John F. Kennedy

The Ten Most Important Presidential Elections In American History

Ronald 6 Comments

With Presidents Day coming on Monday, this is a good time to reflect on the 56 Presidential elections that this country has had, and to judge which ten are the most significant, path breaking elections.

Of course, there can be debate and disputes as to the judgment of this author and blogger, but here goes, in chronological order.

Presidential Election of 1789–the selection by the Electoral College of our first President, George Washington, the absolutely right choice for the beginning of our nation under the Constitution, as Washington set important precedents for the future, and had no ambition to grab power long term.

Presidential Election Of 1800–the first time we had an opposition party come to power with grace, and without violence, setting a standard for the future, as Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams, and the dispute between him and Vice President Aaron Burr, who claimed a tie in the Electoral College, was settled peacefully as well, and caused a modifying of the Electoral College process.

The Presidential Election of 1828–the first one decided by popular vote synchronizing with the electoral vote, and giving the country a so called “Common Man” in the Presidency, Andrew Jackson, representing city workers and frontiersmen alike.

Presidential Election of 1860–leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln, who set out to preserve the Union at all costs, and wielded power in a controversial, but thoughtfully considered way, through four years of the Civil War.

Presidential Election Of 1912–the triumph of progressivism, the recognition that government’s role had been changed irrevocably in a country that had been transformed from an agricultural to an industrial nation, had tripled in population since the Civil War, had become a multi ethnic nation, and had recognized the need for the regulation of capitalism in the public good, as well as political reforms and social justice. And it was the most exciting election, as three Presidents, past (Teddy Roosevelt), present (William Howard Taft), and future (Woodrow Wilson) competed against each other.

Presidential Election Of 1932–the triumph of Franklin D. Roosevelt at the worst moments of the Great Depression, offering hope and action (the New Deal) to revive the spirits of the nation, and have the American people believe in the future. Without his victory, there might have been social revolution and bloodshed on a large scale.

Presidential Election of 1960–witnessing the first Catholic President elected (John F. Kennedy) and the promotion of idealism and a new beginning in the advancement of social justice and political reform.

Presidential Election Of 1964–the victory of liberalism with the election of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the defeat of Barry Goldwater and conservatism, therefore insuring the continuation of the New Deal, and the evolution of the Great Society.

Presidential Election Of 1980–seeing the triumph of conservatism under Ronald Reagan, with some modifications of the New Deal and Great Society, and great speeches, but not the conservative “heaven” that many imagine it was, but making Reagan a national icon like Washington, Lincoln and FDR.

Presidential Election Of 2008–witnessing the first African American President (Barack Obama), and his work to provide health care reform, preserve the New Deal and Great Society, and overcome the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The author welcomes discussion and debate on this post!

Richard Nixon (China) And Barack Obama (Iran): Why Not Try Diplomacy Before War?

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Forty years ago, Richard Nixon, a Republican President, took a bold step and went to visit and negotiate with the government of the People’s Republic Of China, better known in America as Communist China or Red China.

We had had no negotiations or dealings with mainland China since 1949, had made a career of demonizing the leadership of that nation, and had made clear that we would defend the island of Taiwan (Nationalist China) at all costs. We had also fought Chinese troops in the Korean War, and had known of Chinese support of the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War, and were still bombing near the Chinese border.

But with all that, Richard Nixon went to China, negotiated trade and travel and cultural exchanges, and opened up our country and China to the promotion of less fear and more diplomacy and understanding in the interests of international harmony and avoidance of war.

Many conservatives bitterly condemned Nixon for going to China, and reversing his own anti Communist stand of twenty five years standing. But Nixon went anyway, and this occurred in an election year. It was statesmanlike and showed Nixon to be a pragmatic man in foreign policy.

Today, in 2012, forty years later, we are on the brink of possible military conflict with Iran, with which we have not had real dealings since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the fall of the Shah of Iran from power. Iran has become a very belligerent state, heavy on rhetoric and threats, similar to what China was for 25 years. In the case of Iran, it is now 33 years since the two nations, in the midst of tensions and stress, have sat down and tried to negotiate differences.

It may seem as if there is very little hope for a breakthrough with a harsh enemy who wishes us ill, but remember that was the same mentality toward China, and even more so, toward the Soviet Union, during the Cold War years, but still Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and even Reagan all agreed to joint meetings, often in each other’s country, and made progress toward coexistence, and to avoid a direct confrontation that would benefit neither side.

