Team B-Week 2 (Post 1)

It seems like every candidate running in the 2008 election has an angle or different approach on how they plan to win. The democrats are promising change while the Republicans are promising security and the well-being of the country. In the end every candidate wants to appeal to as many people as they can. Just as in the 1928 elections with Jackson and Adams, the people today are more concerned with the person instead of the issues at hand. All the candidates are bringing up the same social issues involving gay rights, the economy, and the war. As discussed in class, each of the candidates are using issue framing to bring in their voters. Voters today are fed up with the current state were in that they want change; yet, do know who to choose because no one seems genuine enough to solve our problems with the economy and the war. Candidates such as Hilary Clinton are using issue framing and concentrating on the main issue that is of most concern to people such as the war in Iraq. Every candidate has the same view that change is needed in the war with Iraq, from there they will have to use different technqiues to aquire more people on their sides. Clay's tactic in the 1928 election was to use the Federal Bank as a way to take that issue and make an argument to abolish it to appeal to the people. Today, all the candidates have a certain angle in their campaigning strategies; yet, in the end their main goal is to appeal to the voters with an image that they can depend on them and trust them to take the social and economic issues of today

Liberty's Cost (Team B Week 2)

Congressman Ron Paul often declares himself a critic of federal spending, and touts himself as a Libertarian. It appears however, that Congressman Paul, as with the man many consider to be America’s first libertarian, Thomas Jefferson, do not always practice what they openly preached. The Congressman conveniently sets aside his strict construction of the constitution for earmarks, just as Jefferson did so for territory.

The Wall Street Journal, The Congressional Quarterly, The Liberty Papers, The Cable News Network, and The Fox News Channel have all researched the Representative's "fiscal frugalness". Unfortunately for Representative Paul, he is neither frugal nor libertarian in his earmarking.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Congressman Paul is planning to request an astronomical $400 million dollars worth of earmarks this Congressional year. The libertarian Congressman has requested $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing. That just scraps the surface of the proposed spending.

According to David Nather of The Congressional Quarterly, Paul is decrying irresponsible and unconstitutional Federal spending, while he requests earmarks for his district that:" includes two projects to improve the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, at a combined federal cost of roughly $32 million. There’s also the sunken ship Paul wants the feds to remove from Freeport Harbor. And he wants the feds to take charge of maintaining the Pix Bayou Navigation Channel. There’s also a feasibility study for flood, hurricane and storm damage control projects along the coast. And there’s the mysterious “project in the vicinity of Galveston Bay.” (The bill provided no other details.)"

Congressman Paul doesn't see a conflict between libertarian ideals and rampant earmark requests for spending. As he put it in a floor speech last year, “earmarks . . . are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. The real problem is that the United States government is too big, spends too much, and has too much power.”

The Congressman goes on to justify his spending propensity as an offsetting action against executive power:" a crackdown on earmarks, he says, would only grant the executive branch more control over where the money goes. The total amount of spending wouldn’t change. “There’s nothing wrong with designating where the money goes,” Paul says — so long as the earmark is “up front and everyone knows about it,” rather than having it slipped in at the last minute with no scrutiny."The Congressman claims that in an ideal world there wouldn't be a federal income tax, however, as long as there is one, he has a responsibility to help his constituents recover some of the tax dollars the government has taken from them. Whether or not his constituents want that reclaimed money going to the marketing of wild American shrimp and shrimp fishing research is not clear.

Representative Paul has a unique approach when throwing his support behind certain earmarks. He sponsored ten earmarks for a particular bill and then sat out the vote when the bill came to the floor of the House. This is clever of the Congressman, even if it is less than libertarian of him. This technique ensures that he will bring home the bacon to his constituents, when he feels the bill will pass anyway with his earmarks, while pacifying his anti-tax supporters who helped him get elected to Congress.

This reminds one of Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Jefferson, like Paul, had always been a strong and unyielding advocate of a strict interpretation of the constitution to ensure limited government both in scope and size. According to Dunn’s Jefferson’s Second Revolution, Jefferson confided to his closest advisers that he realized the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional:

To his closest advisers the president confided his understanding that the Constitution had not given the government the necessary authority to acquire and incorporate new territory into the union.

