One Measure to Determine Whether a President Was a Success or a Failure
Some years ago, Michael Kanell and I wrote a book called Presimetrics in which we tried to quantify the performance of Presidents along a range of issues objectively, using numbers. But what if we want a single measure of a Presidents performance? Put another way – how do we know whether a President was a success or a failure?
I was born when Nixon was in office, though admittedly, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to politics at the time. But if I had to categorize Presidents in my lifetime as successes or failures, I would say Clinton was the most successful, followed by Reagan. Here’s why.
Off the top of my head, Clinton’s key achievements were these: creating conditions for or at least not standing in the way of a booming economy, generating a surplus, NAFTA, FMLA and welfare reform. Some of them may not look as good a decade and a half later, but that is true of anything. Nevertheless, on Clinton’s signature achievements, his opposition has either sought to claim some or all of the credit for them (e.g., the surplus, the economy, and welfare reform) or quietly accepted the issues as part of the status quo going forward.
With Reagan, we see the same thing. His signature issues were tax cuts, a growing economy after years of stagnation, a detente with the USSR (“tear down this wall,” some nuclear dealing, and getting the Soviets to leave Afghanistan) and instilling a general feeling that it was, indeed, morning in America and that the US was back in business. These were accomplishments that Reagan’s opposition sought to either claim would have happened anyway (e.g., a general deterioration in the USSR, the end of stagflation) or quietly adopted as a new status quo (e.g., tax cuts may have risen since Reagan – even under his Republican successor, but no Democrat in Congress or the Presidency has pushed for rates to go back to pre-Reagan levels). Of course, there were a few things that nobody, most certainly not the Democrats, wanted any part of, the big one being the explosion in the debt. The whole Iran-Contra Affair was another example.
So Reagan and Clinton were successful precisely because their opponents wanted a share of their success, and neither took many actions whose outcomes the political world wanted to keep at a distance.
On the other hand, consider GW and Obama. Nobody in opposition wanted (or wants) to claim any part of the credit for their signature issues. And nobody wants to claim that the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Great Recession, the Mediocre Recovery, whatever the heck happened in Libya, or Obamacare was inevitable.
As the old saw goes: success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.
Can anyone tell me why this person is allowed to post columns on this blog?
Reagan was a disaster for the working class in America, his influence in that area still exists.
Seriously, can we stop this?
Any chance we can stop the previous commenter from commenting?
It was clear to anyone who read the article that, regardless of political ideology or outcomes, the metrics by which the author and his colleague rated the presidencies had to do with the public and government popularity of their policies during their presidencies. And although both Regan and Clinton had their vocal detractors, both were wildly popular during their tenures.
Whether or not those policies have stood the test of time, and the author has conceded that they have not always done so, is entirely beside the point.
SB:
Welcome to AB. First posts are always in moderation. After the first, you are free to post.
This is the dumbest thing I read today. No more “Morning Joe” level of analysis, please.
Notice his leaving out Johnson’s civil rights bill and Medicare as his top two choices for presidential success measures… I guess they don’t stand up to Reagan’s Starwars defense spending and deficit increases huh… or maybe Reagan’s eliminating Cadillac Queens. He likes Clinton for extending the reductions of regulations and added burden’s on welfare recipients… though as I recall these were forced compromises by a majority opposition congress. I note that he doesn’t applaud Clinton for raising taxes on the rich just a bit though.
EMichael,
Success doesn’t mean you, or I, like his policies. That would be a partisan measure of success. Not an objective one.
Success means his policies have won the day. I have written post after post over the years indicating that the top marginal tax rate should be somewhere around 65% if we want to maximize economic growth. But that doesn’t matter. Reagan got his way. He convinced the country on this issue. He got his way. Heck – he convinced much of the rest of the world. That makes him successful. He did what he wanted to do, and convinced enough people that what he wanted to do was right that we still live with it today.
