The President’s re-election (More Discussion IV)

In a number of recent posts I set forth a long, and I believe very useful, discussion between Roger Streit of West Orange, NJ and me.

I urge the reader to review that discussion as previously set forth in my posts "The President’s re-election (Discussion)" where I set forth at its beginning exchanges with various people, but near its end my discussion with Roger commences. This discussion continued at length in my post "The President’s re-election (More Discussion)"

However, I then published my exchange with Albert Nekimken, of Vienna Virginia, who had commented on the exchange with Roger in my posts entitled "The President’s re-election (More Discussion II)" and "The President’s Re-election (More Discussion III)."

In the following three posts I digressed from this stimulating discussion. I now want to share the rest of it with my readers.

On November 28, 2012 where after having watched a Paul Krugman / Joseph Stiglitz discussion on C-Span, which Roger recommended to me, I wrote to Roger:

I want to comment on the Krugman/Stiglitz discussion. Krugman used WW II as an example of running up a large deficit that stimulated the economy. He didn't say, and I don't know, (nor do I want to research it) how large the deficit was as a percent of GDP going into the war, nor how large it was at its end. But by his logic we could deal with our present economic problems by quadrupling the budget of the defense department even without a tax increase. I know he wouldn't favor that, but if what he says is true, that is one thing Republicans would go for. So it seems that this would be an easy political solution.

This was never responded to directly, but on December 2nd Roger called my attention to a post by Timothy Egan in the New York Times that can be accessed here, and quoting from that column called my attention to this statement in the column:

Liberalism, in the broadest sense, is about expanding human rights and opportunity, while embracing science and reason.

My response was lengthy! (Brevity isn’t my strong suit.)

I have no problem with that definition. It is too bad that the general public doesn't see it that way. Too discuss why would require a dissertation by itself, so maybe another time.

As for the column as a whole, I think he is too easy on the Republican Party. Since as early as 1876, Republicans gave up their only saving grace as the party of Lincoln. 

"Reconstruction was brought about in the disputed 1876 Presidential election. The Democratic candidate, Tilden, won the popular vote, but neither candidate initially had a majority of electoral votes due to disputes over returns in Florida, Louisiana and S. Carolina--the only states in which federal troops were still stationed in 1876. Although they were not numerous enough to stop white intimidation of black voters, the troops were considered an affront by white Democrats. In back room negotiations, Democrats conceded the disputed election returns to Hayes in return for his agreement to withdraw the remaining 3,000 federal troops, thereby putting a formal end to Reconstruction and assuring Democratic control, based on a platform of white supremacy and black disenfranchisement, throughout the South.” See here. While they had some "liberal" or "progressive moments" after that, they were more aberrations, than real party policy, e.g. Teddy Roosevelt was not popular in the Republican Party. They hated his progressive agenda when he was governor of New York and so to get rid of him, they kicked him upstairs to V-P, figuring he could die on the vine there. This backfired when President McKinley was assassinated and Teddy Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency. 

Along the way there were some real progressive Republicans, such as Morse of Oregon, La Follette of Wisconsin, Hiram Johnson in California, Charles Evans Hughes of New York, and later Jack Javits of New York, and Chase of New Jersey, but they were always a minority.

Nixon supported some progressive things such as the Environmental Protection Agency and even proposed a national health insurance plan, but he was always a political opportunist and was the architect of the Republican Southern Strategy. The Republican Party is and always has been the Party of the rich, and its alliances with racists, theocrats, and misogynists, is opportunistic. But they can't shed them and survive.

After this digression, Roger returned to the main theme, by citing Krugman’s blog and added:

Anyway, my own answer is still what it has been all along: the time for austerity is when the economy is close enough to full employment that the Fed is starting to raise rates to head off an undesirably high rate of inflation; at this point, given the case for somewhat higher inflation, I’d say that we shouldn’t even think about this until unemployment is well below 7 and falling fast. At that point you can, in effect, make a deal — fiscal austerity in return for not hiking rates — that leaves the economy harmless.