President Jefferson toyed with the idea of a constitutional amendment but ultimately set the idea aside. He would later write that although the Purchase was “beyond the constitution” it was in such the national interest that he urged Congress to “cast behind them metaphysical subtleties” and approve the Louisiana Purchase. President Jefferson would later indicate that the constitution just had to yield to pragmatism in acquiring the vast territory. The powers of the federal government would expand right along with the new territory that the nation had acquired. Sometimes even to constitutionalists such as President Jefferson and Congressman Paul, the ends do justify the means.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/allpolitics/0706/popup.congress.earmarks/pdfs/tx.14.paul.pdf

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-ronpaul_27tex.ART.State.Edition1.43bdd5f.html

http://afk.townhall.com/g/446a37bc-aa95-4a34-94c1-7643aabd2b7b

Ryan Christiano

It has been 209 years since the election of 1789, yet the very most basic ideals of democracy are clearly evolving and flourishing. This election of 2008 holds the potential to break the stigmatic rules of the past 209 years with the prospective of an African American male or a Woman to become Head of State. It is clearly evident that the winds of change are slowly increasing in strength; but will they stay strong and set a new precedent?

As my classmate highlighted earlier, the election of 1824 and the current election of 2008 share some distinct similarities. While the current election is yet to identify the two main party candidates, it is already evident that this political race, as in 1824, may well be decided by personality rather than policy. As Paul F. Boller Jr. highlights in “Presidential Campaigns”, the election of 1824 was dominated by “personalities, not issues” as is clearly evident in the current competition between Obama and Clinton in the struggle to gain the Democratic Presidential Candidate nomination. As democracy has evolved and flourished, so to has the ability to critique, and as highlighted in a previous post, slander. While the media in 1824 focused on slovenly dress, English wives, drinking, gambling and possibly murder, modern media allows us not only new degrees of slander, but also more in depth analysis of the potential presidential candidates, and a more thorough understanding of how significant a candidate’s personality remains throughout their campaign.

In a recent article by Joe Klein for Time Magazine, Klein highlights how the personalities of the Democratic party frontrunners not only have born a new interest and vigor in democratic voters, but may also see a greater divide between the candidates and their potential support, “Both Clinton and Obama have difficulties reaching across …divides, and that is where the fear resides: neither candidate may prove strong or broad enough” (Klein). Klein highlights that each member tailors their campaign to suit their personality, Clinton attempting to prove her more extensive knowledge through debates and press questions, while Obama attempts to display his charismatic and inspiring personality through speeches. However, each is lacking where the other strides ahead, resulting in the deadlock that we are witnessing currently for the nomination of the Democratic Party (Klein).
One can only be expected to consider the potential strength of the candidates as running mates. Michael Duffy addresses this in “Clinton, Obama: Why Not Both?” where he highlights how beneficial “the visionary and the technician” partnership could be to the Democratic Party. However, Duffy highlights neither candidate is giving any indication that they may consider being the Vice President, as only can be expected when the candidates have remained so unbelievably close throughout the Primary elections.

This deadlock, similar to that for the Presidential nomination in 1824 between Adams and Jackson, will soon be resolved, but will these apparent personality flaws become further accentuated against the probable republican candidate John McCain and the Presidential election follow suit of the 1824 election on a personality basis, or will the battle to be the Head of State revert back to party lines and policy issues? Only time will tell.

Democrat, Republican, or Both?

McCain and Senator Lieberman

DeWitt Clinton

Similarities arise in the election of 1812 and the current campaigns for 2008. DeWitt Clinton played both the Republicans and the Federalists in that election by supporting conflicting views of the war in order to receive votes from both parties. McCain has campaigned with the support of Senator Joe Lieberman, a democrat Vice Presidential candidate in 2000--now independent, to target the independent voters. This relates to Dewitt Clinton through the fact that McCain is trying to gain support from not only his own party, and he’s succeeding at that. On Super Tuesday, 17 out of the 714 delegates were unpledged to the RNC.

Although McCain is not secretly campaigning for or against a war in this election, as was the case of DeWitt Clinton, he is under question from his own party members about his GOP values, or lack thereof. In the past week, many adamant Republicans have publicly expressed their contempt of John McCain with reasons for being too liberal. In a CNN Political Ticker blog, radical conservative Ann Coulter showed disdain for McCain and states that she would campaign and vote for Hillary Clinton versus the Republican frontrunner in a general election. Throughout Mitt Romney’s campaign, he consistently criticized McCain’s lack of conservatism on his stances on global warming and immigration.

Dewitt Clinton intended on changing his views for whomever he was addressing in order to gain votes. McCain has not been so bold compared with the deceit of Dewitt Clinton, however in the past he has pulled a complete turnaround on his views. According to his profile , in 2001 and in 2003, McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, however he currently is in favor of extending the cuts through 2010. He very well could have used these changes as strategic steps in gaining support from not only his party, but from independents as well.

Although the campaigns of DeWitt Clinton and John McCain differ in so many ways, they are similar through the fact that they both campaigned and appealed to other parties--Clinton with the Federalists and McCain with the independents.

