The William Howard Taft Presidency (American Presidency Series) Review

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The William Howard Taft Presidency (American Presidency Series) ReviewNot much has been written about William Howard Taft's Presidency, especially in its own right. When one thinks of the turn of the century, attention turns naturally to the energetic, trust-busting, roustabout populism of that denizen of Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt, or to the crucial years of Woodrow Wilson and his stewardship during the First World War. Considering the critical leadership (and high historical appreciation) of those two Presidents, it becomes very easy to gloss over or misunderstand Taft's own years in the White House, especially since he is lost in the middle of two seminal two-term Presidents.
This is not to say that Taft was a spectacularly effective, or even critically important, President. There is a reason that he has been consigned to the metaphorical dust heap of history. What Gould finally addresses, evenhandedly, are the inner workings and struggles of Taft in an office he was never truly suited to inhabit. Here, one gets a sense of looking over Taft's shoulder as he attempts to shun the image of Roosevelt's iconic grappling of presidential power. Let's face it: just as John Adams, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson were unfairly crushed in popular opinion by the shadow of their predecessors, so Taft could never hope to succeed following TR. Gould covers that crucial point and also elaborates on a number of critical mistakes that Taft made that hurt his cause. In fact, Taft's presidency reads as a manual of all the things NOT to do in order to succeed in the White House: lose the public image battle (WHT's love of golf as his recreational habit simultaneously portrays him as "elitist" and exposes him to unflattering photographs highlighting his weight, further contrasting him with TR), issue confusing contradictions of public policy decisions, hire unqualified people to handle your crucial departments, and add a healthy dose of bad luck and controversial economic decisions to the mix.
The bottom line about the book is: this is THE book to read about WHT AND also essential for anybody interested in the era. Not only does Taft's foreign policy decisions foreshadow WWI and Latin American troubles of the 20th Century, but Gould always highlights, correctly, how Taft's presidency led to the modern Republican party. By reneging on his promise to extend TR's progressive agenda, he caused a schism in the GOP that expelled the more progressive and moderate members of the party into independent and Democratic causes. As a result, the Republican party maintained its approval of laissez-faire economics and dissaproval of union power, at the expense of its more progressive social policy base. As a result, the Democratic party ascended to the major party of power for most of the 20th Century until the 1970s. Until Nixon, the Republicans were only able to elect Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Eisenhower to the Oval Office. In that way, Taft influenced 20th Century politics in his most pervasive way. At 215 pages, it is an easy read, and Gould pentrates the inner workings of this deceptively simple time in ways that keeps the reader engaged throughout the narrative.
For those of you who are trying to read a biography of every president, this is the one to read for Taft.The William Howard Taft Presidency (American Presidency Series) OverviewThe only president to later serve as chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft remarked in the 1920s that "I don't remember that I ever was President." Historians have agreed, and Taft is usually portrayed, when written about at all, as nothing more than a failed chief executive. In this provocative new study, the first treatment of the Taft presidency in four decades, Lewis L. Gould presents a compelling assessment of Taft's accomplishments and setbacks in office. Rich in human interest and fresh analysis of the events of Taft's four years in Washington, Gould's book shows why Taft's presidency is very much worth remembering on its own terms.Gould argues that Taft wanted to be president and had an ambitious agenda when he took power in March 1909. Approaching his duties more as a judge than as a charismatic executive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft soon found himself out of step with public opinion. Gould shows how the Payne-Aldrich Tariff and the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy squandered Taft's political capital and prepared the ground for Democratic victories in the elections of 1910 and 1912. His seamless narrative provides innovative treatments of these crucial episodes to make Taft's presidency more understandable than in any previous account. On Canadian Reciprocity, Dollar Diplomacy, and international arbitration, Gould's well-researched work goes beyond earlier stale clichés about Taft's administration to link his tenure to the evolution of the modern presidency. Taft emerges as a hard-working but flawed executive who lacked the excitement of Theodore Roosevelt or the inspiration of Woodrow Wilson. The break with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 doomed the Taft presidency, and Gould supplies an evenhanded analysis of the erosion of their once warm friendship. At bottom, the two men clashed about the nature of presidential power, and Gould traces with insight how this personal and ideological rupture influenced the future of the Republican party and the course of American politics. In Gould's skilled hands, this neglected presidency again comes alive. Leaving the White House in 1913, Taft wrote that "the people of the United States did not owe me another election." What his presidency deserved is the lively and wise appraisal of his record in office contained in this superb book.This book is part of the American Presidency Series.

