In the run-up to this year’s Presidential election it has become the norm amongst many in the media and further afield to compare Barack Obama to a wide variety of former Presidents. His detractors in the Republican Party, in the media and amongst the general public highlight what they claim to be his similarities to Jimmy Carter. This is partly because the United States in 2012 is still feeling the effects of a long-term economic malaise and rising living costs, and the last time that this occurred was in the mid to late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was President. However, the main reason why they compare Obama to the 39th President of the United States is that he was a one term President whose defeat heralded a sustained period of Republican dominance of the White House. On the other side, amongst his most fervent supporters the comparisons they like to make are to Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy because they see him as the great progressive hope sticking up for the little guy and improving the lives of millions of their fellow citizens. However, in this election year the comparison that is most often made to Barack Obama is Harry S. Truman. He is cited as the classic example of an unpopular politician winning an election against the odds, (a divided party, a not particularly impressive record and a stuttering but improving economy) by running as a tribune of the people against an unpopular and unresponsive Republican Congress and an opponent who was unable to gain the trust of his party and inspire the general population. Nevertheless, it is my contention that at the present time Barack Obama instead of being Harry Truman has in fact got more in common with the man he famously defeated in 1948, Thomas Dewey, only that in 2008 President Obama got lucky.
In 2008, Barack Obama like Thomas Dewey came through a hard nomination battle to win the candidacy of a party unsure of what direction in which to go. He was also facing an opposing party which had been in power for a long-time and was increasingly unpopular. In 1948 because Thomas Dewey was the heavy favourite after gaining the Republican nomination he ran an election campaign which has been criticised heavily because it was based on vacuous and meaningless slogans and a lack of definite policies. Obama in 2008 ran on such empty campaign slogans as ‘Yes We Can’ and ‘Change You Can Believe In’ and offered no real hard policies. The crucial difference however, is that Barack Obama won, and his campaign despite its lack of hard substance and its reliance on glib catchphrases has been lauded in books and articles ever since. Thomas Dewey’s campaign and failure however, defined his career, and although he would remain an important figure in the Republican Party based on his record of achievement in public life in New York he would never again lead his party into an election campaign and also more pertinently his defeat would mark the first stirrings of the post-war conservative movement in the GOP.
If Barack Obama wins in 2012 which I think he probably will he will deserve the accolades for becoming only the second two-term Democrat President since the war however, at the moment in terms of elections he is in my opinion a luckier version of Thomas Dewey. In other words a politician of moderate views whose defining electoral campaign consisted of very little of substance and a preponderance of meaningless catchphrases.
