By Edwin Cooney
No, it’s not a mere slogan. The Democratic Party of the United States of America draws its political strength from the social agenda of the majority of the people.
As Democrats gather in Denver today for their forty-fifth historic gathering, their history is rich in both triumph and disaster. Most of their triumphs have come through the personal appeal of their presidential nominees. Their disasters have largely been of their own creation.
When George Washington was elected and re-elected in 1789 and 1792, there were no political parties. In the early 1790s, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, looking ahead to the day when Washington would return to Mount Vernon, decided that they’d need to be organized to resist men such as John Adams, John Jay, and other potential “federalist” presidential candidates who believed in centralized government. Hence they began the Democratic - Republican Party dedicated to states’ rights and agrarianism.
Jefferson was its unsuccessful presidential nominee in 1796. In 1800 and 1804, he was elected and re-elected President as a Democratic-Republican. Between 1796 and 1812, the Federalist Party was strong enough to elect John Adams and to remain a threat to the Democratic-Republicans. Eventually, however, the Federalist Party weakened and died. The year 1824 found the aristocratic John Quincy Adams opposing the “plain old” Andrew Jackson for the presidency, although both were from the same party.
By the 1820s, there were two sources of party selection. One was the Democratic-Republican caucus in Congress and the other was the collection of state legislature caucuses. Some states went for Jackson, some went for Adams and some chose Kentucky’s Henry Clay. The result was that the House of Representatives had to decide the 1824 election. Even though Jackson had the most popular votes, the House chose John Quincy Adams much to the resentment of Jackson supporters.
In 1828, Adams and Jackson faced one another again as Democratic-Republican candidates. This time, Jackson won an overwhelming number of electoral votes so there was no need for the House to settle things.
By 1831, Jackson’s party was beginning to split over banking and economic issues. For the first time, political conventions were held. This enabled supporters -- whether they were politicians, farmers, businessmen or laborers -- to represent their states in choosing prospective presidential or vice presidential candidates at a national level.
When the Democrats gathered in a national convention for the first time (Monday, May 21st through Wednesday, May 23rd, 1832), their task was easy. Since all were more than happy to nominate President Andrew Jackson for his second term, nominating a Vice President was their greatest challenge. In 1832, the Democrats were the third of the three political parties to hold its convention in Baltimore at a meeting hall called the Athenaeum.
Their challenge was so easy in fact that they adopted two rules that would nearly paralyze the party for a hundred years. They decided that a presidential candidate must receive two-thirds of the ballots in order to be nominated. This rule favored the South and West against the more heavily populated North and East. The second rule they adopted was the “unit rule” which gave the majority in any state’s delegation the power to issue the state’s unanimous vote for their candidate. Hence, the party’s principle that the “least must have representation” planted the seeds for political conflict and a half century of losses.
However, 1832 was a triumph for the Party of the Common Man. His donkey or barn yard mule was the symbol of Andy Jackson’s party. President Jackson was easily nominated for a second term. His choice for Vice President, the dapper little Dutchman from Kinderhook, New York with the bald top and dense side-whiskers, Martin (Matty) Van Buren, was easily nominated.
The next twenty-eight years were, with the exception of 1840 and 1848, happy (if not always successful) years for Democrats. Then, suddenly, 1860 arrived.
The South had lost its patience with the ever-growing and expanding Northeast and West. The South’s fear was that the industrialist North and West would gang up on the South and perhaps even go so far as to “abolish” the institution of slavery. The ultimate threat was the election of a Republican president. However, the immediate and real problem was that the Democratic Party, which required a two-thirds majority to nominate a presidential candidate, was hopelessly split.
Its first convention was held in Charleston, South Carolina. Fifty-seven ballots were cast, but they failed to nominate a presidential candidate. Senator Steven Arnold Douglas, whose lasting fame is due to his 1858 Senate election debates with Abraham Lincoln, might have received the nomination and history could have been different. He only received 181 votes on the fifty-seventh ballot which was not the necessary two-thirds (202) needed for the nomination. Thus the party divided. Douglas was nominated as a “Northern Democrat” on June 23rd, 1860 and John C. Breckinridge, the then sitting Vice President, received two “Democratic” nominations. Independent and Southern Democrats would nominate the youthful Vice President for President at their separate conventions in Baltimore on June 23rd and 28th, 1860. Lincoln’s subsequent election brought about the bloody but temporary secession of the South.
The die was firmly cast for Democratic Party defeats, however. From 1860 to 1912, Democrats would elect only one President: Grover Cleveland. Even in his case his successful elections as President were nonconsecutive. He won in 1884, lost in 1888 (despite winning the popular vote), and won a second term in 1892.
A split GOP between the incumbent President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 enabled Woodrow Wilson to become only the second Democratic president to be elected in fifty-two years. Wilson, a southerner by birth and an academician by profession, appealed to the church-going farmers and the aristocratic constabulary of the South and West as well as to the intellectual progressives of the Northeast who couldn’t quite swallow Teddy Roosevelt’s brand of progressivism. Still, it took the party forty-four ballots to nominate Wilson even with all of his appeal.
The 1924 presidential election was a total loss for the Democrats. They cast 103 ballots before settling on a compromise candidate -- John W. Davis of West Virginia -- on the 104th ballot. Davis would be “slaughtered” by Calvin Coolidge that fall.
In 1932, it took Democrats four ballots to give New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt the votes he needed to win the nomination. In reality, they couldn’t possibly have lost the Depression-dominated election. It was in that year that the Democrats finally eliminated the two-thirds ballot rule for nominating presidential candidates. Since 1936, it takes only a mere majority to nominate the presidential and vice presidential candidates. (In fact, Democrats won only four presidential elections in the seventy-two years between 1860 and 1932.)
The mission of the Democratic Party, since the Depression, has been to watch over America’s social well-being. Its abiding guideline is democracy by majority vote. To that end, it has championed causes dear to segments of the population such as the rights of labor, women, gays and lesbians, as well as affirmative action for the education, employment, and general advancement of minorities.
Its champions have been Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. Other non-presidential champions of minority, senior, and labor causes have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Robert and Ted Kennedy, Claude Pepper, Jesse Jackson and at least five other unsuccessful presidential nominees.
The challenge for Barack Obama will be to meld the hard-hitting personality of Harry Truman of 1948, the magic glamour of JFK in 1960, the “will do” of LBJ from 1964, the gentle confidence of Jimmy Carter from 1976, and the determined passion of Clinton from 1992 with his own gifts and vision in 2008 so that he can successfully lead America onto a broad plateau of peace, unity and prosperity. The philosophy of the modern Democratic Party, I believe, was best expressed in these words spoken by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his radio address of February 23, 1936. He said:
“I like to think of our country as one home in which the interests of each member are bound up with the happiness of all. We ought to know, by now, that the welfare of your family or mine cannot be bought at the sacrifice of our neighbor’s family; that our well-being depends, in the long run, on the well-being of our neighbors.”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
DON’T RUSH ME NOW, I’M THINKING ABOUT IT
By Edwin Cooney
Look, I know it’s late and I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking about running for Vice President. No, I’m not sure which party ticket I even want to run on, but I’m out of a job and I think I’d enjoy being Vice President of the United States.
Of course, it’s not the same as being President, but who’d want that job? People expect so much of presidents. John Kennedy, when asked once why he enjoyed being President, is reported to have replied: “The pay’s good and I can walk home for lunch.”
Well, being Vice President wouldn’t afford me that luxury, but riding back to the Vice Presidential mansion in my big limousine could be quite thrilling. It wouldn’t be like going from the Oval Office upstairs for lunch via the presidential elevator, but what can I expect? I’m only Vice President.
Okay, I know, it’s time for getting to specifics instead of dreaming about my limousine. Let’s see now: what has life been like for other Vice Presidents?
Well, there was New York’s Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson (1801-1805). While he was Vice President, he had time to run for and lose the governorship of New York and, at a later date, he would shoot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Next, Burr -- while wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York -- took time to preside over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice ever held in the U.S. Senate. Not only did Burr have the satisfaction of seeing Jefferson’s hope for Justice Samuel Chase’s conviction thwarted, he was able to squeeze federal appointments out of Mr. Jefferson for two deserving Burr family members in the newly created Louisiana territory.
Then, there’s the case of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. His backers got him on the 1836 ticket with Martin Van Buren touting him as the man who had slain the great Indian leader Tecumseh. RMJ was elected Vice President, but he had so much time on his hands that he managed a hotel one summer. Of course, the Democrats were so embarrassed by him that they actually didn’t even nominate a Vice Presidential candidate when Van Buren ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1840.
