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Political Exaggerations: Stretching the Truth Is a Tradition in American Politics
October 9th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) said: “Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.” Politicians have apparently taken Galbraith’s words to heart.
Through advertisements and meetings with voters, they are quick to trumpet a litany of accomplishments and virtues. Most recently, the Republican nominee for governor of Georgia, David Perdue, told Morehouse College students that his father, in his role as a superintendent of Schools, desegregated the Houston County schools. Perdue said his father “integrated I think the first — if not the first or second — county school system in Georgia, and he did it before they had to. He did it right after he got elected, and he did it because it was the right thing to do.” Perdue failed to mention the fact that the desegregation plan was instituted after the NAACP successfully challenged the “Freedom of Choice” plan instituted by the Houston County School Board, which allowed but did not mandate integration.
Perhaps the most egregious exaggeration in U.S. political history of a candidate’s background was the yarn spun by William Henry Harrison, who was elected President in 1840. Harrison was raised in a patrician family. His father was once Governor of Virginia. Yet Harrison brilliantly styled himself as “one of us.” He dressed the part of a humble down-home candidate and boasted of the fact that he had lived in a log cabin. While it was true that Harrison once lived in a log cabin, it was only briefly after retiring from government service. Contrary to popular belief at the time, he was not born in a log cabin. Yet this tactic helped Harrison get elected. In fact, one of Harrison’s supporter, Whisky distiller E.G. Booze, sold whisky in log-cabin-shaped bottles during the campaign to promote this master narrative (This is where the word booze came from.) Harrison’s ploy worked and he was elected president. However, he was not able to do much as President, as he died of pneumonia just 31 days after his inauguration.
Lyndon B. Johnson had a fascination with the Alamo. His father, Samuel Johnson Jr., wrote legislation to give control of the Alamo to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. In 1966, while visiting troops in South Korea, Johnson accurately said that there is a picture of his father inside the Alamo. He then went a step too far by mendaciously claiming that his great-great-grandfather had died in the Alamo. In actuality, the great-great-grandfather that Johnson was referring to was a real-estate trader who died at home. When confronted with this inaccuracy, Johnson creativelytold Press Secretary George Christian:”You all didn’t let me finish. It was the Alamo Bar and Grill in Eagle Pass, Texas.”
Perhaps the most famous political exaggeration has been grossly exaggerated in and of itself. When someone asks the question: “Who invented the Internet?” someone will invariably quip: “Al Gore.” It is popular belief that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. This belief however is false. In reality, Gore told Wolf Blitzer on CNN: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Gore was referring to his role as the lead sponsor of the 1991 High-performance Computing and Communications Act, which appropriated $600 million for high-performance computing and co-sponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992. Critics chided Gore for his statement and falsely claimed that Gore had said he “invented the Internet.” U.S. House Majority leader Dick Armey (R-TX) joked: “If the vice president created the Internet then I created the Interstate.”
However, Gore has exaggerated other facts in his past. During his failed 1988 bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Gore told the Des Moines Register that in his early days as a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean, he got “a bunch of people indicted and sent to jail.” However, it was later revealed that Gore’s reporting resulted in just two municipal officials being indicted, and neither was jailed.
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also has a history of exaggerating the facts. During his two Presidential campaigns, Romney continuously claimed that as governor of Massachusetts he made the “tough choices and balanced the budget without raising taxes.” Romney was referring to the $3 billion budget shortfall he inherited when he assumed office in 2003. Romney did not mention that he raised over $500 million in “fees.” Romney also raised corporate taxes under the guise of closing corporate loopholes and truncating local aid to the state’s municipalities. This forced municipalities to cut services and/or raise property taxes on their residents.
Similarly, in 2007, Republican Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney told a voter: “Ipurchased a gun when I was a young man. I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life.” It was later revealed that Romney had only hunted twice in his life. Romney later said: “I’m not a big-game hunter. I’ve made that very clear. I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will.”
Candidates with military experience often brandish this experience on the campaign trail, and occasionally get themselves into trouble. During his 2008 bid for an open U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut, it was revealed that the Democratic nominee Richard Blumenthal had on two occasions claimed he served as a Marine “in Vietnam.” Blumenthal had in fact served in the Marines during the Vietnam era, but never served in Vietnam. He apologized for the remarks and despite this exaggeration was elected to the Senate by twelve points.
An amusing exaggeration came from Mark Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee for Massachusetts Governor in 1994. In an interview with the Boston Globe, he made the following comment about his tenure in the Massachusetts State Legislature: “A record of accomplishment probably unsurpassed by any legislator in the 20th century in Massachusetts.” Roosevelt later retracted the comment, stating: “I can be sanctimonious.” Roosevelt lost the Gubernatorial election, garnering less than 30 percent of the vote.
Politics is not the profession for the modest. To a great extent a politician has to be a salesperson. He/she must master the art of bragging about himself over and over again without overdoing it, appearing supercilious.
It takes a certain personality type to be ready, willing, and able to repeatedly tell voters of his/her stellar attributes. As the aforementioned cases reveal, politicians sometimes go a step too far and exaggerate what they have accomplished, sometimes losing all credibility. Robert Strauss, who served as chairman of the Democratic Party, captured this phenomenon of political exaggeration best when he said: “Every politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself.”
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Rand Paul’s Potential ‘Brian Schweitzer Problem’
August 25th, 2014
By Rich Rubino.
In referring to the reasons for the September 11 hijackings, Republican U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) stated in a 2007 South Carolina Republican presidential debate “They attack us because we’ve been over there.”
He was referring to the nation’s interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. Paul later pointed out that by meddling in the Middle East, the nation had effectuated enmity in the region. Osama bin laden referred to such grievances as U.S. troops on Saudi soil, the U.S. supporting sanctions leveled against Iraq — which likely contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, U.S. aid to Israel, and support for secular nationalist autocratic regimes. While establishment Republicans roundly booed Paul, he became a folk hero to the party’s Libertarian bloodline, as well as to Independents, Democrats and the previously politically dispossessed.
While most Democrats had come to oppose U.S. war in Iraq, they opposed it on the grounds that it was simply the wrong war. They did not question the foundations of U.S. foreign policy. For example, U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the Democratic party’s 2004 Presidential nominee, simply proclaimed “It was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.” The party’s eventual 2008 nominee Barack Obama called Iraq “the Wrong War” while calling the War in Afghanistan: “The Right War.”In fact, he called for sending three more brigades to Afghanistan.
In addition, Paul supported the federal government abdicating its role in interdicting illegal drugs, and letting the states decide their own drug policy. Paul was sympathetic to legalizing drugs, and suggested that the citizens do not need government to regulate them. He said at a Republican presidential debate: “How many people here would use heroin if it were legal? I bet nobody would.”
Paul’s call for a complete retrenchment of commitments abroad, coupled with his calls to end the Drug War, and his opposition to NSA spying, along with his support for home schooling and opposition to gun control provided a motley coalition of supporters in his second run for President in 2012. Paul was perhaps the only candidate in American History who could attract supporters from Oz Fest attendees, ACLU members and Wickens on the left, as well as NRA members, fundamentalist Christians, and military personnel on the right.
His son, Rand Paul, was elected to an open U.S. Senate in Kentucky in 2010, largely through the help of the same coalition that so enthusiastically supported his father.
However, in trying to propitiate enough establishment Republicans to secure the GOP Presidential nomination in 2016, Rand Paul is displaying some independence from his father. Unlike the non-interventionist policies of Ron Paul, whose ideological antecedents included Presidents Grover Cleveland and Warren G. Harding, Rand Paul is more of a realist, skeptical toward making commitments overseas, but still recognizing a vital role for the U.S. in the international arena. His “realist” ideological antecedents are Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald R. Ford.