So when the Republican candidates for President, conservative talk show hosts, and many others call for war on Iran, and think the idea of negotiations with Iran are fruitless, remember what Richard Nixon, the ultimate anti Communist did forty years ago this week. He went to the enemy and NEGOTIATED, and prevented any conflict with China, a dramatic and significant moment in world history!

It is time for Barack Obama to show courage and statesmanship, and since the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is ready for diplomatic talks, it is wise to take him up on it, and see if it can go anywhere. If it does not, and war results, at least we will be able to hold our heads high and say we TRIED! Is Ahmadinejad really any worse than Mao Tse Tung, Nikita Khrushchev Leonid Brezhnev, or Mikhail Gorbachev?

It is not cowardly to agree to talk and negotiate; it is cowardly to refuse to talk and negotiate, with the possibility of avoiding war that neither the United States citizens or Iranian citizens really want. And it would be better for Israel too, if war could be avoided which would likely have a very heavy toll on their citizens, in a country so small in population, it cannot afford to lose even one hundred people in an unnecessary war that MIGHT be avoidable!

Rick Santorum, Religion And The French Revolution: Reckless Fanaticism!

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Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is acting irresponsibly when he compares Barack Obama and his stand on contraception and other women’s services being provided by religiously based hospitals and universities to their workers, many of whom are not of that religious group, as an attack on religion.

Claiming that Obama is warring on religion, which is totally preposterous, instead what Rick Santorum offers is promotion of theocracy, by his failure to accept what another fellow Catholic, President John F. Kennedy, advocated–separation of church and state.

When Santorum is calling what Obama is doing the first stage toward the French Revolution, emphasizing the secularism and attack on organized Christianity (Catholicism) in that famous decade of the 1790s, he is being reckless and also inaccurate historically about one of the key events of modern times, an event which moved Europe toward the goals of freedom and the basic rights of man.

Anyone who wishes to be honest about history knows that NO Christian group, whether Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, or others came about with any less violence and persecution against non believers, than the terrible bloodshed of the French Revolution. The level of violence of the French Revolution was horrific, but no less in the entire history of Christianity. And no one can say that any traditional Christian group has ever promoted democracy and the rights of man, when instead they have promoted obedience and lack of tolerance toward non believers throughout their history. Instead, all of the groups have endorsed, at one point or another, racism, anti semitism, denial of women’s rights, and the endorsement of slaughtering native Americans to conquer the North American continent, as well as South America.

This does not mean that there have not been outspoken religious people who have fought to bring open mindedness and tolerance to their faith, but they have fought this fight with great stress, and much discrimination visited upon them, and often been expelled for their challenges to the religious establishment.

We do not want a religious fanatic in the White House; instead we want a person who, like John F. Kennedy, did not promote his faith, and believed in total religious tolerance. Rick Santorum is such a fanatic, and is dangerous in that he would promote government endorsement of religion, which is NOT its role in our history, and not promoted by the Founding Fathers.

Despite vicious attacks by critics, many of whom claim to be “good Christians”, Barack Obama and his vision of Social Justice is the only kind of Christianity, or really any religious group, that makes any sense for a society in which there is too much worship of the almighty dollar, and not enough for human beings of all backgrounds who are being left in the dust as the nation moves inexorably toward a stratified society that bodes ill for the future stability of America!

Presidential Empathy: The Shortcoming Of Mitt Romney’s Candidacy For President

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The reality of American politics, past and present, is that most politicians have always been very wealthy, as running for and serving in public office requires assets, and the time and effort needed to be elected and to serve in office.

No one has a problem with a politician’s wealth unless it leads to a belief that he has a callous lack of concern about the lives of ordinary people, a disconnect between the politician and the people.

Therefore, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush came across as leaders who could connect to the American people at the time they were elected.

This is the problem of Mitt Romney, his inability to connect to average people, and demonstrate concern for the average American’s everyday existence.

We don’t fault a person being rich who wishes to govern us, but we do resent a person who looks down on us as the “plebeians”, who should just accept the “patricians” without any expectation of such leaders considering our needs and problems.

Presidential Empathy And Emotional Connection With The American People

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There are so many talents, abilities, and skills required for a person in any occupation or field of work to have success, and the same is so for the American Presidency.

We have had Presidents who, despite many other talents, abilities and skills, were simply unable to show empathy and emotional connection with the American people. Instead, they came across as aloof, distant, plastic, and unable to relate to the “common man”!

