John Quincy Adams

Are We On The Road To A 5th Four Way Presidential Election?

Ronald 3 Comments

In American history, we have had four Presidential elections in which there were four candidates who gained a substantial percentage of popular votes.

The first time was 1824, with Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay.

The second time was 1860, with Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell.

The third time was 1912, with Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Eugene Debs.

The fourth time was 1948, with Harry Truman, Thomas E. Dewey, Strom Thurmond, and Henry A. Wallace.

The first two times, 1824 and 1860, saw the success of new political parties, the Democrats under Jackson by 1828 and the Republicans under Lincoln in 1860.  The third time brought the success of progressivism at its peak under Wilson with Roosevelt’s indirect contributions, and the fourth insured the forward movement in foreign and domestic policy under Truman.

Now in 2016, we could have four candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and potentially Bernie Sanders or Jesse Ventura.  And who can deny that Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney or John Kasich might also be potential candidates?

The first three named above seem almost certain, but there is some speculation that Sanders could run on a independent line, and that Jesse Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota, might run if Sanders fails to be the Democratic nominee, and decides to avoid an independent run.  If Trump is nominated, the odds of Ryan or Romney or Kasich running as the “Establishment” Republican opponent grows, just as is likely that Trump will run as an independent if he is not the party’s nominee.

Hillary Clinton would win against a split Republican Party, but IF Sanders runs or even Ventura, the potential exists, in a four way race, for anything to happen, including the need to use the 12th Amendment, as occurred in 1824, which would give the Republican nominee the advantage, with the Republican control of the House of Representatives!

Could We Be Facing Another 1824 Presidential Election, And Use Of The “Ugly” 12th Amendment Once Again, Where The House Of Representatives Selects The Next President?

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There is growing concern that if we have a third party candidacy of Donald Trump, that we could end up with a scenario of the House of Representatives choosing the next President of the United States!

In 1824, in the first participation by all white males in the election, Andrew Jackson was first in popular votes and electoral votes, but lost the election to second place finisher, John Quincy Adams, because Jackson did not have a majority of the electoral votes, and the House chose Adams over Jackson, pure politics!

With a theoretical race of Democrat Hillary Clinton,  Republican Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, Clinton could end up having the most popular and electoral votes, but fail to reach 270, the number required to win the White House.

The outgoing House of Representatives, with a clear cut Republican majority, would have each member have his or her own vote, and assuredly in that scenario, Ted Cruz would be elected President, even, in theory, if he ended up third in both popular and electoral vote, as the 12th Amendment provides for a choice of the top three candidates!

This would be unconscionable, but could happen, another quirk of the Presidential election process, that has not been used for 192 years, but could rear its ugly head once again!

Joint Party Tickets A Good Idea? History Tells Us NO!

Ronald 14 Comments

Recently, there has been some discussion of a “fusion” ticket as the way to stop Donald Trump.

One such scenario is to have Hillary Clinton run with John Kasich as her running mate.

That is totally preposterous, and history tells us that when the Vice President is of a different party than the President, it does not work out well.

The first contested Presidential election led to Thomas Jefferson as Vice President under his opponent, John Adams from 1797-1801, and that did not work out well, and in fact, helped to promote the 12th Amendment in 1804.

Then we had John C. Calhoun as Vice President under John Quincy Adams in the years 1825-1829, and that did not work out well.

William Henry Harrison was elected in 1840 with this Whig candidate having a Democrat, John Tyler, as his Vice President.  Within a month, Harrison was dead, and Tyler had constant battles with the Whig Congress, because he did not wish to follow Whig platform ideas.

Abraham Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson as his second term Vice President, despite the fact that Johnson was a Democrat in a Republican Presidency, and when Lincoln was assassinated six weeks later, we had one of the worst struggles in American history, as Johnson fought and resisted the Republican Party which had put him into the Vice Presidency, albeit briefly.

With these four examples, none of them working out well, we have never had such a situation arise again since, but we have had suggestions of doing what has never worked out well.

There were suggestions that Hubert Humphrey select Nelson Rockefeller in 1968, and that John McCain choose Joe Lieberman in 2008.

It simply will not work, and it undermines party loyalty and commitment to a President and his administration, if the next in line, in case of tragedy, transforms the power base in the Presidency.

