The Upside of Losing and the Downside of Winning

Since the New Deal era, the party that has controlled the White House has shifted quite regularly, and with the shifts has come a somewhat predictable pattern.   For the most part, as shown below, a party will retain the White House for two terms, after which it will shift to the other party.  The two obvious exceptions are in 1980 and 1988. 

Year	President	Party
1945-1948	FDR/Truman	Dem
1949-1952	Truman	Dem
1953-1956	Eisenhower	GOP
1957-1960	Eisenhower	GOP
1961-1964	JFK/Johnson	Dem
1965-1968	Johson	Dem
1969-1972	Nixon	GOP
1973-1976	Nixon/Ford	GOP
1977-1980	Carter	Dem
1981-1984	Reagan	GOP
1985-1988	Reagan	GOP
1989-1992	Bush I	GOP
1993-1996	Clinton	Dem
1997-2000	Clinton	Dem
2001-2004	Bush II	GOP
2005-2008	Bush II	GOP
2009-2012	Obama	Dem

It is still unclear as to if the pattern will hold, giving President Obama a second term, or if 2012 will be an exception.  However, the winner of the 2012 election will surely give some evidence as to who will win in 2016, and possibly claim the White House for eight years.  Further, the party in power typically loses seats in Congress in the midterm elections.  Let’s examine the two scenarios:

Obama Wins

This is the scenario conservatives have nightmares about.  But should it be?  Firstly, if President Obama wins a second term, he will very likely have either one or both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans, meaning nothing that passes is going to be overwhelmingly progressive.  If anything, because he won’t have another election in four years, Obama may feel freer to compromise more with the GOP in order to get big things done.  After all, as I noted in an earlier post, Presidents want legacies. 

Further, if President Obama wins a second term, Republicans will likely have a much greater chance of winning in 2016; possibly with control of both houses of Congress.  The GOP Presidential candidates in 2016 are expected to be much better than 2012’s Tea Party crop and could include such rising stars as Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Bob McDonnell. 

Even though the Democrats would probably have a very strong candidate in Mrs. Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Andrew Cuomo, or Elizabeth Warren, they would each be tethered to Obama’s popularity, which by 2016 may not still be holding up in the high 40’s.  The situation could very much resemble President Bush’s in 2008 when Barack Obama was able to tie his opponent to the unpopular President. 

Finally, if President Obama’s popularity were to continue to wane after the election, as most second term Presidents’ approval does, the U.S. Congress could see an even larger share of its seats filled with Republicans.  This likelihood would prevent President Obama from making any headway on issues progressives care about. 

Romney Wins

Let’s start with this simple fact: Romney is an extremely weak nominee.  He is about as exciting as Bob Dole and has enough political and personal baggage to keep TSA agents busy for a long time.  However, despite all this, Romney is tied with or very close behind the President in most national polls due to the slow economic recovery.  In short, Romney could win, but it won’t be because people really want him to be President. 

Therefore, in four years when Romney is running for re-election, the public likely won’t change their minds much and will be ready for someone new.  In this scenario, Hillary Clinton will almost assuredly run and will probably be the Democratic nominee.  Her current approval ratings are in the high 60s.  That, and the possibility of electing the first woman President will give Democrats the White House yet again.

To further complicate Romney’s chances of winning a second term, it’s quite possible he will have a serious primary challenger.  There are a lot of Republicans, including elected officials, who just feel kind of ‘meh’ about Romney.  Unless he were to prove to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan, he will likely be challenged in a primary.  Historically, Presidents who have faced serious intra-party challenges have gone on to lose in the general election.

Finally, with regards to Congress, the public will most likely keep the trend of voting for the party out of power in the midterm election.  It’s possible Democrats could take control over both houses.  Romney would then be forced to work with a Democratic Congress, and would therefore be signing more progressive laws than if he had a GOP controlled Congress. 

Conclusion

I do not have a crystal ball, nor are all of these scenarios set in stone.  There are various factors that could change things.  For example, Obama or Romney could preside over a strong economic recovery over the next four years, making it much more likely that the Democrats or Mr. Romney, respectively, will win the White House in 2016.  

Additionally, one should not look at these predictions and forget about all of the positives of winning and negatives of losing.  Supreme Court judges will be appointed, laws will be passed, and wars could be started.  Elections have consequences.