Will Election Results Resemble 1840, 1932, 1980 That Turned on the Economy?
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FDR speaks to Kansas farmers in 1932 campaign.
The factors that determined the Presidential Elections of 1840, 1932 and and 1980 could be repeated this year -- 2008.
Historians and political observers note that broad economic conditions are roughly similar this year to those of 168 years ago (1840), 76 years ago (1932) and 28 years ago (1980):
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION
The United States in the 1970s experienced low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and long lineups of motorists seeking gas that was in short supply. The prolonged Iran hostage incident sharpened public perceptions of a national crisis and a leadership gap in the administration of Jimmy Carter.
Much like Herbert Hoover had been blamed for the Great Depression, Jimmy Carter was blamed for the nation's sagging economy and the Iran hostage crisis.
Adding insult to injury, the followers of Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeni humiliated the U.S. by burning American flags, chanting anti-American slogans, parading 29 captured American hostages and burning President Carter in effigy.
Carter defeated Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination and campaigned by attacking Reagan as a dangerous right-wing radical. Reagan, the charismatic former governor of California, repeatedly ridiculed Carter, and won a decisive victory.
A political commentator: "Reagan was bellicose; Carter preached fiscal discipline, while the Republican promised magic through "trickle-down" economics."
Republicans also swept Congressional elections, taking control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in 28 years since the early Eisenhower years beginning in 1952. This reversal of fortune marked the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution" a victory for the political right that has persisted to this day.
"People think of the 1980 election as this huge landslide for Reagan, which in terms of the numbers, it was," remembers journalist Elizabeth Drew on the PBS program "Jimmy Carter," adding: "But I saw the numbers on the Friday before the election -- and both sides will tell you this -- it was a tie."
THE GREAT DEPRESSION & FDR
After the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment was 25 percent, 12.8 million were out of work and the Gross National Product (GNP) dropped 30 percent. General Motors stock dropped from $225 to $36 a share. When the market bottom was reached July 8, 1932, GM stock was $3.75 a share. (Today, Oct. 30, it is $6.71, less than half 1929 value in real dollars.)
In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, governor of New York despite being crippled from infantile paralysis, delivered an acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination: "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people."
The "new deal" tag was applied to his legislative offensive against the nation's economic ills, the motto a spinoff from his cousin Teddy Roosevelt's "square deal" of 30 years earlier.
Despite his affliction, the smiling and optimistic Roosevelt campaigned more than 25,000 miles by train. Crowds thrilled to brass bands playing "Happy Days Are Here Again." Roosevelt sketched out the New Deal from ideas of advisors dubbed the "brains trust" by reporters. Roosevelt pledged to help the "forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."
Hoover told voters the return of prosperity was at hand with free enterprise. Highly critical of Roosevelt's "New Deal" plans to have the federal government solve the nation's problems, Hoover warned if Roosevelt was elected, then "the grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities, a thousand towns; the weeds will overrun the fields of a thousand farms...."
Hoover defended failed Republican policies in radio talks that lacked enthusiasm. Roosevelt, however, had a magnificent radio voice and was able to convey competence and hope to listeners.
An observer commented: "The Democratic victory took on landslide proportions, prevailing as expected in the Solid South and the major urban areas, but also doing well throughout the West. The triumph spread to both houses of Congress, where the Democrats achieved sizable majorities, and to the governors' mansions and assemblies in many states. The electorate had clearly provided the president-elect with a mandate for change."
Michigan's economy worsened in 1933 when Henry Ford withdrew $25 million from Detroit's Guardian Bank saying "let the crash come." A total of 436 banks in the state closed when a bank holiday froze $1.5 billion in deposits. Michigan was first in the nation to close all banks.
It was revealed that employees of Flint's Union Industrial Bank had stolen about $3.6 million to speculate in the stock market; C.S. Mott of General Motors himself had to stand the loss. Real estate speculation was at the root of many Michigan bank failures. Judges, politicians and even the state treasurer had been given huge loans.
Michigan U.S. Senator James Couzens, who had been general manager of Ford Motor Co., was made the scapegoat for opposing a federal bailout of Detroit's Guardian Bank. He was shunned, defeated for re-election in 1936 and died shortly thereafter.
