The sixth year itch

Michael Barone:

As Democrats begin, in George W. Bush's words, "measuring the drapes" in the offices of the House speaker and Senate majority leader, it's worth looking back on the history of sixth-year-of-the-presidency off-year elections. Have big gains for the out party been a harbinger of future voting patterns? And have opposition victories in those elections resulted in significant public policy changes? History gives us clear answers to those questions. They are: sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Sometimes yes: In the post-Civil War years, there were two big sixth-year victories for the out party. The first was in 1874, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, when the opposition Democrats converted a 194-92 deficit in the House to a 169-109 majority. Historians writing in the backwash of the New Deal tended to ascribe this reverse to the Panic of 1873. But my reading of history tells me that this was a revolt against Grant's policy of stationing troops in the South to enforce civil rights for blacks. Americans had been growing weary of this strife (as they may be growing weary of the strife today in Iraq) and wanted the troops sent home. They were, and Democrats held the House for 16 of the next 20 years--and Southern blacks were left to the mercies of segregation laws and lynch mobs.

There was another great reversal 20 years later--the greatest in American electoral history. Amid a depression deeper than any except that of the 1930s, with violent labor strikes and low farm prices, the House flipped to 244-105 Republican from 218-127 Democratic. This was the beginning of the McKinley Republican majority (said to be the model of Karl Rove) which prevailed for most of the time till the '30s. The laissez-faire policies of Democratic President Grover Cleveland were rejected, even by his own party, and the era of Progressive government interventionism--and Republican majorities--followed. This sixth-term off-year election was consequential indeed.

...

Even the most optimistic Democrat does not see that kind of reversal. At best the Democrats may get a tenuous "majority" that will include more Democrats who do not agree with Pelosi. She will have a difficult time disciplining this group into following the agenda she prefers. This would give President Bush the opportunity to put together the kind of working majority that Ronald Reagan had in the early '80's. If the Democrats react the way they did in the 80's, the Republicans will be in the position to accept more Phil Gramm's to their party. Just One Minute makes a similar point with links and excerpts to supporting articles.

Power Line also looks at Barone's column and the pain that will follow a Democrat win.

...

It may be an opportune time to expand our historical perspective on the six-year itch. In a recent issue of the Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery also sought to take the long view of sixth-year-of-the-presidency elections. She found a pattern that she called "The sixth year slump." Emery's interest is in noting the disparity between the short-term verdict represented by the results of the mid-term election and the ultimate verdict of history. Emery suggests that "sixth-year pain is nothing but normal, and has been shared in some way by all two-term presidents; that the judgments made of presidents in their sixth years of office (and in their seventh and eighth years, for that matter) have not always stood up over time." Emery powerfully invokes the memory of Truman and the devastating impact of the Korean War on the final two years of his presidency. Vindication, however, was a long time in coming

...

It should be noted that it did not take six years for voters to turn on President Clinton. The itch hit in his first mid term, and by his six year he had impeachment to look forward to, even though his party actually picked up a few seats in the election.