political history

Today, Barack Obama became the 44th President on the back of an incredibly powerful story. Some of these storylines are true and unassailable: the historicity of the first African American President. Others are the work of an incredibly skilled campaign team and a candidate who mastered the literary realm (and indeed, used it as the basis of his political career) as Reagan mastered stagecraft. Watching TV today reminds me of an immutable truth of our politics: above all else, we as Americans love a good story.

Oddly, this dynamic does not wind up devaluing issues and policies as you expect it might. When radical policies like the biggest expansion of government since FDR can be cloaked in a tableau of hope, change, and history, they are much easier to get through. Good storytelling is the natural ally of those who would like to see bold public policies -- on both sides.

Again and again in American politics, certain themes recur. And certain storylines are more successful than others. I went back and looked at Presidential elections since 1960 -- generally considered to be the birth of modern Presidential politics -- to see which storylines worked and which didn't, and it's not hard to see why Obama's trifecta of youth, change, and hope -- represented here by optimism, is so powerful: they've won every time they've been tried.

Here are the overall themes. I tried to boil down each candidate to a maximum of two main narratives: 

Here are the overall standings: