Analysis: Obama and Trump broke the mold. Do they signal a new view of the presidency?
By Dan Balz Dan Balz Chief correspondent covering national politics, the presidency and Congress Email Bio Follow May 18 at 5:56 PM For more than two centuries, until the election of 2008, American presidents all looked alike. They were white and male and every one of them came to office with experience in the government, military or both. Barack Obama, the first African American president, broke one mold. Donald Trump, who had neither military nor government experience, broke the other.
Will and Wendy Keen were in the audience at the Big Grove Brewery and Taproom in Iowa City a few weeks ago, awaiting the arrival of former vice president Joe Biden. They have been making what Will called “a diligent effort to connect with each of the candidates” campaigning in their state. From George Washington through George W. Bush, no characteristic was more enduring in American presidents than the monopoly of white men. No women or candidates of color made much of a dent on the presidential selection process. Candidates of color ran for their parties’ nomination and lost. Women ran for the nomination and lost. Women were nominated to be vice president with no success.
Rob Burns, who works in the university bookstore at the University of Iowa, said he is less concerned about traditional credentials as he assesses presidential candidates this year. Hetherington believes that a changing Democratic Party makes nontraditional candidates more attractive to some party activists. As consumers, he said, many of those Democrats are more likely to be attracted to niche products — fair-trade coffee as opposed to the opposite, for example — and that helps to explain why the base of the party acts as it does.
Cues from party leaders count for less, as candidates build their own followings. Sid Milkis, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, argued that, for all their differences, Trump and Obama share something more than nontraditional résumés. “They see or saw themselves as heads of a movement. They didn’t just envision themselves as presidential candidates,” he said. “And secondly, both kept their distance — and you could say weakened — the official party organization.
That was the message David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, gave to the young senator as he was making his final decision to run for president. Through much of the 20th century, governmental experience marked the résumés of presidents. Herbert Hoover had earned a reputation as a skilled executive by organizing humanitarian relief efforts in Europe after World War I and later distinguished himself as a commerce secretary with outsize influence. Franklin D. Roosevelt had served as assistant secretary of the Navy during World War I, vice presidential nominee in 1920 and a term as governor of New York on his way to the presidency.
Carter’s election “opened the floodgates” to this different model of presidents, Nelson said. After Carter came Reagan, who had been the two-term governor of California. In 1992, the country elected Bill Clinton, the young governor of Arkansas, turning out Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president, after a single term. Clinton was succeeded by Bush’s son, George W. Bush, who in addition to his family name had twice been elected governor of Texas.
“It spread his name beyond Illinois,” Goodwin said. “He became a national figure because of those debates.” Trump’s celebrity proved to be one of the most important assets in 2016. Though he was a well-known businessman, he could not claim the executive skills of the head of a company with tens of thousands of employees. Instead, his background as a reality TV star distinguished him from other candidates for the GOP nomination — and allowed him to use media to his advantage.
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