On path to presidency, stark contrast in role models
WASHINGTON - Temperament, more than passion or even intelligence, is what separated the most successful presidents from the others. George Washington's ability to rise above the tumult of the early years of the republic helped define the term "presidential." Then there was a fatherly Abraham Lincoln, calmly parsing the issues of the Civil War by candlelight.
When Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that Franklin D. Roosevelt was "a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament," it came off as a dry-martini putdown. But scholars saw it as capturing the essence of FDR's greatness, how his jaunty personality helped the country maintain a sense of optimism throughout the Great Depression and World War II.
In the past three weeks, John McCain and Barack Obama have turned their presidential contest into a battle of contrasting temperaments. McCain, aware that his mercurial demeanor doesn't fit the George Washington mold, identifies with a more fiery type of chief. On the campaign trail, he has cited Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman as past presidents he admires, and it's apparent that they would be his role models.
TR's billowing personality helped boost America onto the international stage. At home, he cast himself as the people's prosecutor. He took on Wall Street trusts - business partnerships that created monopolies and thereby gave moguls the power to set prices - with a crusading zeal. And while some historians note that his two successors, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, did more to regulate business than TR, TR's willingness to point the accusing finger set the stage for decades of reforms.
All in all, TR is a pretty good analogy for a candidate eager to tackle today's problems. The bad news for McCain is that TR wasn't elected in an atmosphere of crisis. Far from it. He was elected vice president on a ticket of opposites headed by one of the nation's most complacent chief executives, William McKinley, who was popular precisely because he wasn't very impulsive.
TR took over after McKinley's assassination, and his personality - a fizzing cocktail of imaginative energy, sleep deprivation, and delusions of grandeur - came to define an era. TR, perhaps more than any other American, created the times he lived in. Americans didn't call him to lead; he summoned them to follow.
Through it all, TR's status as an accidental president - unfettered, unbought - actually enhanced his effectiveness.
Truman, too, was an accidental president, assuming office after FDR's death, and the contrast between the two men shadowed Truman through the nearly eight years of his presidency. While FDR was aloof and aristocratic, Truman was so earthy that he bore grudges and issued threats - even promising to blacken the eye of a music critic who didn't like his daughter's singing.
While some see Truman's personality as inseparable from some brave decisions he made, such as dropping the atomic bomb, his pugnacity was mostly a political liability. This may be why McCain, on today's trail, seems to invoke Truman defensively, as if to point out that someone who "didn't win Miss Congeniality" - to borrow one of McCain's favorite descriptions of himself - could be an effective cleanser in Washington.
That's true. But in choosing his historical role models, Obama opted for the more proven ground. He has sought to embody the Washington/Lincoln presidential demeanor so completely that his critics charge he is already posing for statues.
Inviting comparisons with the most admired presidents of all time highlights the historic nature of Obama's candidacy. But it also carries some risks, and, at times, Obama has seemed to be on the verge of succumbing to them. Over the summer, McCain gained some ground by portraying his rival as a poseur, and Obama only enhanced the critique by arranging giant rallies that called attention to his stagecraft rather than his message.
But the financial crisis shifted the debate over presidential temperament from historical role models to real-time leadership. McCain went into TR mode, marching to Washington to clean up the mess. Obama offered a Lincolnesque "five principles" for recovery.
Then, in their first debate, McCain and Obama again demonstrated their different temperaments. Obama tried to prove his magnanimity by agreeing with much of what McCain said. McCain sought to be a fighter, delivering sharp putdowns and showing glimpses of his teeth-grinding intensity.
In the end, polls showed, voters seemed to prefer the more "presidential" candidate: Obama. This may not have been so surprising. In the battle of Mount Rushmore, Obama leads McCain by two role models (Washington and Lincoln) to one (TR).
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond. 