Among those Presidents who failed to demonstrate empathy and emotional connection with the American people would be the following:

William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter
George H. W. Bush
George W. Bush

Among those Presidents who had the ability to display Presidential empathy and emotional connection were the following:

Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Gerald Ford
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama

Does Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul have these abilities? The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT, and this will make it more difficult for any or them to serve in the Oval Office in a time of great human suffering due to the economic collapse since 2008.

The 130th Anniversary Of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Birth: The Sustained Republican Attack On The New Deal’s Survival!

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Today marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of our second greatest President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served 12 years and 39 days in the Presidency, and took America through the Great Depression and most of World War II.

Rated the greatest President in most polls of scholars and experts after Abraham Lincoln, FDR personified the growth of big national government, including the recognition that the federal government was needed to deal with the crisis presented by the depression, the worst economic downturn in American history.

Now in 2012, we are being told by the opposition Republicans that the answer is to revert to the philosophy of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and keep the federal government out of the economy as much as possible. Mitt Romney can be seen as the new Herbert Hoover, aloof, imperial in nature, unable to relate to ordinary people’s problems and daily struggles, extremely rich, and believing that the private capitalistic system without government interference is the best for America’s future.

Even Herbert Hoover started to abandon that belief in laissez faire, and is called, therefore, the “forgotten progressive” by Joan Hoff and others. And maybe Mitt Romney, due to his past reputation of being a moderate to liberal as Governor of Massachusetts, might back away from his present promotion of a conservative image.

But the Republican Party, whether Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or anyone else as the nominee, has fundamentally declared war on the New Deal!

The GOP wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare, and gut as many government departments and agencies as possible, along with destroying labor unions and showing lack of concern for the environment, all major tenets of the New Deal. When Republicans can claim that the New Deal was “socialism”, as some of them do, they are being ridiculous and setting out to end the laws and programs that have advanced America and helped to create the middle class!

Conservative scholars and propagandists have been advocating negatives about the New Deal as part of their aim to destroy the good programs that Barack Obama has achieved, and to go back to the mentality of the 1920s era and the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

We can be sure that if FDR was alive today, that he would be on the attack against the Republican Party and their aims of destroying his New Deal, and it is therefore the job of Barack Obama to go out and assault, rhetorically, those who wish to destroy not only the New Deal of FDR, but also the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the other progressive, human oriented programs of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton.

This is the time to defend big government and FDR, not shrink from the challenge!

Mitt Romney’s Investment In American Financial Institutions: Not Preferred Over Bermuda, Cayman Islands, And Switzerland

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Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, would be, by latest estimate, the FOURTH wealthiest President if he was elected, just behind George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Thomas Jefferson, and ahead of John F. Kennedy, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Zachary Taylor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and James Madison.

Romney would have twice as much wealth (at about $250 million) than the last eight Presidents combined, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. And over time, he could be worth more than the three Presidents ahead of him, and become historically the wealthiest President ever!

And we have now learned that Mitt Romney pays only 13.9 percent of the wealth he has gained by investment, rather than by working, and that he has large amounts of money invested outside the United States, notably in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and in Swiss banks.

So while he wishes to promote American economic recovery, he is, apparently, not willing to keep his investments in America!

This could become a major issue in the Presidential campaign of 2012!

Mitt Romney: A Wealthy Person Without Work For Long Time!

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We hear so much talk about how IF a person is out of work for more than one to two years, that he or she loses their work skills, their talents, their expertise, by the long layoff from getting up daily and going to work.

Well, if that is the case, and many companies have made clear that they will NOT hire anyone who is unemployed for more than a short time, then Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, should be disqualified, as he has not “worked” in six years, and much of his life, he has lived off his wealth WITHOUT contributing to public service.

One might say: “Hey, rich people often do not work, as they make money on their investments”! Well, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, Jay Rockefeller, Ted Kennedy, and even George Romney, among other very rich people, all WORKED their entire lifetime, some of it in private enterprise, but much of it in public life and service!

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, never produced any products in his corporate experience; and only served one term as Governor of Massachusetts, choosing not to run; and had a brief involvement with the Salt Lake City Olympics. He did not choose to run for re-election in Massachusetts, because he was looking to create as “mimimum” a public service as he could do, and be able to run for President.

This man does not know what the work ethic is, and has lived a privileged life with very minimal commitment to public service, and no commitment to creating new jobs, but rather simply to enrich his own pockets!