Paul also voted to tighten economic sanctions on Iran. Furthermore, he does not favor liquidating all U.S. military bases outside of the U.S. and he says he would support “some drones.” After Russia invaded Crimea, Paul called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be punished, and averred: “It is our role as a global leader to be the strongest nation in opposing Russia’s aggression.”
While Paul is buttressing his bone fides with the Republican establishment for his prospective 2016 Presidential run, he may have competition from many supporters of his father including the charismatic former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Many states, including New Hampshire, which hosts the omni-critical, first-in-the-nation primary, hold open primaries, meaning that voter’s can choose a ballot from any established party in their state.
Schweitzer mirrors many of Ron Paul’s views on the fundamental foundation of American policy. Like Ron Paul, Schweitzer’s excoriates the influence of “The Military Industrial Complex.” He is a harsh critic of the U.S. war in Iraq, which he calls an“oil-well war to protect profits for multinational oil companies and petro-dictators.”In addition, like Ron Paul, Schweitzer shows no trepidation in warning of the effects of “blowback” on Americans as the result of its interventionist foreign policy. He points out that the tension between the U.S. and Iran began “because of what we did in 1953, replacing an elected official [Prime Minster Mohammed Mossadegh] with a dictator [Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi].” Schweitzer also points out that the U.S. government supplied chemical weapons to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s, which were subsequently used against Iranians.
Rand Paul rarely mentions the concept of blowback. With a war-weary electorate, it is kosher in the Republican Party to call for what George W. Bush in 2000 called “a more humble foreign policy.” However, once a Republican suggests that U.S. policies are a contributing factor to the enmity effectuated toward the U.S., he/she takes a step too far from the party establishment, which will invariably brand such a candidate as “a Blame America First Isolationist.”
Furthermore, Schweitzer, like Ron Paul, is a populist critic of the high command of his own party, calling Barack Obama a “corporatist.” Ron Paul was an incessant critic of George W. Bush. Like Paul, Schweitzer can appeal to Liberals and Libertarians with his criticisms of Barack Obama, particularly on Civil Liberties issues. Schweitzer calls revelations unearthed about the scope of the NSA Surveillance program “un-effen-believable.”Like Ron Paul, Schweitzer declares the War on Drugs lost, saying that Colorado, which recently legalized marijuana, “might have it more right than the rest of us.”
Not all Ron Paul supporters in 2008 and 2012 were Libertarians or Conservatives. In fact, many Progressive Independents and Democrats supported Paul. Political commentator Robin Koerner coined them “Blue Republicans.” Paul drew support from across the political spectrum with voters and previous non-voters who believe the political system is corrupt. They supported Paul’s populist insurrectionist campaign. Accordingly, the fact that Schweitzer, unlike Paul, supports a munificent social safety net, the establishment of a single-payer Health Care System might draw Paul’s more liberal supporters to Schweitzer. In Schweitzer these “Blue Republicans” have a candidate who is more ideologically in tune with them than Ron Paul.
As Rand Paul assiduously cultivates support from within the Republican establishment, he becomes less desirable to the anti-establishment Libertarian, Independent, and Liberal voters who supported Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012.
As Rand Paul becomes more of a traditional Republican, an aperture will form for a candidate more like Ron Paul was in 2008 and 2012. Schweitzer is positioning himself as the anti-corporate political establishment candidate for 2016. His message can strike a resonant chord with the same voters who marked ballots for Ron Paul in 2012, particularly in Open Primary states. Many members of the motley Ron Paul coalition could support Schweitzer rather than Rand Paul. In states with a closed primary, some of these voters might become Democrats to vote for Schweitzer. Schweitzer would appeal to many disaffected voters with his characterization of the nation’s capital as “A giant cesspool filled with special interests.”
An opening is developing for Schweitzer. Crossover support could make him not merely a nuisance to the likely Democratic establishment candidates, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, but also an irritant to Rand Paul as he tries to keep his father’s supporters in the Republican Primary. Bottom-line: for every rank-and-file Republican voter Rand Paul attracts, he could lose a voter from his father’s coalition to Schweitzer.
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Eric Cantor Is Not the First National Political Figure to Lose His Congressional Seat
June 21st, 2014
By Rich Rubino.
No matter what else he accomplishes in life, David Brat’s obituary may well read “Giant Killer” or something to that effect. The fact that the formerly obscure Randolph-Macon College Economics Professor defeated U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in his bid for renomination to his congressional seat sent shockwaves through the body politic.
The Tea Party and national conservative forces from outside the district coalesced and galvanized to defeat Eric Cantor who did not meet their ideological litmus test. Cantor’s efforts to increase his national political profile by gallivanting around the country speaking at political events and appearing on national television rather than spending time in his Congressional District, effectuated a fissure between himself and his constituents. This resulted in few Republicans coming out to support him in the primary. Many constituents came to think Cantor viewed his seat as a perpetual sinecure, and that he did not take seriously the prospect of losing it. Cantor’s job disproval rating among his constituents rose to a staggering 65 percent.
Cantor was the biggest political figure in the U.S. House of Representatives to lose a re-election bid since 1994, when U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) lost his re-election bid to Republican George Nethercutt, a little-known attorney. The circumstances of Foley’s loss were different from Cantor’s. Unlike Cantor, Foley had no trouble garnering his party’s nomination. Foley also had a history of delivering for his constituents, having secured funding for infrastructure and for renovating Fairchild Air Force base. Foley was also instrumental in bringing the World’s Fair to Spokane, the flagship city of the district. Furthermore, Foley had served as Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, which was a significant boon to his rural constituents, especially wheat farmers.
Foley, however, represented a moderately conservative Congressional district in Eastern Washington, and his leadership position in the House may have been the only thing keeping the district from going Republican. In 1994, Foley was seen as an enabler of President Bill Clinton’s domestic agenda, having shepherded through the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Act (which included a tax increase), supporting the Clinton health care legislation, and supporting a federal ban on assault weapons.
There is precedent for members of Congress who, like Cantor, become national figures, while spending little time in their districts dealing with the parochial issues. Fore example, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-GA) spent much time lambasting the Democratic-Controlled House, and promoted a conservative insurrection in the House. Yet he spent little time in his district dealing with provincial issues. In a 1990 race that was on few political observers’ radar, Gingrich, the Republican Whip, defeated little-known Democratic challenger David Worley by just 983 votes. Had Worley been awarded funding from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he likely would have toppled Gingrich. The day after the election, a humbled Gingrich told the New York Timesthat he got the message from his constituents: “They want me to come home more often to pay more attention to local issue, and I’m going to do it.”
Two years later, just four years before he led the Republican Revolution of 1994 where the Republicans took the House for the first time in 40 years, Gingrich was re-elected to his seat by just 987 votes. Much of Gingrich’s distinct was redrawn, forcing him to move to a new district. His Republican primary opponent, State Representative Heman Clarke, exploited Gingrich’s move to the district and made an issue of the 22 bad checks Gingrich had written on the House Bank.
House Speaker Joe Cannon (R-IL) was probably the most powerful House Speaker in American history. His moniker was “The Czar of the House.” He served concomitantly as House speaker and as Chairman of the House Committee on Rules, and garnered the power to personally appoint members to the committees. U.S. Senator George Norris (R-NE) mused that the national government “is divided into the Senate, the President, and the Speaker.” The conservative Cannon worked to keep the redoubtable progressive faction of the GOP off of important committees. However, in 1910, the progressives joined with the Democrats to dislodge Cannon from the rules committee, and Cannon subsequently lost the speakership when the Democrats took control of the House Chamber.
Two years later, with his title and power stripped from him by Frank O’Hair, who had never served beyond his town’s school board, defeated Cannon in his bid for re-election. Cannon came back however to defeat O’Hair in 1914, and served an additional four terms in the House.
Cannon’s successor as House Speaker was Democrat Champ Clarke of Missouri. Clarke was the early Democratic Frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1912, but lost the nomination to New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson.