Ah! You say I’m going back too far? Okay! There was Indiana’s Thomas Riley Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in the twentieth century who, when he wasn’t presiding over the Senate, spent most of the time wishing for things like a good five-cent cigar. He also told wonderful stories such as the one about the couple who had two fine sons: one son went off to sea and the other became Vice President… and neither was ever heard from again!
Then there was the case of one of the more really accomplished Vice Presidents, Illinois’s Charles Gates Dawes. He was America’s first ever Director of the Bureau of the Budget—a very strenuous job you can be sure. In 1924, he was chosen to run with Calvin Coolidge. Dawes accepted. He was a songwriter in addition to being a hell of a banker. One of his songs actually became a hit in the late 1950s. It was called “All in the Game”. I don’t know whether he wrote that song while he was presiding over the Senate as Vice President, but it’s possible. I do know, however, that he was napping one afternoon and missed a chance to break a tie in the Senate on the nomination of a good Republican businessman Charles Beecher Warren as Coolidge’s Attorney General. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Dawes explained it all to President Coolidge.
I’m told that Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey got more talking in while he was Vice President (1965-1969) than any of his predecessors. Additionally, Maryland’s Spiro Agnew and Indiana’s Dan Quayle played a lot of tennis and golf with big name celebrities while they served under Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, respectively.
The next question is whether I should offer myself to John McCain or Barack Obama. True, I’m no longer a Republican, although I once was. I could pull in the independent vote as Senator McCain’s chief “flip-flopper”. My flip-flopping would take the spotlight off of his flip-flopping.
I could offer myself to Barack Obama as…let’s see now…oh, yah!...as his “old white male candidate”. I have a record of years and years of shooting my mouth off on both domestic and international issues that would make any red-blooded American proud. After all, I’ve had such heroes as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Billy Martin (Billy wasn’t a politician, but he was definitely a winner) and Elvis. I loved Elvis, you know.
As I admitted at the beginning, I know it’s late but there’s still time: in 1972, former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) ran for Vice President in the primaries. Peabody’s idea was that the delegates and not the bosses should pick the next Vice President. He made his announcement early enough for the 1972 New Hampshire primary. So, what did the Democrats do? They nominated Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton whom they later dumped in favor of R. Sergeant Shriver of the Kennedy family.
I may well run you know. Okay, it’s true that I don’t play either golf or tennis. No one, not even I, can talk like Hubert could. I seldom take afternoon naps. My occasional cigar costs way more than a nickel. I’ve never managed a hotel and I can’t shoot straight—not even as straight as Wyoming’s Vice President Cheney.
Ah! Maybe I’d better not. It’s been fun dreaming about it, though!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Look, I know it’s late and I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking about running for Vice President. No, I’m not sure which party ticket I even want to run on, but I’m out of a job and I think I’d enjoy being Vice President of the United States.
Of course, it’s not the same as being President, but who’d want that job? People expect so much of presidents. John Kennedy, when asked once why he enjoyed being President, is reported to have replied: “The pay’s good and I can walk home for lunch.”
Well, being Vice President wouldn’t afford me that luxury, but riding back to the Vice Presidential mansion in my big limousine could be quite thrilling. It wouldn’t be like going from the Oval Office upstairs for lunch via the presidential elevator, but what can I expect? I’m only Vice President.
Okay, I know, it’s time for getting to specifics instead of dreaming about my limousine. Let’s see now: what has life been like for other Vice Presidents?
Well, there was New York’s Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson (1801-1805). While he was Vice President, he had time to run for and lose the governorship of New York and, at a later date, he would shoot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Next, Burr -- while wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York -- took time to preside over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice ever held in the U.S. Senate. Not only did Burr have the satisfaction of seeing Jefferson’s hope for Justice Samuel Chase’s conviction thwarted, he was able to squeeze federal appointments out of Mr. Jefferson for two deserving Burr family members in the newly created Louisiana territory.
Then, there’s the case of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. His backers got him on the 1836 ticket with Martin Van Buren touting him as the man who had slain the great Indian leader Tecumseh. RMJ was elected Vice President, but he had so much time on his hands that he managed a hotel one summer. Of course, the Democrats were so embarrassed by him that they actually didn’t even nominate a Vice Presidential candidate when Van Buren ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1840.
Ah! You say I’m going back too far? Okay! There was Indiana’s Thomas Riley Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in the twentieth century who, when he wasn’t presiding over the Senate, spent most of the time wishing for things like a good five-cent cigar. He also told wonderful stories such as the one about the couple who had two fine sons: one son went off to sea and the other became Vice President… and neither was ever heard from again!
Then there was the case of one of the more really accomplished Vice Presidents, Illinois’s Charles Gates Dawes. He was America’s first ever Director of the Bureau of the Budget—a very strenuous job you can be sure. In 1924, he was chosen to run with Calvin Coolidge. Dawes accepted. He was a songwriter in addition to being a hell of a banker. One of his songs actually became a hit in the late 1950s. It was called “All in the Game”. I don’t know whether he wrote that song while he was presiding over the Senate as Vice President, but it’s possible. I do know, however, that he was napping one afternoon and missed a chance to break a tie in the Senate on the nomination of a good Republican businessman Charles Beecher Warren as Coolidge’s Attorney General. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Dawes explained it all to President Coolidge.
I’m told that Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey got more talking in while he was Vice President (1965-1969) than any of his predecessors. Additionally, Maryland’s Spiro Agnew and Indiana’s Dan Quayle played a lot of tennis and golf with big name celebrities while they served under Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, respectively.
The next question is whether I should offer myself to John McCain or Barack Obama. True, I’m no longer a Republican, although I once was. I could pull in the independent vote as Senator McCain’s chief “flip-flopper”. My flip-flopping would take the spotlight off of his flip-flopping.
I could offer myself to Barack Obama as…let’s see now…oh, yah!...as his “old white male candidate”. I have a record of years and years of shooting my mouth off on both domestic and international issues that would make any red-blooded American proud. After all, I’ve had such heroes as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Billy Martin (Billy wasn’t a politician, but he was definitely a winner) and Elvis. I loved Elvis, you know.
As I admitted at the beginning, I know it’s late but there’s still time: in 1972, former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) ran for Vice President in the primaries. Peabody’s idea was that the delegates and not the bosses should pick the next Vice President. He made his announcement early enough for the 1972 New Hampshire primary. So, what did the Democrats do? They nominated Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton whom they later dumped in favor of R. Sergeant Shriver of the Kennedy family.
I may well run you know. Okay, it’s true that I don’t play either golf or tennis. No one, not even I, can talk like Hubert could. I seldom take afternoon naps. My occasional cigar costs way more than a nickel. I’ve never managed a hotel and I can’t shoot straight—not even as straight as Wyoming’s Vice President Cheney.
Ah! Maybe I’d better not. It’s been fun dreaming about it, though!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 11, 2008
OUCH—THAT HURTS!
By Edwin Cooney
The news last Friday that former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and two-time Presidential candidate, has admitted a sexual affair with film producer Rielle Hunter is deeply disheartening.
The fact that it reflects badly on the person of Senator Edwards is tragic enough. The sad reality, that the affair occurred at all with its public political and personal disgrace, has to be especially painful to Elizabeth Edwards. After all, Mrs. Edwards now has to struggle with marital betrayal as well as with cancer.
For most Americans, John Edward’s character flaw not only gets in the way of his personal and political legacy, but it also mars the political and social causes he represented.
There are, among us, issues-oriented people whose knowledge about everything from global warming to international relations is devoid, or nearly so, of the human element. For them, fact and figure analysis tells them all they need to know in order to decide how to think, react and vote.
For the rest of us, yours truly included, personal political influence is what feeds our outlook on the politics of domestic and international issues. Sometimes we’re influenced by our parents, sometimes by our fears, and often, very often, by our early bonding with men and women of national stature.
I’ve had a number of political heroes in my life. My first was Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The late 1950s was a time of often dramatic tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and those tensions very much frightened me. The Soviets beat us into space and their volatile leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was rattling rockets not only in space but even more dangerously in the divided city of Berlin.
To me, Vice President Nixon represented both courage and calm as he came face to face with Communism during the 1950s. In May 1958, he faced down a spitting, stone- throwing and potentially killing “Communist” mob in Caracas, Venezuela. In July 1959, he debated, with both eloquence and dignity, the “warlike vodka-swilling” Soviet leader in front of news cameras in an American “kitchen” at the American exhibition center of the World Exposition held in Moscow. When he returned home -- declaring at the airport that the best part about going abroad was coming home -- he was my hero. He would remain so from 1959 until the early 1970s.