Image Sources:

Clinton, DeWitt. [Photograph]. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Junior: http://junior.britannica.com/eb/art-9504

Does a McCain-Lieberman ticket make sense? McCain, Lieberman [Photograph]. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from MSNBC.Com:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16530615/

*EDITED*, I apologize for the layout of the pictures, the preview was misleading.
Edited, fixed hyperlinks

-Diana Davino

Attacking the Issues

In the upcoming election we are confronted with many issues from the removal of our troops to what provisions are necessary, so that health care can be affordable for all Americans. We have experienced many fiery debates wherein candidates promote their resolutions concerning the flaws of the present government while not refraining from any opportunity to downplay the effectiveness of their opponents’ plan. Unlike the elections of 2008, the presidential election of 1816 was quite dry. The war of 1812 had ended and the state was not under any imminent danger, the successor of the election 1812 was met with a quiet office. However, we can all agree that the same fate will be quite unlikely in the election of 2008. Whoever occupies the oval office will be welcomed by barrage of issues that demands immediate attention.

Team "A" Week One, Post Two

Dirty Tricks That Could Change the Out Come 1824 and 2008

With reading the book of Presidential Campaigns and the ever passing Super Tuesday, there was a prevalent connection between the elections of 1824 and 2008 elections. When the class had the decision on it, we too made the connections between the two. If you were to look back on the election of 1824 it was really the first elections that got nasty. For example “Newspapers glorified the candidates they were backing extravagant terms and vilified their opponents in abusive language” (PC 35). Thus giving to the first negativity and low blowing commits towards another opponents. Yet you see this in almost every major presidential elections that surrounded major topics such as war or a “lazy economy”, for the past hundred years or so. But where do you see it today? A recent article printed “that in South Carolina residents found a Holiday greeting card from Mitt Romney in their mailboxes. The message contained within the card accentuated some of the more controversial differences between Romney’s Mormon beliefs and those of other faiths. The problem with the cards was that nobody in the Romney campaign or anyone affiliated with him sent them. Just more dirty tricks from South Carolina” (http://www.newsvine.com/). Putting aside all the negativity we also see connections within voting behavior. With Andrew Jackson of Tennessee he was well liked not for serving in the house or the senate but for “military exposits”. Same goes for John McCain of Arizona, he too was looked upon has being from the west and having a seat in the senate. But more importantly his actions as a war veteran. People today as people back in 1824 can relate and agree upon their codes of ethics. Thus having a greet understanding as to why elections goes the way it does. Where we see that in 1824 and 2008 elections, the negativities that screams out of an each of the politicians mouths. With Super Tuesday over and we now have a better understanding as to whom will be sitting at each parties chair we will really start to see more dirty tricks come out of each of their parties, and we will see who really knows the issues that are most important to the people. “Remember history always repeats itself”.

Timothy Lovell

Team "A" Week One, Post One

I noticed in reading the JSR book, Washington’s reluctance to lead his nation. I always thought of him as a stand up leader, reading that he chose a democracy and a presidency, turning down a coronation of being king. He seemed so nonchalant in the reading and after 4 years just wanting to head back to “his plow and field”. (page 20 JSR) Yet this actually helped the country. His advisor's, mainly Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson, urged him to run, or as the book puts it to merely sit back and allow his name to be tossed in the hat. This, up until FDR, served as the unwritten headstone rule for the two-year maximum serving time of a president.

It also allowed for the reliance on advisor's and the cabinet, just another departure for a monarchy. If the first president was a person like Jefferson, who wanted to govern by his own morals, then the presidency would have enormous powers and he would have set incredible precedents. Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory with no authority to do so, even trying to grandfather it into an amendment later on. Imagine this act done by our first president instead of the third and imagine how far he could have gone with no one following as an example before him.

I also noted numerous ties between the election of 2004 and of 1812. These ties can be linked to any of FDR’s reelections as well. The public seems to have more confidence in our leader during war time as well as unwillingness to change the person in charge when there is a war going on. Yet there are caveats to this. The war has to have a sense of hitting home and has to be a large one. For example World War II and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan connect to the war of 1812 showing that there was imminent danger to the American way of life.

As much as American’s protest for peace and diplomacy over force, there is an overbearing drive to keep our freedoms and way of existence, and if that means war or a fight then we are up for it. Bush won the 2004 election primarily by using the “9-11” tactic and showing the people that this war is not only necessary but a good thing. It also shows the stunning difference of elections after a war and during a war. Since Bush can no longer run, the debates and primaries are about change and the war in Iraq, yet what if it ended and we won? Much like the 1816 election it would be “dull as dishwater” (page 29 Presidential Campaigns) Instead we have been gearing up for this election for the past two years.

-Chris Brower