Good morning, it's Friday, Nov. 4, four days before Election Day 2022, and the day of the week when I pass along a quotation intended to be uplifting or thought-provoking. Today's line comes from Barack Obama, and though it is hardly uplifting, it could get Americans on both sides of the aisle thinking more productively -- if only we'd lower the volume on our political discourse and listen.
Obama himself was elected president on Nov. 4 -- in 2008. He joined a list of six men chosen by voters to occupy the White House on this date, all of them for the first time (though four would go on to serve two terms.) If you care, the other five are James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.
After U.S. presidents are elected, we learn about their families, pets, policies, and passions. American schoolchildren dutifully commit their names to memory and, over time, their presence in the White House takes on an inevitability not present when they sought office.
"Yes, We Can!" seemed foreordained the night of Nov. 4, 2008, in Chicago's Grant Park, but it certainly seemed a stretch two years earlier when a freshman senator from Illinois with no legislation under his belt and no executive experience ran for the highest office in the land.
Three generations after the fact, the slogan "I like Ike!" can still bring a smile to the faces of Americans who think fondly of Dwight Eisenhower and the decade of the 1950s -- whether or not they were alive at the time. But Eisenhower's election, which occurred on this date in 1952, was not a foregone conclusion, either.
Certainly, the erudite and experienced Adlai Stevenson didn't expect to lose handily to Ike (something he would do twice). But he handled it with his customary grace.
"Someone asked me, as I came in, down on the street, how I felt," Stevenson said in his 1952 concession speech, "and I was reminded of a story that a fellow-townsman of ours used to tell --Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh."
Lincoln did indeed repeat this anecdote, but probably not in response to his 1858 loss to Stephen A. Douglas. Rather, Lincoln made this quip when asked about an 1862 New York gubernatorial election. In so doing, the 16th U.S. president was speaking for his White House brethren, Republicans and Democrats alike: As Barack Obama himself learned, mid-term and off-year elections can test the incumbent president. Although the media, political scientists, and partisan professionals portray midterms as referenda on chief executives, this is frustrating for presidents: Their names aren't even on the ballot, which makes them feel as though they are competing with one hand tied behind their backs.
Obama is perhaps the best case in point. In 2010, the first midterm during his presidency, Democrats lost 63 house seats and control of the chamber. Additionally, six Senate seats changed hands, as well as six governorships and 720 state legislative seats -- meaning that 26 state legislatures were under Republican control. It was indeed, as Obama memorably described it, "a shellacking."
Four years later during Obama's second term, the GOP picked up nine Senate seats, a historically huge number, and another 13 seats in the House, giving Republicans their largest House majority since 1928.
Consider these results from Obama's perspective: When he was on the ballot in 2008 and 2012, the Republican nominee couldn't touch him. Yet those are the rules of the game. And when he was called on this week to help the Joe Biden-led Democratic Party stave off similar disasters, Obama acknowledged the irony. But he said something else as well. On a campaign trail more raucous and toxic than Obama remembered, he's been met at several stops by hecklers.
At a Wednesday rally in a Phoenix high school gymnasium, Obama asserted that Republicans want an economy that doesn't work for "ordinary people" but is "very good for folks at the very top." At that point, a young man hollered, "Like you, Obama!"
This was certainly fair comment when directed at a man who (along with his wife) inked a $65 million book deal after leaving public office. Of course, the heckler didn't then sit down: He kept shouting. This, in turn, prompted the Democratic crowd to boo and jeer to drown him out. Obama seemed irritated at both the heckler and his supporters.
"Hold up, hold up, everybody," Obama said. "Hey, young man, just listen for a second. You know, you have to be polite and civil when people are talking, then other people are talking and then you get a chance to talk."
The former president also urged the audience to "settle down," explaining that the cacophony in the gym was a metaphor for how moderate voices are stifled in America's political debates. "This is part of what happens in our politics these days. We get distracted," he said. "You got one person yelling and suddenly everybody's yelling. You get one tweet that's stupid and suddenly everybody's obsessed with the tweet. We can't fall for that. We have to stay focused."
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