During this time, although I came to admire other politicians, even Democrats, Richard Milhous Nixon was my “main man.” No matter how powerful the accusations with regard to his character or political history, I always made an excuse for him. I knew, of course, that no one, not even Dick Nixon, was perfect. The seriousness of Nixon’s flaws were in my mind tempered by the flaws I learned of in other heroes such as Jack Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and even Abraham Lincoln.
Richard Nixon stopped being my personal hero on Saturday night, October 20th, 1973 when, before the eyes of the nation, he dismissed Attorney General Elliott Richardson and his assistant William Ruckelshaus for refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. His pretence was the protection of the presidency. However, it was clear to me by then that Richard M Nixon was protecting himself: the presidency and even the nation, it seemed, be damned.
Thus Nixon as my hero was a thing of the past, although I did retain a sliver of affection and sadness for him until his death on April 22, 1994.
These days, pre-presidential marital infidelity can destroy a candidate, especially if he or she is caught lying about it. Candidate Bill Clinton was barely saved in 1992 when he, along with Hillary, appeared on a post Super Bowl edition of “Sixty Minutes” to acknowledge past marital problems and assure voters that the past was, after all, the past.
The fact that Democrats dodged a political bullet by not nominating John Edwards for President is pretty conclusive. Ironically, marital infidelity is almost a “tradition” across the history of European monarchs as well as at the highest levels of our government. At least six of our presidents (James Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton) are all examples. With the exception of Bill Clinton, the extramarital affairs of the other five presidents weren’t discovered and confirmed until long after their incumbency -- which was to the country’s benefit.
Want another irony? Here it is. How much better off would America be today if my first hero Richard Nixon’s most serious flaw was a single instance of marital infidelity?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
The news last Friday that former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and two-time Presidential candidate, has admitted a sexual affair with film producer Rielle Hunter is deeply disheartening.
The fact that it reflects badly on the person of Senator Edwards is tragic enough. The sad reality, that the affair occurred at all with its public political and personal disgrace, has to be especially painful to Elizabeth Edwards. After all, Mrs. Edwards now has to struggle with marital betrayal as well as with cancer.
For most Americans, John Edward’s character flaw not only gets in the way of his personal and political legacy, but it also mars the political and social causes he represented.
There are, among us, issues-oriented people whose knowledge about everything from global warming to international relations is devoid, or nearly so, of the human element. For them, fact and figure analysis tells them all they need to know in order to decide how to think, react and vote.
For the rest of us, yours truly included, personal political influence is what feeds our outlook on the politics of domestic and international issues. Sometimes we’re influenced by our parents, sometimes by our fears, and often, very often, by our early bonding with men and women of national stature.
I’ve had a number of political heroes in my life. My first was Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The late 1950s was a time of often dramatic tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and those tensions very much frightened me. The Soviets beat us into space and their volatile leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was rattling rockets not only in space but even more dangerously in the divided city of Berlin.
To me, Vice President Nixon represented both courage and calm as he came face to face with Communism during the 1950s. In May 1958, he faced down a spitting, stone- throwing and potentially killing “Communist” mob in Caracas, Venezuela. In July 1959, he debated, with both eloquence and dignity, the “warlike vodka-swilling” Soviet leader in front of news cameras in an American “kitchen” at the American exhibition center of the World Exposition held in Moscow. When he returned home -- declaring at the airport that the best part about going abroad was coming home -- he was my hero. He would remain so from 1959 until the early 1970s.
During this time, although I came to admire other politicians, even Democrats, Richard Milhous Nixon was my “main man.” No matter how powerful the accusations with regard to his character or political history, I always made an excuse for him. I knew, of course, that no one, not even Dick Nixon, was perfect. The seriousness of Nixon’s flaws were in my mind tempered by the flaws I learned of in other heroes such as Jack Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and even Abraham Lincoln.
Richard Nixon stopped being my personal hero on Saturday night, October 20th, 1973 when, before the eyes of the nation, he dismissed Attorney General Elliott Richardson and his assistant William Ruckelshaus for refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. His pretence was the protection of the presidency. However, it was clear to me by then that Richard M Nixon was protecting himself: the presidency and even the nation, it seemed, be damned.
Thus Nixon as my hero was a thing of the past, although I did retain a sliver of affection and sadness for him until his death on April 22, 1994.
These days, pre-presidential marital infidelity can destroy a candidate, especially if he or she is caught lying about it. Candidate Bill Clinton was barely saved in 1992 when he, along with Hillary, appeared on a post Super Bowl edition of “Sixty Minutes” to acknowledge past marital problems and assure voters that the past was, after all, the past.
The fact that Democrats dodged a political bullet by not nominating John Edwards for President is pretty conclusive. Ironically, marital infidelity is almost a “tradition” across the history of European monarchs as well as at the highest levels of our government. At least six of our presidents (James Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton) are all examples. With the exception of Bill Clinton, the extramarital affairs of the other five presidents weren’t discovered and confirmed until long after their incumbency -- which was to the country’s benefit.
Want another irony? Here it is. How much better off would America be today if my first hero Richard Nixon’s most serious flaw was a single instance of marital infidelity?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 4, 2008
THEIR FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DECISION
By Edwin Cooney
They’re coming soon. I mean, of course, the first real presidential decisions by candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Each man’s vice presidential running mate selection will tell us not only what his assessment of the current political situation is, but perhaps even something of what each candidate’s assets and liabilities as president may be.
Eight years ago when Governor George W. Bush was the GOP candidate, many expected that he would choose his most popular opponent Arizona Senator John McCain as his running mate. After all, Senator McCain was a Vietnam War hero, basically conservative, and he could bring to the ticket a large portion of independent voters. The problem was that Senator McCain was himself ambitious and somewhat unpredictable. Like his father before him, young Bush appears to have decided he needed a vice president who would never be a political threat. Papa Bush had solved that political dilemma by selecting James Danforth (Dan) Quayle of Indiana for his running mate back in 1988. He could have chosen either Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole or Dole’s wife Mary Elizabeth (Liddy) Dole (then Transportation Secretary in the Reagan administration). However, if George Herbert Walker Bush had selected either Dole, there likely would have been constant speculation as to who “the real force” was behind the proverbial throne. Hence he chose the handsome but political lightweight Dan Quayle of Indiana.
Richard Bruce Cheney was no political lightweight back in 2000—indeed, quite the opposite. However, his heart condition and lack of personal campaign stump magnetism had for some time limited any presidential ambitions he might have once possessed. What Dick Cheney did possess was both administrative and legislative experience which would lend political gravitas and stability to young Bush’s candidacy and presidency. This conclusion is most dramatically enhanced by the fact that, at the time of his selection, Dick Cheney was serving as one of Bush’s presidential campaign consultants. Even more, Cheney was at that time a resident of Texas and had to move back to Wyoming -- where he’d served as that state’s only congressman -- in order to be constitutionally eligible for election as Vice President. (The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution forbids the President and Vice President from being from the same state.)
Lacking any experience with either national or international issues, young Bush needed the magic stamp of presidential legitimacy to enhance his national appeal. Former Presidential Chief of Staff, Congressman, and Secretary of Defense Cheney filled the bill nicely.
No presidential candidate is likely to possess as comprehensive a package of knowledge, experience, ability and foresight as we would ideally wish. Thus, the selection of a vice presidential running mate is critical. It is the presidential candidate’s opportunity to expand every aspect of his appeal. It may also enhance his capacity to govern, once he is elected.
Historically, candidates have been selected for the vice presidential spot for a number of interesting reasons.
In 1904, for example, most Democrats were realistic enough to realize that Teddy Roosevelt was likely to run over them like the “bull moose” he would become in 1912. Their presidential candidate was the very respectable Chief Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals Judge Alton Brooks Parker. For his running mate, they selected eighty-year-old Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia. Some say Davis was nominated primarily because he could afford to bankroll the campaign. Some sources say he kept his word and contributed about $120,000 (about $3,000,000 in today’s money). Others insist that Davis added nothing, not even money, to the 1904 campaign. Which assessment is correct, you ask? Take your pick.
In 1924, after an exhausting ten-day 104-ballot convention, the Democrats nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia as its compromise presidential candidate. As Davis’s running mate, the Democrats chose Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Bryan was the brother of the party’s popular but three times losing presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
So, it’ll soon be Barack Obama and John McCain’s turn. Senator Obama needs a Vice President who will give him greater political credibility in the area of foreign affairs. Some say that if the polls show a close race between Obama and McCain going into the convention, Senator Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. If he’s substantially ahead, then either former Hillary Clinton supporter Indiana Senator Evan Bayh or former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark could get the nod. My guess is that he’ll pick General Clark.
