In 1875, commenting on his prospects as a Republican presidential candidate, William Tecumseh Sherman, who had just retired as Commanding General of the United States Army, provided reporters with a quote that would be cited by reluctant candidates for public office for generations: “If nominated, I will not accept; if drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.”
Sherman’s resolve to avoid running for public office has become a trend among public figures, although you’d never know it from the crowded stages at presidential forums in Iowa and New Hampshire. The difference is that most of the people on the stage are not people you would want to run for president.
There’s usually a handful of people in each generation that people would like to see run for president who want no part of it. Sometimes it’s someone who could be a serious candidate, sometimes it’s just somebody popular in another field. But whatever the circumstance, these real or supposed candidacies are more than just idle wishing. They are reflective of a desire for leadership.
The single greatest example of a public demand for a political candidate was Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. Actually, it began in 1948, when Eisenhower was so popular that President Harry Truman believed that if Ike’s name were placed in nomination at the Democratic Convention, Eisenhower and not Truman would have been nominated. Four years later, Eisenhower was so popular that there was at least speculation that he could receive both the Democratic and Republican nominations for president. Ultimately, this was too much even for Ike, but there is little doubt he could have had his choice between the two. And of course, in November of 1952, Eisenhower was elected in the first of two electoral landslides, personal triumphs that had nothing to do with party affiliation. The people wanted Ike, and they got him.
Unfortunately, that was the last time that there was a groundswell of support for a presidential candidate that resulted in that person’s election. Sure, there have been popular presidents. But the lure of national office has diminished in the age of modern politics. And so the wishful thinking of the average voter usually remains only that.
In the 1960’s, some folks wondered whether Vince Lombardi might make a good president. The Hall of Fame coach of the Green Bay Packers might seem an odd choice for the Oval Office. But it’s understandable when you think about it. If you watched the evening news in 1967, you’d see the war on television, and inevitably become frustrated that America couldn’t defeat this tiny little country. As people grew increasingly disenchanted with LBJ, and unwilling to consider Richard Nixon a suitable alternative, maybe the guy in the sports pages who could lead might seem a reasonable choice.
Of course, this political movement never got off the ground. It’s worth noting, however, that so great was the respect for Lombardi that he was considered for vice president by both Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon in 1968. And football fanatic Nixon was very interested and may very well have chosen Lombardi except for one small problem: Vince Lombardi was a dyed in the wool New Deal Democrat.
In the 1980's, the regular guy's ideal candidate for president was Lee Iacocca, the chairman of Chrysler. As previously mentioned in this blog, Iacocca’s popularity was so great that at one point, he was polling ahead of Vice President George Bush in a hypothetical 1988 matchup. Although Iacocca declined to run, the fervor for an Iacocca presidency is illustrative of what’s missing in American politics today.
The public longing for Lee Iacocca was not, as some have written, people confusing fame with popularity. Yes, he was on television in Chrysler commercials, and that’s how the regular person knew him. But it was the content that mattered. It was what he said, and how he said it. If it were just a matter of fame from commercials, then we would have elected President Joe Isuzu in 1988.
No, it was the straight talk. Iacocca bluntly said that Chrysler (and Detroit as a whole) had been making substandard cars and that things would be different. He took responsibility for his company’s failures (produced while he was still at Ford, by the way) and asked for a second chance. He spoke like an actual person, which you do not hear in politics any more.
But Lee Iacocca didn’t run for president. Neither did Mario Cuomo, another person people wanted to see in the Oval Office. Nor did Colin Powell. Why? Did they lack ambition? Certainly not.
Each one of them would have liked to be president.
But they didn’t want to run for president.
Those are two different things.
It’s not 1952 anymore. Nothing is private. If you’re the Vice President of the United States, expect your daughter’s sexual orientation to become a public issue. If you’re a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, expect the death of your teenage son a decade earlier to be something you’ll have to discuss with a perfect stranger. Right after that person spends ten minutes discussing your wife’s cancer diagnosis.
The media in this country is so completely out of control that before he announced his candidacy for president, it was necessary for Senator Barack Obama to quietly pay parking tickets he received as a law student at Harvard twenty years ago. Because, of course, if he had not done that, it would have actually been raised by the media as an indication of Obama’s flawed character.
And then there's Al Gore.
Okay, I’m biased here, but you could factually make the case that Al Gore is better prepared to be president than any other American. He served eight years in the House of Representatives, eight years in the Senate, and eight years as Vice President. He has done more than any other public figure to enhance public awareness of the climate crisis. He also, by the way, did more than any other public figure to bring the internet into the public domain.
That’s right, dammit, Al Gore invented the internet!
Al Gore first ran for president in 1988. I remember him talking in the debates about spending federal money to open up the information superhighway. And I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Guess what? He was talking about the internet. In 1988. Did you know about the internet in 1988? Didn’t think so.
And this, my friends, is why he doesn’t want to run for president. Because anything he does is twisted by the pundits and capitalized upon by his political opponents who have to seize on this sort of thing because they cant actually debate the issues.
Now, granted, Gore has an unfortunate tendency to want to claim all the credit for things he was only partially involved in. And in 2000, if he could have resisted the urge to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room and just been content to be the smartest guy in the room, he’d be president today. But the point stands: why get into this race? Why subject yourself to that sort of malicious and false criticism? Why subject your family to it? Al Gore’s son has a substance abuse problem. You think that the media will treat that with subtlety and sensitivity?
General Sherman offered another quote on politics when he was asked repeatedly to run for president. This one isn’t as well known, but it’s fitting nonetheless: “If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.”
So this is where we are, choosing from the candidates who are willing to subject themselves and their families to abuse and scorn. You end up with the candidate with the thickest skin, not the biggest heart. You end up with a president who doesn’t read the newspaper, instead of one with a gifted mind. That’s the real inconvenient truth of politics.
