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About the Author
Michael Nelson, a former editor of The Washington Monthly, is a
professor of political science at Rhodes College and a nonresident
senior fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University
of Virginia. Among his most recent books are How the South Joined the
Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation, with John
Lyman Mason, and The American Presidency: Origins and Development,
1787-2008, with Sidney M. Milkis. He is currently writing books
about the 1968 election and the 2008 election.
About Brainstorm
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
Kevin Carey
Laurie Fendrich
Teresa Ghilarducci, guest blogger
Sara Goldrick-Rab, guest blogger
John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
Brainstorm Alumni
Eric BanksDan Greenberg
Michael Nelson, guest blogger
Marty Nemko, guest blogger
Graham Spanier
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Bob Zemsky
Recent Posts
Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring: A Thanksgiving Farewell | Comment [2]
What's Wrong With Being in Congress? | Comment [1]
Whistling Dixie | Comment [10]
Election 2008: A View From West Point | Comment [1]
Smart Move, Poorly Executed | Comment [9]
Featured Articles By the Author
A Historic Political Street Fight
John Adams, in Brilliant Colors
LBJ's Waning and Waxing Reputation
Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and the Power of GOPtimism
How the GOP Conquered the South
College-Sports Books Go Varsity
Presidential Libraries Are Valuable Reflections of Their Eras
'K Street': A Political Hall of Mirrors
Michael Beschloss: Celebrity Meets Scholarship
The Scholar-Courtier and the Scholar-Politician
November 23, 2008
Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring: A Thanksgiving Farewell
It’s been great blogging for you on the vice presidency, the debates, baseball, and sundry other political and nonpolitical matters during this four-month guest gig. I’ve been accumulating a pet-peeves list in hopes that it would get long enough to make a decent post, but I guess I’ve been in too good a mood to think of many. All I’ve come up with is: saying “two-thousand ten” instead of “twenty-ten” (and so on — we really need to make the transition before 2066); “early on” when “early” does just as well; and “election cycle” instead of, well, “election.” These are the latest in a long list of pumped-up words and phrases headed by “5 a.m. in the morning” and “medication.” More is less when it comes to language.
So let me wrap things up on an entirely different note, recounting two stories of early-career mentoring for which I am deeply thankful. The first is conventional, the latter much less so — call it “reverse mentoring.”
My graduate-school adviser, Frank Rourke, was the only truly wise man I have ever known. Well into my studies, I told him that I was about to take a year or two off to work for The Washington Monthly as an editor. Frank, concerned that my detour into journalism would prove permanent, took me out for a beer. “You know,” he said, “one of the great things about being a professor is that you’re always in close contact with young people.”
Being young myself, this meant nothing to me at the time. But over the years the wisdom of Frank’s remark has sunk in deeper and deeper. It’s a lovely thing about the academic life, this continuing involvement with 18- to 22-year-olds who are making the transition from youth to adulthood.
My second story is one of reverse mentoring — the power of a bad example. When I started teaching, I had occasion to listen at length to the late-afternoon discourses of a senior colleague. He was a person of genuine accomplishment who had been honored with the presidencies of regional associations, the editorship of major journals, and appointments at prestigious institutions as chair and dean. He had a devoted family. Yet his entire conversation was of the honors he had not obtained and the slights he thought he had received. His was not the classic pessimist’s view of the glass half empty; his was the misery of one unsatisfied by a glass nearly full. He had all the ingredients of a happy life and yet somehow had brewed them into misery. I resolved then and forever that no matter how much or how little I might ever achieve in the way of recognition, doing my best as a teacher, scholar, colleague, citizen, churchman, friend, father, and husband would be reward unto itself.
Comment [2]November 17, 2008
What's Wrong With Being in Congress?
Most liberals and many conservatives decry the extent to which George W. Bush, encouraged by Dick Cheney, has drawn unilateral power into the presidency during these past eight years. Even before 9/11, Cheney was hiding the workings of his energy task force behind a curtain of executive secrecy and Bush was, on his own authority, taking charge of how the federal government treats embryonic stem cells.
With Bush and Cheney less than 10 weeks away from eviction from the White House and a former Constitutional law professor about to move in, wouldn’t you think members of Congress would look forward to restoring their branch of government to prominence? Especially those who have a future as leaders within that branch of government.
Apparently not. Joseph Biden, one of the most senior Democrats on Capitol Hill, left the Senate to become Obama’s vice president. Rahm Emanuel, tagged by many as a future speaker of the House, left to become Obama’s chief of staff, a job that hardly anyone lasts in for more than a few years. And now Hillary Clinton, a Senate majority leader in the making if there ever was one, seems eager to become secretary of state.
Maybe they’re right to end careers in Congress for even a brief stay in the executive. Presidents are not known for giving back the powers that their predecessors accumulare, and Congresses controlled by the president’s party are not known for taking them back.
Comment [1]November 11, 2008
Whistling Dixie
Match the content to the headline in today’s New York Times: “For the South, a Waning Hold on Politics.” Is the right answer A or B?