Senator McCain needs a young running mate with credibility on domestic issues. Many believe he should pick former presidential candidate Mitt Romney for Vice President. However, rumor has it that they don’t much like one another. My guess is that Senator McCain will pick his friend Florida Governor Charles Crist to strengthen his appeal on domestic issues.
It would be nice if presidential candidates chose vice presidents strictly on their qualifications rather than on their possible political appeal, but both presidential and vice presidential candidates have one thing in common in this great nation of ours: they have to be electable before they have to be qualified.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
They’re coming soon. I mean, of course, the first real presidential decisions by candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Each man’s vice presidential running mate selection will tell us not only what his assessment of the current political situation is, but perhaps even something of what each candidate’s assets and liabilities as president may be.
Eight years ago when Governor George W. Bush was the GOP candidate, many expected that he would choose his most popular opponent Arizona Senator John McCain as his running mate. After all, Senator McCain was a Vietnam War hero, basically conservative, and he could bring to the ticket a large portion of independent voters. The problem was that Senator McCain was himself ambitious and somewhat unpredictable. Like his father before him, young Bush appears to have decided he needed a vice president who would never be a political threat. Papa Bush had solved that political dilemma by selecting James Danforth (Dan) Quayle of Indiana for his running mate back in 1988. He could have chosen either Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole or Dole’s wife Mary Elizabeth (Liddy) Dole (then Transportation Secretary in the Reagan administration). However, if George Herbert Walker Bush had selected either Dole, there likely would have been constant speculation as to who “the real force” was behind the proverbial throne. Hence he chose the handsome but political lightweight Dan Quayle of Indiana.
Richard Bruce Cheney was no political lightweight back in 2000—indeed, quite the opposite. However, his heart condition and lack of personal campaign stump magnetism had for some time limited any presidential ambitions he might have once possessed. What Dick Cheney did possess was both administrative and legislative experience which would lend political gravitas and stability to young Bush’s candidacy and presidency. This conclusion is most dramatically enhanced by the fact that, at the time of his selection, Dick Cheney was serving as one of Bush’s presidential campaign consultants. Even more, Cheney was at that time a resident of Texas and had to move back to Wyoming -- where he’d served as that state’s only congressman -- in order to be constitutionally eligible for election as Vice President. (The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution forbids the President and Vice President from being from the same state.)
Lacking any experience with either national or international issues, young Bush needed the magic stamp of presidential legitimacy to enhance his national appeal. Former Presidential Chief of Staff, Congressman, and Secretary of Defense Cheney filled the bill nicely.
No presidential candidate is likely to possess as comprehensive a package of knowledge, experience, ability and foresight as we would ideally wish. Thus, the selection of a vice presidential running mate is critical. It is the presidential candidate’s opportunity to expand every aspect of his appeal. It may also enhance his capacity to govern, once he is elected.
Historically, candidates have been selected for the vice presidential spot for a number of interesting reasons.
In 1904, for example, most Democrats were realistic enough to realize that Teddy Roosevelt was likely to run over them like the “bull moose” he would become in 1912. Their presidential candidate was the very respectable Chief Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals Judge Alton Brooks Parker. For his running mate, they selected eighty-year-old Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia. Some say Davis was nominated primarily because he could afford to bankroll the campaign. Some sources say he kept his word and contributed about $120,000 (about $3,000,000 in today’s money). Others insist that Davis added nothing, not even money, to the 1904 campaign. Which assessment is correct, you ask? Take your pick.
In 1924, after an exhausting ten-day 104-ballot convention, the Democrats nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia as its compromise presidential candidate. As Davis’s running mate, the Democrats chose Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Bryan was the brother of the party’s popular but three times losing presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
So, it’ll soon be Barack Obama and John McCain’s turn. Senator Obama needs a Vice President who will give him greater political credibility in the area of foreign affairs. Some say that if the polls show a close race between Obama and McCain going into the convention, Senator Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. If he’s substantially ahead, then either former Hillary Clinton supporter Indiana Senator Evan Bayh or former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark could get the nod. My guess is that he’ll pick General Clark.
Senator McCain needs a young running mate with credibility on domestic issues. Many believe he should pick former presidential candidate Mitt Romney for Vice President. However, rumor has it that they don’t much like one another. My guess is that Senator McCain will pick his friend Florida Governor Charles Crist to strengthen his appeal on domestic issues.
It would be nice if presidential candidates chose vice presidents strictly on their qualifications rather than on their possible political appeal, but both presidential and vice presidential candidates have one thing in common in this great nation of ours: they have to be electable before they have to be qualified.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 28, 2008
THEY’RE AT IT AGAIN
By Edwin Cooney
Not long ago, one of my readers, a lady raised in Michigan who is as sweet as sugar candy and a lifelong Democrat to boot, sent me a GOP clarification on the subject of the real threat to Social Security. She said she found it “quite enlightening”. What this little missive does is to inform readers that it’s the Democrats and not the Republicans who are destined to deprive “we the people” of Social Security benefits.
It begins by informing the reader that FDR made five promises when he signed the Social Security Act on August 14th, 1935. These promises were the following:
The Social Security program would be voluntary;
The people would be taxed no more than one percent on their first $1,400 of annual income;
The money would be spent solely on Social Security and on no other government program;
The money you and your employer paid into FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) would be tax deductible; and finally,
The benefits you receive would never be taxed.
It should be first established that the Republican Party, and especially the conservative wing of that party, has never been either impressed or interested in FDR’s promises. Since the 1930s, there are people who have labeled him “the root of all evil.” Additionally, his Conservative enemies have called him everything from a Communist to a “syphilitic cripple”. Even more, Republicans, and especially Conservatives, have made it clear that your day-to-day welfare is none of their concern—especially as taxpayers.
As for FDR’s supposed promises, the realities are:
Not all job categories were under the Social Security system when the program began. Since people could work in any number of jobs that weren’t then covered by FICA, there was a degree of volunteerism—but none specifically promised by FDR.
In addition, the first $3,000 – not $1,400 -- was taxable up to one percent. The tax rate went up from one to three percent between 1935 and 1949.
As for FDR’s supposed promise that Social Security payments would never be taxed, Social Security was one of Roosevelt’s greatest legacies, but it is still vulnerable to future generations.
The rest of this propaganda piece tries to convince potential 2008 voters that LBJ, Jimmy Carter and “Albert Arnold Gore” deliberately and systematically withdrew FDR’s original guarantees in exchange for cheap votes from the poor and from selfish, greedy immigrants.
The author is Vincent Peter Render. He says he thinks it was in 1958 that Senate Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon Banes Johnson first extracted moneys from the Social Security System -- with compliance from liberal Democratic majorities in both Houses, of course. What he doesn’t mention is that in order to do so, LBJ and the rest of those bad old Democrats would have needed the signature of Dwight David Eisenhower, the then Grand Old Man of the Republican Party, in order to accomplish their mischief. So, it didn’t happen.
What President Lyndon B. Johnson did do in 1968 was to sign legislation that added money to the Social Security trust fund as part of the budget for accounting purposes. My guess is that the reason for this was political; after all, no good Democrat would deny that LBJ was a master politician. My guess is that the reason for adding benefits in the Social Security trust fund to the budget was so that the fiscal 1969 budget, LBJ’s last, would balance. Nevertheless, according to the Social Security Administration website, the rules for the distribution of trust fund money haven’t been changed since the fund was established in 1939. Money from the Social Security trust fund can only be lent to securities which have the “full faith and credit” of the Federal government through treasury bills, treasury bonds and special issue bonds. It is true that the government can lend itself money via these instruments and spend the money on other projects, but this malady cannot be ranked as one of LBJ’s countless sins.
By confusing Social Security benefits with SSI (Supplemental Security Income) benefits, Mr. Render wants you to believe that, in 1978, Jimmy Carter gave your hard earned Social Security Benefits to immigrants who never contributed to the system. SSI benefits have no link to Social Security. The SSI program is a Federal welfare program for the benefit of the poor -- legal immigrants included. It was signed into law by GOP President Richard M. Nixon on October 30th 1970.
Finally, in dramatic fashion, Vincent Peter Render describes Vice President “Albert Arnold Gore’s” Senate tie-breaking vote raising the percentage of Social Security taxes on high-income beneficiaries from fifty percent to eighty-five percent. What he doesn’t tell you is that in April 1983, President Reagan, at the recommendation of the Greenspan Commission, signed legislation overruling the Treasury Department’s past decisions that Social Security benefits weren’t taxable. That Reagan-approved legislation taxed Social Security benefits for the first time.
