In the world of baseball, superstition seems to be falling by the wayside. In the last two seasons, supposedly cursed teams have swept the World Series. Last season, the Boston Red Sox rose above the Curse of the Bambino. This year, the Chicago White Sox rose above the Curse of the Black Sox.
With famous curses dropping like flies, the Chicago Cubs’ faithful are hoping they can rise above their supposed curse in order to claim victory in next year’s Fall Classic. Don’t hold your breath.
Those who want to see another curse demolished in the coming year should look not to baseball, but to politics.
At this nation’s founding, George Washington established a tradition that no one would ever serve more than two terms as President of the United States. Ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt broke Washington’s tradition by winning four terms, every president who has won a second term has suffered immense setbacks.
The second term is supposedly the term when a president can do the most good. Because the president will never have to run for office again, he can focus on advancing his agenda instead of positioning himself for a re-election campaign. Moreover, he doesn’t need to raise funds for his own campaign, which frees him up to fund raise for his political allies.
With the increased favor of his allies and no future electoral concerns, a second-term president should theoretically be a lean, mean politicking machine. In practice, though, second-term presidents have been plagued by scandal, missed opportunities and botched initiatives for the last half century. It’s called the
Second-Term Curse – and it has struck again.
Though his re-election campaign made him the first man to win a presidential election with a majority of the popular vote in 16 years, President George Bush’s reserve of political capital seems to be overdrawn.
He has proposed a hurricane relief plan that members of both parties have called into question. He followed up one of the smoothest Supreme Court confirmations in recent memory with the totally botched nomination of Harriet Miers to fill the court’s vacancy. Just last week, the vice president’s chief of staff resigned in the face of indictments for making false statements and obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, the president’s deputy chief of staff remains under investigation for similar allegations.
In all this hullabaloo, the president’s domestic agenda, which started off so strongly, has ground to a screeching halt. His approval rating is plummeting. And though his aides insist that he’s not the kind of president to care about what the pollsters are saying, there are a lot of Congressmen who had been planning to ride Bush’s coattails to victory in ’06. If Bush can’t push his agenda through Congress before the midterm elections next year, he will have to hope the Republicans can maintain control of Congress or risk losing forever the chance to implement his agenda.
But all hope is not lost. Just as the Fenway Faithful continued to root for their Red Sox year after frustrating year, I am not fair-weather fan. As a Bush Believer, I am rooting for our president to pull out of this slump, knock the ball out of the park and get his administration back on track.
This president is tough, innovative and knows how to surround himself with good people. This president’s opponents will have to keep their champagne on ice for a little while longer – they haven’t derailed the Bush presidency yet.
President Reagan dealt with his second-term slump by replacing several key members of his team. I don’t think that’s how this president will handle it, though. President Bush, though he surrounds himself with seasoned Washington players, seems to revel in defying conventional wisdom. This can sometimes be his weakness (e.g. the Harriet Miers nomination), or it can be one of his biggest strengths.
This next year is going to be an interesting year for politics, no matter the team you’re rooting for. And who knows – we might just see the Second-Term Curse lifted.

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