As it is, we have had top cabinet members who are of the other party, particularly in the War Department as it was known before 1947, and the Defense Department, as it has been known since then., including:

Henry Stimson under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1945

Robert McNamara under John F. Kennedy, beginning in 1961, and continuing under Lyndon B. Johnson until 1968.

William Cohen under Bill Clinton from 1997-2001

Robert Gates under Barack Obama from 2009-2011

But the Vice President needs to be “on the team”, not a rival of the President in office!

 

The Deep Coma Of The Republican Party, With Only Slight Chance Of Recovery With John Kasich, Unlikely To Occur, So Death Is Near!

Ronald 9 Comments

This morning, we can look at the results of the five Presidential primaries on the “ides of March”, and say that the Republican Party is in a deep coma, with only a slight chance of recovery with John Kasich, who won his home state Ohio primary.

But the chance of Kasich overcoming Donald Trump and or Ted Cruz is miniscule, as it would require a second or more ballots at a contested convention in Cleveland this July, highly unlikely to occur.

So death is near for the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan!

And the conservative movement is also on life support, as far as having control or potential for national power!

It is now time to have a new moderate, mainstream conservative party to emerge, something on the line of the Whig Party of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln!

New CNN Presidential Election Series: “Race For The White House”

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CNN has begun a new six part series called “Race For The White House”, which will cover six Presidential elections over the next six weeks, each episode an hour in length, and narrated by actor Kevin Spacey.

On Sunday, the 1960 battle for the White House between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was covered.

Future episodes in some order not known yet include chronologically:

1828–Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams

1860–Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas

1948–Harry Truman and Thomas E. Dewey

1988–George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis

1992–Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush

It is not clear why these particular elections were chosen, as there are many others, many more interesting and significant, that were not selected, including:

1896–William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan

1912—Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft

1928–Herbert Hoover and Alfred E. Smith

1932–Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover

1940–Franklin D. Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie

1968–Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, George C. Wallace

1980–Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, John Anderson

2000–George W. Bush and Al Gore

2008–Barack Obama and John McCain

This series is well worth watching, after having seen the first episode last night!

 

Two Projects Left Hanging: Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial And Adams Memorial, In Washington, DC!

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There are two Memorial projects in limbo for the National Mall in Washington DC, an area already overloaded with buildings and memorials, with the new National Musem of African American  History and Culture scheduled to open in the Fall of 2016.

The debate over the design and funding of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial has been raging for more than a decade, with the descendants of President Eisenhower unhappy over the proposal, and private funding hard to come by.  So it is not clear if such a Memorial will be constructed at all, with some arguing that there are already Eisenhower memorials in Abilene, Kansas (The Eisenhower Presidential Library}, and in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the Eisenhowers retired to after the Presidency.

Some have argued that Eisenhower, while rated in the top ten Presidents, is clearly lower ranked than three other Presidents who do not have national memorials in Washington DC—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman,

Then, there is the plan to build an Adams Memorial in Washington DC, to honor President John Adams; First Lady Abigail Adams; President John Quincy Adams;  First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams; Charles Francis Adams, Sr.; and the latter’s two brilliant sons, Henry Adams, and Brooks Adams, all part of the illustrious family which gave us so many brilliant public figures!

But as with the Eisenhower project, there have been many delays, relating to the design and private funding of such a memorial, with the only historic site for the family being the homes and burial places of the Adamses in Massachusetts.

Some would say we have too many memorials already in Washington, DC, while others would disagree strongly with that assertion, as the nation’s capital is the location that more Americans and foreign tourists visit than any other site in the nation!

 

CNN Reminds Us Of “The Endless Election” Tonight At 9 PM

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CNN tonight will have an hour presentation, reminding us of the Presidential Election of 2000, entitled “The Endless Election”.

Many Americans, younger than college age students, have no real memory or knowledge of this transformative election, in which, for the fourth time in American history, the loser of the national popular vote won the Electoral College and the Presidency.

George W. Bush joined John Quincy Adams in the Presidential Election of 1824; Rutherford B. Hayes in the Presidential Election of 1876; and Benjamin Harrison in the Presidential Election of 1888, in that unique circumstance and quirk of the Electoral College system set up by the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Bush turned out be a major disaster in many ways, including the September 11, 2001 attacks; the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003; Hurricane Katrina in 2005; and the Great  Recession of 2008-2009.