Longtooth,
I was very clear that a) I was born during the Nixon administration and b) in this post I was rating Presidents in my lifetime. LBJ wasn’t in my lifetime. Additionally, my liking a President doesn’t make him a success, and my disliking a President doesn’t make him a failure. Frankly, I think NAFTA has caused more harm than good to the US, and particularly to Americans who have the least flexibility to get out of its way. But was it successful? Yes. It was implemented at a time when a more protectionist policy was a real option (remember Perot?), and it has survived unscathed for a generation. Clinton got his way, and kept it. Like it or not.
“Success means his policies have won the day.”
By this definition, Stalin was a “success” for Russia.
Joel,
To the extent that his successors were interested in following Stalin’s policies and claiming his mantle, he was a success. From what I understand, there was much relief he was dead which is not the sign of success.
On the other hand, consider our friends, the Saudis. A bit over a thousand years ago, someone decided it was time to rid the Arabian peninsula of infidels. That policy was implemented, and it has been maintained ever since. It seems that whoever planted that particular meme got what he wanted. You or I may think genocide, forced conversions, and forced expulsions of people who happen to be from an area but who are of the wrong faith is a bad thing, and we may even be able to prove that implementing and maintaining policy had deleterious effects, but that policy has stood through thick and thin for over a millenium. Saudi rulers have have not tried to repudiate it, but rather continue to enforce it. Saudi society seems to still be largely in favor of it, to this day. I that isn’t success, than what is it?
Wow, Mike, you have really stepped on it with this last post. I suggest you stay away from history unless you know what you are talking about. It would seem that you are identifying all of Muslim history as somehow being due to “the Saudis.” No.
So, Mecca in Saudi Arabia was the capital of the Islamic umma only during the last ten years of the life of the Prophet Muhammed, 622-632, and then during the period of his successors, the first four caiiphs, or Rashidun caliphs. After 661, the capital moved to Damascus where rule was by the Ummayad caliphate. What is now Saudi Arabia was not an entity and was ruled from outside by successor caliphates, although in its central zone the Sa’ud family began to accumulate power after 1740, when their emir, Muhammed ibn Sa’ud, converted to advocating the Hanbali School of Sharia jurisprudence as advocated by Muhammed ibn Wah’hab, hence Wahhabism. Only sine 1932 has the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia existed within its current borders.
Anyway, neither during 622-661 anywhere in the Muslim world or in Saudi Arabia since 1740, has there been any genocide, forced conversions, or forced expulsions, none, nada, not a one. You are dead wrong and increasingly an embarrassment here with so much silly incorrect tripe that you spout with such great certainty.
SB,
In the book we actually tried to quantify whether they achieved the goal they wanted. Who produced the fastest growth? Biggest decrease in the deficit? Etc.
In this post I was trying to explore whether that could be simplified to one measure. And as per the last sentence in the post – everyone takes credit for success, but nobody for failure – it occurred to me that someone successful is one who manages to impose his (so far all Presidents have been men) policies, and the results those policies achieve are sufficiently positively perceived that they continue on. I have railed against Reagan’s tax cuts, and I have the numbers to prove they didn’t work, but that doesn’t matter a whit. The vision of that particular dead man beats my vision, because his has been implemented and has survived long after he is gone, but my vision has not and will not be implemented.
“To the extent that his successors were interested in following Stalin’s policies and claiming his mantle, he was a success. ”
On the evidence, I’d say Putin is emulating key Stalin policies. He doesn’t have to “claim” Stalin’s mantle verbally, everyone can already see it. So by your definition, Stalin was a success. Good to know.
Joel,
Success does not mean I agree with a policy and think it’s a good one. It means they or their effects persist.
If I were to amend my post to look at policies in other countries or in time periods before my birth, I would note that it is possible to have a policy that is immediately review led by one’s successors but which is tremendously successful in achieving the results that the person who imposed them wanted, namely genocide. I happen to think genocide is a horrible thing but the people Genghis Khan or Stalin killed are not coming back. They got what they wanted in that regard. That you or I think it was a horrible thing doesn’t change that.
In the US the most successful President since WW2 was, I imagine, LBJ. Nobody bar a handful of idiots wants to dismantle civil rights. Americans may disagree about #oscarssowhite it affirmative action, but we don’t disagree about colored drinking fountains.
Barkley,
I read the Koran. It explicitly mentions Christians, Jews and Zoroastrian living in the Arabian Peninsula at the time the Koran was written or revealed, whichever term you prefer. Unless you believe all if them, men, women and children voluntarily converted, sterilized themselves Shaker-style or committed mass seppuku, you must agree something happened to make them cease existing. The Koran also describes that to a limited extent.
“the metrics by which the author and his colleague rated the presidencies had to do with the public and government popularity of their policies during their presidencies.”
And I cannot think of a sillier metric than this.
Well, unless it is the idea that a President “getting his way” shows success.
Yeah, that Iraq War was one successful motherf!CKER. Bush is still enjoying that one.
EMichael,
The more I think about it, the more I think this (that I wrote in comments) is wrong:
I think it contradicts what I wrote in the post and which I think is correct, namely that a successful President is one who implemented policies for which other people want to claim credit.
Mike,
The disappearance of those groups from the Arabian peninsula appears to have taken place over a long period of time, probably culminating in the ninth century. It is true that in the very first years of his rule in Medina, the Prophet expelled two Jewish tribes that opposed him militarily, the Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurzay, although these events are not recorded in the Quia’n or even clearly in the Hadith but in later traditions. However, he did not expel all the Jews. He also may have expelled Christians from the city of Najran, although that is also not recorded in the main documents and is disputed. The second caliph, Umar, may have engaged in some expulsions also.
As it is, official Muslim doctrine is the dhimmah, which says that People of the Book, the group you mentioned, are to be tolerated. Conversions are supposed to be strictly voluntary, although a tax was placed in most Muslim nations on them, the dhimmi tax, that provided an ongoing financial pressure to convert. But most evidence suggests that in fact it was not until around the year 1000 that finally a majority of people living in the territory controlled by the then dominant Abbasid caliphate become Muslim. It was a slow process of conversion, not one of forcing. And aside from these scattered very specific tribal or city cases from the very first years of Islam, there were no mass expulsions, nor has there ever been any group genocide.
In contrast,, Christians have engaged in many mass conversions, forced expulsions, and genocides. Spain is the most famous example regarding both Jews and Muslims, but many Christian nations expelled all their Jews at one time or another, including England in the 1200s. Most of the conversions of indigenous peoples in Latin America were forced. There is nothing in most Christian sects against forcing people to convert, in contrast to Islam. And as for genocie, well….I could go on, but in fact looking at the total histories of these two great world religions it is not even close, even if we see a lot of bad behavior by some modern Muslims, with modern Saudi Arabia definitely a repressive and intolerant state, although not committing any of those three particular sins (genocide, forced conversion, or forced expulsion).
You need to go reread those Qur’anic passages that you vaguely remember. They allowed for tolerance of The People of the Book, ifnot of polytheists or atheists.
Regarding Obama’s policies, it increasingly looks like Obamacare may actually survive, or at least a lot of it. Polls show that a third of voters do not know that ACA is Obamacare, and it is known that nearly all the provisions of ACA are popular, with single mandate a tossup. And the failure of the GOP to come up with an acceptable alternative is becoming increasingly clear. They may make some minor changes and relabel what is left, but it is highly likely that the majority of Obamacare will in fact survive.
There is also the minor detail that Obama left office with a 60% favorable rating, higher than any president since WW II except for Bill Clinton, who got impeached, btw.
Barkley:
If the mandate is done away with, the PPACA will collapse as it will be a pool of those who need healthcare insurance minus those who will gamble without it. That is what the issue is. Some feel they do not need it and others think they just need $10,000 of coverage. Will keeping it get beyond Trumps, Ryans and McConnell’s desire to trash it? Not sure. They are all privileged and secure. There is talk of raising the ratio for the elderly higher than 3 times the cheapest of the insured. This is not a good thing to do as many of them are at the lower end of their earning potential and if manual labor, they begin to experience physical issues. What would be nice and probably not happen is to start to fix the issues the healthcare industry cost and move away from payment for services care to one based upon a results based quality of care. The habit today is to provide more service with less regard for results.
