When presidents were popular

Some of them, anyway

We live in an age of negative selection of our chief executive. Voters choose the candidate they dislike least. This fall the nose-holding exercise will probably pit Joe Biden against Donald Trump. The centerpiece of Biden's campaign is that a second Trump term would spell the end of American democracy. A small core of MAGA Republicans express enthusiasm for Trump, but most of his supporters in 2016 and 2020 spent most of their time hyperventilating about Hillary Clinton and Biden. Expect a repeat of 2020 this year.

It's tempting to think it was always so. Negative campaigning has indeed been a feature of American politics since the 1790s. But occasionally candidates have emerged who elicited genuine excitement from their followers. This essay and five to follow will constitute a countdown of the most positively popular presidents in American history.

6. Barack Obama

“Yes we can." Never has a campaign slogan more pithily presented the feel-good case for a presidential candidate. It worked especially well for Barack Obama, who entered the 2008 primary season as an underdog to Hillary Clinton, a seasoned veteran of the political wars. She boasted experience, which he turned back on her by casting as staleness. He was young, fresh and full of possibility—exactly as his slogan said.

This was crucial. Either Clinton or Obama would be a historic nominee and president—she for being the first woman in those positions, he the first black person. But Obama had a personal appeal Clinton lacked. He had a sense of humor he used to great effect.

He had something else going for him. To many Americans a vote for Obama seemed a vote for an America beyond the curse of racism. If a black man could become president, what could black people not do?

Obama understood this aspect of his candidacy, yet he didn't overplay it. He campaigned not to be a black president but a president who happened to be black. Or rather mixed-race: his white mother was not forgotten. He didn't ignore that some people would vote against him because he was black, but neither did he forget that many would vote for him because he was black.

In this regard he showed something important about political charisma. Candidates and presidents who inspire the greatest admiration and affection also inspire the greatest distrust and hostility. For the popular-hero presidents, the admirers outnumber the distrusters, often substantially. But the haters never go away.

A striking thing about Obama was that he was even more popular in other countries than in the United States. This aspect of the Obama phenomenon culminated in the absurdity of his winning the Nobel peace prize in the first year of his presidency, before he had done anything remotely worthy of such note. It seemed as though the Nobel committee couldn't wait to get on board the Obama train. Or perhaps it wanted to give him the prize before he did anything to break the spell.

He handled the situation with grace and customary humor. “I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated,” he said at the award ceremony, and got the laughter he expected. “I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.  Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize—Schweitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela—my accomplishments are slight.”

The honeymoon ended. Married life began. The Republicans went into determined opposition. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, declared it his party's mission to make Obama a one-term president. The signature initiative of Obama's first term was the measure that became the Affordable Care Act. He understood that all the great extensions of government authority in American history had received a bipartisan seal of approval. He sought the same for his health care reform. He offered concessions and made amendments to the original plan. But every time he stepped toward the Republicans in the spirit of compromise, they stepped back. In an example of a frustrating feature of modern American politics, they preferred the problem to the solution. They didn't want any part of ownership of health care reform. They wanted to run against Obama on the issue. He squeezed it through Congress on a strict party line vote. They immediately began campaigning against it.

Yet when he ran for reelection in 2012, he won again. He remained personally popular though politically ineffectual. And when voters saw their choices to succeed him in 2016—Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—many wished they could have voted for him again. He thought he could have defeated either one. He was probably right.