June's Atlantic Monthly includes a long-ish cover-story by Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the declining fortunes of Tony Blair. In the article Wheatcroft includes a maxim attributed to Enoch Powell that "all political careers end in failure". Is this true? ( I mean, do they fail in their own terms, regardless of whether one might happen to approve of those terms or not; do all lifetime projects ultimately disappoint?)
A cursory survey of the group I happen to know best, 20th Century British Prime Ministers, does seem to reinforce Powell's contention with just a few qualifications. Let's see:
SALISBURY: Yes (at his retirement was deeply disillusioned by the creeping democratization of political life).
BALFOUR: Yes (a failure as a Prime Minister and a party leader).
CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No (but a mediocrity).
ASQUITH: Yes (the Liberal Blair; great early promise frittered away, and saw his party destroyed in internicene squabbling).
LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes (rudely ejected from office; spent the next 20 years fruitlessly expecting to be asked back).
BONAR-LAW: Yes (died too soon to effect any change while PM).
BALDWIN: Maybe (an extraordinary survival record, but his peace policy was ultimately a failure).
MACDONALD: Yes (eternally reviled by his own party).
CHAMBERLAIN: Yes (peace in our time).
CHURCHILL: Yes (probably a controversial choice, but his lifelong goal - to halt and reverse the decline of the British Empire - was a doomed romantic folly).
ATTLEE: No (set the political agenda for the next 30 years, although the '45 government did peter out a bit ingloriously towards the end).
EDEN: Yes (A political lifetime spent waiting for Churchill to retire was immediately followed by Suez).
MACMILLAN: Maybe (great successes marred by the Profumo debacle).
HOME: Yes (totally out of his depth).
WILSON: Yes (great promise tarnished).
HEATH: Yes (as above, but the Tory version).
CALLAGHAN: Yes (Crisis? What Crisis?).
THATCHER: Maybe (implemented important structural changes in the British economy, but made no corresponding social reforms, had to give way constantly on Europe, and was tossed unceremoniously out of office).
MAJOR: Yes (no explanation required).
BLAIR: A work in progress, but the prospects aren't looking good.
How would American Presidents stand? And does this maxim simply reflect the fact that (as Orwell said) everyone's life can be seen as a series of failures?
Posted by Alan Allport at May 2, 2004 01:55 PMI'm glad you left out Atlee, leader of the best British government of the 20th century.
Posted by: John Rennie at May 6, 2004 04:31 PMOops - an error of omission, not commission. Let me fix that ...
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 6, 2004 04:33 PMThis question embarrasses me with my ignorance of my own country's history. I'll do the best I can, but I'll be leaving most of them out.
George Washington - huge success. He weathered all the storms besetting an infant republic whose very survival was much in doubt, and retired still much admired and beloved by his countrymen. (I know, it sounds like a pious myth. This one happens to be true.)
John Adams - failure. I don't recall much about his policies, except for the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts. I think it was on his watch that American won a minor, undeclared naval war with France. His vision for the republic's future was repudiated by the voters, as he failed to win a second term.
Thomas Jefferson - failure. His embargo devastated the American economy while failing to achieve its foreign policy objective. It also required a huge bureaucracy and erosions of civil liberties, both of which Jefferson deplored.
James Madison - failure. He thought he could grab Canada while Britain was distracted by Napoleon. We got a good spanking, patriotic myth to the contrary notwithstanding.
James Monroe - success. He expanded U.S. territory at the expense of Spain and formed a tacit alliance with Britain. The Monroe Doctrine was a master stroke. It made the U.S. a junior partner in Britain's global security order, without admitting the relationship publicly. That wouldn't have gone over well with the public in America, where patriotic sentiment was anti-British right up to WW1.
I have to skip J.Q. Adams. I vaguely recall that many historians consider him a lackluster president, but I don't recall any details.
Andrew Jackson - success. His policies towards the native peoples were successful although in my view deplorable. He is said to have been adroit in foreign policy, though again I recall no details. I think he succeeded in implementing much of his domestic agenda.
Martin Van Buren - not sure. He continued Jackson's policies with some success, but had the bad luck to preside over a downturn in the business cycle.
[Lots of skipping from this point on]
James K. Polk - success. Biggest land grab in U.S. history.
Abraham Lincoln - success. The Union won.
Andrew Johnson - failure. His impeachment was unjustified and nakedly political, but it was symptomatic of a breakdown in his relations with Congress. These were bound to be difficult, but he could have made a better job of it.
Ulysses S. Grant - failure. Corruption scandals.
William McKinley - success. Splendid little war.
Woodrow Wilson - failure. U.S. didn't join League of Nations, his pet project. Btw this was entirely due to Wilson's own stubborness. Some swing-voting Senators wanted some compromises that the Allies were willing to agree to, but Wilson wasn't.