Progressive Party nominee Theodore Roosevelt, a former Republican President, split the Republican vote, making it nearly impossible for Republican William Howard Taft to be re-elected. In 1918, Champ Clarke, serving as U.S. House Majority Leader, was swallowed up in the Republican tide and lost his seat to Probate Judge Theodore W. Hukriede.
Joe Martin, who had served as both House Speaker and alternatively as House Minority Leader for 20 years and who had presided over five Republican National Conventions, was ousted from House Leadership in 1959 by conservative Charles Halleck (R-IA). Halleck argued that Martin was too accommodating to the Democratic Leadership led by his friend, Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX). Yet Martin stayed in the House as a backbencher, and was eventually defeated for renomination in 1966 by Governors Councilor Margaret Heckler, who actually ran to Martin’s left in the Republican Primary.
Cannon, Clarke, and Martin went from being at the epicenter of national power to becoming former members of the U.S. Congress who could not even keep their respective seats.
The House is not the only Congressional chamber that has seen political figures rise nationally while losing support at home. J. William Fulbright (D-AR) was nearly a household name as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served in that position for 15 years, yet there was a feeling among his Arkansas constituents that he had become too ensconced in foreign affairs and had lost touch with home state issues. In 1974, the popular Governor Dale Bumpers, who sported a 91 percent job approval rating, defeated Fulbright in the Democratic Primary by over 30 percentage points. Bumpers won 71 out of the state’s 75 counties.
Similarly, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) in her first and only term as Senator accepted a job as Chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, (RCCC) which required her to barnstorm the country campaigning for Republican Senate Candidates. This Chairmanship is often a stepping-stone to Party Leader in the Senate. However, Dole spent just 33 days in North Carolina in 2005 and 2006, and her opponent for re-election, State Senator Kay Hagan, made sure voters were cognizant of that fact. Consequently, Hagan defeated Dole.
Governors with national ambitions have also seen the deleterious effects with their home state constituents as they take on a National Role. Massachusetts Governors Michael Dukakis and Mitt Romney are perfect examples. Though Dukakis had been re-elected as Governor with 65.15 percent of the vote in 1986, he spent much of the next two years on the presidential campaign hustings. Unfortunately for Dukakis the Massachusetts economy tapered, and many residents thought Dukakis should have been more attentive to the state. Consequently, Dukakis, who lost the presidency in 1988, saw his poll numbers in Massachusetts plummet to just 19 percent.
Similarly, Mitt Romney, the once-potent electoral force, saw his poll numbers decline during his last two years in office, when, as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Romney spent an inordinate amount of time out of the state campaigning for Republican Governors and Gubernatorial candidates. In fact, he spent 212 days out of the state in 2006. Romney even made fun of his job as a Republican Governor of a Democratic state saying his job is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention. Romney left office with an unimpressive job approval rating of just 39 percent.
The lesson of the Eric Cantor episode is that when politicians spend time raising their national profile, they should not take for granted their electoral subsistence. They must not allow their national profiles to trump the jobs they were elected to do.
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Switching Party Affiliation: Sometimes It Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t
May 26th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
This election cycle features two prominent party switchers. Former Democrat Gene Taylor represented South Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years. He is now running as a Republican to regain his old seat. In contrast, Charlie Crist, who served as Governor of Florida as a Republican, is now running for Governor as a Democrat.
Party switchers are nothing new in American politics. Most switchers use a version of Ronald Reagan’s famous phrase when he defected from the Democratic Party and became a Republican: “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, my party left me.”
Gene Taylor was popular in his District. He was a vociferous advocate for the needs of his constituents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Representing a District with many military veterans, he was a champion of healthcare services for veterans. In addition, Taylor was a vociferous advocate for adding a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He was one of just four Democrats to vote against the flagship legislative priorities during the first two years of Barack Obama’s Presidency. These priorities included The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, the Obama Stimulus proposal, and legislation imposing a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.
While Taylor’s voting record and constituent service record were hard for Republican Steven Palazzo to run against in 2010, Palazzo had two arrows in his electoral quiver: Taylor’s Democratic Party affiliation, the fact that Taylor voted for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House in 2009. It worked. Gene Taylor was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Gene Taylor’s change in party affiliation from a conservative Democrat to a Republican is not that unusual, whereas Charlie Crist’s transformation from a center-right Republican to a center-left Democrat is quite atypical.
As a conservative Democrat, Taylor often bucked his party. Knowing that he represented such a conservative Congressional District, the Democratic leadership did not retaliate against Taylor for his failure to vote the party line.
For most of the 20th Century, both major parties sported a liberal and conservative bloodline. Southern and Western Democrats like U.S. Senators James Allan of Alabama, John C. Stennis of Mississippi, and Richard Russell of Georgia had voting records well to the right of many in the Republican Party. Gradually, Conservative Democrats either retired from office and were succeeded by Republicans, lost in their re-election bids to Republicans, or fled their partisan ancestral homes, relocating to the Republican Party.
The record of Southern Democrats who switched parties is mixed. One electoral success story is U.S. Representative Phil Gramm (D-TX). In 1982 he became the only member in the 20th Century to resign his seat and to run for re-election as a member of another political party. U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-MA) dislodged Gramm, a conservative Democrat, from his membership on the coveted U.S. House Budget Committee for his role in being the lead Democrat sponsor of the Gramm-Latta Omnibus Reconciliation Bill, which effectuated Ronald Reagan’s economic program. Subsequently, Gramm resigned his U.S. House seat and left the Democratic Party to run as a “Republican” for the same seat in the Special Election, which he won.
By contrast, in 2009, freshman U.S. Representative Parker Griffith (D-AL) defected to the Republican Party. All but one of his Capital Hill Staffers resigned. Many Republican voters who had voted against him in 2008 were not ready to support him simply because he became a Republican. Griffith’s political gamble backfired. He lost the Republican Primary in a landslide to Mo Brooks, despite spending $50 per vote compared to just $10 per vote spent by Brooks.
In challenging Palazzo in the 2014 Republican Primary, Taylor faces a similar problem in that many Republican activists worked feverishly for Palazzo in 2010, and they may not see Taylor as a “genuine” Republican.
Unlike Taylor, and other Southern Democrats who switched party affiliation, Crist is following an atypical path. He was elected Governor of Florida in 2006 as a traditional center-left Republican. He branded himself a “pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax Republican.” Crist even supported an amendment to the State Constitution disallowing gay marriage.
After being elected Governor, Crist governed as a center-left Republican. He became a prominent voice in the party nationally, and in 2008, Republican Presidential candidates sought his endorsement. His endorsement of U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was credited in some political circles as giving McCain a victory in the Sunshine State Primary.
In 2010, with the support of the high command of the Republican Party and the support of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (RSCC), Crist launched a bid for the U.S. Senate. His nomination was considered a foregone conclusion until former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio picked up a tidal wave of support from the proliferating Tea Party movement. Sensing a primary loss, Crist abandoned his primary bid and ran as an Independent. Rubio won the seat.
Since that loss, Crist has shifted his ideological allegiance to the center-left. He has also switched his party registration, becoming a Democrat. Crist now supports abortion rights and gun control legislation, and supports same-sex marriage.
Political parties are often accepting of party switchers if the party has been out of office for a relatively long period of time. First and foremost, they want a winner, even if they are not enthusiastic about supporting a particular candidate. The fact that polls show Crist beating Republican Governor Rick Scott strikes a resonate chord with many Florida Democrats.
Similar to Crist, in 1940, when Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an unprecedented third term as President, Republicans nominated Utilities Executive and Corporate Lawyer Wendell Willkie, despite the fact that he had been a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention, and had only become a Republican in 1939. Many delegates to the Republican National Convention believed the moderate non-politician was the most electable candidate. After Willkie lost the election, he joined Roosevelt in urging aid to the allied powers. U.S. Representative Dewey Short (R-MO) called Willkie, “a bellowing, blatant, bellicose, belligerent, bombastic, bombinating blowhard.” Willkie sought the Republican Presidential nomination again in 1944, but his candidacy gained little traction. He dropped out of the sweepstakes after an embarrassing loss in the Wisconsin primary.