And went on to quote from one Paul Mathis:

Since the focus of policy over the past three years has been almost entirely on the federal debt and the implicit danger that its size represents, there has been relentless fear mongering by conservatives about an unspecified danger somewhere in the future that will cause our economy to collapse. Therefore, austerity right now is essential to prevent this calamity regardless of the consequences for economic growth and employment. 

Liberals have been no help in negating this fear mongering because they have agreed, without evidence, that the federal debt is "unsustainable" and must be reduced. In fact, liberals have proudly pointed to the reductions in federal spending that have already occurred, e.g., the wage freeze for federal employees that has gone on for more than 2 years already. 

Those who have said that the federal debt is no problem because interest rates are at historic lows and that any debt, if necessary, can always be repaid with newly "printed" money are derided for "enslaving" us to the Chinese who "own" us and control our future. 

So the bottom line, as usual in American politics, is racism in the form of xenophobia against the Chinese. Against that derangement, we all contend in vain.”

To which my reply was:

While the Chinese have been a whipping boy, it is not fair to blame Republicans entirely for this. To a very large extent, the attack on the Chinese was started by the Labor Unions, who stupidly wanted to stop globalization. They started the campaign against globalization under the Clinton Administration when they vigorously opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, a treaty that has benefited both the US and Mexico. In fact Obama kind of bought into this when he kept talking about jobs shipped overseas. Jobs shipped overseas are an inevitable consequence of globalization, which can no more be stopped, than could the industrial revolution, which the unions also vigorously opposed, resorting to breaking machinery, which is where the term "sabotage" comes from.

Don't get me wrong, I am for unions, but they are often their own worse enemy.

As for the Chinese, it is wholly a stupid argument, no matter who employs it. "China, it turns out, holds less than eight percent of the money our government has borrowed over the years...But politicians like to find an external enemy to rally the troops against, and China is an easy target." 

To which Roger asserted:

…you have bought into the fear of economic calamity because of “unsustainable” deficits.  Krugman says there has never been a collapse of a country with its own currency.

To which I cited:

Argentina.

Roger went on to say:

We can print money when necessary and we can raise taxes and slow spending when the economy is overheating.

And I forcefully pointed out:

Like so many, you simply ignore arguments and facts that don't fit your predilections. In my last e-mail I pointed out the inflation under Nixon and Carter that was caused by the huge deficits during the Johnson Administration's policy of bread and war.

I also asked why; if deficits are the solution, why not simply create a huge deficit by not raising taxes and exploding the Pentagon budget. No response!

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part III)

In my posts entitled: "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part I)" and "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part II)" I set forth an analysis showing that the urgency of the deficit has deliberately been exaggerated, for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to use it as a wedge to decimate all the protection that we have built up, not only from the deprivations of our senior years, but from all the threats that modern technology, if unchecked, subjects us to. Many of these, such as the FDA keep our food and drugs safe, or the EPA which keeps our water and our air from being ever more contaminated, the SEC that keeps our securities safe from rigging (at least when properly funded and properly headed) than it is. I could go on and on, but let me mention a few more such as our schools and libraries, our National Parks, our National monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial. Or the agencies that are supposed to prevent oil spill disasters, such as the Valdez spill in Alaska, or the more recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. Even our safety in riding an interstate bus depends on Federal Regulation, which the recent fatal bus crash in the Bronx dramatically reminds us.

They all need adequate funding and inadequate funding, which I am afraid is what is happening in the cuts that are quietly being agreed to, will decimate the protections on which we depend.

But let me address the elephants in the room: Social Security and Medicare. If you think the attempt to end Medicare and Social Security is something that Republicans feel is necessary to solve the deficit think again. It has been their goal since at even before the Administration of Ronald Reagan, who before he became President denounced the then incipient passage of Medicare with the following:

We do not want socialized medicine…behind it will come other government programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Norman Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism…We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.” He went on to say: “The doctor begins to lose freedoms, it’s like telling a lie. One leads to another. First you decide the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government, but then the doctors are equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him he can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

(Emphasis added)

You can find both the quote and a video of the speech here.

