POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Clinton was popular when he left office. One of the most popular outgoing presidents. Gore running from Clinton probably hurt him more than it helped. 

I think Gore hurt himself more that Clinton helped or hurt him. His campaign was pretty artless - esp early on.  And even the liberal press was writing nice things about W's time in Tx. Plus W caught the afterglow of GHWB's rapid rehabilitation from re-election loser to fondly remembered ex-prez.

It certainly never entered my mind that with all the legacy, expertise and connections that W had available to him that he would end up running the most outright incompetent WH since --- probably before Herbert Hoover.

Edited 23 hours ago by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

Nixon also lost his race for Governor in California. prompting the following quote saying, "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."^[8]

 

I remember seeing that and hoping it might actually be true. Sadly not so much....

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

And Nixon just barely edged Humphrey in the popular vote. I think the conventional wisdom is Wallace drained more votes from Nixon than Humphrey, but who really knows?  The South was still pretty nominally Democratic at that time so without a favorite son how many of those votes might have gone to Humphrey by habit?

Humphrey was charging toward the lead at the end and probably would have won were it not for the Chennault affair. 

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

Oh **** that’s a genius move if they get away with it

so much for democracy

Edited 16 hours ago by chasfh

[oblong]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Humphrey was charging toward the lead at the end and probably would have won were it not for the Chennault affair. 

And they knew about it. LBJ was bugging planes and phones. He went to the majority leader and called it Treason. But they couldn’t say anything because they were illegally bugging.  Then Johnson calls Nixon and they do a verbal dance and a game of “I know that you know that I know…”. 
 

of course the question is whether they really would have had a deal. But Nixon and Kissinger sabatoged a potential deal for political purposes. 

[CMRivdogs]

Alway has, always will, all about the Benjamins 

Check the dates. The Citizens United ruling came in 2010

Edited 3 hours ago by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

They've been screaming Sharia Law since at least 2001 while trying to cram Christian (White) Nationalism down our throats since before 1860

 

[Tigeraholic1]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

13 hours ago, oblong said:

And they knew about it. LBJ was bugging planes and phones. He went to the majority leader and called it Treason. But they couldn’t say anything because they were illegally bugging.  Then Johnson calls Nixon and they do a verbal dance and a game of “I know that you know that I know…”. 
 

of course the question is whether they really would have had a deal. But Nixon and Kissinger sabatoged a potential deal for political purposes. 

It probably had some effect, everything has some effect and it was a close election and maybe it was enough -  but I think it's also easy to overestimate it because there is always such a strong bias to want to blame more stuff on bad people like Nixon. 

So some of the things I think you have to add to the mix:

-Revisionist history in the US about VN is strong. By 1980 everybody was always against the war, but that just isn't true. In 1968 most Americans still wanted a 'win' not just a peace. The WWII mindset that the US was invincible was still very dominant. The idea of walking away without victory was still hard to swallow, even after Korea (maybe especially because of Korea). The anger at Johnson was  as least as much over him being unable to win the war as for having gotten into it.

-Everyone knew Humphrey was a stronger 'peace' candidate than Nixon and that a deal was going to be more likely under Humphrey, so I'm not so sure how much difference the existence of any preliminary announcement was going to make. Humphrey had already said publicly that he was willing to go further to get a deal Johnson had been. I think that actually hurt him with the hawk part of the population - he was an appeaser!

-S.V. didn't want a deal on N.V. terms so it was not going to be an easy needle to thread in any case.

I was still pretty young but I liked HHH. The problem is a lot of people saw him as a caricature - it was a big problem for him.

Edited 1 hour ago by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

1964 was the last time A democrat won the majority of the white vote. The Civil Rights act and riots in cities like Detroit pushed voters to the right. 

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

1964 was the last time A democrat won the majority of the white vote. The Civil Rights act and riots in cities like Detroit pushed voters to the right. 

and speaking of riots. The '68 convention mess probably cost the Dems that election more than any other single event beside the War itself.

Edited 34 minutes ago by gehringer_2

[LaceyLou]

2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

They've been screaming Sharia Law since at least 2001 while trying to cram Christian (White) Nationalism down our throats since before 1860

 

And this is not just here. In Europe, there are fake videos of "Islamists" cooking and eating-you guessed it-cats and dogs. Sound familiar? What's scary is that there are some who believe they're real.