Giving the president the hook -- July 30, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Good news: Barack Obama will not subvert the Constitution and grab a third presidential term.  

Most Americans never imagined that he’d do such a thing, but oddball doomsayers have warned for years that Obama was angling for a presidency for life.   

“I actually think I’m a pretty good president. I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t,” Obama said Tuesday in Ethiopia. “The law is the law.”

He was giving the hook to African leaders who sometimes govern for decades. In this country, though, his comments set off a Seinfeldian debate about nothing. Could he win a third term if he could run, which he can’t?

His comments about age and presidential term limits, though, are worth examining.

“I’m still a pretty young man, but I know that somebody with new energy and new insights will be good for my country,” said Obama, who will turn 54 Tuesday.

“In our world, old thinking can be a stubborn thing. That’s one of the reasons why we need term limits -- old people think old ways,” he said.

If Obama believes this country needs someone younger than he next time around, what does that say about the Democrats’ elderly team of rivals? Grandma Hillary, 67, the presumptive frontrunner, may have a golden resume but Clinton is hard to sell as a candidate of new energy and new insights.

Throngs of Democrats flock to hear Bernie Sanders, who has vinegar, but he is 73. Joe Biden’s humanity makes him the Democrats’ favorite potential presidential candidate who’s not in the race. He’s 72. It may take a Hillary implosion to bring him into the fray.  

Among Republican hopefuls, several are younger than Obama – and all can claim new energy and insight. Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz are 44, Scott Walker is 47, and Rand Paul is 52. But it’s an irrepressible old guy with no elective experience who’s leading the pack.

Donald Trump, 69, said he wished Obama could run again so Trump could beat him and everyone else. Trump has energy and unusual insights, all right, but he scares most Republicans. Also in their 60s: Jeb Bush, 62, Lindsey Graham, 60, John Kasich, 63, and Rick Perry, 65.

Setting aside the current competition, it’s worth asking: Do we need presidential term limits or should voters decide how long to keep a president?

"If they want to vote for someone, we shouldn’t have a rule that tells them they can’t.”

That’s not a wistful Bill Clinton. That’s conservative superhero President Ronald Reagan who said in 1987 that he hoped to “start a movement” after he left the White House to repeal the two-term limit on the presidency.  The change would not apply to him, Reagan said, but to his successors.

Since the 22^nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, people have been arguing about the wisdom of prohibiting someone from being elected to the presidency more than twice or serving more than 10 years. A vice president who serves more than two years of a previous president’s term and a full term may not run for re-election.  

For example, more than two years remained in Richard Nixon’s term when he resigned and Vice President Gerald Ford took over. Had Ford beat Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ford could have served only one full term and could not have run for re-election.

The Founders saw the presidency as a short-term gig. Delegates to the 1797 Constitutional Convention debated a six- or seven-year term and then agreed on four years. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson set the precedent of two terms, and the tradition stuck until the 1940s.

Only after Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won a fourth term did the rules change. Bills proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the 22^nd Amendment have died in Congress over and over.  

As they should. The Founders who feared a restoration of the monarchy had the right idea. No one person should dominate our highest office indefinitely. We should keep the two-term limit. Even Obama is fine with it.     

“You can see my gray hair – I’m getting old,” he said.         

©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

How can GOP win young voters? June 6, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

After back-to-back presidential defeats, the Republican Party is obsessed with reinventing itself. Or, more accurately, it’s obsessed with talking about reinventing itself.

This is like someone who, having gained 25 pounds, debates the virtues of various diets while lying on the couch, eating junk food. It’s a first step, but a tiny one.

   

Poor Bob Dole had the temerity to say that this isn’t his Republican party. Nearly 90, the former senator and Republican presidential nominee said last month that he doubted whether he, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan could even be nominated for president by the current party.

“I think they ought to put a sign on the (Republican National) Committee doors that says ‘Closed for Repairs,’” and spend the next six months coming up with a positive agenda, Dole said on Fox News Sunday.

Conservatives pounced, calling Dole old, irrelevant and worse. Eventually, though, status-quo Republicans may be forced to hear the wake-up calls. Yes, plural.

  

 In March, a Republican task force commissioned by Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus warned in its “Growth and Opportunity Project” report that the party has marginalized itself and risks future presidential losses unless it makes changes.  Among the problems is age. 

“Young people are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the party represents…When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us,” the report said.

Reagan may be a beloved GOP icon, but no one under the age of 51 was old enough to vote for him when he first ran for president, the report noted, adding, “Our party knows how to appeal to older voters, but we have lost our way with younger ones.” 

It’s even worse than that.

When voters under 30 were asked what words they associate with “Republican Party,” they responded: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.

And the Democratic Party? Soft, said some, but most picked tolerant, diverse and open-minded.

These are findings from a new report by the College Republican National Committee. The committee analyzed voter polls and conducted its own focus groups and survey of voters under 30 for “Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation.” The report calls on Republicans to turn the GOP brand around, update their tech presence and rethink their policies.

Young people have been voting Democratic for president since 1992, so long that it may seem the natural order. President Barack Obama won 5 million more votes of people under 30 than Mitt Romney did last year, and that was enough to ensure Obama’s victory, despite Romney’s winning 2 million more votes of people over 30.

 

It wasn’t always this way. In 1972, the first presidential election when 18-year-olds could vote, 52 percent of voters under 30 cast ballots for Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan won 59 percent of young voters in 1984, and George W. Bush lost young voters by just 2 points in 2000 – while losing seniors 65 and more than 4 points.

Democrats should not enjoy the Republicans’ dilemma too much.  It’s not that young people love Democrats, the college Republicans report. It’s that young people hate Republicans more.

At the start of their survey, the College Republicans’ researchers asked young voters to complete two non-political sentences: “I hope people see me as…” And “I hope people never see me as…” They were given a long list of attributes.This was before any mention of politics, and the idea was to get a sense of what the young people valued. 

Interestingly, the most common answer to “I hope people see me as…” was intelligent, followed by caring and hardworking. Way down the list were creative, unique, adventurous and cool.

And “I hope people never see me as…” stupid. Lazy and incompetent were close behind.  Farther down were closed-minded, negative and unhelpful.  

“For the GOP, being thought of as closed-minded is hardly a good thing. But if the GOP is thought of as the “stupid party,” it may as well be the kiss of death,” the report said.

Cue the comments last year by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was right on target when he said Republicans have to stop being “the stupid party.”

But how? What can Republicans do to win back the youth vote in presidential elections? I’d love to hear your ideas.

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.