A. The president has been a Southerner for the past 20 years, but no more. Until recently, House and Senate Republican leaders were Southerners, and the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. None of this is true any longer. Hence, the South’s “waning hold.”
B. Appalachia voted strongly Republican this year. So did Southern whites. Thomas Schaller was right: the Democratic Party should henceforth “whistle past Dixie,” writing off the South in its quest for political victory.
Here’s a hint: A makes sense (Southerners really aren’t as powerful in Washington as they have been in recent years) and B doesn’t. Why would Democrats choose now to abandon a region which since 2004 has cut the Republicans’ presidential victory margin from 153 electoral votes to 43 electoral votes; reduced the GOP advantage among Southern senators from 18-4 to 15-7 (or even 14-8, if the Democrats win the Georgia Senate runoff); and shrunk the Republicans’ Southern majority from 33 to 11 in the House of Representatives? The iron has finally become hot for Democrats in the South. Why not keep striking?
B is the theme of Times reporter Adam Nossiter’s article. Go figure.
Comment [10]November 9, 2008
Election 2008: A View From West Point
I spent a couple days at West Point recently, guest-lecturing and visiting with some Army officers on the faculty who teach the introductory American politics course, which is required of all cadets. I quickly learned that they spend a lot more time in class stressing the importance of civilian control of the military than I do in my own intro course at Rhodes. Only much later did it occur to me that one of the reasons I and other professors at civilian colleges can pass over this subject lightly is that the West Point faculty do not.
What a luxury to live in a country where it doesn’t matter which candidate Army officers prefer because they will accept the results of the election no matter how it turns out. Did anyone one wake up last Tuesday wondering whether the Republicans would yield power if the Democrats won? Will anyone — even the most rabid haters of President Bush and Vice President Cheney — wake up on January 20, 2009, wondering whether they will call out the tanks to prevent President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden from taking the oath of office?
Less than a month after Obama becomes president, the United States will mark the 200th birthday of that other Illinois president, Abraham Lincoln. (Note to Obama: Please don’t do what Lincoln did after his election: grow a beard.) If any president ever had a good excuse to call off an election, it was Lincoln. But, Civil War or no, elections went ahead as scheduled throughout his term, even in 1864, when Lincoln expected to lose to a Democrat pledged to undo most of his war aims.
This is an election to celebrate not just for the visible reason — our first black president — but also for an invisible one: the sleep no American has to lose worrying whether the Army will allow him to take power.
Comment [1]November 6, 2008
Smart Move, Poorly Executed
Students of presidential transitions all agree that Ronald Reagan did it right and Bill Clinton did it wrong. Two elements of doing it right are filling the major White House staff positions before choosing the cabinet and filling those major staff positions quickly.
By that reckoning, Barack Obama was smart to ask Rahm Emmanuel to be his chief of staff the day after the election. Emanuel, a fellow Chicagoan, knows Obama and knows his way around both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue: He was a leading Clinton staffer and is a member of Congress.
What wasn’t so smart was popping the question to Emanuel without knowing that his answer would be yes and, to make matters worse, allowing the proposal to leak to the news media. Obama is now in the awkward position of cooling his heels while Emanuel decides whether White House chief of staff is the job for him.
Emanuel probably will accept the offer, but it will be on his terms, not the president-elect’s. Let’s hope for Obama’s sake that this is the last time he risks being jilted in public.
Comment [9]November 5, 2008
Gosh, Mike, How Did You Know?
Here’s the thing: Over the years, almost all of my political predictions have been wrong. For example, Jimmy Carter was not handily reelected in 1980, as I not only predicted but bet.
I’ve been hoping all day that one of my Brainstorm colleagues would quote from my October 9 post. Alas, that hasn’t happened. So you’re just going to have to bear with me as I quote it:
“On September 2, at the time of the Republican convention, I was pinned down for a prediction during a talk I gave at the University of Mississippi. Here’s what I said: “Obama will win the popular vote by 5 or 6 points and the electoral college with roughly 350 or 360 votes.’ . . . Down-ballot gains for the Democratic Party are especially likely this year in the Senate, where the GOP has twice as many seats at stake as the Democrats. But, even in the House, Democrats are poised to add one or two dozen new seats, a remarkable outcome considering the gains they made in 2006.”
That’s it for predictions. As Kenny Rogers sang, “You gotta know when to fold ‘em.”
Comment [2]November 4, 2008
Place Your Bets
Not just candidates but issues are on many state ballots today. Efforts to ban same-sex marriage in California and abortion in South Dakota have gotten most of the attention. But in several states the issue will be one or another form of gambling.
Fifty years ago, not a single state owned and operated a lottery. Today 42 do, along with the District of Columbia, and Arkansas is deciding whether to become the 43rd. As has become the fashion when southern states create lotteries, the proposed Arkansas lottery would fund a new college scholarship program. Based on the experience of these other states, poor and working-class Arkansans will buy the lottery tickets that pay for the children of the middle- and upper-middle class to go to college.
