News Journal: Second-term tumbles and the lessons of history

The first year of Barack Obama’s second term was a difficult one, but just about every two-term president has been far more successful in his first four years than in his second.

It started with George Washington, who had to live with open political warfare between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his final years in office. But it has been most apparent in the past 100 years. Woodrow Wilson was humiliated in his second term when his dream of a League of Nations was defeated in the Senate. Franklin Roosevelt’s second was rocky, especially memorable for the rejection of his plan to pack the Supreme Court.

Lyndon Johnson’s second term was marked by his rejection by his own party for his escalation of the Vietnam War. Then came Richard Nixon and Watergate, followed by Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Certainly few second terms have been as disastrous as that of George W. Bush, starting with Katrina and ending with the collapse of the economy.

That quick walk through history might put President Obama’s past year in some perspective, but it doesn’t erase the poor rollout of his signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act. He will either recover in the next year or become an early lame duck. We’ll see. But his situation is cause to wonder why second terms are so tough on incumbent presidents. I think there are a number of reasons.

All first terms include what we have come to think of as the “honeymoon period.” Nearly always, a substantial majority of the country rallies around the newly elected president in his first months in office. Gallup says this period ends when the president’s approval rating falls below the “historical average presidential job approval rating of 55 percent.” The honeymoon period has lasted an average of nine months for our past six presidents. After that, the opposition party feels more empowered. Second terms don’t include a honeymoon period.

A first term in the White House is staffed with a cadre of people who worked closely with the president during the campaign. They usually have built excellent working relationships, which they bring to the new administration’s decision-making. Almost without exception, the fatigue caused by long hours in the White House and/or the siren songs of the millions of dollars they can make outside convinces them to move on. The new teams brought in for second terms rarely share the same kind of relationships.

A brand new president – any president – excites the imagination of a lot of talented people. That gives him a deep bench to choose from for the about 3,000 full-time positions he gets to appoint. In 2008, there were more than 250,000 early applicants for those jobs, and I can tell you they were among our best and brightest. Four years is a lifetime in many of those positions, and many leave at the start of the second term.

Like it or not, for months before the election that gives him a second term, the president and the top people in his administration are nearly totally consumed with the unbelievable rigors of a modern presidential campaign. During that time, important day-to-day decisions are being made by people further down in the chain of command. That affects results well into the first year of the second term. I suspect this was a major cause of the website problems of the ACA.

Finally, I don’t think any president in my lifetime has adequately planned for his second term. While I was in the Senate, I introduced the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act, which became law in 2010. It gives presidential candidates the wherewithal and the security access to the federal government that will help them hit the ground running after their election. Preparing for the law’s implementation, I met with presidential scholars as well as Bush administration officials, who had given unprecedented support and access to the incoming Obama administration during the 2008 transition. They told me that one of their great regrets was not putting together a formal transition operation for their second term. The Obama administration didn’t learn from this; the second term began without any such plan in place.

It is enough to make you wonder why they all want a second term, but in every case I believe it is because they feel strongly there is more work to be done. I do think future presidents should take the second term curse more seriously, and put in place formal transition plans that might help break the pattern.

Former U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman writes a column each Sunday.