Conservatives deeply believe that private insurance companies could have given John and Suzie Q. Citizen a better deal on their potential retirement incomes than FDR gave them. The fact of the matter remains, however, that these same ideologues believe even more deeply that your day-to-day Social Security is none of the government’s concern. Of course they’d love to have you turn your Social Security checks over to them so they could play with them just as they played with your money in the stock market of the 1920s.
You know, FDR had a phrase that he often used to describe the force behind propaganda pieces such as Vincent Peter Render’s plea. He called such pleas exactly what they were: “crocodile tears”.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Not long ago, one of my readers, a lady raised in Michigan who is as sweet as sugar candy and a lifelong Democrat to boot, sent me a GOP clarification on the subject of the real threat to Social Security. She said she found it “quite enlightening”. What this little missive does is to inform readers that it’s the Democrats and not the Republicans who are destined to deprive “we the people” of Social Security benefits.
It begins by informing the reader that FDR made five promises when he signed the Social Security Act on August 14th, 1935. These promises were the following:
The Social Security program would be voluntary;
The people would be taxed no more than one percent on their first $1,400 of annual income;
The money would be spent solely on Social Security and on no other government program;
The money you and your employer paid into FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) would be tax deductible; and finally,
The benefits you receive would never be taxed.
It should be first established that the Republican Party, and especially the conservative wing of that party, has never been either impressed or interested in FDR’s promises. Since the 1930s, there are people who have labeled him “the root of all evil.” Additionally, his Conservative enemies have called him everything from a Communist to a “syphilitic cripple”. Even more, Republicans, and especially Conservatives, have made it clear that your day-to-day welfare is none of their concern—especially as taxpayers.
As for FDR’s supposed promises, the realities are:
Not all job categories were under the Social Security system when the program began. Since people could work in any number of jobs that weren’t then covered by FICA, there was a degree of volunteerism—but none specifically promised by FDR.
In addition, the first $3,000 – not $1,400 -- was taxable up to one percent. The tax rate went up from one to three percent between 1935 and 1949.
As for FDR’s supposed promise that Social Security payments would never be taxed, Social Security was one of Roosevelt’s greatest legacies, but it is still vulnerable to future generations.
The rest of this propaganda piece tries to convince potential 2008 voters that LBJ, Jimmy Carter and “Albert Arnold Gore” deliberately and systematically withdrew FDR’s original guarantees in exchange for cheap votes from the poor and from selfish, greedy immigrants.
The author is Vincent Peter Render. He says he thinks it was in 1958 that Senate Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon Banes Johnson first extracted moneys from the Social Security System -- with compliance from liberal Democratic majorities in both Houses, of course. What he doesn’t mention is that in order to do so, LBJ and the rest of those bad old Democrats would have needed the signature of Dwight David Eisenhower, the then Grand Old Man of the Republican Party, in order to accomplish their mischief. So, it didn’t happen.
What President Lyndon B. Johnson did do in 1968 was to sign legislation that added money to the Social Security trust fund as part of the budget for accounting purposes. My guess is that the reason for this was political; after all, no good Democrat would deny that LBJ was a master politician. My guess is that the reason for adding benefits in the Social Security trust fund to the budget was so that the fiscal 1969 budget, LBJ’s last, would balance. Nevertheless, according to the Social Security Administration website, the rules for the distribution of trust fund money haven’t been changed since the fund was established in 1939. Money from the Social Security trust fund can only be lent to securities which have the “full faith and credit” of the Federal government through treasury bills, treasury bonds and special issue bonds. It is true that the government can lend itself money via these instruments and spend the money on other projects, but this malady cannot be ranked as one of LBJ’s countless sins.
By confusing Social Security benefits with SSI (Supplemental Security Income) benefits, Mr. Render wants you to believe that, in 1978, Jimmy Carter gave your hard earned Social Security Benefits to immigrants who never contributed to the system. SSI benefits have no link to Social Security. The SSI program is a Federal welfare program for the benefit of the poor -- legal immigrants included. It was signed into law by GOP President Richard M. Nixon on October 30th 1970.
Finally, in dramatic fashion, Vincent Peter Render describes Vice President “Albert Arnold Gore’s” Senate tie-breaking vote raising the percentage of Social Security taxes on high-income beneficiaries from fifty percent to eighty-five percent. What he doesn’t tell you is that in April 1983, President Reagan, at the recommendation of the Greenspan Commission, signed legislation overruling the Treasury Department’s past decisions that Social Security benefits weren’t taxable. That Reagan-approved legislation taxed Social Security benefits for the first time.
Conservatives deeply believe that private insurance companies could have given John and Suzie Q. Citizen a better deal on their potential retirement incomes than FDR gave them. The fact of the matter remains, however, that these same ideologues believe even more deeply that your day-to-day Social Security is none of the government’s concern. Of course they’d love to have you turn your Social Security checks over to them so they could play with them just as they played with your money in the stock market of the 1920s.
You know, FDR had a phrase that he often used to describe the force behind propaganda pieces such as Vincent Peter Render’s plea. He called such pleas exactly what they were: “crocodile tears”.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 21, 2008
INDEPENDENCE DAY PERSPECTIVE
By Edwin Cooney
Seventeen days have passed since we celebrated the two hundred thirty-second anniversary of our American way of life. You may be surprised, but I’ve decided that the biggest news stories of this year’s Fourth are nearly as revealing about the people of our “Great Republic” as the big news was on this day two hundred thirty-two years ago.
Back in 1776, the big story of the day was that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had voted for independence from Great Britain. However, the ultimate ramifications of that news story were quite uncertain. This year’s Fourth of July featured not one big story, but two biggies. Certainly, the ramifications of either of these two stories are presently obscure and require “the fullness of time” to show their ultimate significance.
The first news story is about Kent Couch of Bend, Oregon who completed his third historic flight aboard his Balloon-Propelled Lawn Chair while the rest of us feasted on Fourth of July picnic fare. Couch flew well into neighboring Idaho, several hundred miles from his Bend, Oregon home. Surely many wondered why he would want to do something like that.
The surface answer is that Kent Couch has a hero, the late Larry Walters. Walters launched his lawn chair to a height of some sixteen thousand feet over Southern California on July 2nd, 1982, but he had a most unpleasant flight. Walters became cold and frightened. He was spotted by several aircraft pilots who reported him to the Federal Aviation Administration. Using a pellet gun to puncture the helium balloons that held him aloft, Walters landed safely, although his equipment became entangled around power lines causing a power shortage to several hundred thousand Southern California PG&E customers. The whole venture cost Walters fifteen hundred dollars in Federal Aviation Administration fines. Later, Walters said he did it as a gag and would never do it again. Larry Walters, as it turned out, lived a rather lonely existence preferring the vastness of the wilderness to the limelight of notoriety. It was in the wilderness that he committed suicide in 1993.
Fortunately things are much brighter for Kent Couch. Not only does Mr. Couch have the loving support of his wife Susan in his venture, he also has a corporate sponsor to help him perfect lawn chair flight. So, even Capitalist America has gotten into the act. Even more, Kent Couch says he wants to be the first one to fly a lawn chair across the English Channel and later across Australia.
So the question is, what does this say about the values of modern American manhood? Is it as brave and purposeful as it once was? Neither George Washington nor Kent Couch knew how tragically or happily their July Fourth challenges would turn out. These two events do have danger and uncertainty in common, but what else?
The second big news story from our recent Fourth of July celebration concerns Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California. Television and newspaper photos vividly show Chestnut and rival Takeru Kobayashi of Japan stuffing fifty-nine hot dogs into their faces at the annual hot dog eating contest on New York’s Coney Island. Chestnut won in a two-minute overtime when he scarffed down an additional five hot dogs more quickly than Kobayashi.
It’s interesting to note that this contest also has corporate sponsorship. Nathan’s, a restaurant on Coney Island, has been sponsoring the International Hot Dog Eating Contest each Independence Day since Tuesday, July 4th, 1916. In some ways, this July Fourth tradition could be considered more dangerous than Mr. Couch’s obsession. If Kent Couch avoids an accident he certainly won’t do nearly the harm to his physiognomy that Joey Chestnut and his rival Kobayashi appear to be doing to theirs. The twenty-four year-old Chestnut began competing in competitive eating contests in 2005. One has only to Google his name to discover some incredible feats or, if you prefer, feasts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we’re foolish to be intrigued by Kent Couch’s or Joey Chestnut’s adventures or that we’re less a people than we were two hundred thirty-two years ago. I am suggesting, however, that we’re certainly different. How crucial that difference is may be another formidably daunting question.
