The Tragedy of Gordon Brown

What went wrong? The answer is that Brown is yet another example of the tragedy of the Number Two.

Back in the 90s, Brown and Blair were rivals for the Labour leadership. Over dinner at a north London restaurant, they struck a deal. Blair would take the top job, but Brown would be his successor. So, for the decade of Blair's premiership, Brown slogged away at the Treasury, given great latitude by Blair to run the country's finances. And, arguably, Brown did a good job: Britain's economy flourished more steadily than that of any of its European peers. But it's clear that Brown came increasingly to resent his role. Blair was the one garnering the headlines. Brown saw himself as the under-appreciated lieutenant keeping the show on the road. Two years ago, Brown's accumulated frustrations lured him to act. He allowed a campaign to start inside the Labour Party to depose Blair.

What Brown seems never to have grasped is that moving from Number Two to Number One is more than just a promotion. The top job demands a mix of skills that no subordinate post instills. Brown—this much is clear from the leaks by "those close to him", as press etiquette quaintly insists—not only shunned Blair's showmanship, his easy oratory, and his abiding concern with image. He seems actively to have despised all these aspects of Blair as mere frivolity. Good government needed no such artifice.

Now he is belatedly discovering that government in this media age requires just such skills. And Brown, at age 57, has no way to acquire them.

British history supplies precedents. The classic failure is Anthony Eden, for twenty years Winston Churchill's most glittering lieutenant. Eden finally took over in 1955, presiding within a year over the debacle of Britain's lunatic invasion of Egypt in the Suez Crisis. Margaret Thatcher's overthrow in 1990 brought the same failure. How many now could even name her successor? (John Major.)

Obama and McCain could usefully weigh Brown's failure as they mull their choices for Number Two—because American politics exhibit the same pattern. Fourteen vice-presidents have risen to the presidency—nine after the death of the president; one after his resignation; only five by winning election. Of these fourteen only four would be reckoned successes: Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and, arguably, Richard Nixon, whose final disgrace still overshadows his accomplishments as president.

In modern media-saturated times, no vice-president has been a success as president. George H.W. Bush was turned out after only one term. Lyndon Johnson seemed by any measure better qualified for the Oval Office than John Kennedy—but, propelled there by assassination, LBJ could never summon the nerve to break free of JFK's toxic legacy of Vietnam.

So McCain and Obama should dismiss the conventional wisdom that they are picking a successor. Absent a disaster, they are not. What they need is a savvy lieutenant with experience enough to handle some of the myriad challenges, but without political ambitions of their own. Someone like, say, Dick Cheney. Oh, the irony.

© 2008