Lildis

(Lildis', Lildat)

Already Gone

When The Eagles were both at their height and on the verge of breaking up a famous exchange occurred on-stage during one of their concerts when Glen Frey told guitarist Don Felder “When we get offstage, I’m gonna kick your ass…”.  What might be less well known was the set of events leading up to the confrontation.  Frey was enraged that prior to the concert (which was a benefit for then California Senator Alan Cranston) Felder had replied to the Senator’s expression of thanks with a somewhat sardonic “You’re welcome Senator…I guess”.  Frey found it disrespectful.  Felder didn’t give a shit how Frey found it.

I have to say – although I admire Cranston (who had the foresight to sue Adolf Hitler before WWII) I kind of agree with Felder, who was a bit sick of the band being booked to play benefits for causes and people before anyone checked with the entire group to see if they agreed with the cause or the person.  Jerry Brown, No Nukes, Save the Snail Darter….whatever – the presumption that everyone was OK with this choice without checking was unfair.  So – the title of this commentary is in honor of Mr. Felder’s “I guess”, and the classic Eagle’s song of the same name – and it is aimed directly at the heart of the Democratic party. 

As predicted here months ago the Massachusetts nominee for Governor, the inexecrable Martha Coakley, brought the party to defeat, a result that given both her professional and electoral record was thoroughly predictable.  (I’m tempted to use the word “inexorable” just to contrast it with “inexecrable” and send my two or three readers scrambling to the dictionary – but – well I guess I just did).  Coakley is contemptibly incompetent but even worse were the stale efforts of people who should have known better to bring her to the forefront once again.  Are you really telling me that all the powers that be who backed this candidacy had concluded, after a diligent search through the enormous talent pool available, that Martha Coakley was the best choice as nominee, let alone as Governor?  Are you kidding me?

The truth is that anyone who expects some degree of prior consultation from the associations they are part of – be it a political party, a labor union, a veterans organization or a community group – played the role of Don Felder in this scenario while the higher ups were the Glen Freys.  There is no way to conclude that Coakley got to where she was other than through the crass manipulation of an unthinking machine.  Her pol pals sent her money, she squeaked through a primary against minimal competition and then got beat, yet again, as the Democratic nominee in the most Democratic state in the union.  Thanks for the nominee party hacks – I guess. 

The message here is that no one appreciates presumptions – and the person (aside from Massachusett’s politicos) who needs to most heed this message is one H. Rodham Clinton.  It is quite possible that no non-incumbent has ever had a firmer grip on the term “presumptive nominee” than Hillary does right now.  Sit on that presumption at your peril Madame Secretary.  Her inexplicable decision to campaign for Coakley aside there is no way that Hillary Clinton should see this mid-term election as anything other than a warning to avoid thinking that reliance upon an existing machine is the way to ultimate victory.  Trust me Mrs. Clinton - new blood, new ideas, new people and new thinking will be required in even what may appear to be the safest of campaigns, or - you could end up eating lunch all by yourself.

 Let the Pigeons Loose!

The 2014 mid term elections are now over and that means that everyone can get back to doing what they really wanted to do all along – worry about the 2016 Presidential election.  This is a game that typically begins earlier every year, receding recently at a pace that will actually break the space time barrier and have colonial pundits in 1776 ruminating about the chances of Chelsea Clinton’s election in 2036 against an as-yet-to be-determined member of the Adams or Bush family. 

In anticipation of this madness moving to the forefront of the political calendar I’ve undertaken a review of the following books, reading through each of them at a glacial pace and attempting to collate the similarities and differences between the races they cover and the current political climate.  I’m trying to see what can we learn about the past and apply to the future from:

Presidential Campaigns	Paul Boller
See How They Ran	Gil Troy
Crapshoot – Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency	Jules Witcover
They Also Ran	Irving Stone
Marathon – Race for the White House 1976	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
What it Takes - 1988	Richard Ben Cramer
Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars? - 1988	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
The Making of the President 1960	Theodore White
The Making of the President 1964	Theodore White
The Making of the President 1972	Theodore White
The Selling of the President 1968	Joe McGinniss
An American Melodrama – the Presidential Election of 1968	Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page
Portrait of an Election - 1980	Elizabeth Drew
Mad as Hell – Revolt at the Ballot Box 1992	Jack Germond and Jules Witcover
Upside Down and Inside Out – 1992	James Ceaser and Andrew Busch
The Choice – How Clinton Won - 1996	Bob Woodward
The Betrayal of America - 2000	Vincent Bugliosi
The Battle for the White House and the Soul of America 2008	Carole Coleman
Redemption Song  2008	Niall Stanage
Game Change 2008	Mark Halperin, John Heilemann
Collision 2012	Dan Balz

Side Note:  I know you’re asking - what could make any rational human being subject himself to this type of exercise.  Answer – I’m a member of that sub-species “Politico Junkiensis” and actually love these sorts of books.  Ever since reading “Making of the President 1960” in junior high I’ve been hooked.

Back to the main question – what can we learn about the potential race in 2016 from prior elections?  Well – here’s an excerpt of the kind of things that will be included in the article I’m writing:

The fact that there again doesn’t seem to be a major vice-presidential connection to the race may connote a trend.