Some may suggest that both Couch and Chestnut can be explained as children of the 1960s generation. Remember, however, that Nathan’s began its sponsorship of public gluttony back in 1916 when we were being governed by one of this nation’s most puritanical leaders, that “no nonsense”, self-righteous Presbyterian by the name of Woodrow Wilson. It is no good to blame the “flower generation” for the eccentricities of today’s me me me generation.
Ah! But perhaps there is a clue to those eccentricities. Our nation is a completed and beloved Republic these days, so there’s plenty of time as well as plenty of resources for the aggrandizing of the individual. Two hundred thirty-two Fourths of July ago was a time of national struggle although not all Americans, by any means, were unanimous in wanting to be free of their king. However, a small but resourceful group of Americans banded together and won the right for individuals to shine however foolish or wholesome their purposes may be.
So today, shine is exactly what they do.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Seventeen days have passed since we celebrated the two hundred thirty-second anniversary of our American way of life. You may be surprised, but I’ve decided that the biggest news stories of this year’s Fourth are nearly as revealing about the people of our “Great Republic” as the big news was on this day two hundred thirty-two years ago.
Back in 1776, the big story of the day was that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had voted for independence from Great Britain. However, the ultimate ramifications of that news story were quite uncertain. This year’s Fourth of July featured not one big story, but two biggies. Certainly, the ramifications of either of these two stories are presently obscure and require “the fullness of time” to show their ultimate significance.
The first news story is about Kent Couch of Bend, Oregon who completed his third historic flight aboard his Balloon-Propelled Lawn Chair while the rest of us feasted on Fourth of July picnic fare. Couch flew well into neighboring Idaho, several hundred miles from his Bend, Oregon home. Surely many wondered why he would want to do something like that.
The surface answer is that Kent Couch has a hero, the late Larry Walters. Walters launched his lawn chair to a height of some sixteen thousand feet over Southern California on July 2nd, 1982, but he had a most unpleasant flight. Walters became cold and frightened. He was spotted by several aircraft pilots who reported him to the Federal Aviation Administration. Using a pellet gun to puncture the helium balloons that held him aloft, Walters landed safely, although his equipment became entangled around power lines causing a power shortage to several hundred thousand Southern California PG&E customers. The whole venture cost Walters fifteen hundred dollars in Federal Aviation Administration fines. Later, Walters said he did it as a gag and would never do it again. Larry Walters, as it turned out, lived a rather lonely existence preferring the vastness of the wilderness to the limelight of notoriety. It was in the wilderness that he committed suicide in 1993.
Fortunately things are much brighter for Kent Couch. Not only does Mr. Couch have the loving support of his wife Susan in his venture, he also has a corporate sponsor to help him perfect lawn chair flight. So, even Capitalist America has gotten into the act. Even more, Kent Couch says he wants to be the first one to fly a lawn chair across the English Channel and later across Australia.
So the question is, what does this say about the values of modern American manhood? Is it as brave and purposeful as it once was? Neither George Washington nor Kent Couch knew how tragically or happily their July Fourth challenges would turn out. These two events do have danger and uncertainty in common, but what else?
The second big news story from our recent Fourth of July celebration concerns Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California. Television and newspaper photos vividly show Chestnut and rival Takeru Kobayashi of Japan stuffing fifty-nine hot dogs into their faces at the annual hot dog eating contest on New York’s Coney Island. Chestnut won in a two-minute overtime when he scarffed down an additional five hot dogs more quickly than Kobayashi.
It’s interesting to note that this contest also has corporate sponsorship. Nathan’s, a restaurant on Coney Island, has been sponsoring the International Hot Dog Eating Contest each Independence Day since Tuesday, July 4th, 1916. In some ways, this July Fourth tradition could be considered more dangerous than Mr. Couch’s obsession. If Kent Couch avoids an accident he certainly won’t do nearly the harm to his physiognomy that Joey Chestnut and his rival Kobayashi appear to be doing to theirs. The twenty-four year-old Chestnut began competing in competitive eating contests in 2005. One has only to Google his name to discover some incredible feats or, if you prefer, feasts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we’re foolish to be intrigued by Kent Couch’s or Joey Chestnut’s adventures or that we’re less a people than we were two hundred thirty-two years ago. I am suggesting, however, that we’re certainly different. How crucial that difference is may be another formidably daunting question.
Some may suggest that both Couch and Chestnut can be explained as children of the 1960s generation. Remember, however, that Nathan’s began its sponsorship of public gluttony back in 1916 when we were being governed by one of this nation’s most puritanical leaders, that “no nonsense”, self-righteous Presbyterian by the name of Woodrow Wilson. It is no good to blame the “flower generation” for the eccentricities of today’s me me me generation.
Ah! But perhaps there is a clue to those eccentricities. Our nation is a completed and beloved Republic these days, so there’s plenty of time as well as plenty of resources for the aggrandizing of the individual. Two hundred thirty-two Fourths of July ago was a time of national struggle although not all Americans, by any means, were unanimous in wanting to be free of their king. However, a small but resourceful group of Americans banded together and won the right for individuals to shine however foolish or wholesome their purposes may be.
So today, shine is exactly what they do.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 14, 2008
JERRY FORD—MR. LEADER, MR. PRESIDENT, MR. AMERICA
By Edwin Cooney
No, I didn’t vote for President Ford that sunny Election Day in upstate New York where I lived back in 1976. My heart was (and still is) with Jimmy Carter.
I was even a little tired of hearing about President Jerry Ford’s all around “good guy” image. I wanted a president interested in creating jobs and offering assistance to the unemployed, who was concerned about the needs of patients rather than the demands of the American Medical Association.
Even more, it seemed to me, “good old Jerry” had been way too chummy with “good old Dick Nixon” and I was thoroughly tired of the whole mess in Washington. I was tired of Jerry Ford and Earl L. Butz, the Nixon/ Ford administrations’ acerbic Secretary of Agriculture who was known for his racist jokes. I was tired of Jerry Ford and the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown who kept making anti-Semitic statements that President Ford would apologize for hoping that everyone would forget that they were made at all. I was tired of Jerry Ford and his veto pen of which he was too proud to suit this voter. I was even tired of President Ford and his brilliant Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
As far as I was concerned, it was time to throw the rascals out. True, I had helped put them there back in 1968 when I, just as enthusiastically as GOP House Minority Leader Ford, voted for Richard Nixon. Still, for me, it was time for President Gerald Rudolph Ford -- with all of his wholesomeness -- to go on a permanent vacation.
So, away he went and time set in. Jimmy was great as far as I was and am still concerned, but America lost patience with the Carter complexity which was often exacerbated by his outwardly gentle style and willingness always to examine his own psyche. It made him appear less than decisive. In fact, CBS commentator Eric Severeid compared Ford and Carter on the final night of the 1976 presidential campaign, observing that while there may be something good to say about Jimmy Carter’s willingness to examine his own psyche, there was also something positive about President Ford’s seeming not to realize that he even HAD a psyche – thus leaving his mind alone.
As time passed, I began to let the best of Jerry Ford back into my awareness. It began in October 1981 when Nixon, Carter, and Ford represented President Reagan at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat. Nixon stayed in the Middle East to do what Nixon did best—showcasing himself as a foreign policy expert—while Jimmy and Jerry flew home aboard one of President Reagan’s Air Force One jets. Not only did they talk during the long flight home, they actually bonded and became permanent friends, each throwing political and personal differences aside. For the rest of his life except when political seasons rolled around, Jerry Ford had nice things to say about the man who had denied him election to a full one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one day presidential term.
Slowly, I began to allow myself to realize what a truly extraordinary human being Jerry Ford was from the day of his birth on July 14th, 1913 as Leslie Lynch King to Tuesday, December 26th, 2006—the day he died.
As many young people do, Jerry Ford had to come to terms with the nearly unfathomable. He discovered at age twelve that he had two dads and had been named after both of them. Leslie Lynch King of Omaha, Nebraska was his biological father. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his mother Dorothy’s second husband, was his adopted dad. Young Jerry chose the senior Jerry as the senior Jerry had once chosen young Jerry—and that was that—except for a healthy tear or two.
