Lessons abound from US elections over 80 years

By Dominic Odipo

It is now almost certain that the American Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney will take on the Democratic Party’s incumbent President Barack Obama in the presidential elections due on the first Tuesday of November, this year.

Unlike their Kenyan counterparts, the Americans always know when they will be voting for their president. The election date has been fixed by their laws as the first Tuesday of November of the fourth year after the last presidential elections. No one individual can change this date or try and play ping-pong with it as we Kenyans try to do every so often. No sitting president can use this presidential election date as a secret weapon.

Who will win the American presidential elections due this November? Will it be Romney or Obama? No one knows yet. There are still too many possible rogue elements, which could intrude between now, and November to swing the political balance this or the other way.

But if history can be any guide, here is how the Americans have voted for their presidents over the last 80 years, or since 1932, the year when the Great Depression hit its record low:

Over the last 80 years, the Americans have been ruled by thirteen (13) presidents, if you include the incumbent, Barack Obama. Of these 13, seven were members of the Democratic Party, like Obama, while six were Republicans, like Romney.

The seven Democrats were Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945), Harry Truman (1945-1953), John Kennedy (1961-1963), Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969), Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Obama (2009---)

The six Republicans were Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), Richard Nixon (1969-1974), Gerald Ford (1974-1977), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), George H W Bush (1989-1993) and his son, George W Bush (2001-2009).

Bush Snr trounced

Altogether, as you can see, the Democrats have been in power for 44 of the last 80 years, while the Republicans have been in charge for 36 of those 80 years.

Of all the presidents listed above, 12 of them have, at one time or another, been voted directly into office by the American people.

The only exception is Ford, a Republican who, as Nixon’s vice president, assumed the presidency in August 1974 following Nixon’s resignation over the infamous Watergate scandal. It is also interesting to note that, of these thirteen presidents, four of them, Truman, Johnson, Ford and Bush Snr., got to the presidency after serving immediately before as vice president.

Part of the reason why the Democrats have occupied the White House for a longer period over the last 80 years, is that President Roosevelt was elected four times, just before and during World War 11, before the American Constitution was changed to limit a presidential tenure to two consecutive four-year terms.

Of all the Democrats who sought re-election during this period after serving as president, only one, Jimmy Carter, was voted out by the American people at the subsequent presidential elections.

Roosevelt died in 1945, shortly after having been re-elected for the third time. Truman moved in to complete Roosevelt’s fourth term but was then elected in his own right in 1948. Kennedy was elected in 1960 but was assassinated in November 1963 before he completed his first term. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, completed Kennedy’s term but was then elected in his own right in 1964, while Clinton was re-elected in 1996.

Of the six Republican presidents, two of them, Ford and Bush Snr., sought election but were thrown out by the American people.

Ford sought election in 1976 but was defeated by Carter, while Bush Snr. sought re-election in 1992 but was beaten by Bill Clinton.

On balance, therefore, over the last 80 years, whenever a Democratic Party president has sought re-election, as Obama is doing this year, he has won.

The only exception in this regard is Carter. Re-election appears to have been a more precarious undertaking on the Republican side of the American party political divides.

Massachusetts factor

There is also one other historical tit bit, which the Obama camp will probably not have failed to notice. The last time a candidate from the state of Massachusetts (Romney’s home state) got to this stage of the race, he was roundly defeated. That happened in November 1988 when Michael Dukakis took on Bush Snr.

Incidentally, Dukakis, just like Romney was also a former governor of Massachusetts. Could there be any lessons lurking in these seemingly neutral historical facts?

For most of us here in Kenya, it will be an unmitigated disaster if Barack Obama is defeated in November. Yet we need to remember that our prayers and good wishes alone will not ensure his victory.

The historical momentum and the political realities ruling in the run-up to the November elections will make or break this son of the son of K’Ogelo, Siaya County.

The writer is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.

dominicodipo@yahoo.co.uk