George Washington's Curse: What divides US elections and why

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George Washington's Curse: What divides US elections and why (9/20/08)

In the US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 the Electoral College votes for each candidate were extremely close to each other. Much has been made about this nearly equal division, about how the nation is divided, and what we'll do about it. Given the importance of these concerns I decided to run the numbers and see how often this happens. To my surprise there's a pattern, and in fact the nation isn't divided at all.

Here's how I figured that out. In 2000 GHW Bush earned 271 electoral votes and Gore 266, out of a total of 538 total votes. That's a difference of 5 votes. If these 5 votes were represented as a percent of the total votes, that would be .93% (5/538). Let's see what the percentages look like for all the US presidential elections:

% difference between top two US presidential candidates by electoral vote

In large part, most people consider the 2000 and 2004 to be a bit too close for comfort. Using the above data, it can be seen that both of these elections dipped below 10%. There are 8 other times since the nation was founded where this similar dip has occurred. These 8 years were: 1796, 1800, 1824, 1876, 1884, 1916, 2000, and 2004.

Of these 8 times 3 are directly linked to other ones, leaving a total of 5 "events". Every one of the elections saw the following common elements:

Preceded by a major war. These are the formal declarations of war, by act of congress, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Cold War. Listed below is each war and the year they ended:
- 1783 Revolutionary War
- 1814 War of 1812
- 1848 Mexican-American War
- 1861 Civil War
- 1898 Spanish American War
- 1918 World War I
- 1945 World War II
- 1991 Cold War
Following each war, the nation elected a 'decent or popular' president or "dynasty" of presidents, who saw the nation through a post-war boom or mini "Golden Age".
Once the president or presidents leave office the mini "Golden Age" ends fairly quickly. The nation is left with a power vacuum which results in massive changes. Not only to the nation as a whole but also to the political parties, and THEN...
We see the close votes such as in 2000 and 2004.

Only three times did the pattern fail to happen, and each of those times the nation faced imminent destruction. For reasons that'll soon be apparent, I'm calling it George Washington's Curse. Every formal declaration of war by the US fits the curse and imminent destruction clause. Here they are, delineated by each stage of the curse:

1796 & 1800 - 1) The Revolutionary War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. 2) George Washington has run unopposed for two terms. 3) Once George Washington leaves office, it becomes apparent that no candidate has enough votes to become the second president of United States. NOTE: In these days, the there were no candidates for vice president, as the runner up in the presidential election became vice president. 4) Now we're equally divided for the first time in both the 1796 and 1800 elections. The nation is literally broken, so broken in fact that we had to pass the 12th Amendment to fix it!
1824 - 1) The War of 1812 is fought and ends with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. 2) James Monroe (of Monroe doctrine fame!) becomes the 5th president of the US and is wildly popular. At the end of his second term in 1825, he leaves quite a mess. 3) In fact, the political parties are so badly fractured that 4) none of the candidates (John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford) can make quorum in the 1824 election and it has to be decided by the House of Representatives!
Imminent Destruction #1: Civil War (1856) - 1) The Mexican-American War ends in 1848 and 2) we elect Zachary Taylor, who died in office. With his death Millard Fillmore comes into power. With Fillmore's rise to power, the Compromise of 1850 is passed, which Taylor had fought against. It's focused on the new territories gained by the US in the Mexican-American War and, surprise surprise, slavery. For the 1852 election we should be in the Golden Age but 3) the Whigs pass over Fillmore, who was not so popular after the Compromise of 1850, and nominate Winfield Scott. By the next election in 1856 the Whig party disbands, Fillmore is leading a new party, and the nation is embroiled over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It has all the hallmarks of GW's curse. However, the slavery issue is so decisive that we end up avoiding the drop below 10%. Things continue to get worse and a year after the next election the Civil War starts.
1876 & 1884 - 1) The Civil War ends in 1865 and 2) Ulysses S. Grant is designated with holding the nation together in the immediate aftermath.. Given what had just happened calling the Reconstruction period a Golden Age is a stretch. But let's say it was better than it could have been. 3) Grant leaves for the 1876 election and this one takes the cake as the worst ever. Those hanging chads in Florida in 2000 were quaint compared to this one. 4) None of the candidates can make quorum again. Instead of going to the House of Representatives this time, it ended with the Compromise of 1877. This compromise is just as shady as it sounds and ends with yet more political parties being fractured (amongst other things). We do a bit better in 1880 but not well enough to recover entirely, slipping under 10% again four years later in 1884. If you look back at the graph, the sawtooth shape from 1876 to 1912 isn't an accident. That's the nation recovering from the Civil War!
1916 - 1) Towards the tail end of Reconstruction, we fight the Spanish American War in 1898. It starts and ends within six months. 2) We elect McKinley in 1896, not by a huge margin like the others but given where the nation is and all, not bad. This is the first time where we'll see a dynasty. McKinley is assassinated in 1901 during his second term . Teddy Roosevelt succeeds him and runs again in 1904and wins. In a true Teddy move, Teddy didn't run for a third term but instead campaigned for Taft in 1908 and Taft won. 3) Roosevelt and Taft have a falling out and then things turn sour. Each man leads a different faction in their political party. They fracture so badly they run against each other in the 1912 election. If Woodrow Wilson hadn't been with the third party candidate factor there we would have dipped below 10% again, but he was and 4) his election in 1912 forestalls the drop until the 1916 election.
Imminent Destruction #2: The Great Depression (1932) - 1) By the 1920 election World War I has ended and we 2) dutifully ~~appoint the latest George Washington~~ elect Warren Harding. Harding dies in office, leading us into dynasty territory again. Harding is followed by Calvin Coolidge. After Coolidge came Hoover and after those two terms the curse caught up with us again, except this time it is so bad it spreads globally in the form of the Great Depression. Because of this the 1932 should have been below 10%, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a plan (gasp!) but not the details (drat!). At this point no one cares and everyone pile behind him anyway.
Imminent Destruction #3: The Cold War (1956?) - 1) World War II pulls us out of the Great Depression and ends in '45. FDR, elected to the presidential office for an unprecedented four terms, dies in office with his vice-president, Harry Truman becoming president in 1945, right when the post war Golden Age should be starting. The problem here is the nation is already well under way to the Cold War and has bigger problems than domestic political problems. The Bay of Pigs, McCarthyism, Korea, Vietnam, and a whole hell of a lot of things we don't even know about came under Cold War, and its effect cannot be understated. Political severances like the Civil War are one thing, but here we're talking Global Thermonuclear Destruction. Everyone dies. Everyone. Cheery thought, isn't it? We skipped most of the curse's stages as a result.
2000 & 2004 - 1) The Cold War ends in 1991, taking with it all of those fears. What happens? Oh right, yet again, 2) a popular president is elected! Bill Clinton! Bill leaves eight years later in a burst of scandals and 3) the political parties end up NOT fracturing this time, thanks to the third party candidates like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, and instead focus on 4) providing us with unpopular candidates in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. Meanwhile the economy has crashed twice now, a lot of citizens have suffered, and 9/11 happened. As a result, we are currently waging a two theatre war and in large part have undone most of what happened with the end of the Cold War until 2000.
Prediction: What's happening now - Presently we're at the end of the previous war's cycle and not facing imminent destruction (in theory anyway!). The population is dissatisfied with the political parties and the economy is getting trashed. This isn't the time for people to tout the party line. In this respect, we think there is potential for both candidates but with the vice presidential picks they seem to be eroding that idea. We are in the midst of another war and with the proper objectives met we could see another cycle begin. Unfortunately since that means winning the war on terror and getting things settled at home. It'll be a bit before that happens!

The problem with all of this is the question of why a pattern exists at all. As a nation, we continually pin our hopes on specific people and the parties they theoretically embody rather than the government as a whole, and it's been ripping us apart for centuries now. Year after year, we look toward fuzzy and shifting political philosophies to answer simple questions like "what can we do about all the polluted streams?" Non-politicians would answer that question by establishing a few test cases nationwide and then replicate success wherever they find it. Instead we debate global warming and polar bears. Meanwhile I still don't feel safe eating fish caught just about anyplace other than the sea, Alaska, and out west.

It's time we break George Washington's Curse. We need a president who will develop the government as an organization. One who'll get the finances and accounting straight, and implement an enduring problem solving culture based not on blame but on learning from mistakes to ensure success. One that will utilize science and even understand the difference between good and bad science. One who will believe in the common power of humanity in contrast to the power of one deity, party, or philosophy. Lastly, one that would employ different management techniques as appropriate, including laissez-faire approaches. The present Bear Stearns/Lehman/Merrill Lynch collapse is one such failure that could have been avoided. We can do better.

How? By electing such a leader and then supporting them through thick and thin. The framework for doing this is already there. Get the effort up on a Wiki so people can start looking for candidates qualified for the job, elect an omnipartisan commission of bloggers to shorten the list, let the people build bios on those people and then let the bloggers interview them. Chances are they're already in a political party so we can avoid the ballot access problem that way or go it alone. After the election we, the Internet, then become an advisor for that president. More than likely we'd only reach their deputies due to the volume of information but the point stands. We'd be well on our way to a well oiled machine.

Note: My fiancée Shauna provided a great deal of help with this project. I just noticed the pattern and sketched the idea. The rest is her. :-)