J
jollyjacktar
Guest
A stupid comment and stance that will cost him.
US Election: 2016
- Thread starter Edward Campbell
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 365
- Points
- 930
S.M.A. said:
A politician retracting, revising or otherwise clarifying a ststaement, or even policy, is nothing new or really surprising, particuarly during an election campaign.
I think Mrs. Clinton's reversal of her stance on TPP is a much larger issue, for example.
MARS said:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're not a woman.
The TPP is definitely an important issue. There are many important issues. But it's important to recognize that if someone like Cruz or even Trump is elected, women's reproductive rights in the US might be set back 50 years. There are states where instances of self-induced abortions are sky rocketing due to a lack of access. Truly a worrying time to be female and American.
George Wallace
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
- 184
- Points
- 710
Kilo_302 said:
I think you are really going out on a limb with that prediction.
- Reaction score
- 2,086
- Points
- 1,160
Here is an interesting historical comparative piece that considers: "The last time an outsider like Trump crashed the GOP? 1940" — (https://theconversation.com/the-last-time-an-outsider-like-trump-crashed-the-gop-1940-55742) . The article is from The Conversation, published by the Ohio State University, and is reproduced under the rules of Attribution in the Creative Commons (license link to republish is found on the article website). Note: unfortunately the embedded images will not replicate on this medium. Edit: apologies for all the material at the end of the article, however the CCL does not permit editing of the material and so I choose to leave it in place. A mod can delete it if they choose.
The Conversation
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
The last time an outsider like Trump crashed the GOP? 1940
March 15, 2016 6.05am EDT
The surprise Republican candidate in 1940: Wendell Willkie.
Author
avid Stebenne, Professor of History and Law Faculty, The Ohio State University
Disclosure statement
The last time an outsider like Trump crashed the GOP? 1940
Donald Trump’s challenge to the GOP establishment now seems on course to succeed.
As Republicans (and many others) consider what turning the party’s presidential nomination over to a real outsider will likely mean, it’s worth looking back at the last time that happened.
Some will say that it was in 1952, when General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Ohio Senator Robert Taft for the nomination at a tense GOP convention.
Eisenhower’s campaign, however, was largely the creation of New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who had run three times before. In so doing, Dewey had built a durable election machine that he placed at Eisenhower’s disposal.
The contemporary equivalent would be the highly unlikely move of vociferous critic and GOP establishment stalwart Mitt Romney putting his presidential campaign staff to work on Trump’s behalf.
I would argue that to find the last time a genuinely anti-establishment outsider won the GOP nomination one needs to look back even further, to 1940, when Wendell Willkie surprised politicians and pundits alike by doing just that.
So what insights does the Willkie experience offer to today’s politics?
Masterful use of the media
Like Donald Trump, Wendell Willkie was a former Democrat, who reregistered as a Republican only later in life. Like Trump, he came to politics from the corporate world and an office in Manhattan. And also like Trump, Willkie came to national prominence through his skillful use of the national media.
In Willkie’s case, he did that first by writing articles in national magazines attacking President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal for excessive spending and concentrating too much power in the federal government.
He also made his case in a different way, through testifying in Congress.
Wendell Willkie testifying to Congress in May 1939. Library of Congress
Willkie was a utility executive, the president of Commonwealth and Southern, one of the largest electricity producers in the country. He became the public face of the big business’s opposition to the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the New Deal’s single largest projects that would transform a poor agrarian region of the South through the building of hydroelectric dams, flood control and economic development.
As New York Post columnist Cal Tinney wrote, tongue-in-cheek, in 1939:
What are you going to Washington for Mr Willkie? “Oh to see that my contempt for the New Deal remains founded on familiarity.”
Widely covered in the press, Willkie came across as a common-sense critic of the New Deal as something that could and sometimes did go too far.
Next came a triumph in the broadcast entertainment media, in another parallel to Donald Trump’s role on his “Apprentice” TV show.
The broadcast medium in Willkie’s day was, of course, radio, and Willkie turned in a remarkably strong performance on a radio show called “Information, Please," the closest contemporary equivalent to which would probably be “Jeopardy.” Willkie came across there as quick-witted, knowledgeable and graceful under pressure.
Anti-establishment
What prompted such an unlikely candidate to run for the GOP presidential nomination in 1940 was Willkie’s sense that the establishment candidates had staked out the wrong stands on the key issues.
The leading inside contenders that year were the “racket busting” Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and “Mr Republican,” Robert A. Taft, the Ohio senator and son of a previous president.