When Reagan became President he became somewhat of a pragmatist and, as far as I can find made no effort to have Medicare repealed. In fact, despite his rhetoric on Social Security where he had scorned Social Security as “as an involuntary, quasi-socialistic example of government running amok” and argued, in a nationally televised 1964 speech for GOP candidate Barry Goldwater, that Social Security should become a "voluntary" program. But as President he made an agreement with Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill. It raised the payroll tax, it raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 to be phased in by 2027; it required government employees to pay into Social Security for the first time; and beginning in 1984, includes up to one-half of Social Security benefits as taxable income for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income, combined with half their benefits and any tax-exempt interest they may have exceeds $25,000 for a single taxpayer and $32,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly. Benefits received by married taxpayers filing separately are taxable without regard to other income. Appropriates amounts equal to estimated tax liability to the Social Security trust funds. These reforms extended the life of Social Security by many decades.

But this sort of compromise is not one the new inflexible ideologues of the Republican Party are seeking. George W. Bush proposed in 2005 doing away with Social Security and substitute for it private investment accounts. “While the White House has helped convince more than two-thirds of those polled that Social Security is heading for a crisis or possible bankruptcy without change, 56 percent disapprove(d) of his approach…” wrote the Washington Post in March of 2005 The proposal went nowhere.

So it was obvious that the determination to abolish all that had been accomplished by Roosevelt –Social Security; by Lyndon Johnson - Medicare and Medicaid, by their own Richard Nixon –the EPA and all the other programs, e.g. Theodore Roosevelt – Food and Drug Administration or our under funded National Parks the first of which having been created in 1896 under the Administration of Ulysses S. Grant, would, if they have not already been, be either abolished or have their funding severely cut. Rahm Emanuel once said” You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," but here there is a desire not only to take advantage of a crisis, but one that doesn’t really exist, and that to the extent that it does, was deliberately created by them, for the very purpose of finding a rationale, an excuse, to do what the public would not otherwise let them.

In case anyone doubts that even our National Parks and all conservation efforts are under attack, see what the non-partisan Wilderness Society has to say or regarding the arts and NEA funding see Advocate For The Arts.

Every decent program conceived by either party in years past, before the Republican Party became an irresponsible radical party, is endangered.

But before I close, and despite the risks of making this too, long allow me to revert to my last post: “The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part II)” where I quote from the Economist.

I believe this quote is so important that with your indulgence I will repeat it here:

Mr Ryan's plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programs for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus's plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people. Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not.

I'm curious to see what adjectives people would apply to the Progressive Congressional Caucus's budget proposal. But it's hard for me to imagine the media calling a proposal to raise taxes "courageous" and "honest". And my sense is that the disparate treatment here is rooted in class.

Yes, the conservative, Economist, is more inclined to tell it the way it is than the so-called “liberal” and so called “un-biased press.”

This struck me last Friday night when I listened to the highly respected PBS program Washington Week where in their endeavor to sound non-Partisan, they ended up explaining nothing and made this epical battle over the future of our country sound like a squabble between of playground kids, or as though, or at best, it was a sporting event. Worse of all, when they finally, did concede that great philosophical divides are what drives the power play, they defined it as, “Big government vs. Small Government” which is exactly the way Tea Party members, and indeed Republicans in general, would like to define it, for in polls when the issues are defined that way Republicans win, while if it is defined as specific programs that are endangered, from Medicare, to SS, to our clean air, water, etc. Democrats win. Thus as the Economist points out, we do not have to look for “Fox News” to find a “disparate treatment… rooted in class.”

It is very discouraging that we can not find unbiased reporting on such an important subject even on PBS – or are they too worried about funding from the Republican Congress and Corporate underwriters.

Again in order not to make this unduly long I will, in my next post, “The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part IV)” review how they planned, nay, plotted to create this crisis for the very purpose of gutting all these programs.

The 2010 election

There is every reason for Republican optimism and Democratic caution. Realistically Democrats have a two-year window to enact their programs and to modernize America. Two years to bring the economy out of its doldrums, or at least make the country feel that success in just around the corner. If they do not come into the 2010 Congressional election with the country feeling great confidence in the incumbents, they may want a change and a Republican landslide is possible.

