A senator in the White House It's no secret that voters could make history in November by electing the nation's first female or black president. But it's also likely they'll do something the country hasn't seen in nearly five decades -- choose a sitting senator for the job. Since the founding of the country
First published: Sunday, February 17, 2008
All three of the major parties' leading candidates are senators -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and John McCain on the Republican.
* Only two sitting senators have been elected president -- Warren Harding in 1920 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. * Harding is ranked 40th out of 42 past presidents in the Siena Research Institute rating system, which is widely followed and published in the Presidential Studies Quarterly Journal. He was ruined by the Tea Pot Dome Scandal, named for a Wyoming rock formation that contained oil. The scandal involved bribes of government officials to secure rights to the oil. Harding died in office. * Kennedy is ranked 14th. He got off to a rough start with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but was just hitting his stride with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights Movement when he was assassinated. Many experts think he had the potential to be a great president, but we'll never know. {SUMMARY} Since 1932 * 19 presidential elections. * 38 major party candidates. 1960, 1964,1968, 1972: Both major party candidates each had Senate experience. * 1948, 1984, 1996, 2000, 2004: One of the two major party candidates had Senate experience, but none won the presidency. * Five elections won by four candidates with Senate experience -- Harry Truman, JFK, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Nixon (who was elected president twice). * Nixon was the last person with any Senate experience to be elected president -- 36 years ago. What happened to them? * JFK was assassinated. * LBJ didn't seek a second term because he was so unpopular. * Nixon resigned during his second term, rather than face impeachment. * Only Truman ranked in the top 10 presidents by the Siena Research Institute rating system. {SUMMARY} Governors vs. senators Governors or those with experience as governors have won seven of the eight elections since 1972. The only nongovernor was George H.W. Bush, and he was defeated for a second term by Bill Clinton. Assuming George W. Bush serves out his term, we will have had governors as presidents for 28 of the last 32 years, and no one with Senate experience in 36 years. So why have senators done so poorly? The Senate is a legislative body and the president is an executive. The jobs require a different set of skills. Senators do not have the decision-making responsibilities of the president, whereas governors have similar executive tasks. There are still nine months until the election, but it appears the next president will be a sitting senator. TEXT BY DOUG LONNSTROM/FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE SIENA RESEARCH INSTITUTE
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The election of 2008 could be one of the most important in recent years. We have gone through eight years of the Bush administration — one of the most inept since the Nixon years. This country must be put back on the right track, and the man to do it is Barack Obama. His “Vision of Change” is important for the country. His health care package is the best among the candidates’. No Republican has even mentioned anything about affordable health care. Obama’s plan is to get us out of Iraq by the end of 2009 — not 100 years, as advocated by John McCain. His tax reform proposal is to get rid of tax breaks for the rich and large corporation, so everyone pays their fair share. His immigration reform plan is fair for all people. Outsourcing jobs to other countries will end during an Obama administration. Bobby Kennedy said in 1968 that we are a compassionate country and a selfless country, but we can do better — and we can if Barack Obama is elected president of the Unites States. JAMES COGNETTA Schenectady
There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.
Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.
There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.
His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.
The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.
He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.
The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.
The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.
His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.
He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.
Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”
He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.
He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.
Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.
He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.
There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.
He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum
Many concerned for Obama’s safety Candidacy brings hope, but also fear BY DAVID CRARY The Associated Press
NEW YORK — For many black Americans, it’s a conversation they find hard to avoid, revisiting old fears in the light of bright new hopes. They watch with wonder as Barack Obama moves ever closer to becoming America’s first black president. And they ask themselves, their family, their friends: Is he at risk? Will he be safe? There is, of course, no sure answer. But interviews with blacks nationwide, prominent and otherwise, suggest that lingering worries are outweighed by enthusiasm and determination. “You can’t have lived through the civil rights movement and know something about the history of African-Americans in this country and not be a little concerned,” said Edna Medford, a history professor at Washington’s Howard University. “But African-Americans are more concerned that Obama get the opportunity to do the best he can,” she added. “And if he wins, most of us believe the country would do for him what it would do for any president, that he will be as well protected as any of them.” Clyde Barrett, 66, a longtime U.S. Labor Department employee now retired in Tampa, Fla., says he often hears expressions of concern for Obama’s safety. One young acquaintance, Barrett said, declared he wouldn’t even vote for Obama for fear of exposing him to more danger. “To me that’s a cop-out, where you can’t take a stand and support someone because you fear for his safety,” Barrett said. “I don’t have any apprehension. … We’ve got to go ahead and persevere.” For many older blacks, the barometer for gauging hopes and fears is the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But concern about Obama’s safety transcends racial lines. He has white supporters who see him as an inspiring, youthful advocate of change in the mold of Robert F. Kennedy, and they are mindful of Kennedy’s assassination just two months after King’s. Pam Hart, the principal of a multiracial elementary school in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham, said she is struck by the contrast between some of the black students there, innocently excited about Obama’s candidacy, and the more anxious perspective of older people who lived through the violence of the 1960s. “My 70-year-old aunt — every time I call her, she says she’s really afraid Obama is going to be assassinated. She is so worried that history will repeat itself,” said Hart, who is 40. “I understand why she’s afraid, but I feel we live in a different world now.” Bruce Gordon, a New York-based business leader and former president of the NAACP, also feels the climate has changed dramatically — as evidenced by the strong nationwide support that Obama is receiving from whites as well as blacks. Gordon felt differently back in the mid-1990s, when Gen. Colin Powell was weighing a run for the presidency, and Powell’s wife, Alma, was among those voicing concern about his safety. “When Powell decided not to run, I said to myself, ‘Good,’ because I thought someone would kill him,” Gordon recalled. “This time, I think that if, out of fear, we keep our most talented people from running for office, it will never happen. “Yes, there’s a risk, but I would never want it to be in the way,” Gordon added. “In running, Barack Obama has to accept the fact that he faces a risk. And yes, we pray for him.” Obama received Secret Service protection last May — the earliest ever for any presidential candidate. At the time, federal officials said they were not aware of any direct threats to Obama, but Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin — who was among those recommending the Secret Service deployment — acknowledged receiving information, some with racial overtones, that made him concerned for Obama’s safety. Obama’s campaign, invited this week to comment on the concerns felt by many blacks, referred to a speech given by the candidate’s wife, Michelle, to a mostly black audience in South Carolina last fall. “I know people care about Barack and our family. I know people want to protect us and themselves from disappointment,” she said, before urging people to cast fear aside. “If you’re willing to heed Coretta Scott King’s words and not be afraid of the future … there’s no challenge we can’t overcome,” she said. Obama himself, while acknowledging that his family and friends are concerned about his safety, has drawn a contrast with King. “He didn’t have Secret Service protection,” Obama told TV host Tavis Smiley last fall. “I can’t even comprehend the degree of courage that was required, and look what he did.”
