The Rookie as the Nominee
Consider this scenario: During midterm elections, voters deliver a stinging rebuke to a Democratic President whose plans to rescue a country from a serious downturn appear to have failed. This leads to record Republican pickups in the House of Representatives.
As an economy that once appeared to be on the mend enters a double-dip recession, a never-before-elected Republican businessman who first rose to prominence with harsh criticism of a Democratic President’s efforts to increase government control over a vital sector of the economy emerges as the winner in the debates and thus goes from fringe candidate to contender in a divided Republican Party’s nominating contest.
This scenario, of course, describes the United States today, the administration of President Barack Obama and the dark horse candidacy of Herman Cain for the Republican nomination. But it’s just as accurate a description of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in the lead up to the 1940 elections and the insurgent candidacy of Wendell Willkie. And these parallels hold a lot of lessons for the Republican Party today.
Like Cain, who first entered the national spotlight with his criticisms of President Bill Clinton’s healthcare proposal, Willkie, a lawyer and utility executive, first rose to prominence attacking Franklin Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority. Like Cain, Willkie proved himself a good debater, creaming Solicitor General Robert H. Jackson (considered a potential Democratic candidate had Roosevelt not sought a third term) in a national radio debate.
Also like Cain, Willkie proved himself acceptable to factions within the Republican Party. He was a self-described liberal himself but pleased more conservative Republican businessmen through his criticisms of big-government aspects of the New Deal. Although he was an internationalist (he later wrote a book calling for world government) he mouthed “America-first” platitudes on the campaign trail that kept isolationists in the GOP happy. Cain, meanwhile, is a self-described Tea Party candidate whose business success makes him acceptable to the Republican Party’s Wall Street/Country Club wing.
There are, to be sure, massive differences between the two. Cain will have to face voters in a series of primaries while Willkie won the nomination on the floor of a national convention. Cain is to the Right of the typical Republican general election voter while Wilikie was almost certainly to that same voter’s left.
The parallels still hold up pretty well and this, in turn, offers at least three lessons for those who believe that Cain is the GOP’s great hope to unseat President Obama.
First, businesspeople-turned-candidates rarely do that well. Although Roosevelt seemed vulnerable in any number of ways going into the 1940 election, he still won 55 percent of the vote and all but a few small states. Although a few successful businesspeople have managed to win elective office, far more (e.g. Meg Whitman) have found that even enormous success in business doesn’t lead to victory on election day. Cain could well end up in a similar situation.
Second, the qualities that win primaries can sometimes doom a candidate in the general election. Willkie, a liberal and internationalist, made conservative and isolationists comments to win the nomination and then tried (unsuccessfully) to tact center in the general election. This alienated his natural supporters and handed the election to Roosevelt. Cain’s own strident anti-government rhetoric and unrealistic promises (e.g. balance the budget next year) may help him win the Republican nomination but probably won’t go over that well in the general elections.
Finally, things can change pretty quickly between nomination fights and elections. Although World War II in Europe was more than a year old on Election Day 1940 (France surrendered to the Nazis just two days before the 1940 Republican convention began) the true enormity of German and Japanese aggression became increasingly clear over the course of the campaign. Active support for the allies, which Roosevelt pursued and Willkie (against his own instincts) often criticized, emerged more and more clearly as a sensible policy between the conventions and Election Day 1940. It’s difficult to know what might change on Cain but it’s almost certain that something will.
Herman Cain, contrary to what I believed just a few weeks ago, does seem to have a shot at the Republican nomination. But historical experience isn’t very encouraging for those who believe he’s the man to beat President Obama.