On foreign policy, both insiders sounded like isolationists. They had expected France to stand fast against German aggression in 1940, as France had in World War I, and they tended to think that the right thing to do was for the U.S. to stay out of Europe’s conflict.
Willkie firmly disagreed.
In terms of domestic policy, both Dewey and Taft struck Willkie as too hostile to the New Deal programs and policies that Willkie did approve of and that were, critically, popular with the public. These most notably included Social Security, the Wagner Act (which protected labor unions), farm price supports and federal aid to the unemployed.
Willkie’s argument was that the basic ideas behind these programs and policies were sound, but could be more honestly and efficiently carried out by Republicans, who would rely on state governments more and Washington less in doing so.
A tense GOP convention
To the amazement and consternation of GOP regulars, the Willkie campaign caught fire in May and June of 1940.
The rapid military collapse of France exposed the shallowness of Dewey’s and Taft’s grasp of national security issues. And their excessively partisan attacks on the New Deal did not – as measured by George Gallup’s polls – have broad appeal.
By the time the GOP convention opened in Philadelphia in late June, about 30 percent of Republicans surveyed said they favored Willkie. That together with the lack of a united front among the establishment candidates opened the door to a thoroughly unexpected Willkie triumph on the sixth ballot.
So angry were establishment Republicans at this turn of events that Willkie was obliged to give only a very short and vague acceptance address, lest he alienate even more the party leaders who had strongly opposed his candidacy.
Seventy-six years on the parallels to today are easy to see.
Whatever one thinks of the stands Donald Trump has taken on the issues, they have resonated strongly with a large enough fraction of the GOP primary and caucus electorate to make him the presumptive nominee. Establishment candidates are not united, and GOP orthodoxy has proved to have too little appeal.
Like Willkie, Trump has run as an insurgent populist, challenging the elitist wing of the GOP that has long dominated the nominating process.
And like Willkie, Trump will find winning enthusiastic support from Republicans who supported establishment candidates very difficult, because they denounced him as an unqualified interloper during the primaries and caucuses.
Neither the Willkie nor the Trump candidacies has destroyed the GOP, but both disrupted it. The consequences were lasting 76 years ago, and I would predict they will be so this time around also.
In Willkie’s case, his nomination helped reorient the GOP away from a strongly anti-New Deal position to one that accommodated the most popular New Deal stands on matters foreign and domestic, such as support for Social Security and aid to Britain during World War II.
Trump appears to be doing something similar, in the sense that his nomination will likely push the GOP to do more to improve life for working- and lower-middle-class Americans, who have seen their quality of life decline in important ways over the past generation.
What is most troubling, however, about the Trump phenomenon thus far is how different he sounds from Willkie on issues of racial discrimination.
Wendell Willkie sharply criticized the segregation of his era. “No man,“ he said, "has the right in America to treat any other man ‘tolerantly’ - for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. Our liberties are the equal rights of every citizen.”
To make that point plain, he became the first major party candidate to campaign in Harlem since it had become a predominantly black neighborhood.
African American Joe Louis, the great boxer, was the warm-up speaker for Willkie’s two appearances there, where he received a friendly welcome.
Even though Willkie ultimately lost Harlem and the election of 1940 to FDR in a landslide (82 electoral votes to 449), Willkie’s campaign helped change the politics of his day, by pushing the GOP toward an accommodation of Roosvelt’s policies.
In Alexandria, Egypt, in 1942 meeting with British Admiral Sir Henry Harwood. Imperial War Museum
FDR even made Willkie a spokesman for America abroad after the election, a signal of the two parties coming closer together as a result of Willkie’s unorthodox bid for the presidency.
Reconciliation can and does follow confrontation. Not a bad lesson to remember as we watch the fireworks of the 2016 election campaign.
It is a topic that is largely ignored, but the so-called “isolationist” stance of Republicans in the 1930s was really a mask covering up the fact that they saw Hitler and fascism as bulwarks against Communism. Henry Luce of TIME-LIFE, for instance, openly praised Nazi Germany (as well as Franco and Mussolini) on these grounds, both in his magazines and in other venues. So did the British press (except for the GUARDIAN) well until 1939. Ayn Rand (who campaigned for Willkie in 1940) saw the New Deal and Communism as the same thing, and never criticized Nazi Germany until after 1945. In this regard, Wendell Willkie was simply falling in line with the conservative position of his time.