Jerry Ford was both a good student and a good athlete. A member of the National Honor Society, he finished in the top five percent of his 1931 graduating class at South High in Grand Rapids. An excellent student and athlete at Michigan State University, young Ford was the center on the College All Stars team that played the Chicago Bears in the 1935 College All Stars summer classic against the NFL. He’s the only U.S. President who was drafted by two NFL franchises (the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers). Jerry Ford is also the only President to have been an Eagle Scout, not to mention a magazine model for men’s clothing. Having completed his studies at the University of Michigan, he went on to Yale University where he was employed both as an assistant football coach and as head boxing coach before being admitted to the law school.
Admitted to the Michigan State Bar in 1941, young Ford practiced law in Grand Rapids with Philip A. Buchen. World War II would interrupt their law practice, but certainly not their friendship. Jerry Ford’s friend Phil Buchen would become White House Counsel to the President Gerald R. Ford in the 1974 White House.
Jerry Ford served on the USS Monterey as Physical Fitness Officer and as Assistant Gunnery Officer during World War II. He rose from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander.
Upon his return home in February1946, he joined the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg. Jerry Ford, Sr. had served as local Republican Party Chairman during World War II and that service had to have been an important factor in young Jerry’s decision to run for Congress in 1948.
Realizing that World War II had forever changed America’s role in international politics, he challenged and defeated GOP isolationist incumbent Congressman Bartel J. Jonkman 23,632 to 14,341 in the 1948 GOP primary. In the General Election of 1948, he defeated Democrat Fred J. Barr 74,191 votes to 46,972.
In between those two political events came his October 15th, 1948 marriage to Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer, a thirty-year-old divorcee. Betty and her husband William Warren had amicably divorced in 1947. Only a short time later, at the urging of Peg Neuman, a mutual friend, Betty agreed to meet Jerry Ford for a drink and from then on they never stopped dating.
Thus at the beginning of 1949, the newlyweds found themselves house hunting in Washington D.C. Jerry’s new job would be demanding and political campaigning would become almost a continuous way of life for the young couple and their growing family.
Jerry Ford’s twenty-five plus years in the House were hectic but pleasant ones. His ultimate political goal was to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jerry Ford was a plain spoken but pleasant man who liked people. Because his liking for people was so evident, people naturally were drawn to him.
Politically he was an internationalist in foreign affairs and a moderate conservative on domestic issues. His “conservatism” was more instinctual than it was ideological or doctrinaire. He was cautious of spending on most things, but as he admitted during his first speech to Congress after becoming President in 1974, he sometimes favored spending money on worthy Grand Rapids, Michigan projects more than he favored “wasteful spending” -- especially in Democratic congressional districts.
His rise in the House accelerated in the 1960s. In 1963, he became Chairman of the House GOP conference and, in 1965, he challenged House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana and defeated him by a vote of 73 to 66.
As GOP House Leader, he became nationally known as the House half of the “Ev and Jerry show” — which was the weekly briefing that Jerry Ford, as House GOP Leader, and Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen held for the press. During these meetings, Ev and Jerry would comment on Johnson administration policies. Dirksen, with that deep, almost “other worldly” voice would make some pithy observation about LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, or Congress, and Jerry would laugh in all the right places.
Then there was Ford’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as one of two House members to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Ford co-wrote the book “Portrait of an Assassin” with Warren Commission assistant John R. Stiles in which he endorsed the commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Essentially, Gerald Ford was a combination of moderate partisan and moderate compromiser. He wasn’t always either thoughtful or fair. He could be testy and partisan when it came to attacking President Johnson or defending President Nixon. His attempt to impeach Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas was partisan retaliation for Liberal attacks on President Nixon’s failed Supreme Court nominees in 1969 and 1970.
Then suddenly in October 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and a Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon turned to the neighborly Midwesterner Jerry Ford to take his place. Only the most partisan Democrats seriously questioned Ford’s credentials to become Vice President. Some believe that Nixon nearly chose Jerry Ford for Vice President in 1960 and even considered him in 1968. So he was confirmed, becoming Vice President of the United States on the night of Thursday, December 6th, 1973. He would be sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger before President Nixon and a Joint Session of Congress.
Nine months and three days later on that sweltering Washington D.C. Friday, August 9th, 1974, the tall, burly Michigander was sworn in as our thirty-eighth President. His term as President, which lasted two years, five months and eleven days, was deeply marred by President Ford’s decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon of all crimes and misdemeanors which he may have committed. Honest and genial as he truly was, Jerry Ford could not get out from under the suspicion of millions that he’d made a political deal rather than a principled judgment when it came to the fate of his friend Dick Nixon.
President Ford’s successes were modest but solid. There was the December 1974 Vladivostok arms agreement which led to the successful Reagan Strategic Arms settlement in the 1980s. Then there was the Helsinki agreement in 1975 in which both East and West agreed to noninterference in one another’s internal affairs which led to an easing of travel restrictions in Eastern Europe.
The May 1975 rescue of the U.S. Merchant Ship Mayaguez which had been captured briefly in Cambodian waters was credited largely to President Ford’s coolness and determination in the face of an international crisis.
Although President Ford was philosophically favorable to business, he signed four consumer bills in 1975 providing for oversight protection in areas such as consumer credit and appliance warranties as well as real estate purchases.
Originally opposed to assisting New York City when it faced default, President Ford signed legislation providing for low interest loans to assist the city after it had adjusted its own fiscal imbalances.
In April 1975, Gerald Ford became the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to see American forces driven from foreign soil when North Vietnam overran Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Min City. However, most Americans didn’t blame the President or his administration because they were more anxious than President Ford to be rid of Vietnam.
A good politician in the best sense of the word, Jerry Ford knew how to use and balance ideologies in politics. He was glad to be considered a political Conservative, especially as that ideology gained national favor, but he used Conservatism rather than being controlled by it. Even more impressive, he nearly won the 1976 election with Richard Nixon tied around his neck.
With the possible exception of Harry Truman, Jerry Ford was probably closer to the ideals of “Mr. and Mrs. America” than any other modern president. He lived a modest life even while in Congress,. He spoke plainly. He appeared to think problems through in a practical rather than an ideological way. It was easy to imagine Jerry Ford as a Boy Scout master, a high school history teacher, a Chamber of Commerce president – or even as your dad.
As President, Gerald R. Ford lacked the grandfatherly wisdom of Ike; the glamour of Jack Kennedy; the grandiose vision of LBJ; the political cynicism of Richard Nixon; the earnestness of Jimmy Carter; the suavity of Ronald Reagan; the breeding of George Herbert Walker Bush; the political wiliness of Bill Clinton; and the determined adventurism of President George Walker Bush. However, more than any of the above, Jerry Ford as President of the United States came across as one of us.
He would pay the price necessary to protect the presidency and the nation from the time consuming and ongoing turmoil of Richard Milhous Nixon—and he would simultaneously protect his friend Dick Nixon from the country’s national wrath.
My guess is that if you were to ask him why he acted as he did, he’d remind you that Richard Nixon was first and foremost an American citizen who in some ways had given the nation his best. Then he’d remind you that one’s fate as a person matters more than one’s fate as a politician.
Then I think he’d leave you to figure the rest out for yourself.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No, I didn’t vote for President Ford that sunny Election Day in upstate New York where I lived back in 1976. My heart was (and still is) with Jimmy Carter.
I was even a little tired of hearing about President Jerry Ford’s all around “good guy” image. I wanted a president interested in creating jobs and offering assistance to the unemployed, who was concerned about the needs of patients rather than the demands of the American Medical Association.
Even more, it seemed to me, “good old Jerry” had been way too chummy with “good old Dick Nixon” and I was thoroughly tired of the whole mess in Washington. I was tired of Jerry Ford and Earl L. Butz, the Nixon/ Ford administrations’ acerbic Secretary of Agriculture who was known for his racist jokes. I was tired of Jerry Ford and the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown who kept making anti-Semitic statements that President Ford would apologize for hoping that everyone would forget that they were made at all. I was tired of Jerry Ford and his veto pen of which he was too proud to suit this voter. I was even tired of President Ford and his brilliant Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
As far as I was concerned, it was time to throw the rascals out. True, I had helped put them there back in 1968 when I, just as enthusiastically as GOP House Minority Leader Ford, voted for Richard Nixon. Still, for me, it was time for President Gerald Rudolph Ford -- with all of his wholesomeness -- to go on a permanent vacation.
So, away he went and time set in. Jimmy was great as far as I was and am still concerned, but America lost patience with the Carter complexity which was often exacerbated by his outwardly gentle style and willingness always to examine his own psyche. It made him appear less than decisive. In fact, CBS commentator Eric Severeid compared Ford and Carter on the final night of the 1976 presidential campaign, observing that while there may be something good to say about Jimmy Carter’s willingness to examine his own psyche, there was also something positive about President Ford’s seeming not to realize that he even HAD a psyche – thus leaving his mind alone.
