Think, does one, that Obama or McCain prove vexing presidential candidates at times? Try 1848's Zachary Taylor on for size!

Perplexed by McCain's inability to find the right neighboring countries on a Mideast map or Obama's seeming diss of guns & God in Pennsylvania's red heartland? How could a presidential candidate perform so poorly? Buddy, to borrow a phrase, you ain't seen nothing yet. For the ultimate 'let me shoot myself in the foot and rapidly reload' aspirant to the blanched shack @ 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, look no further than the winner of 1848's race - General Zachary Taylor.

In the course of his suprisingly victorious campaign at the head of the Whig ticket (and proving to be their second + last elected President), ole Rough and Ready, his sobriquet, mananged to accomplish all the following while not actively campaigning:

1.) Not pledge to accept another party's nomination

2.) Fail to identify himself, in fact and on purpose, with any existing party's principles based on his own personal belief in "No Partyism"

3.) Willingly accepted the South Carolina state Whig nomination which placed the rival Democratic Vice Presidential nominee (and a fellow Southern slave-holder like then Louisiana-residing Taylor) in the 2nd spot on his own ticket instead of convention-picked Millard Fillmore

4.) Waffle worse and more violently than a Sen. Kerry flip-flop caught in a late season Nor'easter re the overwhelmingly dominant issue of the day - Presidential signing of a Wilmot Proviso bill (and, therefore, not extending slavery to new territories such as present day California, New Mexico & the Northwest's vast Oregon Territory)

5.) Promise to proceed upon any particular course of action that was not first handily ratified by a sitting Congress

For this analysis and laundry list, one need only to turn to Michael F. Holt's masterly The Rise And Fall Of The American Whig Party. A necessary + insightful antidote to Arthur M. Schlesinger's Age Of Jackson, Holt's oeuvre succeeds brilliantly, if I may detail briefly.

First - to dismiss the notion that the best presidential candidate gets picked - the Univ. of Virgina Prof lays out the epic career of the day's tragically doomed politician, Henry Clay, to the backdrop of his 5 failed runs for the elective brass ring. Clay was the day's magnificent man and a forward-thinker in contrast to the machine-driven Van Burenites or autocratically-inclined Jacksonians.

Second, Dr. Holt examines how, ironically, a party which stood for a halt to illegitimate territorial conquest wound-up thrice (Generals William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, in order) running military men at the top of their ticket. This disconnect with their otherwise considerable electoral bottom-up efforts at the state level proved to be one of the twin spears to the bosom of their demise. The other, regrettably, was an eventual (at least by 1848) capitulation by the party's influential southern wing to stand in rock-rib sectional solidarity over the peculiar institution, Negro slavery, with their southern Democratic colleagues.

In the end, Taylor wound-up being the 2nd shortest-serving Chief Executive on record and none other than the enemy of New York State's tyrannical twins (Editor Thurlow Weed & Governor/Senator Seward), Buffalo's Millard Fillmore ascended to the presidency. It is interesting, additionally, to read of Fillmore's great concern for acting in concert with the rule of law during his term. The sentiments might seem alien to contemporary readers, but such is the delight of exploring history.