Barkley,
In some places tolerance for people of the book is proclaimed, in others the Prophet curses them and talks about driving them out of the Arabian peninsula. To someone like me, at least, who takes notes and tries to keep things straight, the Koran appears to contradict itself quite a bit. I note that scholars have made similar observations and come up with rules as to how to interpret the passages that have such an appearance.
That said, the Koran and the Hadiths (have only read some) seem to me like history written by the winner. The story about how the Jews chose to have a fellow Jew judge them for their treachery rather than Mohammed who was merciful, and then the Jewish judge said the Jews should be massacred and Mohammad complied… I have read accounts of German officers dealing with the leaders of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in WW2 and there is more than a passing resemblance.
My understanding of the history is that non members of the faith were first expelled from Mecca and Medina (that is in the Koran itself), then from surrounding areas. The second caliph officially booted non Muslims from the Arabian peninsula as a whole but like in Spain post 1492, some stayed on in various capacities and in various degrees of keeping their faiths. In practice it didn’t apply to the far reaches of the land. But every generation pressure ratcheted up and in less than a century the Jewish and Christian and Zoroastrian populations had dwindled to a tiny fraction of their original number.
Note that Spain in 1492 was ruled by a holy book that more expressly forbade ill treatment of non believers but it didn’t stop them.
All that said, this gets very far afield from the post.
Note that a lot of conversions were made because Jews and Christians had to pay an additional tax and Moslems did not. So converting was a way to cut ones taxes. Plus as government became more arabized and to rise up in society one needed to become Moslems converting was a way to possibly rise in society. As it became clear that Islam was there to stay converting became the more reasonable option.
Lyle,
Colombian drug lords used to make the following offer: “plata o plomo.” (Silver or lead.) You mention the silver. Here’s the lead. The Koran is not in chronological order, but it seems that every time the Ummah consolidated or strengthened its position with a new batch of converts, one of its old reliable allies would turn out to be a nest of traitors who would engage in a surprise attack upon Mohammad himself. Inevitably, the Ummah would rally, and wipe out the tribe of traitors.
Now, after the third time or fourth time it happened, some of the more cynical infidels might have erroneously concluded that perhaps it wasn’t nonbelievers turning on the Mohammad but actually the other way around. (As I said, cynical people.) Someone reaching such a dastardly conclusion might have thought the only possible safety lay in actually professing oneself a member of the faith. I am cynical about human nature so I doubt the average person’s ability to recognize the prophetic personage encompassed by Mohammad. As a result, my bet is that fear of lead far outweighed the opportunity for silver when it came to generating new converts.
Mother f*cker.
“In some places tolerance for people of the book is proclaimed, in others the Prophet curses them and talks about driving them out of the Arabian peninsula. To someone like me, at least, who takes notes and tries to keep things straight, the Koran appears to contradict itself quite a bit. I note that scholars have made similar observations and come up with rules as to how to interpret the passages that have such an appearance.”
Yeah,off the top of my head I cannot think of another religious tome that does that.
Your posts are a total waste of time. They show nothing of worth. And they have an incredible amount of racism imbedded in them.
I do love the idea that you think that because a policy became law it was popular.
Know anything about elections?
What, did you write trump’s latest executive order? That, quite frankly is so illegal that:
“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
-Groucho Marx-
Mike Kimel,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. To everyone’s comments.
I hesitated when I commented, knowing that I had not read your book and was inferring your metrics from your post. Thank you for clarifying.
First, I loved Pressimetrics. I wish the data was updated somewhere. I’d love to see it for Obama and so far for Trump. Second, I’ve noticed a lot of people taking credit for the longest bull market ever without a recession, now in its 10th year. You complained about the slow recovery being attributed to Obama, but some pundits have attributed the long bull market to the gradual recovery, preventing the market from getting overheated, which usually leads to recessions. The Republican congress was also playing their game of decrying deficits during Obama’s term (when we probably needed deficit spending to help the economy) and creating deficits when they’re in power. Adding $2 Trillion to the deficit in the last couple of years when the economy was already doing well makes no economic sense to me. Like other commentators, I also think that Obamocare/ACA will be seen over time as a signature accomplishment for Obama that even Clinton couldn’t do. It’s not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Jim:
This post is from 2017. Usually when people tag a post from a couple of years ago they are spamming. In any case, first time comments go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising. I am just commenting to you on both topics as to the reasoning. Your comment is sound.