Taylor and Crist must prove that their party switch was a principled, rational move, not an act of political opportunism. Taylor can make a convincing argument that he was never a partisan Democrat, and that like his former constituents, he believes the GOP is a better home for his ideological convictions. He can also argue that with the Republicans likely to maintain their majority in the House, he would be more effective for the district. It will be a herculean task for Palazzo to effectively tether Taylor with Pelosi, given the fact that Taylor has pledged not to vote again for Pelosi as Speaker (Ironically, Taylor is actually trying to tie Palazzo to Pelosi by arguing that “Steven Palazzo voted with Nancy Pelosi to cut the Defense budget by $490 billion.”)
Charlie Crist will have a harder time convincing the Florida electorate that his switch of ideology and party affiliation was an act of conviction rather than political opportunism, and Rick Scott will likely try to caricature him as a political chameleon. But Crist has the advantage of still scoring high marks from Florida voters from his time as Governor, and the fact that Scott’s job approval ratings are currently below 50 percent.
For both Taylor and Crist, it is imperative to identify themselves strongly with their new party so that they come across as true believers. They must not make the same mistake as Wendell Willkie, who when speaking to Republican audiences would often refer to the audience as “You Republicans.” This amplified the argument of Willkie’s GOP critics that he was a political interloper and an opportunist, rather than a true believer.
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What’s in a Name? In Politics, Perhaps a Lot More Than One Might Think
May 12th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
The old saying goes “What’s in a name?” Actually, names can be very important in the political arena and have changed the course of American political history.
In 1946, after entering a race for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, future President John F. Kennedy used a creative tactic to muster an electoral advantage. A popular candidate in the race was Boston City Councilor Joe Russo. To siphon support from Russo, the Kennedy campaign persuaded and bankrolled a custodian domiciled in the district with no political experience or political aspirations to enter the race. His name was also Joe Russo. The City Councilor Joe Russo complained that someone had “seen fit to buy out a man who has the same name as mine.” But the city councilor had no recourse. John F. Kennedy won the race.
In 1954, two years after the very popular John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate, a stockroom supervisor at Gillette Company named John Francis Kennedy entered the race for Massachusetts treasurer and receiver general. Despite his lack of political experience or a significant campaign war chest, Kennedy stunned the political establishment by winning a six-candidate primary and going on to win the general election. Kennedy’s upset victory was likely due to low-information voters who thought that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running for state treasurer. John Francis Kennedy did little campaigning for the post, spending just $300. John Francis Kennedy became known as “The Maverick With the Magic Name,” a moniker bestowed upon him by Bat State politicians.
In 1960 John Francis Kennedy ran for governor the same year that John Fitzgerald Kennedy ran for president. John Francis Kennedy was not so lucky this time around. He lost the Democratic primary. Interestingly, in the race to succeed John Francis Kennedy for the post of treasurer and receiver general, two candidates named John Kennedy entered the race. They were John M. Kennedy and John B. Kennedy. However, both Kennedys lost the primary. It could be that even low-information voters did not believe that John Fitzgerald Kennedy would want to carry out the duties of state treasurer and governor while also serving as president.
In 2009, during the special election to fill the term of late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), speculation emerged that Kennedy’s nephew, former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), would seek the Democratic nomination. However, Joe stayed out of the race, and the nomination went to Attorney General Martha Coakley. However, Libertarian-oriented Joe Kennedy secured ballot status as an Independent in the general election. During the campaign an unidentified recorded message was sent to some Democratic households urging voters to vote for Joe Kennedy. However, Kennedy’s role in the general election was de minimis, as he pocketed less than 1 percent of the vote.
In 2008 one of the four finalists to be Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate was U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas). On paper he was a redoubtable contender. Edwards exhibited widespread bipartisan appeal, representing a conservative congressional district in Texas where George W. Bush garnered 70 percent of the vote in 2004. Edwards was charismatic and made a name for himself in Congress as a champion of veterans’ issues. He could have brought the ticket gravitas with veterans, blue-collar voters, and Southerners. There was one problem, however: His last name is Edwards. The Democratic Party had recently been embarrassed when it was revealed that former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina) had had an extramarital affair with film producer and campaign staffer Rielle Hunter, while Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was suffering from breast cancer. The Obama campaign chose U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) instead of Chet Edwards. Chet Edwards later admitted to reporters that his last name was a major factor in his not being selected as Obama’s running mate, averring, “I would have to think that a bumper sticker that said ‘Obama/The Other Edwards’ would be difficult.”
In 1996 Democratic businessman Mark Warner challenged U.S. Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia). In an attempt to eliminate the confusion, Mark Warner’s campaign produced a bumper sticker reading, “Mark, Not John.” A fellow motorist spotted the bumper sticker on Mark Warner’s car and asked him, “Is that a biblical reference?” At the end of a debate hosted by the Virginia Bar Association, the group’s president, Douglas Rucker, quipped, “The Virginia Bar Association doesn’t take political stands, but speaking for myself personally, I’ll be voting for Warner and I encourage you to do the same.”
In 2002 there were four candidates running in the Democratic primary for the office of treasurer and receiver general in Massachusetts. The race flew under the radar, being overshadowed by the hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary. The treasurer candidates had little name recognition. Two of the candidates shared the last name “Cahill.” One candidate was State Rep. Michael P. Cahill (D-Beverly), and the other candidate was Norfolk County Treasurer Tim Cahill. To clear up any ballot confusion, Tim Cahill aired a very cute advertisement ending with his young daughter Kendra sitting on the porch next to her father and telling voters to “vote Tim for Treasurer.” That campaign ad helped effectuate a Tim Cahill victory over Michael P. Cahill and the others in that race.
In politics elections are sometimes won by the clever use of a name, as evidenced by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1946 and John Francis Kennedy in 1954. Sometimes having a particular name at a certain point in time can sink one’s political aspiration, as evidenced by Chet Edwards, whose last name was the same as that of the disgraced John Edwards. So what’s in a name? Perhaps a lot more than one might think.
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Two Potential 2016 GOP Presidential Candidates Face Re-Election Hurdles
April 30th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
With the U.S. Congress suffering from single-digit job approval ratings, governors are likely to be in vogue as potential presidential candidates in 2016. Two swing state governors, John Kasich from Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, are believed to be seriously considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Both men are currently seeking re-election as governor and both are in tight races. Running for re-election with job approval ratings hovering around 50 percent can be a very risky electoral situation.
The worst-case scenario for both governors would be to lose their re-election bids. If this happens, their presidential prospects in 2016 are essentially over. It would be hard for Kasich or Walker to justify to potential Republican benefactors and voters that they can win swing states in the general election when they can’t even win re-election as governor.
In 2006, many in the Republican High Command were promoting U.S. Senator George Allen (R-VA) as a presidential candidate in 2008. Many in the GOP establishment were ready to consolidate their support behind him. Had Allan not sought re-election to the U.S. Senate, he may very well have garnered the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. However, during his re-election race, Allan faltered. While campaigning in Breaks, Virginia, Allan called a “tracker” from the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb a “Macacca” (a racial slur against South Asian Indians). That was the precipitating event which deflated his campaign. He lost re-election and his presidential dreams died.
The second worst-case scenario for Kasich and Walker is that they go through a grueling re-election campaign and are forced (out of political necessity) to promise to serve out their full terms.
This, however, would not necessarily be the end of their presidential chances. In 1990, Bill Clinton chose to seek a fourth-term as Governor of Arkansas. He was relatively popular in the state, but there was a yearning for new leadership. Clinton had flirted with a presidential run in 1987, and was spending an inordinate amount of time out of the state. Many Arkansans questioned if it was time for new leadership. Two formidable candidates challenged Clinton in the Democratic primary, former U.S. Representative Jim Guy Tucker (D-AR) and philanthropist Tom McRae. Tucker eventually dropped out of the race, seeking instead the office of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor. McCray tried to tether Clinton with long-time members of the State Legislature. McCray announced his campaign while holding a broom, threatening to sweep away the current state government to make room for all new people. McCray ran a formidable campaign and held Clinton to just 55.3 percent of the vote in the primary.
In the general election, Clinton faced another formidable foe, Arkansas businessman Sheffield Nelson. Nelson saw an exponential rise in the polls, in part by airing an effective advertisement where Clinton, in a State of the State Address exclaims: “Raise and spend.” A voice then asks: “What did Bill Clinton do to us in 1983?” Clinton says, “Raise and spend. And in 1987?” Clinton says “Raise and spend.” The Clinton damage-control team went into high gear, producing an advertisement where Clinton proclaims:
Here’s what I actually said to the legislature: ‘Unlike our friends in Washington, we can’t write a check on an account that is overdrawn. Either we raise and spend or we don’t spend.’ All I was doing was fighting for a balanced budget. But Nelson went to work and cut out the words ‘raise and spend’ from my speech to give you the wrong impression.
With that, Clinton took back the lead and won re-election. In addition, during that race Clinton was forced to promise voters he would serve out his full term as governor. The next year, after barnstorming the state, asking constituents permission to get out of that pledge, Clinton announced his presidential bid.
Clinton would likely have been in a more electorally advantageous position to run for president in 1992 had he simply not sought re-election for governor, and focused his energies instead on mounting a presidential campaign. However, Clinton proved that it is possible to break an electoral promise to serve out one’s term as governor and still make a successful run for the presidency.
Perhaps the best-case scenario would be if Kasich and Walker won re-election in a landslide, securing the votes of Democrats and Independents alike. In 1998, George W. Bush, running for re-election as Governor of Texas, and with an eye on the presidency in 2000, went full-throttle to win as many votes as possible. He was re-elected with 68.2 percent of the vote, securing 27 percent of the African-American vote and 49 percent of the Hispanic vote. Bush was able to parlay this win into front-runner status in his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000.
Similarly, in 2006, Hillary Clinton, eyeing a presidential run in 2008, won re-election as U.S. Senator in New York, spending $36 million to secure as many votes as possible, pocketing 67 percent of the vote and winning 62 of the state’s 66 counties. Like Bush, she would use her landslide victory as an exhibition of her electoral bone fides to Democratic Presidential Primary voters in 2008.
There is one other possible scenario that Kasich and Walker might face should they be re-elected. Their states could experience an economic downturn, forcing them to return to their states to deal with the problem. If this should happen, their problems would be compounded by their presidential opponents, who would blame them for mismanaging their states. There is a precedent for such a scenario. In 1986, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was enjoying stratospheric job approval rating. He won an impressive 65.15 percent of the vote. During the Presidential campaign, Dukakis touted “The Massachusetts Miracle.” Under his stewardship, the state, after losing much of its manufacturing base, enjoyed a high-technology boom and the unemployment level shrunk to below three percent.
However, during the Presidential campaign, the Massachusetts economy began to slow down and tax revenues came in below projections. Dukakis was forced to engage in “root canal economics” by signing legislation raising taxes and cutting human service jobs, and changing the state’s pension system. Dukakis’ Republican opponent, Vice President George H.W. Bush, exploited the Massachusetts economic decline, exclaiming: “Right now, the state is approaching a fiscal fiasco that might be best described as a budgetary Three Mile Island. — a budgetary meltdown.” Dukakis, who held a 17-point lead in the polls that summer, lost the election by 10 points.
There is one other path which Kasich and Walker have not yet chosen to take. That alternative is not to seek re-election and instead spend the year campaigning for Republican candidates for office around the country, collecting political chits and auditioning their stump speech for the 2016 Presidential race. In 2006, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, faced with low job approval ratings and the prospect of losing re-election (likely ending his Presidential prospects), announced he would not seek re-election. Being liberated from a difficult re-election campaign, Romney had the freedom to spend 212 days out of the state in 2006, mostly campaigning for Republican Gubernatorial candidates.
Absent the stratospheric job approval ratings of George W. Bush in 1998 and Hillary Clinton in 2006, Kasich and Walker are more likely to face a similar scenario to Bill Clinton in 1990. They will have to go full-throttle to win re-election and maintain their political viability. If they lose re-election, they will be in the same boat as George Allen in 2006, seeing their presidential prospects vanish. If they win re-election, they can only hope the economic balloon in their states does not burst during their presidential candidacy, as happened to Dukakis in 1988. At any rate, neither governor is taking the easy way out by foregoing a re-election bid and spending time laying the political spadework for a Presidential run, as Romney did in 2006.
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Will the Carpetbagger Card be Effective Against Scott Brown in the New Hampshire U.S. Senate Race?
April 4th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has packed his truck and moved full-time to his former vacation home in Rye, New Hampshire. He is running for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in November. With Brown the putative favorite for the nomination, the general election will likely be a donnybrook. This race will likely be a marquee matchup and could determine control of the U.S. Senate.
The term “carpetbagger” will be a watchword leveled against Scott Brown. The term originally referred to a Northern resident who moved to the South following the Civil War. Many of these Northerners carried “carpet bags.” The term has since entered the political lexicon referring to individuals who move from one state to another state to run for political office.
On paper, New Hampshire appears to be the opportune state for a candidate from another state to run for office. About 60 percent of Granite State residents were born out of state. Interestingly, the state’s Governor, Maggie Hassan, is also a Massachusetts transplant. Even Shaheen is a transplant to New Hampshire, having grown up in Missouri. However, both Hassan and Shaheen established their professional lives and political careers in New Hampshire.
The state most associated with the term carpetbagger is New York. Two national figures, Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, moved to the state for the sole purpose of pursuing political office.
It was not until August of 1964 that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy officially threw his hat into the ring to run in the Democratic Primary for the U.S. Senate. On Election Day, he was still a registered voter in Massachusetts and thus could not vote for himself. Nevertheless, this did not stop Kennedy from handily defeating the homegrown candidate, U.S. Representative Samuel S. Stratton (D-NY) in the Democratic Primary. Stratton later observed: “When Bobby Kennedy decided he was a New Yorker, that was the end of my campaign.” In the General Election, Kennedy defeated U.S. Senator Kenneth Keating (R-NY) in part by challenging his self-depiction as a “liberal Republican.” The Kennedy campaign distributed literature called “The myth of Keating’s liberalism.” Like Shaheen, Keating was a freshman Senator seeking a second term. Keating chided the state Democratic Party for not nominating a New Yorker. Making light of Kennedy’s Massachusetts roots, Keating began a press conference by announcing:
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we all know what we’re here for. And I want to announce at the outset that I will not be a candidate for the United States Senates from Massachusetts.
Ultimately, Kennedy won the race on the coattails of the popular Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson who outran Kennedy in New York. Johnson carried every county in the state and garnered a whopping 68.5 percent of the vote. Kennedy won the Senate seat with just 53.5 percent of the vote.
In 1998, the popularity of First Lady Hillary Clinton in New York evinced itself as she campaigned for the state’s U.S. Senate nominee, Chuck Schumer. The High Command of the Democratic Party urged her to run for the State’s open Senate seat in 2000. They wanted someone with political star-power to challenge likely Republican nominee Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani made light of Hillary moving into the state to run for the Senate. In fact, he traveled to Arkansas, where Hillary had previously lived, to raise money. Speaking at a fundraiser for his campaign in Arkansas, Giuliani joked: “I’ve never lived here, I’ve never worked here, I’ve never gone to school here, it’s the first time I’ve been here. I guess it would be cool to run for the Senate.” Ultimately, Giuliani did not run due to his messy divorce and diagnosis of prostate cancer. U.S. Representative Rick Lazio (R-NY) supplanted him. Lazio however could not make the carpetbagger label stick to Clinton. Clinton went on to win the election, pocketing 55.27 percent of the vote.
In 2002, Massachusetts Democrats legally challenged the residency of Republican Gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney. The Commonwealth’s Constitution requires candidates for Governor to have lived in the state for seven consecutive years before running for office. Democrats claimed Romney was a resident of Utah where he was CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympics. Romney claimed he was a part-time resident of Massachusetts, had maintained his property there and is thus eligible to run for Governor. The State Ballot Law Commission agreed that Romney was eligible to run for Governor. Democrats never gained much traction with the strategy of claiming Romney was a carpetbagger.
Many politicians have dealt with the carpetbagger label early in their careers, including future presidents. In 1946, John F. Kennedy first ran for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in a Congressional District he had not lived in since his youth. His opponents derided him as a son of privilege from outside the district. TheEast Boston Leader poked fun at Kennedy’s entry into the race, exclaiming: “Congress Seat for sale – No experience necessary – Applicant must live in New York or Florida – Only millionaires need apply.” Despite this attack, Kennedy used his sterling military credentials, Irish Catholic ethnicity, and prolific retail politicking skills to win the seat. In fact, Kennedy’s campaign paid an unemployed plumber named Joseph Russo to run in the Democratic Primary, siphoning voters away from one of his opponents, a Boston City Councilor who was also named Joseph Russo, thus splitting the Joseph Russo vote.
The best answer to the charge of carpetbagging came in 1982 by John McCain, who had lived in Arizona for less than a year before he ran for an open U.S. House seat. He put the carpetbagging issue to bed after a voter called him a carpetbagger. McCain averred:
Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.
McCain won the race.
One of the few times the carpetbagger label actually stuck to a candidate was in 1978 when George W. Bush pursued a U.S. House seat in West Texas. Bush had spent much of his time out of state, being educated in New England at Philips Andover Academy, Yale University, and The Harvard Business School. Bush’s Democratic opponent, Kent Hance, taunted Bush as: “Not a real Texan,” and asserted “Yale and Harvard don’t prepare you as well for running for the 19th Congressional District as Texas Tech does [Hance’s alma mater].” Hance won that race.
The most successful carpetbagger was James Shields. Shields is the only U.S. Senator to serve three separate states. At the time, the State Legislatures selected U.S. Senators, not the citizens of the respective states. Shields was selected by the Illinois Legislature to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1848. After the Illinois State Legislature did not reappoint him in 1854, Shields moved to Minnesota, and in 1858 was selected by that Legislature as one of that state’s first Senators. Later in life, when Shields was domiciled in Missouri, that State’s legislature selected him to fill the remainder of the term of the late Lewis Boggs.
The charge of carpetbagging is nothing new in American politics. However, with few exceptions, like in the case of George W. Bush, it is rarely a winning strategy for the opposing candidate. Most of the time when candidates from out of state lose an election, it is not because of where they reside, but because they are out of the state’s political mainstream.
For Scott Brown, his major hurdle may be defining a rationale for his candidacy. It is difficult for a candidate who moves to a state to run for office to construct a compelling master narrative as to why he is motivated by more than mere electoral opportunism. However, Brown will likely benefit from the crosspollination between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In fact, about 13 percent of New Hampshire residents cross the border every day to work in Massachusetts. Accordingly, Brown can legitimately claim that he has a vested interest in New Hampshire because he is a long-time property tax payer. Although history suggests that moving into a state to run for office may be an electoral hindrance that a candidate must deal with, it is an encumbrance that can be dealt with and overcome.
History has shown that playing the carpetbagger card is usually an ineffectual strategy. Voters seem to care more about the stature and political positions of the candidates than the length of their residency in the state.
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Political Insults: Cheap Shots or Do They Play an Important Role in American Politics?
March 20th, 2014
By Rich Rubino.
Theodore Roosevelt was brilliant at leveling insults, not only directed at his political adversaries, but often directed at his political allies. In 1889, Roosevelt was appointed to serve on the Civil Service Commission by President Benjamin Harrison; however, Roosevelt was less than grateful when Harrison failed to support his ideas for Civil Service Reform. Roosevelt blasted the President, calling him “a cold-blooded, narrow-minded, prejudiced, obstinate, timid old psalm-singing Indianapolis politician.” Harrison retorted that the young Roosevelt “wanted to put an end to all the evil in the world between sunrise and sunset.” In 1898, while serving as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Roosevelt became convinced that President William McKinley was a vacillator. He said of the President, “McKinley had no more backbone than a chocolate eclair.” Ironically, in 1900 Roosevelt became McKinley’s Vice Presidential Running Mate.
Perhaps Roosevelt’s most profound insult was targeted at Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. He called Wilson “a Byzantine logothete backed by flubdubs and mollycoddles.” (In Layman’s terms, a logothete is an administrator; a flubdud means nonsense; and a mollycoddle means pampered.) Needless to say, Roosevelt’s inimical insults are not often heard on the school playground.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson endorsed Pat Harrison in the Democratic U.S. Senate Primary race against the incumbent Democrat James K. Vardaman (D-Miss.). Wilson was inflamed that Vardaman had voted against the Congressional Declaration of War with Germany. Vardaman did not take Wilson’s endorsement of Harrison lightly. He called Wilson “the coldest blooded, most selfish ruler beneath the stars today.” Hurling invective at Wilson proved a bipartisan affair. Just a year later (in 1919), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. (R-Mass.) called Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, who he had feuded with over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, “the most sinister figure that ever crossed the country’s path.” After the Treaty failed to garner the requisite two-thirds vote in the U.S. Senate, Wilson referred to Lodge and other opponents of the Treaty as “Pygmy minds.”
Harry S. Truman minced few words. He once had great admiration for Dwight D. Eisenhower, and even offered not to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President in 1948 if Eisenhower registered in the Democratic Party and ran for President. Yet when Eisenhower decided to run for President as a Republican in 1952, Truman sang from a different hymnbook. In his down-home Missouri dialect, Truman exclaimed, “The General doesn’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.” When Vice President Richard M. Nixon sought the Presidency in 1960, former President Truman called Nixon “a no good lying bastard,” and told an audience in Texas that anyone who votes for Nixon “ought to go to Hell.” The Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy, was asked about these comments and with great political dexterity quipped, “I’ve asked President Truman to please not bring up the religious issue in this campaign.” When Nixon became President, he made a courtesy call to Truman at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence Missouri. Truman and Nixon got along cordially before the cameras.
The campaign trail is a unique place, especially during the Presidential primaries where candidates of the same political party barnstorm the nation, excoriating each other and approving advertisements castigating their opponent(s); however, once the Primary is over, the loser ceases all criticism and hits the hustings, singing the praises of the winner.
For example, in 1992, Democrat Paul Tsongas called his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, “unprincipled” and “a pander bear.” He approved an advertisement which asserted, “Some people will say anything to be elected President.” Yet when Clinton secured the nomination, Tsongas heaped praise on Clinton, averring, “Bill Clinton is a healer by instinct and that skill will be critical as we come to understand the pulls and tugs of our multi-cultural society.” As for Tsongas’ earlier statement, he said, “It was a campaign. Campaigns are tough. People make tough statements and I did and others did as well.”
In the U.S. House of Representatives, three insults are legendary in their creativeness. The first was in 1899. U.S. House Speaker Thomas Bracket Reed (R-Maine) leveled an insult at his colleagues, observing, “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
The second was in 1942, after former Republican Presidential nominee Wendell Willkie compared the Neutrality Act to giving aid to German Chancellor Adolph Hitler. In response, U.S. Representative Dewey Short (R-Mo.) went to the House Floor to alliteratively brand his fellow Republican “a Bellowing — Blatant — Bellicose — Belligerent — Blowhard.”