16 days ago
Report
John Wise
Small correction: FDR had 449 electoral votes; Wilkie had 42.
Did the edit.
Bruce
The Conversation
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
The last time an outsider like Trump crashed the GOP? 1940
March 15, 2016 6.05am EDT
The surprise Republican candidate in 1940: Wendell Willkie.
Author
avid Stebenne, Professor of History and Law Faculty, The Ohio State UniversityDisclosure statement
The last time an outsider like Trump crashed the GOP? 1940
Donald Trump’s challenge to the GOP establishment now seems on course to succeed.
As Republicans (and many others) consider what turning the party’s presidential nomination over to a real outsider will likely mean, it’s worth looking back at the last time that happened.
Some will say that it was in 1952, when General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Ohio Senator Robert Taft for the nomination at a tense GOP convention.
Eisenhower’s campaign, however, was largely the creation of New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who had run three times before. In so doing, Dewey had built a durable election machine that he placed at Eisenhower’s disposal.
The contemporary equivalent would be the highly unlikely move of vociferous critic and GOP establishment stalwart Mitt Romney putting his presidential campaign staff to work on Trump’s behalf.
I would argue that to find the last time a genuinely anti-establishment outsider won the GOP nomination one needs to look back even further, to 1940, when Wendell Willkie surprised politicians and pundits alike by doing just that.
So what insights does the Willkie experience offer to today’s politics?
Masterful use of the media
Like Donald Trump, Wendell Willkie was a former Democrat, who reregistered as a Republican only later in life. Like Trump, he came to politics from the corporate world and an office in Manhattan. And also like Trump, Willkie came to national prominence through his skillful use of the national media.
In Willkie’s case, he did that first by writing articles in national magazines attacking President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal for excessive spending and concentrating too much power in the federal government.
He also made his case in a different way, through testifying in Congress.
Wendell Willkie testifying to Congress in May 1939. Library of Congress
Willkie was a utility executive, the president of Commonwealth and Southern, one of the largest electricity producers in the country. He became the public face of the big business’s opposition to the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the New Deal’s single largest projects that would transform a poor agrarian region of the South through the building of hydroelectric dams, flood control and economic development.
As New York Post columnist Cal Tinney wrote, tongue-in-cheek, in 1939:
What are you going to Washington for Mr Willkie? “Oh to see that my contempt for the New Deal remains founded on familiarity.”
Widely covered in the press, Willkie came across as a common-sense critic of the New Deal as something that could and sometimes did go too far.
Next came a triumph in the broadcast entertainment media, in another parallel to Donald Trump’s role on his “Apprentice” TV show.
The broadcast medium in Willkie’s day was, of course, radio, and Willkie turned in a remarkably strong performance on a radio show called “Information, Please," the closest contemporary equivalent to which would probably be “Jeopardy.” Willkie came across there as quick-witted, knowledgeable and graceful under pressure.
Anti-establishment
What prompted such an unlikely candidate to run for the GOP presidential nomination in 1940 was Willkie’s sense that the establishment candidates had staked out the wrong stands on the key issues.
The leading inside contenders that year were the “racket busting” Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and “Mr Republican,” Robert A. Taft, the Ohio senator and son of a previous president.
On foreign policy, both insiders sounded like isolationists. They had expected France to stand fast against German aggression in 1940, as France had in World War I, and they tended to think that the right thing to do was for the U.S. to stay out of Europe’s conflict.
Willkie firmly disagreed.
In terms of domestic policy, both Dewey and Taft struck Willkie as too hostile to the New Deal programs and policies that Willkie did approve of and that were, critically, popular with the public. These most notably included Social Security, the Wagner Act (which protected labor unions), farm price supports and federal aid to the unemployed.
Willkie’s argument was that the basic ideas behind these programs and policies were sound, but could be more honestly and efficiently carried out by Republicans, who would rely on state governments more and Washington less in doing so.
A tense GOP convention
To the amazement and consternation of GOP regulars, the Willkie campaign caught fire in May and June of 1940.
The rapid military collapse of France exposed the shallowness of Dewey’s and Taft’s grasp of national security issues. And their excessively partisan attacks on the New Deal did not – as measured by George Gallup’s polls – have broad appeal.
By the time the GOP convention opened in Philadelphia in late June, about 30 percent of Republicans surveyed said they favored Willkie. That together with the lack of a united front among the establishment candidates opened the door to a thoroughly unexpected Willkie triumph on the sixth ballot.
