Exceeding Expectations: Chester Alan Arthur

On July 2, 1881, tragedy struck the United States as Charles Giteau, 39, shot President James Garfield, 49. Seventy-nine days later, on September 19, the president was dead from his wounds.

During this time, a man who had been prominent in politics for the past ten years slipped quietly away from the public view, not wanting to draw attention to himself as the president suffered. This man was the vice president, Chester Alan Arthur, 51.

Arthur was almost vice president by mistake. A political follower of prominent New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, Arthur became Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, a well paying position. However, his association with Conkling would lose him his job seven years later. Two years after that, in 1880, the Republicans needed to nominate a president. They chose Garfield, an unpopular decision with Conkling and his followers, known as the Stalwarts. To appease the Stalwarts, the Republicans wanted their vice presidential nominee to be one of them. Although Arthur was not their first choice, he accepted when the position was offered. The Garfield-Arthur ticket would go on to win the 1880 presidential election. Ten months after the election, Arthur was president.

The Stalwarts were the last remaining supporters of the idea of a spoils system, where rather than selecting qualified candidates, party bosses would pick those politically helpful to them. Arthur himself had supported the concept prior to obtaining the presidency. However, once in office, his attitude changed, and on January 16, 1883, he signed the Pendleton Civil Service Act. Federal employees were to be chosen on merit, not political grounds, or any other attribute of a candidate besides his merit for the job.

Arthur's term was also marked by the somewhat unfortunate Chinese Exclusion Act, but Arthur vetoed the original version which demanded a 20-year ban on Chinese immigration, and it had been reduced to 10 on the copy which he signed.

A final event of Arthur's term was the beginning of a buildup of the American Navy, as Arthur proposed appropriations which would begin its expansion.

Overall, Chester Arthur's term was a success, especially considering the lack of any positive expectations for his term. He could have easily opposed a bill which basically fixed the broken way in which federal employees were selected; his efforts reduced the effects of a racist bill; and he recommended an expansion of naval appropriations. The years after the assassination of President Garfield could easily have turned disastrous, but under Arthur's guiding hand, those years were rather serene and improved the functioning of the American government. He is one of our most underrated presidents.

Lieberman falls in primary

So, the Democrats managed to do it. They have essentially shunned one of their own, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and for one reason only: he has expressed support for the war in Iraq. This is a man who in nearly every other situation supports his party, but on one issue decided to go against the party grain. He is still ideologically a Democrat, just a Democrat who happens to support an ongoing war.

This was apparently too great a sin for the Democratic party and the Democratic voters in Connecticut, and it appears to me that they are not satisfied with the already prevalent divisiveness of the war. They are still working hard to undermine the war effort.

NFL Passer Rating

The game of football as it is played in the NFL has evolved, and no aspect has evolved more so than the passing game. Simply put, they are far more efficient now. The result is that the quarterbacks who fill the list of top career passer ratings have disproportionately recent careers.

Fortunately, I found a site called databaseFootball.com, which you can find here. For each and every quarterback, they have two ratings, labelled RAT and RAT+. RAT is the quarterback's passer rating for a season. RAT+ is the quarterback's passer rating for a season compared to the league average. Because the league average changes from year to year, there is no career number given for RAT+. However, it can be calculated.

First off, there are two ways to calculate a quarterback's career RAT. The easy way is to use the formula using his career stats. The other, harder, and much longer way goes as follows: look at a quarterback's RAT and attempts for every season, multiply the two for each year and sum them together, then divide by career attempts.

Example

We'll use a hypothetical two year career, which goes as follows.
First season: 57 completions on 100 attempts for 626 yards with 4 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 72.3.
Second season: 59 completions on 111 attempts for 650 yards with 4 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 64.0.
Career: 116 completions on 211 attempts for 1,276 yards with 8 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 68.0, when you plug in his career statistics.

You will also get 68.0 when you use the long way: 72.3 times 100 (which is 7230) plus 64.0 times 111 (which is 7104). Sum 7230 and 7104 to get 14334, then divide by 211 career attempts. The resulting number: 67.9. The difference is just 0.02646. So both methods work to produce almost identical numbers.

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Unfortunately, there is only one way to calculate RAT+: the long way. For each season, multiply the quarterback's RAT+ and attempts. Then sum these products together, and divide by career attempts. Using the numbers found on databaseFootball.com, here is the list for top 10 career RAT+

1. Sid Luckman, 158
2. Sammy Baugh, 153
3. Otto Graham, 140
4. Len Dawson, 132
5. Roger Staubach, 128
6. Norm Van Brocklin, 126
7. Steve Young, 126
8. Joe Montana, 123
9. Sonny Jurgensen, 120
10. Ken Anderson/Bob Griese/Peyton Manning/Fran Tarkenton 119

Compare that to the top 10 for RAT, via the Pro Football Hall of Fame website.

1. Steve Young, 96.8
2. Kurt Warner, 94.1
3. Peyton Manning, 93.5
4. Joe Montana, 92.3
5. Daunte Culpepper, 91.5
6. Marc Bulger, 90.6
7. Tom Brady, 88.5
8. Trent Green, 88.3
9. Matt Hasselbeck, 86.6
10. Dan Marino, 86.4

This list is completely infested with current players. Meanwhile, the list of top career RAT+ spans all eras, and by comparing each quarterback's passer rating to those of his contemporaries, is a fairer list in my opinion.