But even if Obama is as popular as he is now, or even more so, and even if Democrats keep all the trends that have favored them in the last two years, they will be facing severe obstacles in holding their gains, not to speak of adding to them.

It must be understood that Democratic successes have depended on certain demographic groups who have turned out in large numbers for them, particularly in the last election. These groups are the young, African-Americans, Hispanics, and the poor, who have not historically voted in large numbers. It is safe to assume that in an off-year election they will be voting in lesser numbers, and Republicans and their allies are doing all they can to suppress this vote. Since these are the primary, or at least a crucial component of the Democratic coalition, their voting in lesser number represents a significant danger to Democratic successes.

In addition Democratic successes in past elections pose their own dangers, for as they won in swing states and in swing districts, it became the Democrats who became more vulnerable to losses in close elections. In addition, there is less and less low hanging fruit to be picked up, since the districts most likely to swing Democratic, are already in their column.

Finally, Democrats will be up against a historical pattern. Almost invariably the Presidents party loses seats in the election immediately following the Presidents ascension, and this appears to be true even when the President is popular, his popularity affecting only the degree of the losses. Thus following Eisenhower’s victory in 1952, and with Eisenhower having a popularity rating of 59%, Republicans lost 18 House seats in 1954. Kennedy was elected in 1960, had a popularity rating of 68% and Democrats lost two House seats in the following election. After Johnson’s victory in 1964, and with a low standing in popularity of 46%, Democrats lost a whopping 47 seats. Following Nixon’s election, Republicans, two years later, lost 12 seats. After Carter’s election, Democrats lost 15 seats, and following Reagan’s election his party lost 27 seats, though at that point Reagan’s popularity was down to 43%. Two years after the first Bush was elected, in 1990 Republicans lost 8 seats, but after Clinton’s victory in 1992, Democrats two years later, in 1994, not only lost 54 House seats, but lost control of both Houses of Congress, leaving them in the minority until 2006. George W. Bush was the first President since FDR to see his party gain seats during the first mid-term election following his own election two years earlier, but this was after 9/11 and with his popularity at 62%.

This is graphically summarized in a graph courtesy of the National Committee for an Effective Congress:



Thus if history is a guide, and it might not be, Obama only has two years to enact his long range programs, before loss of Congress, or at least reduced majorities make overcoming determined filibusters, all but impossible.

There is therefore great urgency in enacting the Presidents program, and even now with not quite enough votes to overcome a filibuster against a united and determined Republican minority, the obstacles are obvious, if not entirely insurmountable.

There are striking and worrisome parallels between 1994 and 2010. In 1994 Democrats controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress. Presidential coattails enabled Democrats to win seats in historically Republican districts. Similarly, Democrats have far fewer election targets in 2010 than Republicans, much as they did in 1994. An analysis shows that there are as many as 60 potentially vulnerable Democrats in the House in 2010. With the present lineup being 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans, a 60 vote swing would give Republicans 238 seats and Democrats 195 ceding control to Republicans. Of course vulnerable doesn’t mean a lost seat and if we assume a loss of half of the vulnerable seats, Dems would have 225 seats and Republicans 208, keeping a reduced but still workable majority for the Democrats.

REASON FOR DEMOCRATIC OPTIMISM

The 1994 parallel is far from full proof, as not every electoral indicator favors the Republicans. First, in 1994, 22 of the seats gained by Republicans stemmed from Democratic retirements in competitive districts. So far in this cycle, only one Democrat from a competitive district, New Hampshire's Congressman Paul Hodes has indicated that he will vacate his seat in 2010. Hodes is seeking the Senate seat in New Hampshire. However, it is too early in the cycle to draw any conclusions about future retirements. Conversely, speculation suggests that several Republican incumbents, frustrated by minority status, could retire between now and Election Day.

Second, Barack Obama is off to a far more auspicious beginning than Bill Clinton was in 1993. That assumption must be tempered by the unclear economic climate. A slip in Obama's approval rating due to the continued problems in the economy could raise the likelihood of the Democrats losing a significant number of seats. As I have pointed out, the incumbent President's approval rating going into a midterm election can have a huge effect on his party's fortunes. If President Obama can maintain an approval rating above 60 percent, he can help mitigate some of the potential losses and maybe turn them into gains.

