America loves to elect military men to political office. Since General Washington earned the votes for the Presidency numerous other military heroes – some generals and some common soldiers – have parlayed their military prowess into political gold. Presidents Jackson, Wm. Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower are the best examples of this tradition.

But American politics is also littered with military heroes who failed on the political front. Grant was elected President, but was a terrible President. Winfield Scott Hancock, Bob Dole, George McGovern and John Fremont were military heroes of one sort another, only to face defeat at the polls. In recent years Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush failed to convert their military experience into second terms of office.

But one example that stands out to me the most this year is Winfield Scott (for whom Winfield Scott Hancock was named). Scott was a hero of the War of 1812 and for much of the early 19th century was the most prominent military official in the country. The Whig Party, formed in the 1830s in opposition to Andrew Jackson’s Democrats, found that they could only win popular office by running military men with broad appeal. In 1840 they struck gold with “Old Tippecanoe” William Henry Harrison, who promptly died 33 days after taking office. After genuine ideological Whig Henry Clay lost in a nail-biter in 1844, the Whigs went back to the military well again and picked Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor. Sadly, once again the winning Whig died in office, leaving an ineffectual Millard Fillmore to finish out the term.

So in 1852, the Whig tried again with Winfield Scott. As the sectional crisis between North and South grew more intense, the Whigs thought they could nominate a pro-slavery Virginian in Scott, and could once again unite for victory. Scott was demolished by New Hampshire Democrat Franklin Pierce, mostly because the South did not trust the Whigs anymore, and the North split its votes among various anti-slavery parties.

But Scott faced a sort of cultural assault that no military leader in America had ever faced. His insistence upon military honor and his love of military dress earned him the nickname “Old Fuss and Feathers.” Americans of all political stripes cherished and respected Scott for his dedicated service in the War of 1812 and his leadership in the intervening decades. But he seemed truly out of touch by 1852, unable to grasp the complex nature of the post-Mexican War political scene.

The now-cascading blow-up over McCain’s inability to recall his number of houses reminds me of the sorts of problems that Winfield Scott faced. The political environment for the Whigs in 1852 was deadly; and the party would effectively collapse afterward, leaving a rump of ex-Whigs in Kentucky and Tennessee to carry the old banner, with Northern Whigs forming the new Republican Party in 1854. Scott’s greatest strength was his military service and his sense of honor. Like McCain, he knew that nobody would question his service to country. But, in spite of Americans’ love affair for military heroes, Scott effectively painted himself as out of touch on the issues that mattered to Americans in 1852.

I’ve long thought that McCain’s weakness on the economy would come back to bite him. But as long as he didn’t provide the Democrats with the sort of imagery that paints the “old maverick” as a spoiled military aristocrat who married his wealth, then he could avoid the sort of cultural onslaught that tore Winfield Scott down in 1852. Americans love their military heroes. But they hate military aristocrats.

Old Fuss and Feathers would continue to serve the nation as the first General of the Union army during the Civil War in 1861. He developed the “anaconda strategy” that ultimately starved the Confederacy. But, he was ousted by General George McClellan, who would finally built a new modern army tasked with carrying out the anaconda plan (even if he didn’t know how to use it). Once again, Winfield Scott’s time had passed him by.