As recently as the late 1970s, only one state authorized commercial casino gambling: Nevada. Today 13 do. Tomorrow that number may rise to 14, depending on how Ohioans vote on a proposal that would allow a casino to open between Columbus and Cincinnati. Unlike lotteries, when casinos get on the ballot, they usually lose.
Racetracks, which thrived in many states before lotteries and casinos came along, have been in steep decline ever since. Their preferred solution: Become racinos — that is, racetrack casinos — with a few races bearding thousands of slot machines. Today Maryland voters will decide whether to allow 15,000 slots to operate at the state’s five tracks. Massachusetts, on the other hand, is voting on a measure to ban greyhound racing, not so much on anti-gambling as on animal-rights grounds. Both measures seem likely to pass.
One of the most dramatic and sweeping changes in American life since the 1950s is that we have become, in law and in fact, a gambling nation, with governments reaping much of the profit from this transformation. You probably don’t remember this change being debated or discussed very much. That’s because, as today’s little-reported ballot measures indicate, the change took place state by state, below the national media’s radar.
Comment [3]November 3, 2008
Natural Born Nonsense
There aren’t many stupid things in the Constitution, but one of them is the requirement that the president be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States. It’s stupid because we are a nation of immigrants that, in all other respects, draws no invidious distinction between the rights of natural-born and naturalized citizens. It’s stupid because it restricts the presidential talent pool in ways that bear no relationship to presidential talent. (If you think that being a two-term governor of California or Michigan is reasonable preparation for the presidency, forget it: the governors of both states are not citizens by birth.) And it’s stupid because no one can be sure what “natural born Citizen” means. The term’s English common law roots suggest two contrasting definitions: natural born as in born of parents who are citizens, and natural born as in born on the nation’s soil.
John McCain falls afoul of the “soil” definition, some cranks argue, because he was born in Panama, where his father was stationed in the service of his country as a naval officer. And now Politico reports that a new set of cranks has emerged to claim that Barack Obama is really a native Kenyan. Not true, but go figure.
Here’s a suggestion for the new Congress: amend the Constitution to replace the natural-born citizen provision with one requiring that the president be a citizen for at least 20 years. State legislators: Get ready to ratify this amendment in time for the next election.
Of the 27 amendments that have been added to the Constitution, 17 have expanded the bounds of liberty and democracy. Raising the number to 18 by allowing naturalized citizens to be constitutionally eligible for president would fulfill, not undo, the non-stupid intentions and aspirations of the Constitution’s framers.
Comment [26]October 29, 2008
Color Scheme
I’m glad to see McCain and Obama campaigning in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, states with big cities and lots of people. But why haven’t they spent any time at all (except to raise money) in several of the other large states: California, Texas, and New York, to name the three largest, along with Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois? Why, for that matter, haven’t we seen them in my neck of the woods — in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, or Tennessee? Or in New England states such as Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island?
The answer is the electoral college and, to my mind, it represents the chief defect of that system of electing the president. Except in Maine and Nebraska, a presidential candidate receives all of a state’s electoral votes merely by carrying it — it doesn’t matter if he wins the state by 1 popular vote or by 2 million. As a result, there is no reason at all for Obama or McCain to visit any state that is dark blue (sorry, California and New York) or deep red (too bad, Texas). In fact, the candidates are better off spending considerable time and money, as both of them have this year, in much smaller states that are politically less certain. That’s why they’ve both been sighted with remarkable frequency in places like New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, Iowa, and New Mexico.
I hope I live to see the day when presidential campaigns include the entire country, not just the handful of states that are colored gray, pink, or pale blue.
Comment [6]October 27, 2008
Vote a Straight Ticket
A couple thoughts inspired by John McCain’s closing argument to the voters, which is that electing Barack Obama president would recklessly place both Congress and the executive in the hands of the Democratic Party.
First, what’s wrong with united party government? Through most of our history it has been the norm (from 1900 to 1968, for example, the same party controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress for all but eight years). The main benefit of having one party in charge is that in the next election voters will know which party to credit if things go well or to blame if things go poorly. That’s healthy for democratic accountability.
Second, all three branches of the federal government are up for grabs on November 4, not just the two that are on the ballot. Historically, vacancies on the Supreme Court have occurred at a rate of roughly one every two years. In both the Clinton and Bush presidencies, however, the rate has been only one every four years. As a consequence, five of the current members of the Court will be over 70 during the next president’s first year in office.
The three justices whom Court-watchers say are closest to retirement — John Paul Stevens (88), Ruth Bader Ginsberg (75), and David Souter (69, with the odometer about to click over) — are all liberals. If Obama and a Democratic Senate are elected, the current close balance on the Court is likely to be preserved. If McCain wins, the Court can’t help but become more conservative.
As it happens, McCain may get my vote. I’m still undecided, finding much to admire in both candidates. But whichever one I decide to support, I plan to vote for his party’s nominees for Congress as well. Between now and 2012 I want to know who’s in charge.
Comment [23]