The 1912 Election

For some people, politics and elections are an exercise in patience and endurance.  For these people, elections are a string of distorted facts, hyperbole and one boring candidate trying to talk over another.  Often, the major complaint of American political elections, particularly the presidential ones, is that they are made up of candidates not worthy of the office.  However, there was one election that would see not two but three men who spent a nearly combined twenty years in the Oval Office.  It is not spoken about often, but the 1912 election is one of the more interesting ones of the 20^th century.  

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-9) had some regrets in life but likely none more than the day he said, during the 1904 presidential campaign, that he would not seek a second elected term.  After his presidency, he grew increasingly disenchanted with his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, to continue his progressive policies to the point of throwing his hat into the ring once more for 1912.  President Taft (1909-13) was no Rough Rider but the corpulent chief executive was a good steward of progressive ideals though he had lost a key fight against the old guard Republicans over tariffs.  The Democrats, sensing a weakened Republican party, selected New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) to carry them to victory.  The former president of Princeton University made a career of smashing people’s misconceptions of the timid academic and proved more than capable in the rough and tumble world of New Jersey politics.     

The campaign would be remembered as one of the more lively ones in recent history.  All three were men were progressives, all believing that the government needed to take on a more expansive role.  However, that is where the togetherness ended.  Mr. Roosevelt was pushing a more radical version of his Square Deal, coined New Nationalism, with increased business regulations and social welfare.  Governor Wilson’s New Freedom sought to favor small entrepreneurship and the breakup of the large corporations.  President Taft, a lawyer who never wanted to be president, spent the beginning of the campaign questioning his options. 

From a sensational point of view, the campaign was known for two things.  In October, the former president was shot in the chest while in Milwaukee by a man upset about the idea of third terms.  He survived partly because the bullet hit his bulky, folded speech in his suit breast pocket.  It was still dangerous, however, because he insisted on given an hour and a half speech before going to the hospital.  Both President Taft and Governor Wilson suspended their campaigns and offered condolences but that was as magnanimous as it got.  Teddy Roosevelt resorted to attacking his former friend by calling him a “fat head.”  Formerly blasé President Taft struck back, calling his former mentor a “demagogue” and a “dangerous egotist.”   

Woodrow Wilson, a minister’s son, won the election easily against a divided Republican opposition.  He would lead the U.S. through World War One and tried to take an isolated nation into an internationalist role.  He signed into existence the Federal Reserve System as well as the Federal Trade Commission.  He was only the second Democrat to win the White House since the Civil War.  The Rough Rider retired to New York and spent much of his time attacking President Wilson’s lack of response to European aggression.  William Howard Taft left politics altogether and re-entered the legal profession, teaching at Yale for eight years.  Then, in 1921, President Warren Harding gave him his dream job when Professor Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. 

Seldom has a presidential election seen such a tandem of candidates and likely, it will not happen again.  While, in many ways, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency is seen as a success, it marked an end to the progressive period and a re-commitment to isolationism and conservatism.  Though seldom discussed to the extent of its importance, the 1912 election was unique in its ramification for the future of the country and its direction.  It is worthy of further study and shows that politics is anything but a boring process filled with colorless characters.      

The Importance and Misunderstanding of Voting

Over 120 million people voted last Tuesday as President Barack Obama won his second term.  I have had a great deal of fun speaking with my students on the election and from time to time, my status as a government teacher has also elicited questions from my friends.  Of all the questions and all the remarks I hear from others, two are brought up most often and need to be addressed. 

Remark one – I don’t understand the need for this “electoral college”; we need to get rid of it.  The Electoral College was initially devised as a check on an unpredictable and emotional electorate.  As a way of preventing the people from electing someone horribly unqualified or unsuitable for the position, the Electoral College was created by our Founding Fathers.  Today, it is has developed to serve another purpose.  If the election was strictly one based on population, candidates would focus their efforts in the major population centers only.  Places like Wyoming, Alaska or Nevada, states with low population and/or low population densities, would be ignored.  However, with a race to 270, the three to five electoral votes of some of the smaller states have a greater percentage of voice and influence on an upcoming election. 