Romney sees the Presidency as something he is “entitled to”, because his much harder working dad was unable to reach that pinnacle. He has no plans or agenda other than his own aggrandizement, both in ego and in wealth.

Being a good family man is no big virtue either, as Barack Obama easily fits that image.

So, Mitt Romney, a wealthy person who has not worked most of his life, and not recently, is not “entitled” to become our 45th President. That will come to someone else in January 2017, when Barack Obama leaves the Presidency after two terms in the Oval Office!

The Issue Of Presidential Sexual Scandals And The Candidacy Of Newt Gingrich

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The controversy surrounding former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s private life has multiplied, with the revelation by his second wife of Newt’s desire for an “open marriage”, so that he could carry on an affair with the woman who became his third wife, since his second wife disagreed with his desire for an open marriage. This issue arose when the second wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, just as the move by Newt to divorce his first wife came when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Have Presidential candidates and Presidents before now been involved in sex scandals? Of course, the answer is yes, but only becoming public knowledge and controversy in the past 25 years with the candidacies of Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, and Newt Gingrich, and the planned but aborted candidacies of Mark Sanford and John Ensign.

Have Presidents had affairs in the past, in or out of office? Of course yes is the answer, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Buchanan, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, that we are aware of. But ONLY Bill Clinton was revealed to be involved in such scandals before he was elected, and during his Presidency, as news and gossip on other Presidents was kept well hidden from the news media and the general public.

Have Presidents or Presidential candidates ever been divorced? The answer is yes, although only Ronald Reagan has been elected. But Adlai Stevenson, Bob Dole, John Kerry, and John McCain all were married for the second time when they ran for the White House.

Has any candidate ever been married THREE times, and openly cheated on his first two wives, other than Newt Gingrich? The answer is NO, and the hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich is that he pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-1999 while pursuing his own affair outside of marriage.

No President or Presidential candidate has openly pursued the idea of a “open marriage”, although one could argue that Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton, at the least, seemed to accept such a concept in the sense that they knew their husbands were involved in cheating and did not choose to break up their marriages.

Other First Ladies and wives of Presidential candidates MAY have silently agreed to their husbands committing adultery and staying married, but that is all speculation at best.

The point is that the second wife of Newt Gingrich, in revealing the “open marriage” idea of her former husband, made it clear that Newt had said that Callista, the third wife, had no problem with “sharing” Newt.

So what this means is that IF Callista Gingrich becomes First Lady, we will have the first acknowledged believer in an open marriage, who has no concept of a problem with adultery. In the past, there were choice words for such a woman, which will not be used here. It indicates the likelihood of an “open marriage” between Callista and Newt from the beginning of their marriage, and the excellent possibility that there would be sex scandals in the White House, something we do not need to occur, or to learn about.

In a country in which many “religious” people claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, and the importance of “family values”, to have Newt and Callista Gingrich in the White House would be a mockery of the concept of marriage and loyalty, and a degradation of the Presidency as an institution.

And for conservatives, such as Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh to ignore this, and to support Newt, indicates the total hypocrisy of the Right, which was only too eager to remove Bill Clinton from office on moral grounds.

Birthday Of The Most Misunderstood And Underappreciated Founding Father: Alexander Hamilton!

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On this day, January 11, in either 1755 or 1757, depending on which historical records one believes, Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies.

Hamilton went on to a life of success, migrating to the American colonies, serving George Washington in the American Revolution, being a delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, becoming President Washington’s first Secretary of the Treasury, founding the first political party (the Federalists), and promoting what has become the “liberal” interpretation of the Constitution (although it was termed “conservative” at the time).

Hamilton was always controversial, outspoken, opinionated, egotistical, and had so called “skeletons in his closet” regarding his financial and love lives.

But he saved the country during its early years under George Washington with his policies of paying off the national and state debts. He developed the broad interpretation of the Constitution, utilized later by Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court in the doctrine of “judicial review”. He developed the US Mint; the US Coast Guard; emphasized the importance of manufacturing and industry in the American economy alongside agriculture; started the Bank of New York; and developed the oldest continually published newspaper in America, the New York Post.

Hamilton would be tragically killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in an infamous gun duel in New Jersey in the summer of 1804, dying at the young age of 47 or 49, and remains one of the tragic losses of a young politico, alongside John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others.

It is hard to imagine how America would have evolved without the contributions of Alexander Hamilton!