THE LAVISH American presidential inaugural celebrations that will be witnessed this week were championed by Warren Harding. In 1921, when Congress refused to finance his plans for a grand parade, he ignored it and went to the private sector to raise funds for an extravaganza. He was not, alas, much of an orator or a president. A contemporary politician remarked: “His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea; sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork.” Ouch.
By contrast, George Washington offered the shortest inaugural address to
his fellow countrymen. In his first, he had stunned them by announcing that he would not accept a salary (only John F. Kennedy in recent decades has been similarly inexpensive). In his second, however, with a similar spirit of economy, he produced a mere 135 words. Yet, if inclined, George W. Bush could comfortably beat that record in Washington on Thursday. He might legitimately stand up and state in five blunt words: “I own this town now” and then sit down again.
And for the next 18 months or so he indeed will. After that, the collective attention of American politics will turn to the mid-term elections of 2006 and from there to the identity of Mr Bush’s successor. That obsession will be intense because for the first time since 1952 neither the sitting President nor his Vice-President will be nominated for the Oval Office. Dick Cheney will be the first Vice-President to a two-term president to disavow completely a bid for the top slot since Thomas R. Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson, Harding’s predecessor.
Yet for Mr Bush to dominate the American (and hence, global) scene for almost two years more is an extraordinary achievement. Most second-term presidencies are pale imitations of the first four years in power. They have, historically, been undercut by three factors: agenda exhaustion, personnel depletion and congressional erosion.
The agenda exhaustion comes because by the fifth year of his tenure, either the principal parts of a presidential programme have been enacted (for example, Ronald Reagan’s economic package of 1981), or it is obvious that they will never make it into legislation (Bill Clinton and healthcare by 1994). The personnel depletion follows from the trend that while incoming presidents can regularly persuade men and women of high standing to work for them, by the second term most of these characters have departed and their replacements are not as impressive.
The most important element, though, is congressional erosion. When Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected in 1956 the opposition Democrats were also re-elected to control Congress. The same pattern occurred for Richard Nixon 16 years later. In 1984 Ronald Reagan stormed to a massive victory but his Democratic foes maintained command of the House of Representatives and cut the Republican advantage in the Senate. In 1996 Mr Clinton obtained a further term, but so did the Republicans who held court over both chambers on Capitol Hill. Second terms usually means stalemate.
It is this combination of factors that has compelled so many second-term presidents to retreat into the role of constitutional monarch at home, throw themselves into international relations to compensate and embark on the (usually fruitless) attempt to shape their own legacy. They become progressively less consequential figures as every second ticks away towards their mandatory retirement. Congress marginalises the normal second-term president on the home front. The intransigence of other presidents and prime ministers frequently frustrates his efforts to cast himself as a “peacemaker” overseas.
None of these constraints applies to this President. He still has plenty of proposals for domestic policy left in him. These range from making permanent tax cuts that were passed in his opening term and the partial privatisation of American pensions to his ambition to curtail the outrageous costs of the US legal system. His new Cabinet members are not noticeably weaker than his previous colleagues. His party runs each branch of Congress and, thanks to the November election results, with greater majorities. For the first time since 1937 a re-elected president who has been in Washington for four years starts again with congressional enhancement, not erosion.
This presidency will thus be different. Mr Bush will be more active at home than is typical of second-term chief executives. He will not be forced to immerse himself in foreign affairs and, when he does, the limitations on him will largely be practical (particularly the course of events in Iraq) and not political. He may also have a very distinct notion of what he wants his legacy to be than other presidents. Rather than engage in the implausible pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, he might aspire to be remembered as the man who won the War on Terror. It is unlikely that he will invade any more rogue states, but that is mostly because such ventures will either be deemed unnecessary or unfeasible.
How much Mr Bush will do in his remaining time is, therefore, unpredictable. He may, once again, break the rules of American politics and prove that it is possible to maintain momentum. The wild card here is scandal. It has been the curse of second-term Administrations. It embarrassed Eisenhower, triggered the resignation of Nixon, shook the Reagan White House to its foundations and led Mr Clinton to be impeached by the House of Representatives before being acquitted in the Senate. If he can avoid such ethical quicksand, this President’s final few years in office could be surprisingly successful.
Mr Bush’s personal authority, at least until 2007, may be really exceptional. Only Franklin D. Roosevelt has been equivalently placed in the past 100 years. This might oblige his many vocal critics, who have habitually mocked him, to deliver their own five-word speech this Thursday. It should read: “He is not an idiot.”
