The Democrats

By Michael Tomasky

Whatever else happens on January 20, 2009, the date on which, barring impeachment or tragedy, George W. Bush will finally leave office, the day will mark a rather surprising historical fact. As Mark Halperin and John F. Harris point out in their introduction to The Way to Win, it will be the first time since the consecutive administrations of James Madison and James Monroe that "back-to-back presidents both served all eight years of two elected terms." Monroe's term ended in 1825. In every era since, death, scandal, political failure, or some other kind of disruption—notably, a broad political shift that ends one era and begins another—has intruded upon the presidential succession process, until now.