Remark two – My single vote does not count/I live in a predominantly blue/red state and I’m of an opposite opinion....There are many types of comments like this that downplays the individual relevance of one’s vote.  This is the completely wrong way to look at voting.  The importance of voting is not based on whether you get what you want or whether your guy wins or not.  It is about having your voice heard.  In a world that increasingly frames things based on the individual, people have developed the wrong idea about the power of voting.  The importance of voting is that you have the right and responsibility to cast your ballot.  Governor Romney lost the election but by voting, I let the Obama administration know that one more person does not agree with his policies and must be considered when setting new policy.  Assuming he truly believes that he is president of “all Americans.” 

The United States and other democracies around the world share the responsibility to vote in a world where this right and duty largely does not exist.  Throughout the world, people struggle to have their voice heard and taken under consideration and increasingly, insecure dictators or quasi-leaders suppress or pervert the will of the people.  At the core of the power to vote is the people’s power to control their government.  That is why some “leaders” subvert the power to vote because they do not recognize the power of the people.  People who refuse to vote or don’t because they feel it does not count must keep this in mind.

 

The Dangers of the Upcoming Mexican Elections

With the approaching Mexican presidential elections, there has been a great deal of turmoil and unpredictability that culminated in recent polls, released and called into question this week.  The polls showed Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the lead.  However, the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its candidate, former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are only a few points behind.  The ruling party, the National Action Party (PAN) and its candidate, Josefina Vázquez Mota is third.  In the midst of all this jockeying are some important possible consequences to the Mexican elections.

Since the writing of the new Mexican constitution in the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Mexican civil war, only one party existed and the PRI kept a stranglehold over the government and the direction of the country for the subsequent eighty years.  As one might find in one-party states, the PRI was known for horrible corruption, connection to “unsavory” types to say the least and an institutional disregard for the lives and lot of ordinary Mexicans.  In 2000, Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI president.  Over the last twelve years, Mr. Fox and current president, Felipe Calderón, have sought to put in place a series of reforms to change the calcified rapacity that existed under the PRI. 

It would be, potentially, very dangerous for the PRI to return to the presidency in Mexico.  Mr. Nieto has said that his time as the governor of the state of Mexico and its economic success could be segued into Mexico as a country.  He blasted the failed reforms and policies of the PAN but not all is as it appears.  First of all, Mexico’s economy has done quite well over the last twelve years.  Its GDP, GDP growth rate and its GDP per capita are all on the rise.  There is a greater level of true democracy seen in Mexico than at any time in its history.  As for the PRI attacks on the PAN, it is more complicated.  The PRI has maintained a sizeable minority in the Mexican parliament and the majority of Mexican states are run by the PRI.  This has put the formerly authoritarian single-party group in a strong position to obfuscate the government’s plans. 

Of course, the biggest charge levied on the PAN is the violence that has characterized the country over the last couple of years.  Yet, there is something positive to be taken from this.  Even with the horrific tales of violence and mass killings, deaths are down overall.  Additionally, the amount of stories reported and the gun battles that have dotted the countryside suggest it’s a reaction.  Comfortable drug cartels do not make trouble for themselves and the violence suggests that the government is making headway in their efforts.  Having said that, the government needs to press their work because the gang violence has the potential of destroying the many gains Mexico has made since 2000.

What does Mexico have to lose by turning to the PRI?  I imagine there is a small chance that PRI has seen the error of its historical ways.  However, that would require an organizational introspection and reform that is not supported by the evidence.  The violence with drug cartels has forced Mexicans to reconsider the direction of their country and the PAN might suffer as a result.  It does not help that Ms. Mota has received less than lukewarm support from President Calderón and Mr. Fox.  A return of the PRI can lead to a return to the previous way of doing things in Mexico.  That could make the cartel violence pale in comparison.   

At the turn of the 20^th-century, the United States went through a progressive period where institutional corruption and illegality were combated.  Movements spanning the spectrum attacked one societal, industrial and governmental ill after another.  Mexico needs its own progressive movement and the leadership with the courage to confront those bringing the country down.  The PRI has not shown a capacity to do this.  Whether the PAN or PRD can, only time will tell.