The Real Barack Obama Thursday, February 21, 2008 By: Ronald Kessler
Michelle Obama’s comment that, for the first time in her adult life, she feels proud of America helps crystallize who Barack Obama is.
To be sure, the wife of a candidate is perfectly free to have views that are distinct from her husband’s. But on a matter that is so fundamental to one’s being as love of country, it is difficult to imagine that Michelle Obama would publicly twice make such a statement suggesting disdain for America unless she felt it comported with her husband’s views.
Equally important, her statement aligns perfectly with the hate-America views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s minister, friend, and sounding board for more than two decades. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.
“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in his church magazine Trumpet. “White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”
Wright has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in December, honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement, saying he “truly epitomize[s] greatness.”
Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals.
Those who think two of the closest people to Obama could publicly make anti-America statements unless Obama himself felt that way, are fooling themselves. To date, Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than a great orator, rendering the statements of those around him even more important in illuminating his true character and agenda. During his Senate career, he skipped 17 percent of the votes and sponsored only one bill that became law. That bill was to promote “relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Bereft of official accomplishments, Obama has distinguished himself mainly by being against measures that protect American security, such as finishing the mission in Iraq. If we were to leave Iraq quickly, as Obama vows he would do, it would become a launch pad for al-Qaida attacks on the U.S.
Obama avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required. Last August, Obama voted against a measure that would have allowed the U.S. to continue to monitor overseas conversations of terrorists like Osama bin Laden without first obtaining a warrant.
If his radical vote had prevailed, bin Laden would have been given the same rights as Americans.
To this day, Obama has not distanced himself from most of Rev. Wright’s comments. In a statement supposedly issued to address the matter, Obama ignored the point that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Farrakhan and that Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader. Instead, as outlined in a Jan. 17 Newsmax article, he disingenuously claimed he thought the magazine bestowed the award on Farrakhan for his efforts to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.
Neither Wright’s encomiums about Farrakhan nor the Trumpet article mentions ex-prisoners.
Similarly, after John McCain’s wife Cindy responded to Michelle Obama’s remarks by telling a Wisconsin rally, “I have, and always will be, proud of my country,” Barack Obama told a radio interviewer that his wife did not say what people think she said. He then proceeded to rewrite her comments, claiming that she had meant she was encouraged by the “large numbers of people” who have gotten involved in the political process. Michelle Obama then made a similar revision of her remarks.
In her speech in Milwaukee, Michelle Obama said flatly, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
And what has been wrong with America up to now? That it gave Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School? That it gave Barack Obama the chance to attend Columbia University and Harvard Law School and become a U.S. senator making more than $1 million a year from book royalties?
Was it that America stopped Nazi Germany from continuing to murder millions of Jews? That America has provided Africa and other countries with $15 billion to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV and that another $30 billion is on the way? That 46 percent of all Americans classified by the Census Bureau as poor own their own homes, 76 percent of them have air conditioning, and 75 percent of them have at least one car? Or that America allows us to express our views freely without fear of being put in jail, as is the case in Russia?
A lawyer, Michelle Obama is perfectly capable of expressing herself precisely. In fact, she spoke from a written speech.
Those who do not want to believe she meant what she said — and that Barack Obama could not be so close to Rev. Wright if he did not himself believe in much of what he has said — are in denial.
The real Barack Obama is starting to emerge, and for those of us who are grateful to America for everything it represents, it is not a pretty sight.
Not a single one of them know ANYTHING or care, they are in line for what? POWER, CONTROL AND MONEY....the votes ARE rigged and the numbers moved around with different values applied....they say they dont want the war but, they are making money hand over fist via the corporations while at the same time talking out the other side of their mouths dripping with rhetoric about how much the poor American worker needs help and we can bring change blah blah blah blah.....
these folks have millions and millions in their campaign war chests---where do we think it came from? stocks,wars, subprimes, credit,margins, whitewaters etc.......THEY ARE ALL THE SAME AND THE SYSTEMS ARE WHIPPING POSTS THAT WE CLAIM ARE OUR HELPERS.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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