Redefining ‘Normal’ After Barack Obama
He doesn’t challenge norms the way Republicans say he does. Plus, Jonathan Bernstein’s morning links.
Who has time for “normal”?
Photographer: Mark Makela/Getty Images
A nice catch from Nicholas F. Jacobs, who writes on the history of the post-presidency over at the Monkey Cage and takes to pieces a claim from some Republicans that Barack Obama is doing something wrong by hitting the stump for the midterms. Jacobs cites Marc Thiessen, who said Obama was “breaking presidential norms with his self-serving foray into partisan demagoguery.”
There’s no such norm. What there has been is a real shortage of popular Republican former presidents. George W. Bush was terribly unpopular during his second term, especially the last two years. George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft and Benjamin Harrison were defeated for re-election; none of the modern ones, and I’d guess none of the older ones in this category, were really getting a lot of invitations to campaign for anyone. Indeed, staying out of the fray was probably a way for them to win back some of their popularity.