Jim,
My guess is that in time we will move away from a healthcare system that involves insurance except perhaps for catastrophic issues. It just adds too much overhead. And Obamacare bloated that existing overhead. Plus with the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” I believe the individual mandate was repealed. Remember the debates – the individual mandate was a vital component without which the Rube Goldberg contraption wouldn’t work.
As to the economy, etc. Obama wasn’t the first President to face opposition. But he was the first to get a Nobel Peace Prize his first year after doing precisely nothing. He was also the first Pres to walk into a smoking ruin of an economy and decide it was a fine idea to continue running precisely the same economic policies that got us into the hole in the first place, which is doubly illogical since those policies (keep taxes low being the big one) were associated with the other political party. Go back and look up real gdp per capital growth rates starting in 1933 and compare them to Obama’s term. FDR decided to do the exact opposite of the policies that created the 1929 mess.
Mike,
I agree in spirit with what I think is at the heart of what you’re saying: Obama was too timid and didn’t do enough to change either how we pay for health care or our economic policies. Still, even without the individual mandate, the individual markets are still functioning, and ACA did slow the growth of health care costs. I’m also not convinced that low taxes caused the economic downturn of 2008 – poorly thought out de-regulation, no regulation at all on new products like CDOs, over-optimism in the housing market. Some of that can be laid at the feet of Reagan and Clinton. Reagan, who never saw a regulation that he liked and convinced America that government is “the problem”, never part of the solution. And Clinton, repealing Glass-Steagal and signing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Under Obama, at least they put in liquidity requirements for Banks. But I come back to Obama not doing enough. I don’t think he was a great president, but I don’t think he was terrible either.
Jim
Jim:
Good, Mike connected with you. Just a few comments.
1. GS was already dead on arrival when it was destroyed. Under Greenspan the percentage allowed into commercial markets by depository banks grew from 5% (in 1987 with Greenspan voting yea and Volcker voting no) to 20% when repealed. The changing of the National Banking Act led to Travelers insurance becoming a part of the Citibank Group giving them greater access to Wall Street. This opened a whole new world for depository banking.
2. LTCM (1998) was the canary in the Coal Mine which alerted Summers and others to the dangers of derivatives and hedging (good example of this is in the movie Trading Places where Eddie Murphy does his Orange bets routine and makes a “yuge” profit and also towards the end of the movie when Ameche and Bellamy lose).
3. The lack of regulation on derivatives. When the repeal was initiated, Wall Street was “supposed” to establish a clearing house or board to regulate this garbage. It did not. Earlier Brooksley Born the Chair of the CFTC called for regulation of derivatives. Summers, Rubin, Greenspan Levitt, etc. opposed her and Summers even went as far as commenting on her opposition in Congress. Congress blocked the CFTC from regulating derivatives.
4. Tranching risky investments with good investments was like putting frosting on a multi-layer cake. No one ever looks at the lowest layer as they are too concerned with the frosting. Summers who looked at what was left to LTCM had said the tranching was too deep and too complicated to get to the bottom of it.
5. In the end, Clinton signed the bill; however, I would look to Greenspan as the cause of 2008 supported by Rubin, Weil, Levitt, Summers (and his assitant Geithner). These guys knew better.
All good points. Thanks for the interaction.
Jim & Run,
I was sloppy using “low taxes” as shorthand for the whole GW low tax + deregulation + foreign wars galore + we love big deficits policy.
Obama basically took the mistakes of the GW era, kept them (though they were based on classic Republican policy) and added a new one: he setiously expanded the destruction of social cohesiveness.