1840: TIPPECANOE AND TYLER, TOO!
An economic downturn (in 1840 it was a five year depression that had begun in 1837);
Vast numbers of new voters registered as a result of the lagging economy; and
A huge increase in voter turnout, amounting to about 60 percent, occurred in 1840.
In addition, the election of 1840 featured an extremely vigorous campaign by the Whigs, booming William Henry Harrison, a hero of the War of 1812, and running mate John Tyler as "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" (Gen. Harrison had been a hero at the Battle of Tippecanoe.)
Whigs also rolled out barrels of hard cider and boosted Harrison as the common man who had grown up in a log cabin, as opposed to incumbent Martin Van Buren who they portrayed as drinking fine wines at sumptuous dinners in the White House.
The portrayal of Van Buren as elite was basically false, but it worked.
Besides the candidates representing the Whig and Democratic parties, the new Liberty Party with James G. Birney as its candidate, made its bow. The Liberty Party was the first to espouse an anti-slavery cause, breaking new ground in Presidential politics.
Abraham Lincoln served as a Whig presidential elector in Illinois in 1840, a contest that was also the first won by the Whig party.
The biggest increase in voter turnout of any presidential election in American history was recorded that year, too. The total vote went from 1,505,290 in 1836 to 2,408,630 in 1840, an increase of 60 percent.
Much of the increased vote was due to higher turnout on election day. While slightly more than 57 percent of the eligible electorate voted in 1836, over 80 percent went to the polls in 1840.
There were only 25 states at that point in history, and the vote totals went up in 15 states.
Most of the 900,000 new voters in 1840 had in fact already been signed up in the off-year congressional and gubernatorial elections after 1836. Whigs had been energized by sharply different economic policies in response to a depression that started in the spring of 1837.
Prof. Thayer Watkins of San Jose State University explains that in June of 1836 Congress directed that the surplus funds in the U.S. Treasury be distributed to the states in specie (gold and silver). President Andrew Jackson issued his Specie Circular in August, 1836, requiring payment for government lands be in specie in an effort to curb speculation.
"The effect was to reduce the money supply by depreciating the value of bank notes, bringing on deflation," said Prof. Watkins. This resulted in the failure of many enterprises and the bankruptcy of farmers who had paid high prices for land expecting to pay off loans with higher priced crops.
Whigs, including Lincoln, criticized the inadequacy of the Democratic response while promising their own policies would produce economic recovery. An observer commented:
"Thus it was hard times and contrasting economic programs, not just hurrah techniques, that allowed Whigs to mobilize hundreds of thousands of new voters and win not just the presidency but both houses of Congress, three-fourths of the governorships, and two-thirds of the nation's state legislatures in the campaign of 1840."
Eerily similar campaigning is occurring this year with the Democrats and Barack Obama rolling out out their own version of log cabins and hard cider in heavy television advertising and rallies attended by huge crowds. The Dems also are characterizing Republican John McCain as out of touch, much as the Whigs did to Democrat Van Buren in 1840, Roosevelt did to Hoover in 1932 and Reagan to Carter in 1980.
Will it work? Nobody will know for certain until all the votes are counted, and perhaps recounted. And all the lawyers are done scrutinizing the challenges and counter-challenges if the vote is close as is expected.
Just like 1980, 1932 and 1840, the election of 2008 is certain to be one for the history books.
LOCAL HISTORY NOTE: Ironically, at least for mid-Michigan folks, is the fact that the 1837 recession put a damper on plans by the Saginaw Bay Company to develop a "paper village" in Lower Saginaw. Several buildings built on speculation went unoccupied until the early 1840s, when Birney was enticed by his brother-in-law Dr. Daniel Fitzhugh to become a partner in the company and invest here.
Birney, who had been living in Cincinnati, was distraught by his poor showing in the election of 1840, having gained only 7,453 votes in a nation that was not ready to end slavery.
He moved to Saginaw in 1841 and to Lower Saginaw in early 1842, soon drawing a map of the proposed village of Bay City and working to develop the economy of the town.###
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