COMMENTARY | At the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, speakers frequently touted the argument that President Barack Obama is the most divisive president in history. Roll Call's John Stanton said GOP lawmakers frequently decried Obama's "politics of division."
According to Stanton, Florida freshman Sen. Marco Rubio said "What we have seen is unprecedented in American history. ... We are led by a president who has decided to pit Americans against each other." He was echoed by other speakers such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and newly minted Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who painted Obama as a divider.
The accusations of Obama's "division" continued on the radio when the president announced his budget on Monday and was criticized by Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. Most of these charges concern the president's call for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Such attacks might be smart rhetoric for conservatives. But there's a big problem for them in 2012. "Divisive" presidents, as measured by the Gallup Polling firm, are much more likely to win re-election.
The Gallup Polling organization measures "divisive" by how appealing a candidate is to both parties. Those with a significant gap between the support of both parties are dubbed divisive. In its research from January 2011 to January 2012, Obama averaged support from 80 percent of Democrats but only 12 percent of Republicans, for a 68-point gap. Gallup labeled that finding the highest third-year average for any modern president.
But take the next four highest party polarization scores for presidents. You have George W. Bush with a 59-point gap. That also includes Bill Clinton, with a 57-point gap. Ronald Reagan was only two points behind Clinton for a partisan divide. Then there's Richard Nixon, whose likability scores differed between Republicans and Democrats by 44 percentage points. All of those scores were also taken by Gallup for candidates in their third year of office.
What do Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Nixon have in common? All of them were re-elected. In fact, all but Bush were comfortably re-elected.
It's a different story when it comes to the next five on the list. John Kennedy might or might not have been re-elected. His approval ratings were slipping in 1963, and much of Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide can be attributed to a sympathy vote for Democrats. George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid. Johnson left office after his renomination seemed in doubt. Jimmy Carter had the lowest "political partisanship" scores in Gallup's survey, and we all know what happened in 1980. Only Dwight Eisenhower had a below-average gap in divisiveness and won re-election.
How could divisive presidents be re-elected? Some are sure to read this and conclude the most negative thoughts about the political process, with an emphasis on negative campaigning. But this data have nothing to do with such scores. Instead, the results are more attributable to how much support one candidate has with his or her political party. It isn't how much the opposition party likes a president so much as how a president is able to rally his or her base.
In addition to high polarization scores, there's something else that unites Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton and Reagan: No primary opposition. Nixon faced two weak opponents from two ideological perspectives and had no trouble dispatching both. And intra-party fighting in the primaries cost Carter, George H.W. Bush, Johnson, Ford and Truman a second full term. Obama's ability to excite his base even exceeds the Republican enthusiasm gap, which has remained flat over the past year.
What the "divisive" measure touted by Gallup is more about how much one's party likes a president, rather than an ability to use negative words or ads.
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