We had 1968 level riots in places like Ferguson and Baltimore based on the idea that the police were a great threat to the community, and in particular young Black men. Mr. Obama leaned in that direction – for instance, the Justice Department bent over backward to try to find something on the cop in Ferguson (and failed). But the admin’s moral leadership was a big factor in scaling back policing – cops talked about the fetal position at the time – in the places where rioting had happened. The predictable result – a big spike in homicides by and and among the very groups of people who had been rioting for less policing. The outcome was bad, the opposite of the narrative we got from Obama, and easily predictable. (In other words, like most of what we got from GW.)
I have stated before… GW was an awful President but he had one unambiguous positive victory during his administration: the Do Not Call Registry. Sure, it was a trivial thing next to all the disasters he brought about but it was something that made the lives of just about everyone better. Obama’s legacy is failing to even keep the Do Not Call Registry afloat.
Let me sum this up for you Mike:
1. Black men in particular are evil.
2. Since Obama is a Black man born somewhere else besides the US, he too is evil.
3. No, there was no 1968 style riots in Ferguson. I was on the West side of Chicago (1968) when it burned dropping off a gorgeous Hungarian woman before I left for Marine Boot Camp. I was there Mike and I also stood riot duty in 70/71.
4. The justice system in Ferguson was corrupt and unfortunately it took a death to reveal just how corrupt it was. Using their legislative power, Whites were preying on and feeding off Black Americans.
5. The National Justice system is corrupt with greater than 85% of all cases being plea bargained. The plea bargains are done mostly for Black Americans who can not afford a defense and rely on public defenders.
6. Obama’s legacy is failing due to a minority of people put in to power and usurping the legislative process.
7. For 8 years of Obama’s presidency, Republicans to a person defied everything a Black man proposed as the president. The Senate filibuster does work to block things Mike as well as the majority of the majority rule in the House.
8. For 6 of 8 years Democrats did not have control of the Legislature.
9. The Bush tax breaks were allowed to sunset for rich Americans under Obama. The Trump tax cuts are twice the size of the Bush tax breaks and will not sunset as Repubs will have taxes increased for middle income people to pay for the breaks.
10. It is a terrible injustice to get those calls. My Panasonic phone system allows me to block them and I do. My Samsung cell phone allows me to block and report the calls. Suddenly they stop.
I do not see the shinning city on the hill which can be achieved if we shuck some people to the wayside such as Black Americans, minorities, and immigrants. I do see a minority of White Americans who are deathly afraid of becoming a true minority by 2040 and are doing all they can to make America into a fortress.
Sorry Mike, you are wrong.
Run,
This is a shameful comment more reflective of some of the other commentators around here. It’s the echo chamber mentality- disagree and you are a racist or a Nazi or whatever.
The statistics are out there, easy to find and unambiguous. The homicide rate of and by young Black males rose in Ferguson and Baltimore after the riots led to policy changes which given motivations and constraints of all involved, could only result in the cops going fetal. Call me racist if you want but I don’t think that was a good outcome. If it comes down to a choice between scoring points and fewer dead fewer dead kids of whatever background and ethnicity, I’d like fewer dead kids.
Obama’s policy got more of those kids dead (and it was predictable) but you can feel free to score your points by straw manning me.
As to whether it was a riot…. yeah, it was a riot. There were a number of buildings burnt down.
Finally, as you well know, I have lived all over the place. I have been in the majority. I have been in the minority. As I noted on this blog before, I bought a house that results in my son attending one of the top 5 most diverse elementary schools in CA.
I don’t feel a need to be socially acceptable by praising politically correct policies promoted by the right people that have outcomes that bona fide Nazis are happy to see happen. I’d prefer fewer dead kids.
One last thing and I will sign off… worry less about what outcomes the people who promote a policy want. Worry about what it will actually do. We can all agree GW really wanted a happy and prosperous America, a peaceful and prosperous Iraq, and a functioning Afghanistan. Obama didn’t want dead kids in Baltimore or the flaming mess of Libya. What they wanted was irrelevant. What they did, and what it resulted in, is what matters. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.