So angry were establishment Republicans at this turn of events that Willkie was obliged to give only a very short and vague acceptance address, lest he alienate even more the party leaders who had strongly opposed his candidacy.
Seventy-six years on the parallels to today are easy to see.
Whatever one thinks of the stands Donald Trump has taken on the issues, they have resonated strongly with a large enough fraction of the GOP primary and caucus electorate to make him the presumptive nominee. Establishment candidates are not united, and GOP orthodoxy has proved to have too little appeal.
Like Willkie, Trump has run as an insurgent populist, challenging the elitist wing of the GOP that has long dominated the nominating process.
And like Willkie, Trump will find winning enthusiastic support from Republicans who supported establishment candidates very difficult, because they denounced him as an unqualified interloper during the primaries and caucuses.
Neither the Willkie nor the Trump candidacies has destroyed the GOP, but both disrupted it. The consequences were lasting 76 years ago, and I would predict they will be so this time around also.
In Willkie’s case, his nomination helped reorient the GOP away from a strongly anti-New Deal position to one that accommodated the most popular New Deal stands on matters foreign and domestic, such as support for Social Security and aid to Britain during World War II.
Trump appears to be doing something similar, in the sense that his nomination will likely push the GOP to do more to improve life for working- and lower-middle-class Americans, who have seen their quality of life decline in important ways over the past generation.
What is most troubling, however, about the Trump phenomenon thus far is how different he sounds from Willkie on issues of racial discrimination.
Wendell Willkie sharply criticized the segregation of his era. “No man,“ he said, "has the right in America to treat any other man ‘tolerantly’ - for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. Our liberties are the equal rights of every citizen.”
To make that point plain, he became the first major party candidate to campaign in Harlem since it had become a predominantly black neighborhood.
African American Joe Louis, the great boxer, was the warm-up speaker for Willkie’s two appearances there, where he received a friendly welcome.
Even though Willkie ultimately lost Harlem and the election of 1940 to FDR in a landslide (82 electoral votes to 449), Willkie’s campaign helped change the politics of his day, by pushing the GOP toward an accommodation of Roosvelt’s policies.
In Alexandria, Egypt, in 1942 meeting with British Admiral Sir Henry Harwood. Imperial War Museum
FDR even made Willkie a spokesman for America abroad after the election, a signal of the two parties coming closer together as a result of Willkie’s unorthodox bid for the presidency.
Reconciliation can and does follow confrontation. Not a bad lesson to remember as we watch the fireworks of the 2016 election campaign.
It is a topic that is largely ignored, but the so-called “isolationist” stance of Republicans in the 1930s was really a mask covering up the fact that they saw Hitler and fascism as bulwarks against Communism. Henry Luce of TIME-LIFE, for instance, openly praised Nazi Germany (as well as Franco and Mussolini) on these grounds, both in his magazines and in other venues. So did the British press (except for the GUARDIAN) well until 1939. Ayn Rand (who campaigned for Willkie in 1940) saw the New Deal and Communism as the same thing, and never criticized Nazi Germany until after 1945. In this regard, Wendell Willkie was simply falling in line with the conservative position of his time.
16 days ago
Report
John Wise
Small correction: FDR had 449 electoral votes; Wilkie had 42.
Did the edit.
Bruce
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
S.M.A. said:
This is where Trump's style of politics and his strategy fall apart.
So far he has said what HE THINKS his voter base wants to hear, regardless of whether it is accurate, or good policy, or politically savy. But in this case, he stuck his foot deep in it, by making a statement HE THOUGHT would gain him big support from the pro life voters without doing the research beforehand. And instead shot himself in the foot. On of the key points in the abortion debate for both sides is that regardless of your views, pro-life or pro-choice, women how get an abortion should not be criminally charged for making that choice. The pro-life abortion providers are fair game and should be charged and treated as a criminal, but the woman should be treated as victims.
Whether you believe his stance on abortion is a true conversion (video doesn't lie, he was strongly pro-choice at one time) or one of political convenience, this gaffe shows his lack of full consideration on the pro-life point of view and reinforces his inarticulate manner.
This could well be the thing that everyone was waiting for. Will he survive? Probably. Will he get the votes he needs going into the convention? Probably not. Will he get the nomination? It's looking less likely than it did two days ago. If he does, will he win the general. Definitely not. They are no longer talking about a gender gap, it is now a gender canyon.