As time passed, I began to let the best of Jerry Ford back into my awareness. It began in October 1981 when Nixon, Carter, and Ford represented President Reagan at the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat. Nixon stayed in the Middle East to do what Nixon did best—showcasing himself as a foreign policy expert—while Jimmy and Jerry flew home aboard one of President Reagan’s Air Force One jets. Not only did they talk during the long flight home, they actually bonded and became permanent friends, each throwing political and personal differences aside. For the rest of his life except when political seasons rolled around, Jerry Ford had nice things to say about the man who had denied him election to a full one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one day presidential term.
Slowly, I began to allow myself to realize what a truly extraordinary human being Jerry Ford was from the day of his birth on July 14th, 1913 as Leslie Lynch King to Tuesday, December 26th, 2006—the day he died.
As many young people do, Jerry Ford had to come to terms with the nearly unfathomable. He discovered at age twelve that he had two dads and had been named after both of them. Leslie Lynch King of Omaha, Nebraska was his biological father. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his mother Dorothy’s second husband, was his adopted dad. Young Jerry chose the senior Jerry as the senior Jerry had once chosen young Jerry—and that was that—except for a healthy tear or two.
Jerry Ford was both a good student and a good athlete. A member of the National Honor Society, he finished in the top five percent of his 1931 graduating class at South High in Grand Rapids. An excellent student and athlete at Michigan State University, young Ford was the center on the College All Stars team that played the Chicago Bears in the 1935 College All Stars summer classic against the NFL. He’s the only U.S. President who was drafted by two NFL franchises (the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers). Jerry Ford is also the only President to have been an Eagle Scout, not to mention a magazine model for men’s clothing. Having completed his studies at the University of Michigan, he went on to Yale University where he was employed both as an assistant football coach and as head boxing coach before being admitted to the law school.
Admitted to the Michigan State Bar in 1941, young Ford practiced law in Grand Rapids with Philip A. Buchen. World War II would interrupt their law practice, but certainly not their friendship. Jerry Ford’s friend Phil Buchen would become White House Counsel to the President Gerald R. Ford in the 1974 White House.
Jerry Ford served on the USS Monterey as Physical Fitness Officer and as Assistant Gunnery Officer during World War II. He rose from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander.
Upon his return home in February1946, he joined the law firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg. Jerry Ford, Sr. had served as local Republican Party Chairman during World War II and that service had to have been an important factor in young Jerry’s decision to run for Congress in 1948.
Realizing that World War II had forever changed America’s role in international politics, he challenged and defeated GOP isolationist incumbent Congressman Bartel J. Jonkman 23,632 to 14,341 in the 1948 GOP primary. In the General Election of 1948, he defeated Democrat Fred J. Barr 74,191 votes to 46,972.
In between those two political events came his October 15th, 1948 marriage to Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer, a thirty-year-old divorcee. Betty and her husband William Warren had amicably divorced in 1947. Only a short time later, at the urging of Peg Neuman, a mutual friend, Betty agreed to meet Jerry Ford for a drink and from then on they never stopped dating.
Thus at the beginning of 1949, the newlyweds found themselves house hunting in Washington D.C. Jerry’s new job would be demanding and political campaigning would become almost a continuous way of life for the young couple and their growing family.
Jerry Ford’s twenty-five plus years in the House were hectic but pleasant ones. His ultimate political goal was to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jerry Ford was a plain spoken but pleasant man who liked people. Because his liking for people was so evident, people naturally were drawn to him.
Politically he was an internationalist in foreign affairs and a moderate conservative on domestic issues. His “conservatism” was more instinctual than it was ideological or doctrinaire. He was cautious of spending on most things, but as he admitted during his first speech to Congress after becoming President in 1974, he sometimes favored spending money on worthy Grand Rapids, Michigan projects more than he favored “wasteful spending” -- especially in Democratic congressional districts.
His rise in the House accelerated in the 1960s. In 1963, he became Chairman of the House GOP conference and, in 1965, he challenged House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana and defeated him by a vote of 73 to 66.
As GOP House Leader, he became nationally known as the House half of the “Ev and Jerry show” — which was the weekly briefing that Jerry Ford, as House GOP Leader, and Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen held for the press. During these meetings, Ev and Jerry would comment on Johnson administration policies. Dirksen, with that deep, almost “other worldly” voice would make some pithy observation about LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, or Congress, and Jerry would laugh in all the right places.
Then there was Ford’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as one of two House members to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Ford co-wrote the book “Portrait of an Assassin” with Warren Commission assistant John R. Stiles in which he endorsed the commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Essentially, Gerald Ford was a combination of moderate partisan and moderate compromiser. He wasn’t always either thoughtful or fair. He could be testy and partisan when it came to attacking President Johnson or defending President Nixon. His attempt to impeach Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas was partisan retaliation for Liberal attacks on President Nixon’s failed Supreme Court nominees in 1969 and 1970.
Then suddenly in October 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and a Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon turned to the neighborly Midwesterner Jerry Ford to take his place. Only the most partisan Democrats seriously questioned Ford’s credentials to become Vice President. Some believe that Nixon nearly chose Jerry Ford for Vice President in 1960 and even considered him in 1968. So he was confirmed, becoming Vice President of the United States on the night of Thursday, December 6th, 1973. He would be sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger before President Nixon and a Joint Session of Congress.
Nine months and three days later on that sweltering Washington D.C. Friday, August 9th, 1974, the tall, burly Michigander was sworn in as our thirty-eighth President. His term as President, which lasted two years, five months and eleven days, was deeply marred by President Ford’s decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon of all crimes and misdemeanors which he may have committed. Honest and genial as he truly was, Jerry Ford could not get out from under the suspicion of millions that he’d made a political deal rather than a principled judgment when it came to the fate of his friend Dick Nixon.
President Ford’s successes were modest but solid. There was the December 1974 Vladivostok arms agreement which led to the successful Reagan Strategic Arms settlement in the 1980s. Then there was the Helsinki agreement in 1975 in which both East and West agreed to noninterference in one another’s internal affairs which led to an easing of travel restrictions in Eastern Europe.
The May 1975 rescue of the U.S. Merchant Ship Mayaguez which had been captured briefly in Cambodian waters was credited largely to President Ford’s coolness and determination in the face of an international crisis.
Although President Ford was philosophically favorable to business, he signed four consumer bills in 1975 providing for oversight protection in areas such as consumer credit and appliance warranties as well as real estate purchases.
Originally opposed to assisting New York City when it faced default, President Ford signed legislation providing for low interest loans to assist the city after it had adjusted its own fiscal imbalances.
In April 1975, Gerald Ford became the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to see American forces driven from foreign soil when North Vietnam overran Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Min City. However, most Americans didn’t blame the President or his administration because they were more anxious than President Ford to be rid of Vietnam.
A good politician in the best sense of the word, Jerry Ford knew how to use and balance ideologies in politics. He was glad to be considered a political Conservative, especially as that ideology gained national favor, but he used Conservatism rather than being controlled by it. Even more impressive, he nearly won the 1976 election with Richard Nixon tied around his neck.
With the possible exception of Harry Truman, Jerry Ford was probably closer to the ideals of “Mr. and Mrs. America” than any other modern president. He lived a modest life even while in Congress,. He spoke plainly. He appeared to think problems through in a practical rather than an ideological way. It was easy to imagine Jerry Ford as a Boy Scout master, a high school history teacher, a Chamber of Commerce president – or even as your dad.
As President, Gerald R. Ford lacked the grandfatherly wisdom of Ike; the glamour of Jack Kennedy; the grandiose vision of LBJ; the political cynicism of Richard Nixon; the earnestness of Jimmy Carter; the suavity of Ronald Reagan; the breeding of George Herbert Walker Bush; the political wiliness of Bill Clinton; and the determined adventurism of President George Walker Bush. However, more than any of the above, Jerry Ford as President of the United States came across as one of us.
He would pay the price necessary to protect the presidency and the nation from the time consuming and ongoing turmoil of Richard Milhous Nixon—and he would simultaneously protect his friend Dick Nixon from the country’s national wrath.
My guess is that if you were to ask him why he acted as he did, he’d remind you that Richard Nixon was first and foremost an American citizen who in some ways had given the nation his best. Then he’d remind you that one’s fate as a person matters more than one’s fate as a politician.
Then I think he’d leave you to figure the rest out for yourself.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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