The most recent grand insult occurred in 2005, when U.S. Representative Marian Berry (D-Ariz.) referred to his redheaded 30-year-old Republican colleague, U.S. Representative Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), as a “Howdy Doody-looking nimrod” during a debate on the Federal budget. Berry was incensed that Putnam and some Republican colleagues attacked the conservative Blue Dog Democrats, claiming they were not true fiscal conservatives.
The Reverend Jerry Falwell was a vociferous opponent of Sandra Day O’Connor, Ronald Reagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Falwell thought her views on social issues were too liberal. He urged, “All Good Christians to oppose the nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court.” In response to Falwell’s statement, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), a Libertarian-oriented conservative who virulently opposed the views of social conservatives like Falwell, quipped, “All Good Christians should kick Jerry Falwell’s ass.”
Even family connections do not shield insults in the political sphere. In 1994, Massachusetts State Representative Mark Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., was the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts. He ran against Republican Governor William F. Weld. Governor Weld was married to Susan Roosevelt Weld, a cousin of Mark Roosevelt. This family feud was a nasty slugfest. Despite Weld’s commanding lead, Weld ran up the electoral score in part by approving advertisements attacking Roosevelt. Roosevelt, in turn, said of Weld, “He’s indifferent, apathetic, feckless, aloof, passive and lazy. Did I say uncaring? He’s uncaring.” Weld won the race with a record 71 percent of the vote.
It should also be noted that there is a fine line to observe with political insults, and that once that line is crossed, there is often an attendant backlash. For example, political insults can be seen as overly insulting to the point where they can backfire on the insulter. In 1994, Texas Governor Ann Richards, on a campaign stop in Texarkana, Texas, heaped approbation on Debbie Coleman who was the recipient of the city’s Teacher of the Year Award. Richards was inflamed that her Republican opponent, George W. Bush, had argued that the achievement scores for students were manipulated because it is an election year. Richards then asserted, “You just work like a dog, do well, the test scores are up, the kids are looking better, the dropout rate is down. And all of a sudden you’ve got some jerk who’s running for public office [George W. Bush] telling everybody it’s all a sham and it isn’t real and he doesn’t give you credit for doing your job. So far as he is concerned, everything in Texas is terrible.” Richard’s comments backfired and were seen by much of the Texas electorate as petty, malevolent and unnecessary.
The winner of the most creative insult award must go to former U.S. Senator Chuck Robb (D-Va.). In the 1994 Virginia U.S. Senate race, Republican Oliver North, who had been implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Presidential Administration of Ronald Reagan, challenged Robb. Senator Robb brought out the heavy rhetorical artillery, telling an audience in Alexander, VA that his opponent is a “document-shredding, Constitution-trashing, Commander in Chief-bashing, Congress-thrashing, uniform-shaming, Ayatollah-loving, arms-dealing, criminal-protecting, résumé-enhancing, Noriega-coddling, social security-threatening, public school-denigrating, Swiss-banking-law-breaking, letter-faking, self-serving, election-losing, snake-oil salesman who can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie.” The next day Robb won the Senate election.
Politics is a funny business, and certainly not a good career choice for the thin-skinned. If you want to play in this game you’ve got to be prepared for highly insulting remarks not only about the positions you may hold, but about your personal life as well.
Perhaps how a political candidate handles and deals with sharp insults is an important part of the political vetting process.
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John Boehner Is Not the First GOP House Leader to Experience Dissention Within His Own Party
February 25th, 2014By Rich Rubino.
John Boehner is experiencing a difficult tenure as U.S. house speaker. Boehner was re-elected to the post by his Republican colleagues with just 220 votes in 2013, just six more votes than the 214 necessary to be re-elected. Twelve members of Boehner’s party did not vote for him. The conservative Tea Party caucus within the GOP has been at odds with Boehner over his support for the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, over the extension of the federal debt limit, and over his support for establishing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Boehner now faces two Tea Party supporters as he seeks re-election to his Ohio Congressional Seat.
However, Boehner is not the first Republican house leader to run into trouble. A thumbnail sketch of some past Republican house speakers and minority leaders shows that most have had defections from within their ranks and had to struggle to maintain power.
Republican House Speaker Joe Cannon (R-IL 1903-1911) had a tumultuous tenure with significant opposition from inside the Republican Party. Though Cannon was a Republican, he proved to be a legislative impediment to Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. At that time, the party was divided between the progressive and conservative bloodlines, which had little in common ideologically. Roosevelt was a progressive who favored expanded federal government action to regulate corporations, to protect consumers and to conserve natural resources. Contrariwise, Cannon was a conservative (at the time called a “standpatter”) who opposed all three of those goals. Cannon excoriated Roosevelt, asserting: “He has no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license.” He also said of Roosevelt: “That fellow at the other end of the Avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil.” Cannon was particularly opposed to Roosevelt’s efforts to conserve lands, declaring: “Not one cent for scenery.”
Cannon was probably the most powerful Speaker in American history because he served concomitantly as speaker and as the chairman of the House Committee on Rules. Proposed legislation would be voted on only with the approval of the omnipotent Cannon. Speaker Cannon worked to keep Progressives off of important committees and made sure his ideological conservative compatriots occupied seats on important committees.
In 1910, disenchanted progressive Republicans joined with Democrats in dislodging Cannon from the Rules Committee. This ended his power to assign members to committees. Cannon lost the speakership later that year after the Democrats won a majority in the Chamber, leaving Cannon as just a rank-and-file member of the body.
The next Republican to take the speaker’s reigns was Frances Gillette of Massachusetts, a conservative in the mold of his fellow Massachusetts resident, President Calvin Coolidge. In 1924, the Progressives challenged the ascendency of the conservative faction. There was an unsuccessful bid by U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) to wrest the Republican nomination from President Coolidge. This was on the heels of a two-day deadlock in which Gillette, using House Majority Leader Nickolas Longworth as his emissary, negotiated a deal with the leader of the Progressive insurrectionists, John M. Nelson (R-WI), affording Progressives the opportunity to offer amendments to the House Rules.
In 1959, House Minority Leader Joe Martin (R-MA), was defeated by insurgent Republican conservative Charles Halleck of Indiana who branded himself “the 100 percent Republican.” Halleck made an issue of the close and friendly relationship between Martin and House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX). Despite their different party affiliations, Martin and Rayburn worked closely together on many pieces of legislation, which would pass with the support of Democrats and Progressive Republicans, much to the chagrin of many conservative Republicans in Martin’s caucus. In fact, when Martin appeared to be in electoral peril in his home district, Democratic luminaries asked Rayburn to campaign against Martin. Rayburn refused to do this, averring: “Speak against Joe, heck If I lived up there I’d vote for him.” Martin suspected that the administration of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was working behind the scenes to orchestrate Halleck’s victory because they thought Martin was too independent.
Halleck himself lost his leadership post in 1965 to an insurrectionist coup, which was more generational than ideological. A group of “Young Turks,” which included future U.S. Secretaries of Defense Melvin Laird (R-WI) and Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL), promoted a challenge to Halleck by a Michigander named Gerald R. Ford. There was a sense in the Republican caucus that the Republican leadership under both Martin and Halleck had grown overly insular. Ford promised that every member of the caucus “will be a first-team player, a 60-minute ball player.”
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) entered Congress as a rebel, challenging the established Congressional hierarchy. Gingrich used “Special Orders” (Where House members address the Chamber afterhours) to rail against the Democratic Congress. In 1987, Gingrich was the lead author with fellow conservatives of a book The House of Ill Repute, lambasting the Democratic House. Gingrich came to Speakership in 1994 promising dramatic change.
