Historians must be giddy over how the 2016 presidential election is shaping up.
The rest of us? Not so much.
It’s the kind of storyline a satirical novelist would invent: A bombastic real estate mogul decides he wants to be president and faces a former president’s wife who has spent a lifetime jockeying for the job.
Few Americans like either character.
Not the vulgar, insulting bully who tells the most obviously obvious lies.
And not the opportunistic politician who argues that her own dishonesty and flouting of laws are irrelevant because she’s smart and accomplished and her intentions are good.
Political analysts are sifting through centuries’ worth of data to determine how the race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton might play out.
Will turnout be up or down? Will the extraordinarily high negatives for both candidates propel voters to the polls or keep them away? How will the votes break by gender, by race, by age, by income level, by religion?
So far analysts have more questions than answers. They’re stumped. There aren’t many election years and candidates that can be reasonably compared to 2016.
That’s not to say that this is the most dramatic election in American history. Many TV pundits and partisans are prone to such histrionics, but don’t believe their nonsense.
Americans have a sturdy history of dealing with political weirdness, dating back at least to the presidential election of 1800.
That’s when the conniving Aaron Burr tried to maneuver himself to the top of the presidential ticket. He had hopes of ousting the presumed winner Thomas Jefferson.
A tie vote in the Electoral College sent the decision to the House of Representatives. It took nearly a week of negotiations and lobbying by Alexander Hamilton – who hated Jefferson but hated Burr more – before Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot.
Burr became vice president – that was before he killed Hamilton in a duel and before he was tried, unsuccessfully, for treason – and the nation a few years later amended the Constitution to avoid a replay of the Jefferson-Burr situation.
In the 1850s, the issue of slavery not only tore apart the nation, but ripped its political parties into ineffectual pieces. The Republican Party was born amid the turmoil, and President Abraham Lincoln was its first nominee to become president.
Lincoln garnered only about 40 percent of the 1860 popular vote. Political alliances were so fragmented that candidates from four different parties won Electoral College votes. Lincoln had the most, nearly 60 percent.
Lincoln was inaugurated March 4, 1861, and five weeks later, rebel Southerners fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, marking the start of the Civil War.
Even though Lincoln won in 1860 with relatively few votes and war ensued, most historians consider him the nation’s greatest president.
As the 20th century dawned, unrest again brewed. There were race riots and labor violence. Women demanded the right to vote. There were calls to outlaw alcohol nationwide. Others denounced the economic system that favored the wealthy.
Republican Theodore Roosevelt was among those who advocated economic reforms, and he was selected to be William McKinley’s running mate in 1900. When McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Roosevelt became the nation’s youngest president at age 42.
Roosevelt left the White House in 1909, but unhappy with his Republican successor, William Howard Taft, he decided to run again in 1912.
He won wide support on the state level but was denied the nomination at the Republican convention, so he formed the Bull Moose Party. His third party effort split the Republicans and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won easily.
Other dramas, including the 2008 election of the nation’s first black president, have been woven into our presidential history over the last 100 years.
With about six months to go to this year’s Nov. 8 election, many voters already have made up their minds. Many have made up their minds but will change them. And many are trying to decide how – or whether – to cast their ballots given their dislike of the candidates.
Their decisions – as much as the words and actions of the candidates – will determine how history writes the story of the 2016 election.
A Plains View 