In last week’s essay, we quoted Winston Churchill’s memorable statement that “Democracy is the worst system there is except for all the others.  We also restated Churchill’s observation by noting that we need to revise our delegate selection process and “the sooner the better.”

This observation is most particularly true for the nominating process of either party seeking to replace an incumbent President or the party of an incumbent who is not running for re-election.

With Iowa’s caucus and the New Hampshire primary finished, we should pause and look at a little history to illustrate how our current process, in effect, disenfranchises a majority of voters.

In 1952, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois (perhaps one of that state’s last governors who did not go on to a career of making license plates)  was selected as the nominee at the Democratic convention through a series of state primaries and won the 1952 nomination at the Democratic convention on the third ballot.  Today, nominating conventions have no real purpose to them except for the public learning the nominee’s vice-presidential choice.  Bringing party professionals into the mix might spare us another Sarah Palin debacle.  Perhaps there is a role for smoke filled rooms, even though smoking would be banned!

In 1952 the process produced Senator John Sparkman as the democratic Vice-Presidential choice, an obvious sop to party bosses who did not trust the candidate Estes Kefauver, who went into the convention with the most pledged delegates. After the first two ballots Kefauver led but was overtaken on the third ballot when Stevenson was nominated.  The 1952 presidential race had earlier been thrown into disarray when President Truman announced that he would not seek re-election.  As we all know, General Eisenhower was elected President in November 1952. In 1956 Kefauver ran again and won the New Hampshire and Minnesota primary over Stevenson.  Although Stevenson was again nominated, this time around the party chose Kefauver as his running mate.

Fast forward to 1968 when President Johnson made his surprise announcement to a nation bitterly divided by the Vietnam War that he would not seek another term.  Senator Robert Kennedy won the California primary in June, defeating anti-war Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota.  Kennedy in his final words said “on to Chicago” before being shot by a lunatic, Sirhan Sirhan.  In the end, Senator Hubert Humphrey received the nomination, but lost the general election to Richard Nixon, who had stated in 1962, after losing the California governorship, that we wouldn’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.

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Phase one for restoring the republic is over: the House is now in Republican hands, thereby assuring nothing radical will sail through the Congress in the next two years (although it would be wise to be on the alert for unconstitutional executive orders intended to accomplish that purpose). If the electorate remains informed and stays on task, 2012 will see the Senate flip as well since the majority of seats up for reelection are currently in Democrat hands.

Phase two may be more difficult. How likely is it that an incumbent president will be stripped of his position? What will it take? Some say it’s a very difficult task, yet it has occurred rather often. Under what circumstances? A short survey of twentieth-century presidential politics may offer some clues as to the feasibility that Barack Obama will be a one-termer.

We can begin with William Howard Taft, Republican winner of the 1908 election as the handpicked successor to Theodore Roosevelt.

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These may well be the times that try the souls of Democrat politicians.

In the year since Obama took the oath of office, the fortunes of the Democrat Party have changed substantially. Voters, especially Independent voters, now favor Republicans on many issues and in Rasmussen’s Generic Congressional Ballot by 9%. Entrenched Senate Democrats like Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan are retiring and now – in no small irony – in the election heard ‘round the world, Scott Brown, campaigning against ObamaCare was elected to “Kennedy’s seat.”

It has been a remarkable turnaround – yet the worse is yet to come for Democrats in office.

Keep in mind that voters turned out the Republicans in 2006 and 2008 in large part because they spent too much, reformed too little and ran up the deficit into the $400 billion range. By the end of the Bush Presidency, economic troubles were mounting and the Republicans had no clear plan for a national recovery.

Today, the incidence of buyer’s remorse for voters over Barack is mounting for all the same reasons and more. Unemployment is at double digits, government reform has been abandoned in favor of unprecedented government spending and the deficit is in the $1.5 trillion range. All of that, with no meaningful recovery in site.

Beyond that, the President has his Party in the stickiest of wickets known to you as the Health Care debate. By allowing Pelosi and Company to write the bill, Obama lost control of the process and now public opposition to the bill is at an all time high.  Even so, the Democrat leadership still promises to push it – whether we like it or not.

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