From 1960 until 2008 virtually every presidential election that didn’t include an incumbent involved some relationship to a sitting or former Vice President.  Even those races that did involve an incumbent President often included a former Vice Presidential nominee.  The Vice Presidency, once a political dead end, had become the most direct route to the Presidency (including a non-elective element such as through death or resignation).  This is a major theme of Jules Witcover’s book Crapshoot – Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency – (re-published and updated as “The American Vice Presidency” presumably because “Crapshoot” was deemed too harsh). Witcover’s point was that the process of choosing the Vice President was incredibly flawed given that they often become President.  Basically it comes down to one guy, under stress, choosing a running mate on the basis of whether he’ll help win one or two States in the election that’s coming up – when what should occur is a sober reflection on the person who is best qualified to become President.  I actually think that it is a bit harsh to tar all the selections for Veep with one brush, but there are some legitimate concerns when the process churns out a Dan Quayle or John Edwards.  These guys (at least until recently) do actually end up having the inside track to the Presidency or the presidential nomination.  You can even go back to 1948, when Roosevelt’s Veep (Truman) ran for the Presidency following a near complete term as President.  Following a brief interlude Eisenhower’s VP (Nixon) ran for the Presidency three times, Kennedy’s second in command (Johnson) ran in his own right in 1964 (after ascending to the Presidency), his VP (Humphrey) ran in 1968, Nixon’s final VP (Ford) ran in 1976, Ford’s running mate, Bob Dole, eventually secured a nomination for himself, Carter’s VP (Mondale) was the 1984 Democratic nominee, of course Reagan’s VP (Bush 1) ran for President and Clinton’s VP Al Gore would probably point out that he actually won the popular vote in 2000 as a sitting Vice President (maybe you’ve heard of that – it was in all the papers).  In fact, (discounting Alben Barkley, who was deemed too old to nominate, at age 74, in 1948), every sitting Vice President since 1944 has run for President in his own right except for Spiro Agnew, who was a convicted felon, Nelson Rockefeller, who was never elected and served less than half a term, and Dan Quayle, who was Dan Quayle.

But since Gore the Vice Presidency, and its nomination, has not been nearly as direct a route to the Presidency (or your party’s nomination for the Presidency).  Dick Cheney, though influential in the administration, was never even mentioned as a possible Presidential candidate.  John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate, imploded when he attempted to secure the Democratic nomination and Joe Biden does not seem likely to even run.  Only Paul Ryan’s potential candidacy holds much connection to a Vice Presidential nomination, and he hardly appears a frontrunner at this point in time.  This means then that going back to 2004 we could have four consecutive elections in which the major party’s nominees have not been either a former Vice President or Vice Presidential nominee for the first time since 1900.  But get this - from James Madison’s election until 1900 no Vice President or Vice Presidential nominee had ever ascended to the Presidency via election.  The Vice Presidency was as clear a political dead end as there could be.  So are we returning to the days when the second seat is the reward for a race well run – but not an invite to return to the starting line?  Maybe not anything that drastic but I do think that the tendency now is to see the Vice President’s role less as a potential electoral successor than as a functionary of the current administration.  In other words – since Gore and Cheney made the job substantive there seems less inclination to see the position as a means to an end, and instead view it as an end in itself.  Possibly not a bad thing – but certainly a new way of looking at the job.

 Here’s the Story…

If you grew up in the same era I did you will have read the above caption and already have the tune running through your head and the words “…of a man named Brady…” on your lips.  And it will probably be stuck there for the entire day.

Sorry.

But this Lildis section is about a man named Brady – Tom Brady.  Brady’s story has often been interwoven with that of a man named Manning (I’m talking the Peyton variety here) and I just wanted to interject a bit of reality into the debate about who is the “greater” quarterback.  Let me get my slide rule and calculator out here while I refer to my digitized QB analysis tool…

Ahhh screw it … it’s Brady.

Brady wins this debate not only because he’s won more than double the number of games when the two play against each other, or because he has three times as many rings, or because his wife is better looking (sorry Mrs. Manning).  It’s because he has consistently done more with less than any player in NFL history.  Peyton Manning is a great quarterback but Tom Brady is a greater football player – and that makes him, by however slight a margin, a better quarterback than Manning.  Brady knows how to run a quarterback sneak better, knows how to utilise a limited (sometimes substantially limited) receiving corp better, runs a better game plan, a better no-huddle, makes better use of his opponents weaknesses while hiding his own and, conversely, maximizes (sometimes to an almost unbelievable extent) the strengths of his own team while frustratingly negating the strengths of his opponents.  He works harder than any other player on the team, has overcome more obstacles than any prior 199^th draft pick and wins no matter what gets in his way.  Yes – he is helped by a coach who focusses on doing pretty much all of those things too – but lots of coaches have had good quarterbacks – they just haven’t had Tom Brady.

I must admit - I am biased – I’ve been a Patriots fan since I knew there was such a thing as football.  But I think that shouldn’t be seen as too substantial a prejudice.  I was a Patriot’s fan but I will be the first to tell you that, bar a few glorious seasons, the Patriots sucked in the years BT (Before Tom).  Our greatest player was an offensive lineman.  Nothing wrong with that.  But let’s just say that while he belongs on the list Jerry Kramer probably isn’t going to be the first name called out in the roster of Packer’s greats.  Same with Mike Webster for the Steelers.  All-time great teams are always associated with all time great quarterbacks.  Right now Tom Brady stands as a symbol of the Patriots' franchise in the same way that Bart Starr, Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw represent their teams.  Peyton Manning doesn’t mean that for the Colts or the Broncos.  (Say hello John Unitas and John Elway).   This doesn’t mean Manning isn’t great – but he is not transcendent in the way Brady has been. 

Look – football is about what you do with the tools you are given.  Put Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in adjoining prison cells with only a rock hammer and a few scraps of paper and wood and you’ll come back in a couple days to find Manning has built himself a very comfortable bed and set of shelves. 

Brady will be long gone.