal wealth and these include some of the highest ranked presidents, including Jackson (ranked 8), Kennedy (11), Adams (12), Madison (13), LBJ (14) and Monroe (15). Indeed, if you control for the usual suspects (death in office, scandal, whether the nation is at war, and if the president won reelection), wealth is a statistically significant predictor of a president’s historical ranking (although I wouldn’t put too much stock in the coefficient)!

Now, to anticipate the expressions of outrage that are sure to flow into my comments section, I am in fact deeply skeptical that there’s any direct link between wealth and presidential greatness, regression results notwithstanding (although I don’t rule out the possibility!) My point is simply that there’s nothing in the historical record that says being wealthy should disqualify you from holding the nation’s highest office.

Indeed, I think that rather than shy away from publicizing her wealth, Hillary should embrace it. Think of the possible slogans!

Hillary Clinton. She’s not a….er…..witch. She’s just rich.

But is she rich enough to be in the “10 percent” of great presidents?

[Update: 12:08. And now the New York Times piles on by analyzing Chelsea’s speaking fees!]

Meanwhile, Mad magazine has some fun at Hillary’s expense (hat tip to Shelly Sloan):

Is Obama the Worst Modern President? Take Two

Conservative pundits such as the Wall St. Journal’s Peggy Noonan continue to cite the recent Quinnipiac poll as evidence that Obama is perhaps the worst president to have served during the last seven decades. For reasons I discussed in my previous post, however, I think we need to resist jumping to that conclusion. First, the Quinnipiac survey asks respondents to choose the best, and the worst, president from among the 12 who have served in the post-World War II era, rather than allowing respondents to rank each of them using the same set of standards. Given the degree of partisan sorting among the general public, (and perhaps the public’s lack of historical memory!) we should not be surprised that the two most recent presidents, Obama and Republican George W. Bush, come in first and second, respectively, in the worst president list, and that in a head-to-head comparison of Bush and Obama, Democrats and Republicans present almost mirror images in their choice of the worst president. (Note: contrary to what Sean Trende seems to suggest, this is not evidence that we are a 50-50 nation – see my previous posts on party sorting.)

As I noted, however, if we simply ask respondents to evaluate each president based on a fixed set of criteria, as in this Gallup poll, rather than comparing them in order to choose the best or worst, Obama fares much better. So question wording against the backdrop of recent partisan sorting is almost certainly what is driving the Quinnipiac result. It is the same phenomenon that, as I discussed here, makes these two presidents the most polarizing in recent history.

My second concern is that it is simply too early to put much stock in the stability of the public’s evaluation of Obama’s presidency. Opinions regarding a president’s performance can and do change. As evidence, consider the following chart put together by Tina Berger that tracks the net approval difference across time in Gallup polls asking the general public to rate presidents on a five-point scale, from “outstanding” to “poor”. (Tina combined the “outstanding” and “above average” ratings, and the “below average” and “poor ratings”, and subtracted the second total from the first to calculate the net difference.)

As you can see, both Reagan and Clinton have seen their net approval ratings climb some 20 points from where they stood in polling that occurred during their presidencies. That climb, I suggested in my last post, largely reflects the public’s growing appreciation of the sustained economic growth during their respective presidencies. Note that Nixon, Carter and George W. Bush all have net negative ratings, while Kennedy’s (based on only two polls) and George H. W. Bush’s are consistently positive (along with Clinton and Reagan). Ford and Carter, meanwhile, straddle the break-even line.

With the exception of Ford, note that none of these presidents’ net favorability ratings today are close to where they began when Gallup polled during their respective presidencies. Some of that fluctuation is driven by new stories that momentarily focus public attention on a particular president, but it also reflects more fundamental opinion change as the presidents’ historical record comes into focus. Given this, is it conceivable that Obama’s net favorability will mimic Reagan and Clinton’s positive trends? To date Gallup has included Obama in only two of these particular polling exercises, so it is too early to draw lasting conclusions regarding where he will end up. But if the unemployment levels continue to fall throughout the last two-plus years of his presidency against the backdrop of an accelerating economic recovery, I would not be surprised to see Obama move squarely back into the positive favorability range. At that point no one – not even the partisan pundits – will be paying much attention to the Quinnipiac poll.