Warren Harding - failure. Scandals.
Calvin Coolidge - success, I think. He did almost nothing while the economy boomed. Libertarians like that in a president.
Herbert Hoover - notorious failure.
Franklin Roosevelt - success. He died with his war almost won, and domestically he had transformed the federal government. Not all of his agenda was enacted, of course. I don't know if FDR himself felt that the achievements outweighed the disappointments.
Harry Truman - success. He supervised the creation of the postwar economic and security order. The Korean war was a limited war with limited success.
Dwight Eisenhower - success. His eight-year administration is notable for lacking any conspicuous foreign policy failures, despite many opportunities. He stood up to the Russians over various issues, and to Britain/France/Israel over Suez, while sensibly keeping out of Southeast Asia. Kicking out Mossadegh in favor of the Shah may have been a blunder in the long run, but in the short run it worked.
John Kennedy - not sure. He got elected on a cold war platform, then negotiated the first detente after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Domestically he might be considered a posthumous success, with much of his agenda being enacted under Johnson.
Lyndon Johnson - huge failure, of course. Domestically the Great Society was the last major reform of the American welfare state, but the achievement was overshadowed by the Vietnam debacle.
Richard Nixon - failure, of course. Scandal aside, his price controls were a disaster. His foreign policy is debatable, with admirers arguing he made the best possible job of disengaging from Vietnam.
Ford - failure. South Vietnam went down on his watch, and there was no coming to grips with the economic malaise of the 70s.
Carter - failure. Ditto Ford on the economy, and a number of foreign policy reverses.
Reagan - success. Lebanon and Iran-Contra were embarrassing, but there were no major foreign policy failures. There were successes in Afghanistan and Nicaragua. Reagan's tax and regulatory reforms were enacted. The economy did well overall, despite some trade cycle downturns. Like Washington and Eisenhower, Reagan served two terms and retired still popular.
George Bush - not sure. Recalling Van Buren, his policies were moderately successful but he had bad luck with the trade cycle. The Soviet Union came apart on his watch, with fierce controversy over whether Bush or Reagan deserve any credit for the development.
Clinton - not sure. The Clinton era welfare reform is well regarded across the political mainstream, but from Clinton's standpoint it was a disappointing compromise. The centerpiece of his agenda was presumably healthcare reform, which he failed to see enacted. In foreign policy there were minor successes (Bosnia) and minor failures (Somalia). The Lewinsky scandal was personally embarrassing, but probably irrelevant to evaluating the administration's political success.
George Bush the younger - too soon to tell.
Posted by: David Tomlin at May 7, 2004 06:28 AMJust as a general comment - I wonder if part of the reason why Presidents tend to fair better in hindsight than Prime Ministers is that they are forced (by tradition or constitutional amendment) to step down after two terms, whereas PMs tend only to leave the stage when they're thrown off. Which provokes another idle thought: if FDR's health had been better, and his fourth term had continued till 1948, I wonder whether we would look back on his presidency in the same mostly celebratory way we do today? Would his reputation have been tarnished by the increasingly ugly congressional atmosphere of the late 40s? And what if he had considered a fifth term?
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 7, 2004 06:46 AMHow many of those PMs served more than eight years?
I agree with you on Churchill, given the "in their own terms" specification. His failure was inevitable given the unrealistic goal.
It may be that twentieth century PMs fair poorly because they governed in a time when Britain's power was declining. Perhaps Churchill wasn't the only one reluctant to fully accept that, and so overestimated what was possible. Suez would be a good example.
As for FDR, I don't think anything would have tarnished his reputation short of disaster on the scale of the Great Depression or Vietnam, or a scandal.
The most likely possibility would be a disastrous Cold War reverse, caused by FDR being more willing to give Stalin the benefit of the doubt than Truman was. Some would argue that such a policy would have avoided the Cold War altogether.
How many of those PMs served more than eight years?
Thatcher made 11 years; Asquith 9; Blair has reached 7 (same as Major). Churchill managed 9, but not consecutively.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 9, 2004 03:18 PMI think everyone misses the sense of Powell's comment. Of course many political careers contain, on balance, more successes than failures. The key insight is that every political career ends with some vital work left undone. Among American presidents, even George Washington failed to resolve the problem he knew to be a blot on America's honor (and his own): slavery (although he did posthumously free his own slaves). Lincoln died without having laid out a clear strategy for including the newly freed slaves into society - a problem which would bedevil the nation for more than a century. (And had Lincoln lived, he might have found this problem intractable, and his second term might have been judged unsuccessful.) FDR left to Truman the problem of how to deal with Stalin. I could go on for a while, but the essence of Powell's remark seems to me to be that every political career, no matter how successful, ends with some sense of missed opportunities.
Posted by: Baxter Jones at June 17, 2004 11:32 AM