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Presidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush Review

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Presidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush ReviewRichard J. Ellis's "Presidential Travel" is a useful discussion of the evolution of the manner in which presidents have undertaken trips both within the United States and to other nations. As expected, the change over time is one of ever increasing complexity, concern for security, more logistics, and larger entourages.
Ellis documents well not only the journeys, but preparations for them, and the responses they engendered within the U.S. For instance, his discussion of Lincoln's train trip to Washington in 1861 clearly indicates the relationship between the chief executive moving through the population and the expectations of the populace when confronted with a presidential visit.
Perhaps the fundamental change to presidential travel came as a result of the development of transportation. When a president traveled by horseback or in a carrage, even on the boat on a waterway, the trip was both slow and arduous, and required close contact with the people living along the route. Railroad travel separated the president somewhat from the people along the route as it roared past houses, farms, and fields and the president could stay in a private car. But even then the so-called "whistle stop" tours engaged the public. With the advent if air travel, the president's accessibility to the public took a much more difficult turn as he then flew from location to location without many, if any, intermediate stops along the way. The classic image of George W. Bush flying in Air Force One over the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 rather than participating in the action on the ground brought home the disconnectedness of presidential travel from fellow citizens of the U.S.
Ellis explicitly uses the story of how presidential travel has evolved to ruminate on the creation, especially in the twentieth century, of the image of an imperial presidency far removed from the people presumably served. This is an important issue worthy of consideration. The result is an accessible, reflective discussion of this subjectPresidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush OverviewIn office less than half a year, President George Washington undertook an arduous month-long tour of New England to promote his new government and to dispel fears of monarchy. More than two hundred years later, American presidents still regularly traverse the country to advance their political goals and demonstrate their connection to the people.In this first book-length study of the history of presidential travel, Richard Ellis explores how travel has reflected and shaped the changing relationship between American presidents and the American people. Tracing the evolution of the president from First Citizen to First Celebrity, he spins a lively narrative that details what happens when our leaders hit the road to meet the people.Presidents, Ellis shows, have long placed travel at the service of politics: Rutherford "the Rover" Hayes visited thirty states and six territories and was the first president to reach the Pacific, while William Howard Taft logged an average of 30,000 rail miles a year. Unearthing previously untold stories of our peripatetic presidents, Ellis also reveals when the public started paying for presidential travel, why nineteenth-century presidents never left the country, and why earlier presidents--such as Andrew Jackson, once punched in the nose on a riverboat--journeyed without protection. Ellis marks the fine line between accessibility and safety, from John Quincy Adams skinny-dipping in the Potomac to George W. clearing brush in Crawford. Particularly important, Ellis notes, is the advent of air travel. While presidents now travel more widely, they have paradoxically become more remote from the people, as Air Force One flies over towns through which presidential trains once rumbled to rousing cheers. Designed to close the gap between president and people, travel now dramatizes the distance that separates the president from the people and reinforces the image of a regal presidency.As entertaining as it is informative, Ellis's book is a sprightly account that takes readers along on presidential jaunts through the years as our leaders press flesh and kiss babies, ride carriages and trains, plot strategies on board ships and planes, and try to connect with the citizens they represent.

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The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) Review

