Looking for Election Day Excitement? It’s History

Would you agree that America is not excited about this week’s presidential election?

Too bad, isn’t it, because couldn’t you argue that a democracy has no more shining moment than when it elects a president?

Wondering why we aren’t excited, or whether we ever have been excited on election eve, I headed for the history books. Or, more precisely, a history professor.

Harry Jeffrey teaches at Cal State Fullerton, specializing in 20th century political history. As a warmup question, I asked him when the last time the country was happy or excited about a presidential election.

“I would think 1960,” he said, “because you had two young, bright, physically attractive candidates [John Kennedy and Richard Nixon] running. And it was close. Happiness is one thing, but an election that looks like it’s going to be very close, that excites people. That election, because it looked like it was going to be close--and it was--energized people and to some extent transfixed the nation.”

Turnout bears that out. In 1956, 61.5 million votes were cast for the two major candidates, Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. In 1960, 68.3 million votes were cast for Kennedy and Nixon, an 11% increase.

I lamented the fact that voters who back the losing candidate these days seem to give only grudging support to the winner. Jeffrey gave me another history lesson.

“In more elections than not, people have been partisans--and stronger partisans in terms of party identification than now. The history of American presidential elections shows there has been a great deal of antipathy toward one candidate by partisans of the other. Campaigns are throwing pastries today compared to what they used to do.”

For example, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams squared off in 1824 and 1828. “Jackson was accused of being an adulterer and Adams of getting the czar of Russia young delectable American girls for his harem,” he said.

That kind of no-holds-barred campaigning persisted until near the end of the 19th century, he said, because the parties controlled so many jobs through patronage. It wasn’t unusual for voters to listen to two-hour stump speeches or conduct torchlight parades for their candidates. “There was a lot more at stake. People didn’t say it really didn’t matter who won, because it did matter.”

I asked Jeffrey what makes for exciting elections. In addition to such intangibles as how the country feels about itself, it boils down to the combatants and how close their fight is expected to be.

That sounds to me like a prizefighting analogy. If so, that may explain this year’s mood. Dole-Clinton is not exactly Ali-Frazier.

I asked Jeffrey for some better historical matchups.

“If you want to start in 1796 and 1800, when John Adams both times ran against Thomas Jefferson . . . “ Jeffrey said. “Adams won the first time and Jefferson the second time. Then, I think the elections that Andrew Jackson participated in really energized people--in 1824, when he lost in the House of Representatives and then in 1828 and 1832 [when he won]. In 1828, it was a rematch with John Quincy Adams, and 1832 had to be one of the great elections, with the two most magnetic people who ever opposed each other, when Andrew Jackson went up against Henry Clay.”

What about 1932, I asked. Wasn’t the country excited about Franklin Roosevelt?

It takes two to tango, Jeffrey suggested. “In 1932, Hoover more and more became a captive of the White House. He got the strangest and most unique reaction of any major candidate in American party history. When he was on the road campaigning, he was met by people who were so beaten down they were sullen. They just stared at him. He writes he almost got scared, because he met people who had their hands down, not shaking their fists, not clapping. He used words like ‘eerie feeling’ to describe it.”

Jeffrey rates the 1860 election as our most important, because of the secession specter. His runner-up might surprise you--the election of 1896 between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. “That determined whether America was going to be and accept being an urbanized industrialized society and look forward in dealing with the problems of an urban industrialized society, or look backward to its agrarian past with small businesses.”

Well, you know how that one turned out.

How excited was the young country in 1789 when George Washington began his term? I asked.

“It was excitement because here for the first time in history you had a nationwide election, a democratic election for chief executive of a large nation. This was an experiment unique in world history. European countries for 30, 40 years after the establishment of the Constitution thought this experiment would fail. Even some of the Enlightenment philosophers thought you couldn’t have a democracy, or you surely couldn’t have it in such a large country.”

Perhaps we Americans should keep that perspective. Jeffrey still has it, and that’s why he has his Tuesday evening plans all mapped out.

“I’m telling my class that’s supposed to meet at 7 that I will be meeting with them individually later to go over their research papers. Then, I’m coming home, not allowing my wife or children upstairs, and I’ll have a minimum of two television sets and two radios going simultaneously, with my clipboard, and making my fearless forecasts.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.