Featured Is there a difference?

Fot the leftists and all the major media it is extreme to support the Constitution!

Get a bunch like those nut cases fowling the ground, the water, the streets and the air camping out in Central Park in New York and they are simply exercising their right to free speech. Let a group of Tea Party People hold a peaceful demonstration, clean up any litter in the streets and they are a racist mob regardless of the makeup of the Party!

 

I would not have a good reputation in Washington because anything that cannot be found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution would not be an option.

 

Let me get out a photo of Bush signing the Patriot Act while I ponder this one.

Nope, not a ton of difference.

If certain people didn't magically switch their beliefs and do stuff like suddenly become anti-abortion when it became convenient, or if they actually did things to defend the constitution that mattered, or if my paycheck money wasn't suddenly flying out the window because of health care costs that supposedly do not affect me, and if I hadn't had the experience of sitting in and listening to both parties in meetings go on and sound so much the same in how they were going to reach their goals, and so on and so forth, I might have a different opinion.

 

Salty,

I picked to the right of the Republican Party only because it was the best choice to describe how I believe. Those in Congress who are to the right of the Republican Party are as big of thieves as the most liberal congressman. The entire spectrum of presently elected officials are there for the same reason, power and to pad their pockets.

I admire the years you have shared what you do to effect change for this country, getting involved in grass roots movements and even running yourself for office. Most posters on here have never been involved to the degree you have, and most have done nothing but post. Sometimes I wonder how many actually vote.

Anyway, I left the Republican Party in 2008 after they nominated McCain and joined the Constitution Party. I worked within it, and was elected a delegate to their 2012 Presidential nominating convention. A third party that ever hopes to be a major player in elections has got to take their mission seriously. When I got to Nashville, the rest of the Kentucky delegation never showed up. On top of that, the atmosphere at the entire convention was more of a giant party, than conducting serious business to change this country. I was so disgusted on the way home, I rejoined the Republican Party.

Sad as the state of the party is, it is the only hope to effect Constitutional change is working inside the party. A good example is Matt Bivens running against Mitch McConnell in the spring primary. Matt is within striking distance.

I wish the problems of Obamacare had come out before the 2012 election instead of now.

 

Another problem that I've come across over the years is that often times there is a considerable difference of political positions/ideologies within the very same political party, not only on the national level, but also on the state and/or local levels.

One example of this was the position that the GOP of PA in the 1964 presidential campaign.

In that year, even though Barry Goldwater won the GOP's nomination for POTUS, the PA GOP (which was then headed by Gov. William Scranton, and who actually led a failed attempt to wrest Goldwater from being declared the GOP POTUS candidate) refused to support Goldwater during that year's POTUS race.

If a person living in PA wanted to support Goldwater in 1964, he or she had to go to the trouble of trying to find what was called a "CITIZENS for Goldwater" organization.

Although LBJ managed to carry the POTUS race by about a 3:1 margin in 1964, had the "official" PA GOP supported Goldwater's candidacy in 1964, LBJ's margin of victory might have been much less than what it was in 1964.

Then, too, you also have to consider the so-called "Perks of the Incumbent" when it comes to several different races throughout our nation.

Regardless of whether or not a particular political office holder is thought to be either "good" or "bad" by the individual citizen(s), if that office holder is the incumbent, often times it's nearly impossible to get any body to run against an incumbent.

This has proven to be the case in many elections. EXAMPLE: The incumbent US representative for the US congressional district that includes the city of Nashville (where I live) is probably the least conservative of TN's entire congressional delegation.

Even though my district does have a GOP party, there have been a couple of times when the GOP didn't even run a candidate for our US congressional district because it figured that it was pretty much of a hopeless cause to try to defeat the incumbent Democrat.

In the 2012 TN US Senatorial campaign, the more conservative candidate (IMHO anyway) was the one who managed to squeak out a victory in the Democrat primary race.

This candidate went down to defeat for several reasons, but one of the principal reasons for his defeat was because he was running against the incumbent GOP senatorial candidate.

This year the TN citizens are faced with a somewhat similar situation in that we will face another opportunity to vote for US senator. Our state's other incumbent US senator is running for re-election. IMHO opinion, this man is even less of a conservative than our other US senator is.

There will be a GOP primary race for this office, but it's very doubtful that the person challenging the incumbent will win the primary.

Anyway, that's the political situation we here in TN face.

Some of you out there in BB land can probably think of other issues that you face in your own areas during this upcoming political season.

 

Like what? 60.5% to 39.5%, instead of 61.1% to 38.9%?

 

I do not know by what exact percentage Goldwater's margin of defeat in the PA POTUS campaign of 1964 might have been had the "official" state GOP supported him.

That was half a century ago. Since then, as a state, PA has not had a very consistent record of voting for a particular POTUS candidate that has been offered by either the Democrats or the GOP from one POTUS election cycle to the next one.