From the same interview the media is trying to take his statements (or lack of position) on the nuclear option in regards to both ISIS and Europe and make him appear to be a trigger happy reactionary who's push the button for the slightest provocation. I don't think this is so much a problem of poor foreign policy preparation, as it another example of poor ability to articulate his stance on the nuclear option. The media is playing it up, and trying to make something out of nothing. No rational person is going to take any option off the table. But there are ways of saying it or deflecting the question without actually saying it. We all know you aren't going to use the holiest of holies of the weapons spectrum on anything like ISIS. You use it as a deterrent against aggression by another nuclear power. Unless you have a certain religious belief system that believes in the end of days then all bets are off (which is why Ted Cruz is a scary option).
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
I think this was his "Tom Mulcair" blunder, moment.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
cupper said:
I was following along pretty good until your tag line. An honest question: do you really believe Cruz would push a nuke button because he professes to have faith in a higher power? This points to a strong bias against anyone who has a belief in a higher power. One would hope that at least 50% of the voters have a belief in a higher power.
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
I don't understand why it's necessary or desirable to the majority of voters to believe in a higher power? Does holding that belief give you a leg up in making intelligent decisions? I don't think so, many of our greatest minds did not hold such a belief.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
jollyjacktar said:
I don't think it is necessary for anyone to believe in a higher power either to be viable leader or electable candidate. More desirable? who knows? I am more concerned about a candidates' morals and ethics. I personally would never want a preacher or pope or a rabbi or a mullah to be a political leader. Too much baggage to make the necessary hard decisions.
- Reaction score
- 2,479
- Points
- 1,190
Jed said:
I would personally hope that at least 90% of votes didn't have a belief in a higher power. Alas, I have lofty goals...
That being said, I don't agree with cupper's inference that Cruz would be likely to use nukes, but I appreciate his back-handedness toward any of either of the pair.
- Reaction score
- 64
- Points
- 530
If you tune in Hannity tonight he and Newt Gingrich will be discussing Trump's campaign.I caught the discussion on the radio today and found it interesting.It was a bit similar to the discussion here.As for religion I want to point out that religious freedom was one of the foundations of the US.You have a leaf on your money and we have God.
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
Jed said:
You did not answer my question as to why you feel over 50% of the voters should believe in a higher power. As for those in power who are enraptured shall we say, there are plenty of examples of their being unnecessarily hard, just as there are plenty of Atheists too. I don't know if one side of the coin or the other are any better at decision making, but folks like Cruze make me very uneasy.
- Reaction score
- 2,086
- Points
- 1,160
tomahawk6 said:If you tune in Hannity tonight he and Newt Gingrich will be discussing Trump's campaign.I caught the discussion on the radio today and found it interesting.It was a bit similar to the discussion here.As for religion I want to point out that religious freedom was one of the foundations of the US.You have a leaf on your money and we have God.
Well, we have the Queen on our money, who apparently has the blessing of God and s/he does seem to keep her victorious.
- Reaction score
- 1,405
- Points
- 1,160
Agree with cupper's post.
Sen Cruz is scary. I would not be surprised that if he was elected he will do what Pres Obama does now, Presidential Decrees, except they will be what he believes are conservative beliefs, must have/do.
He has already proven in the Senate that he will do what Cruz thinks is the conservative way. Only Cruz knows what is best for conservative America. He is an opportunist.
Cruz and Trump are handing America over to the Dems.
Sen Cruz is scary. I would not be surprised that if he was elected he will do what Pres Obama does now, Presidential Decrees, except they will be what he believes are conservative beliefs, must have/do.
He has already proven in the Senate that he will do what Cruz thinks is the conservative way. Only Cruz knows what is best for conservative America. He is an opportunist.
Cruz and Trump are handing America over to the Dems.
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
tomahawk6 said:As for religion I want to point out that religious freedom was one of the foundations of the US.You have a leaf on your money and we have God.
Yet you have a huge debate over separation of church and state, which is enshrined in your Constitution, and we leave it unsaid and have no issues. [
whiskey601 said:
Good point, and something that would go over well down here. There is an undeniable obsession with the Royal Family here in the US. They fought a war to get rid of the monarchy, but you'd think they would be willing to take them back in a heartbeat form the love they show the Royals. ;D
Perhaps I took my backhanded insult of Ted Cruz a little far. I knew I should have put in the smilie. My sincere apologies.
- Reaction score
- 81
- Points
- 330
Well, it ain't Bill Clinton >cupper said:Sure, and the entire general election will be about who has the hotter wife.
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