With all the contention in recent years over candidates and their various political liabilities, things that would not truly affect a presidency but for some reason or another cast aspersions on the character of the person in question, I am curious about some of the United States' past officeholders and the issues they may have dealt with that would make then unelectable today. In other words, I'm trying to figure out if our media-run political process has, as it has become more and more relevant, made the candidates for public office water themselves down into blandness by attempting to dispose of those little kinks that make them individuals. I'll forego the obvious and politically relevant things in judging whether someone might be electable today, such as hawkishness or doveishness, but focus on the little things that the media also likes to scrutinize so heavily these days (I mean really, what the hell does Hillary Clinton's choice of wardrobe have to do with anything?).
The first few prezzies are too easy game. Washington had no teeth. Jefferson owned slaves. Adams...well...people hated Adams. So we'll begin with one of the less obvious of our early executives.
Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States, serving from 1837-1841. A one-termer. He had been Secretary of State and then Vice President under Andrew Jackson (which would have carried severe political baggage nowadays, what with the Native American vote), so he was long entrenched in Washington politics. He opposed universal suffrage, wishing to keep the property ownership required for someone to vote, while helping to draft the New York state constitution. These might be problematic today, but the biggest political liability he would have in the current election is simple: English was not his first language. He spoke Dutch when he was a child and in his early schooling. Pundits today would call him a foreigner and accuse him of wanting to destroy America.
James Buchanan was the fifteenth President of the United States. He had been Secretary of State under Polk, and Minister (Ambassador) to the Court of St. James (Britain) under Franklin Peirce. He supported annexing Cuba and spreading slavery there. He liked to refuse nominations to higher office, as he did with an appointment to the Supreme Court under Polk. One of his big issues was that he didn't want to be President. He reluctantly accepted the nomination. The only way he got there was the fact that in the odd election of 1856 none of the candidates for president actually campaigned. They left it to their parties. These might all seem like political liabilities today, but the big one was this: He never married. He was a bachelor all his life. This would raise eyebrows today, and the talk shows would bellow about him being gay and the candidate of the "homosexual agenda".
Chester A. Arthur might be mostly lost to history, but he served as the twenty-first President of the United States. He was Vice President under James Garfield, but had a fairly contentious relationship with his new patron. They were from differing factions of the Republican party. Nevertheless, when Garfield was shot in the back by a political assassin and Arthur ascended to the Presidency, he denounced the politics behind the assassination and resolved to be above factional rivalries during his term. Because of this he is regarded as a good president by many historians. He did not run for re-election, so his only campaign was for Veep. He had a secret that stopped him from running for his own term as President: He was terminally ill. He had Bright's disease, which could cause kidney failure and death at any moment. Once this was leaked to the press by opposition party burglars and researchers, there would be no way he could win an election. However, he had an even bigger political liability than impending sudden demise to modern pundits: He might have been born in Canada! His parents had moved from Quebec only shortly before he was born, if indeed they had moved before his birth at all. Paperwork was lacking back then. This didn't matter, of course, because he was a citizen by right of his parents being citizens, but you can imagine what Fox News would have done with that notion (oh, right, he was a Republican. They'd have ignored it after the primary).
Arthur's successor, Democrat Grover Cleveland, served at the twenty-second President. He was also the twenty-fourth. He won the popular vote three times. He was a fellow who was greatly admired in many circles for his honesty and courage. He was also fiscally responsible, which gained him many political enemies. These enemies tried all they could to sully Arthur's reputation, uncovering a possible illegitimate child in the process. If they had the instincts of today's scandal-diggers, though, they would know that his bigger liability was the fact that he paid a Polish immigrant $150 to take his place when he was conscripted to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War. Dodger! Unpatriotic enemy-hugger! He was also a bachelor when elected. Worse and worse!
A man well set up to be president, who had much in the way of political experience and was the chosen heir of a popular president, was William Howard Taft. He had been Governor of the Phillipines, and negotiated with foreign powers on behalf of the United States, and had a strong legal background. Everything that the populace generally wants in a president. There were some issues that might derail him today, though. Firstly, he was a Unitarian. He even stated on the record once (after his election) that he didn't believe in the divinity of Jesus or many other tenets of Christian scripture. Wooo! Rush would have a field day. But the bigger problem for his image in today's thinness-obsessed America would definitely be his weight. Taft was fat. Quite obese. Just under six feet tall and 320 pounds at one point during his presidency. He seemed to have a good sense of humor about it, though. To illustrate, here is an excerpt from the memoirs of Senator James Watson:
"One day I was in the President's private room ... when [Senator] Chauncey Depew came in. ... After we had talked serious matters for a few minutes and were about to depart, Mr. Depew stepped up to Taft and, taking liberties that I never would have thought of taking with a president, said to him, putting his hand on Mr. Taft's big frontal development: 'What are you going to call it when it comes, Mr. President?' It was just about that time when Mr. Taft was beginning to have some difficulty with Roosevelt, and he quickly responded: 'Well, if it's a boy, I'll call it William; if it's a girl, I'll call it Theodora; but if it turns out to be just wind, I'll call it Chauncey.'" In Taft's successor, Woodrow Wilson, the United States has a president that has yet to be equaled and likely never will. He was terribly racist. When he was President of Princeton, he actively discouraged blacks from applying. His presidential administration veritably purged those of African heritage from governmental offices in Washington. When a delegation of blacks protested these moves, he reportedly said "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." Al Sharpton would have his head for breakfast. Oddly, this may not be the biggest thing preventing him from winning high office today. What makes him less electable is likely the fact that he had a Ph.D in history and political science. That makes him an intellectual. An intellectual Democrat. Not happening these days. There hasn't been a president with a Ph.D since.
Succeeding Wilson was Warren G. Harding, whose administration was dogged with scandal from day one. He also was pretty inept with the English language, despite having a gift for public speaking. Apparently this is considered charming. At any rate, he suffered from one major drawback (aside from the rampant corruption): He had a mistress. Best of all, he had a mistress who had lived in Germany, and during the lead up to World War I she returned to the United States and threatened to go public if he voted for war. Fortunately, he was able to call her bluff. In 1920, when Harding was the Republican nominee, the party sent her to Japan and paid her $50,000 in extortion money. Surely if that news had broken, along with his rumored other affairs, he would have been dead in the water.
Skip a few, and we come to Franklin Roosevelt, arguably one of the greatest presidents this country has known. Amazingly and unprecedentedly elected to four terms, three of which he served fully. His administration pulled the country out of the Great Depression and won the second world war. He created the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security. Eh, you likely know all that. As a candidate for public office, though, he had several issues that would cause him great harm today. For instance, he married his cousin. Oh, Elenor was far enough away for it to be legal, but you can bet that today's ravenous press would grab on to that. He was also a notorious adulterer, and was in fact with his mistress (who had been Elenor's assistant) when he died. He also had about him a patrician air, with his long cigarette holders and monocle, that likely would not fly today. The biggest thing that would have held him back today, however, was the fact that he was paralyzed from the waist down. There would be no hiding that from the current media scavengers, especially with the nearly 'round-the-clock media coverage candidates get these days.
I don't think I need to go into the personal foibles of presidents since Roosevelt. Most of their legacies are still in doubt anyway.
A few of those politicians I talked bout truly helped the country in difficult situations and handled things very well. Would someone who had no foibles or flaws that alienated a chunk of the electorate have done as well in their place? Does the heavy media scrutiny of this election have merit? Maybe. It's not like our last few have been squeaky clean, after all. Even there, I'm still seriously uninterested in Obama's ability to bowl, where Clinton sits down to talk to voters, and McCain's...erm...everything.