Third, regional dynamics that are no longer in place today helped produce the Republican take over in 1994. For example, about half the districts lost by Democrats in 1994 were located in the South, in Border States, or in the rural West. Republican success in these regions continued through the 2004 election, but those trends have waned and partially reversed since 2006. Presently there are far fewer Democratic targets in those regions for the Republicans to unseat.

Conversely, from a regional standpoint, the Republicans have sustained a meltdown in the East, with no immediate end in sight. With the loss of Chris Shays seat in Connecticut in 2008, the Republicans have zero seats in all of New England. They have also sustained further losses in the West, which is sure to gain seats after the next census. Evidence of a potential Republican comeback will be scrutinized in 2009 gubernatorial contests both New Jersey and Virginia. Previously, these off year elections have been useful indicators for the mood of the electorate heading into the midterm campaign. In 2005 Democrats won the gubernatorial races in both of these states, which served as a precursor to the huge gains seen by Democrats in 2006. No Republican has won a gubernatorial election in either state in the 21st century.

In the Senate, and this could change quickly, it looks promising, and since this is where filibusters must be overcome, doing well is particularly important. Based on available polls a reasonable outlook would give Democrats a net gain of three seats, more than enough to prevent filibusters. This assumes pickups of five seats and two losses, with the pickups projected in the following four states: Florida, Missouri New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and one from the following two states: North Carolina or Ohio. Pennsylvania may have been considered doubtful, but with Sen. Specter defection to the Democratic Party, it is safe to assume he will win re-election as a Democrat. Here it is interesting to note that North Carolina is listed in the doubtful column despite the fact that according to Newsweek’s April 27, 2009 issue, incumbent Republican Senator Jim Bunning has an approval rating of 28%.

Losses are expected in Delaware and in one of the following two states: Colorado or Connecticut.

It appears that the outlook for Democrats is cloudy, with the sun peeking from behind the clouds.

Gerald Ford

I feel that I should depart at this point from my discussion of the pitfalls and opportunities of the Democratic victory, to address the eulogies being delivered and printed on the death of Gerald Ford.

I know that is a custom to never speak ill of the departed and to laud them in the most exemplary terms, so as to almost turn them into instant saints. I have always deplored this custom for when it comes to prominent men it is important that we not indulge in revisionist history, and assess a life as it was. Ford did some good things, and one can find those in any of the eulogies written, so the reader must forgive me if I do not repeat them here.

But I do find myself at odds with much that has been said and written about our “accidental” President though he was not so much accidental as the creature of his disgraced predecessor.

First we need to put the ascendancy of Ford into context. It was caused not only by the crimes of Richard Nixon but also by the crimes of Nixon’s Vice-President. The corruption of the Republican Party of today may well be nothing more than a continuation of the corruption of that period and even before.

Nixon’s Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, was “allegedly” guilty of both bribery and tax evasion, crimes, which he had committed before Nixon chose him to be his running mate. Yet Agnew, like Nixon was above the law. Instead of being impeached and prosecuted, he was allowed to escape prosecution in return for his resignation. It was this outrage which elevated Ford to the Vice-Presidency, and he was chosen for that post by a man who had committed even more serious crimes, Richard Nixon, and here I am talking not only of the Watergate crimes but of the manner by which Nixon was elected.

First Nixon was aided in his first election by the treachery of Henry Kissinger, who, at the time, was considered a trusted ally of Johnson emissary Averell Harriman, leader of the Paris talks. Kissinger used his contacts with the Johnson administration to tip-off the Nixon camp about an anticipated breakthrough in the Paris talks. Nixon set out to sabotage those talks by secretly offering the South Vietnamese “more” than they would get from the incumbent Democrats. The result was the negotiations floundered, Nixon was elected, the war went on for more than another four years with untold American, Vietnamese and Cambodian casualties, and was then concluded on the same terms, and conditions as had been on the table in the fall of 1968.

The decision to pardon Nixon won Ford a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, acknowledging he had criticized Ford at the time, called the pardon “an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest.”