However, the party came to distrust Gingrich for compromising with Democratic President Bill Clinton. This led to an aborted coup against Gingrich in 1997. Then in 1998, after Clinton became the first President whose party gained seats in the sixth year of a Presidency since 1822, U.S. Representative Robert Livingston (R-LA) announced a challenge to Gingrich for re-election as Speaker. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Gingrich announced he would not seek to maintain the Speakership. Gingrich also resigned his seat in the U.S. Congress.
Like Cannon, Gillette, Martin, Halleck and Gingrich, Boehner has had a tumultuous tenure as House Republican Leader, with significant dissention from within his own party. However, Boehner’s predicament is different from those of earlier Speakers like Cannon and Gillette in that the threat to his continuing reign does not come from a redoubtable progressive bloodline of the GOP (which bellows for more vigorous action by the Federal Government), but from a formidable band of conservatives who are hard to propitiate.
Furthermore, Boehner does not have the traditional tools that past house speakers have had at their disposal for quieting internecine Republican discord. The Republicans have banned earmarks, so he cannot promise an appropriation for a member of a Congressional District in return for a favorable vote. Most Tea Party members (fiscally conservative) would not likely be enticed by earmarks anyway.
Boehner is one of a litany of Republican house leaders who has had a difficult time trying to unify a fractious party. Looking over the past hundred years or so, one can argue that the job of leading and trying to unify house Republicans might be the hardest job in Washington
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The Proliferating Role of Populism in American Politics
February 6th, 2014
By Rich Rubino.
Populism (the doctrine that pits the people against established elites) might be at its high watermark in American politics. On both the right and the left, there is a proliferating challenge from a populist ideological bloodline whose adherents style themselves as being at war with the establishment elite of their respective parties.
Electorally, this phenomenon currently evinces itself mostly in the Republican Party, where the Tea Party is challenging longtime members of the U.S. Congress in their primaries. Most are full spectrum conservatives who believe their party needs to dramatically truncate federal spending and avoid foreign entanglements. They view moderation and accommodation with Democrats as apostasy. Many of these populists rail against the established political class as corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the American people.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is now the face card of the GOP establishment. He has become a whipping boy for the GOP populists because of his support for the bailout of the banks and his support for a bipartisan budget agreement. Boehner has attracted two opponents in his bid for re-election to his U.S. House seat, one is businessman Eric Gurr who defiantly asserted, “Compromise is not a virtue and moderation is not a sign of intelligence.”
Boehner’s Republican counterpart in the U.S. Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is being challenged by businessman Matt Bevin, who is waging a populist insurgent campaign against the long-time elected official. Bevins, chastised McConnell as a “career politician … with a big government, big Spending record.” In addition, longtime Republican members like Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Thaddeus Cochran of Mississippi, and Pat Roberts of Kansas are fending off populist challenges from their right.
On the left, while few viable Democratic candidates are challenging incumbent members of Congress, there is a populist movement here as well whose adherents maintain that the Democratic Party is being corrupted by the donations it takes from Wall Street. The populist left has a litany of grievances against the Obama administration. There is angst that the Obama administration has abandoned the “public option” in order to get the Affordable Care Act passed through Congress. In addition, this progressive insurgency is appalled that the President has supported cuts in cost of living increases for seniors, launched drone strikes in the Middle East, and has supported the warrantless wiretapping program administered by the NSA. Like their rightwing counterparts, leftwing populists call for a more progressive Party.
Populism is nothing new in American politics. It usually garners momentum during times of economic tumult. In 1896, the populist left took over the Democratic Party. The country was mired in an economic depression. A grassroots movement began in earnest to challenge the laissez-faire policies supported by outgoing Democratic President Grover Cleveland. Affectionately wearing the sobriquet of “the great commoner,” William Jennings Bryan, whose highest elective office had been U.S. Representative (which he held for just four years), capitalized on the populist ferment. He supported dramatic action by the federal government to put Americans back to work and lamented the Gold Standard which Cleveland supported. Bryan declared at the Democratic National Convention, “You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold.” The populist insurrection successfully nominated Bryan for President. He lost the General Election to Republican William McKinley.
Cleveland and his ideological coefficients supported John M. Palmer, the Presidential nominee of the National Democratic Party. Palmer supported Cleveland’s policies. However, this newly constituted political party did not last very long, and most of Cleveland’s supporters returned to the Democratic Party. For much of the 20th Century, the Democratic Party had an uneasy cohabitation between the populists and the establishmentarians.
During the Great Depression, the populist wing of the Democratic Party enjoyed a recrudescence. U.S. Senator Huey Long (D-LA) took aim at both parties, and especially took aim at U.S. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Robinson (D-AR) who came to be seen as too accommodating with his Republican Senate counterparts. In 1932, Long averred:
“They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters bring you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared by the same Wall Street Kitchen.”
Huey Long barnstormed the nation, calling for “sharing the wealth” by capping income at $1 million and inheritances at $5 million, and instituting a 30-hour federal workweek. Long’s grassroots supporters created 27,000 “Share our Wealth Clubs” around the country. The populists hoped he would run for the Presidency, but their hopes were dashed in 1935 when Long was assassinated.
On the Republican side, the appeal to populism is as much cultural as economic. In 1964, grassroots activists took control from the moderate Eastern wing, which had controlled the party for decades. They nominated U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Goldwater made no pretense to moderate his message in his quest for votes. In 1961 he joked, “Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.”
At the Republican National Convention in 1964, Goldwater galvanized his supporters and antagonized the party establishment by exclaiming, “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.”
Similar to when Bryan won the Democratic nomination in 1896, some of the old guard, including Michigan Governor George Romney and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, did not act as good soldiers by endorsing their nominee. Romney said in a letter to Goldwater, “Dogmatic ideological parties tend to splinter the political and social fabric of a nation, lead to governmental crises and deadlock, and stymie the compromises so often necessary to preserve freedom and achieve progress.” Goldwater won just six states, and the moderate wing of the Republican party returned to power with the nomination of Richard M. Nixon in 1968.
In 1968, former Alabama Governor George Wallace, the Presidential nominee of the American Independent Party, capitalized on the proliferating populist enmity leveled toward the counterculture, academia and protesters of the American prosecution of the Vietnam War. Wallace railed against the “pointy-headed pseudo-intellectual who can’t even park his bike straight when he gets to campus.”
When young hippies heckled him at a speech, Wallace retorted, “You come up when I get through and I’ll autograph your sandals for you. That is, if you got any on … You need a good haircut. That’s all that’s wrong with you … There are two four-letter words I bet you folks don’t know: ‘work’ and ‘soap.'” He got an uproarious ovation from his mostly blue-color supporters in the crowd. However, Wallace was not able to draw support outside of his native South and garnered just 13.5 percent of the popular vote.
However, the enmity toward elites that the Wallace campaign elicited was not lost on the administration of Richard M. Nixon. Vice President Spiro Agnew tapped into this populist sentiment by waging war on the so-called elites, stating, “A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”
The 2016 Presidential race will likely see serious populist candidates from both major political parties. On the Republican side, U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have earned their stripes with the populist Tea Party movement for their steadfast opposition to efforts by their party’s leadership to compromise with Democrats on the federal budget, and their willingness to support a partial government shutdown to show their ideological convictions.
On the Democratic side, there is some disenchantment from the populist left toward the preponderant frontrunners for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. They are viewed by the populist bloodline as too close to Wall Street and too hawkish on foreign policy. In addition, the populist left yearns for a candidate who will support a single-payer health care regime. So far, the only candidate who is trying to fill this electoral vacuum is former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. In a recent interview with The Weekly Standard, Schweitzer beat the populist drum by branding the Obama administration as “corporatist.”
At a time when the American political system is held in disrepute, there is a growing populist insurrection to challenge established incumbent politicians. Political experience may prove to be an electoral liability rather than an electoral asset. These insurgents will certainly try to tattoo their establishment opponents with the scarlet “E” for Establishment.
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