Since I left PA over 40 years ago, I have not followed the political situation in that state to any great extent.

 

Johnson's victory over Goldwater was the landslide victory of my lifetime. (don't bother looking, I did it for you--Reagan 58.8%, Mondale 40.6%) I can remember learning the word "landslide" in 1st grade as it related to elections. My parents voted Goldwater and I couldn't believe that so many other people favored Johnson. I guess what I'm saying is that there wasn't much anyone could have done to close the gap in this election.

 

Probably not.

Another reason was that most everyone was still caught up in the "vicarious sympathy" over the loss of Kennedy.

This was probably the first time that most every American had gone through the loss of its POTUS by assassination. Although it'd been over 60 years since a sitting POTUS had died by being assassinated, not too many Americans living in November, 1963, would have been alive when McKinley was shot.

This was also the period of time in US history where almost every aspect of our way of life faced considerable challenges on a scale of which our nation had seldom, if ever, faced.

While I don't know that if Goldwater had become our POTUS that he would have done any better than LBJ did, many Americans at that time seemed to want to "Stay with the 'Devil' that they knew of [i.e., LBJ--Who'd been more in the national limelight {as US Senator (and for a short period of time the US Senate Majority Leader) as well as being the VPOTUS for almost 3 years}] than with a less well-known US Senator from a state that had, at that time, only joined the union for only a little over half a century ago.] rather than contend with a 'Devil' about whom they knew very little.

Moreover, IMHO Goldwater probably preferred to have run against JFK rather than LBJ.

Alas, Goldwater was not given that opportunity.

Goldwater also made some very poor selections when it came to not only many of his major campaign staff positions, but also of his choice of his running mate, US Congressman William Miller. (I'm not saying that Miller was personally inept or "not qualified" to serve as VPOTUS, but only that he was even less well-known than Goldwater was.)

In subsequent interviews with some presidential election race historians of that era, Goldwater himself practically admitted that he should have selected people who were more capable of doing their job(s) than those that he did.

The 1964 POTUS race was, to me anyway, more of a "David vs. Goliath" race.

Sad to say, but in the case of that POTUS race, "Goliath" won. :tear:

 

What about the 1972 election? 60.7 to 37.5 Nixon vs McGovern

 

I'm not exactly positive what you are asking about with regard to the question in your post.

Former VPOTUS Nixon did, of course, win the 1972 POTUS election by a considerable margin.

My take on why Nixon won in 1972 is this:

1. Many (if not most) Americans had grown tired of how LBJ was handling the conflict in SEA.

LBJ was way over his head in his failed efforts to deal with the armed conflict in SEA for several reasons, including his use of the very questionable legality of the so-called "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" to justify a continued US military presence in SEA.

As its title states, this so-called "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" was not an official declaration of war. It was only a joint resolution of Congress that was ram-rodded through Congress using (at best) very questionable arm-twisting methods, and (at worst) some out right illegal tactics. [NOTE: This resolution was one of the reasons why Congress later went on to pass the "War Powers Act."]

2. The person whom LBJ selected to oversee the armed conflict in SEA was probably the most ill-equipped man to have ever run the DOD up to that period of time.

DOD Secretary Robert McNamara had no idea how to deal with the kind of conflict that our nation's military faced in SEA because (to a large extent) this armed conflict was so different than most all of the previous armed conflicts in which our nation's uniformed services had ever dealt.

In 1968, Richard ("Tricky Dick") Nixon told the American people that he had some kind of "secret plan" to end the armed conflict in SEA. However, even though he'd been POTUS for four years, he never did reveal to the American people what exactly his "secret plan" was. [Kinda makes you wonder if, indeed, old "I'm Not A Crook" Nixon ever really had such a plan in the first place!! :smilewinkgrin:]

3. McGovern was even more of a radical liberal than LBJ was, and very few people back in those days wanted a POTUS to be that far of a leftist.

4. The Democrat Party in 1972 was still suffering from the stigma that it suffered from its very divisive 1968 Chicago convention.

5. McGovern was plagued with having to replace his VPOTUS candidate mid-way through the campaign.

6. The revelation that McGovern himself was plagued with bouts of mental illness did not help his candidacy.

To many American voters of that time period, they tended to believe that if the best person that a major political party could offer them was a man in the past had some form of "mental illness," then, "We'd better not give him a chance to do something crazy while in the Oval Office!!" [As if we never before {or since} had some "nut cases" in the White House!! :smilewinkgrin: :tonofbricks:]

Any way that's my story of why George McGovern lost so poorly in 1972, and I'm sticking with it!! :thumbs:

BTW, in 1972 I cast my POTUS vote for John Schmitz who back then ran on the American Party ticket.

 

No my question was not political, but factual. Nixon won over 60% of the vote, and therefore, it was a landslide. Doubt we will see that again for a long, long time. Anyway, that was my first Presidential election, and I did vote for Nixon. In thirteen elections, I have only voted Democrat three times.