I respectfully disagree. Nixon’s pardon did not end the nightmare for the nation and certainly not for Nixon’s subordinates. For years thereafter, Nixon’s subordinates were tried, convicted and many went to jail. They paid the price while the head of the conspiracy escaped and even managed to be rehabilitated.

Was the pardon an act of courage or was Ford taking care of someone who had been a close friend before, who had brought him to the Presidency and who remained a friend thereafter? Nixon’s crimes never even disturbed Ford enough to interfere with their continued friendship.

But what of the claim that Ford was a healer, a non-partisan statesman? He vetoed 66 bills in his barely two years as President. Congress overturned 12 Ford vetoes, more than for any president since Andrew Johnson. Does that sound like a man working with the opposition party?

One of the bills he vetoed was the Freedom Of Information Act one of the cornerstones of our Democracy today. That was passed over Ford’s veto.

Even though Ford in an interview released posthumously, criticized the Iraq war, he has to bear some responsibility for that fiasco, for he launched the careers of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and even Scalia.

Some give him credit for an Amnesty program for Vietnam War resisters but it should be noted that the program was widely regarded as a failure, even by the people who administered it. Only 21,800 of the 350,000 eligible persons were granted clemency. It was left to Carter to grant anything meaningful.

Ford may have been virtuous and moderate compared to the present Republican Party, or to the Nixon or McCarthy Republicans, but he was hardly the paragon of virtue, which is the image now being evoked.

May he rest in peace!

Why This Is So! (continued)

In my last two commentaries I first explained, why I believe that things are worse than they seem and then set forth my views as to why is so. 

Now I wish to continue my comments on why this so. All these problems were still manageable and in the election of 1968 Johnson won a landslide victory over the Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. This was a cataclysmic event not so much because of the overwhelming victory by Johnson but because it marked the transformation of the Republican party from an East Coast dominated conservative party to a radical Libertarian party which in its avowed radicalism tended to frighten voters and by comparison made Johnson into the peace candidate. But events and decisions by Johnson and other Democrats worked against Democratic strengths. First by the time the election of 1972 rolled around the Vietnam War had become increasingly unpopular. As a result Johnson, after his humiliation by Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, withdrew and Hubert Humphrey had the nomination within his grasp. There is every indication that Humphrey would have run as a peace candidate, but Johnson feeling that this would amount to a repudiation of his stewardship threatened to withdraw his support of Humphrey, which would have doomed his candidacy. As a result, Humphrey ended up antagonizing the peace movement, which resulted in huge peace demonstrations in Chicago. Chicago’s Democratic Mayor, Richard Daley, was not going to stand for the demonstrations and called out the riot police who were extremely hostile to the demonstrators, resulting in what many considered a police riot. The images in the media conveyed demonstrators, many of whom were rioting, as well as the brutality of the police against peaceful demonstrators, thoroughly damaging the Democrats in general, and Humphrey in particular. I voted for Humphrey, but at the time wrote an open letter to Humphrey, which was neither published nor responded to. 

The result was that Humphrey lost to Nixon (who had claimed that he had a secret plan to end the war) but who prolonged the war and caused untold casualties to American troops as well as Vietnam and Cambodian civilians. (Anyone who saw the movie “The Killing Fields” is well acquainted with the horrors that resulted. But despite this and even though Watergate was already brewing, Nixon won the next election beating McGovern the committed peace candidate by a landslide and Nixon, instead of being remembered as the man who prolonged the war and finally lost it, is remembered by many as the man who ended it.

Watergate ended Nixon’s career, but not the Southern strategy, and allowed him to pick his own successor, the Nixon loyalist Gerald Ford. Carter beat Ford, but not because Democrats were in the ascendancy or because Carter was a strong candidate, but because the smell of Watergate was still too strong in the nostrils of the electorate.

Carter is often dismissed as a failure because, it is asserted, he was too focused on details but there is little to support this other then the press’s penchant for caricaturing public figures, just as they caricatured Ford as not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

To me, Carter’s greatest fault was that he was a conservative in many ways and started the trend to deregulate making it fashionable; thereby laying the groundwork for the Republican massive assault on regulations in the years to come.