No one is saying all of these tragedies would have been avoided with a President Al Gore, but most observers agree that Bush will rank in the bottom ten of all Presidents for the long run.

The idea that “hanging chads” in Florida would cause a 36 day election crisis, until the Supreme Court controversially intervened on a straight party line vote to grant Bush the win in Florida by 537 popular votes, still is upsetting to many, and one has to wonder how the Al Gore contribution to the Presidency would have changed history, and affected America long term!

Presidents Who Had More Than One Vice President While In Office, And Two Presidents Who Shared A Vice President With Another President

Ronald 3 Comments

America has had 43 Presidents, with Grover Cleveland having two non consecutive terms in office, being the 22nd and 24th Presidents, therefore making Barack Obama President Number 44.

At the same time, we have had 47 Vice Presidents, with two serving under two Presidents, and a total of nine Presidents who had more than one Vice President while in office.

George Clinton served as the second Vice President under Thomas Jefferson and the first term Vice President under James Madison.

John C. Calhoun served as the Vice President under John Quincy Adams and the first term Vice President under Adams’ successor in the Presidency, Andrew Jackson.

Thomas Jefferson had two Vice Presidents, Aaron Burr and George Clinton.

James Madison had two Vice Presidents, George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry.

Andrew Jackson had two Vice Presidents, John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren.

Abraham Lincoln had two Vice Presidents, Hannibal Hamlin and Andrew Johnson.

Ulysses S. Grant had two Vice Presidents, Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson.

Grover Cleveland had two Vice Presidents, Thomas A. Hendricks, and Adlai Stevenson I.

William McKinley had two Vice Presidents, Garret Hobart and Theodore Roosevelt.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had three Vice Presidents in his four terms of office—John Nance Garner, Henry A. Wallace, and Harry S. Truman.

Finally, Richard Nixon had two Vice Presidents, Spiro T. Agnew and Gerald R. Ford.

Smithsonian Institution Anniversary: A Great Cultural Icon For America!

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Today marks the 169th birthday of the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, created with a grant by an Englishman, James Smithson, whose body is interred in a tomb in the original building of the institution, the Smithsonian Castle, which was dedicated by Congressman and former President John Quincy Adams in 1846, after legislation was signed into law by President James K. Polk.

Smithson was a chemist and mineralogist, who became the donor of the founding of an institution named in his honor, although Smithson never visited the United States, but he made it clear in his will of his great admiration for the United States, and desire to give a bequest for the promotion of learning and knowledge.

The institution named in Smithson”s honor has become the largest museum-educational complex in the world including 19 museums, 9 research centers, and a zoo, including among them the following:

National Air and Space Museum
National Museum of American History
National Museum of Natural History
National Portrait Gallery
National Museum of the American Indian
Smithsonian American Art Museum
National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Zoo

This pursuit of knowledge in the arts, sciences, culture, and history is a national treasure, and a “must see” for tourists in Washington, DC!

“Fit” And “Unfit” Presidents In American History

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The issue of Presidential health is an important one, as the stresses on the Chief Executive, are, and have been, massive over time, and the job ages all Presidents noticeably.

But separate from general health, there is also the issue of how “fit” or “unfit” Presidents have been while in office, and those who have been active in athletic activities before and during their White House years.

The list of truly “fit” Presidents has favored the younger Presidents over time, but there are also cases of other Presidents who have made being fit an important part of their image as Presidents. These Presidents participated in sports, and even when having health issues over time, they still emphasized the active life.

So the truly “fit” Presidents would include:

George Washington

John Quincy Adams

Andrew Jackson

Abraham Lincoln

Theodore Roosevelt

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

Gerald Ford

Ronald Reagan

George H. W. Bush

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

All of the above 12 Presidents did a lot of exercise throughout their lives, and some were in the military as generals (Washington, Jackson, Eisenhower).

Those Presidents that would qualify as particularly unfit would include:

John Adams

Martin Van Buren

James Buchanan

Chester Alan Arthur

Grover Cleveland

William McKinley

William Howard Taft

Warren G. Harding

Lyndon B. Johnson

Bill Clinton

All of the above 10 Presidents had major issues with weight, particularly Taft and Cleveland.

Of course, “fitness” has nothing to do with greatness in the White House, as Franklin D. Roosevelt proves! But FDR also had massive upper body strength, despite the polio that prevented him from walking.