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The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) ReviewThis book's title is a reference to journalist Theodore White's book about the 1960 presidential election, *The Making of the President, 1960,* published in 1961. In addition to being a best-seller, White's book was the first in a series of books on US presidential elections and set the tone for the interpretation of the 1960 election, a tone which glamorized John F. Kennedy as the "good guy" and Richard M. Nixon as the "villain" and which viewed the outcome as the triumph of liberalism over conservatism. Now along comes historian W.J. Rorabaugh who wants to peel away the onion and get at the "real" 1960 election and to re-evaluate this contest and its significance. What, then, does he find?
Perhaps his most interesting observation is the key role played by the southern states in the outcome. JFK selected Lyndon B. Johnson as his V.P. for a simple reason: he needed him to win the election. LBJ campaigned effectively in the South and brought Texas' 24 electoral votes (and those of many other southern states), without which the Democrats probably could not have won the presidency.
Rorabaugh also believes Nelson Rockefeller would have run stronger against JFK than Nixon. And that the GOP's choice for V.P., Henry Cabot Lodge, was a disaster, as for example, when he pledged in a Harlem campaign speech that Nixon would name an African American to his cabinet.
Other important outcome factors, according to Rorabaugh, include: the Democrats' very effective use of videotape and television; JFK's access to a personal airplane; huge sums of money, thanks in part to Joseph Kennedy; JFK's early recruitment of a talented staff and superb organization; JFK's adeptness at manipulating and catering to the media; and of course the first of the televised "debates" between Nixon and Kennedy which helped the underdog JFK immensely.
Going way beyond White, we also learn that JFK's staff members were not always the good guys, that they sometimes used dark tactics ("dirty tricks") to their advantage. Just ask the Hubert Humphrey campaign people about what happened in the Wisconsin and especially the West Virginia primaries, primaries that were decisive in JFK winning his party's nomination. It's hard to say for sure which candidate benefited more from the religious issue, but Rorabaugh's conservative conclusion on this issue is that JFK's victory proved that a Roman Catholic could finally be elected to the highest office in the land, thus helping to break down barriers in the future for minorities. As for White's portrayal of JFK's liberalism vs. Nixon's conservatism, the author says neither candiate cared much about ideology.
Rorabaugh doesn't do much with JFK's sex life, in case anyone was wondering. He notes that both JFK and his campaign manager-brother, Bobby, played loose with the accusation that JFK was suffering from Addison's disease, a charge made initially by LBJ's friends. (JFK did have Addison's but not the common type of this disease, so this could have provided the technicality for their denial.) I found it interesting that the author talks very little about Jacqueline Kennedy's role in the campaign. One tidbit that I was not aware of is that Jacqueline had never voted before, and on election day 1960 voted, but only for her husband.
I suspect that this book will now be considered the "standard" work on the 1960 election. (But don't overlook Gary A. Donaldson's 2007 book titled *The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon and the Election of 1960*.) I also suspect that many readers will find this book a bit on the dry side. I did. But I'm aware that Rorabaugh has written a couple previous books on the 1960s, and I intend to read and comment on them.
Tim Koerner May 2009
The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (American Presidential Elections) OverviewWhen John Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he also won the right to put his own spin on the victory--whether as an underdog's heroic triumph or a liberal crusader's overcoming special interests. Now W. J. Rorabaugh cuts through the mythology of this famous election to explain the nuts-and-bolts operations of the campaign and offer a corrective to Theodore White's flawed classic, The Making of the President.Despite a less than liberal record, JFK assumed the image of liberal hero--thanks to White and other journalists who were shamelessly manipulated by the Kennedy campaign. Rorabaugh instead paints JFK as the ideological twin of Nixon and his equal as a bare-knuckled politician, showing that Kennedy's hard-won, razor-thin victory was attributable less to his legendary charisma than to an enormous amount of money, an effective campaign organization, and television image-making.The 1960 election, Rorabaugh argues, reflects the transition from the dominance of old-style boss and convention politics to the growing significance of primaries, race, and especially TV--without which Kennedy would have been neither nominated nor elected. He recounts how JFK cultivated delegates to the 1960 Democratic convention; quietly wooed the still-important party bosses; and used a large personal organization, polls, and TV advertising to win primaries. JFK's master stroke, however, was choosing as a running mate Lyndon Johnson, whose campaigning in the South carried enough southern states to win the election. On the other side, Rorabaugh draws on Nixon's often-ignored files to take a close look at his dysfunctional campaign, which reflected the oddities of a dark and brooding candidate trapped into defending the Eisenhower administration. Yet the widely detested Nixon won almost as many votes as the charismatic Kennedy. This leads Rorabaugh to reexamine the darker side of the election: the Republicans' charges of vote fraud in Illinois and Texas, the use of money to prod or intimidate, manipulation of the media, and the bulldozing of opponents.The Real Making of the President gives us a sobering look at all of this, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of one of the nation's most memorable elections.This book is part of the American Presidential Elections series.

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