McCain’s election year amnesia; Hayworth could be best bet to tackle Obama’s socialist regime

Sonoran News ^ | 2010-05-26 | John Hoeppner

[LS]

1) Right on both counts, BUT, in 1844 Clay had a famous letter where he so straddled the fence that it alienated people on both sides. At least Polk was honest---but remember, Polk was viewed as "safe" because he was a westerner. No true southerner could get elected president at that time. Technically, VB owned a slave who had run away years earlier, and Monroe's family owned slaves, but the only southerner to become president after Monroe was Tyler---a VP.

2) True for the same reason as above. See my opening chapter in the new book out Tuesday, "Martin Van Buren has a Nightmare and Creates the Political Parties . . . in the 1820s," in Seven Events that Made America America. VB wanted to crush all discussion, pro or con, about slavery and did so with patronage or bribes. Sounds just like Sestak.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Polk was from TN, as was Jackson (who, of course, was originally from the Carolinas). They were “Westerners” back then, but they were also Southerners. And Zachary Taylor was from Louisiana. The “unwritten rule” that no Southerner could be elected president didn’t begin until 1852 and wasn’t repealed until 1976 (Wilson had lbecome a New Jerseyan long before he was elected).

[LS]

No, this "rule" was in place right after Monroe, largely because of the Mo Comp. It began with Martin Van Buren's party system. And TN/KY were considered "ok" because they were "western," not "southern." Taylor was not a Dem, hence, he would have been outside VB's plan---but he was a general and took no position one way or the other about slavery.

You can look at the chapter of my book that comes out Tues., "Martin Van Buren has a Nightmare . . . ." or go to the classic article by Brown, "The Missouri Crisis," which lays it all out really well.

[Impy]

Maybe the old canard is false and he didn’t really care. He sure didn’t seem to particularity like Nixon.

Ike did a bad job as party leader. I wouldn’t put it past him to do nothing to help and still be upset with the result.

[Impy]

Of course, voter suppression was an issue for decades. Would Cleveland ever have won the popular vote if southern blacks could vote?

I’ve read that about Hiram Johnson, and that Hughes didn’t go out of his way to court him either. I love (or in his case hate) how such relatively minor event altered the course of history.

I haven’t definitively decided who’d I’d have voted for in every 19th century election but I’ve often wondered what kind of President Clay would have made.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Without Democrat suppression of the black vote in Southern states, Blaine and Harrison would have definitely won the national popular vote over Cleveland in 1884 and 1888, respectively (even with the vote supression, Cleveland won the pop vote by less than 1% in each of those elections); in 1892, with Weaver’s candidacy taking votes away from Harrison in the Midwest and West, which resulted in a3% popular-vote advantage for Cleveland over Harrison, I think that Cleveland would have won the pop vote even in a fair election.

BTW, I don’t care much for who wins the national popular vote; the Electoral College is there for a reason, and while I would not mind changes within the system (such as all states adopting the Maine/Nebraska method of apportioning electors, or using multi-district proportional representation to apportion electors), I think that it is important that people vote as citizens of their home state, and that the weight of each state’s vote be based on the state’s population (of legal residents, ideally), and not on the number of votes cast. If everyone in Minnesota voted it shouldn’t be given more weight in the election of the president than if there is light turnout in a more populated state such as Tennessee.

[fieldmarshaldj]

If Southern Blacks had been fully enfranchised, it’s probably unlikely Dems would’ve won the Presidency until 1912.