Interesting Political Trivia

[TheAnvil 0]

This is from an article my buddy sent me. Quite interesting and ironic in some cases:

DID YOU KNOW?

George W. Bush wasn't the first, but the third Republican presidential candidate to win the White House while losing the popular vote, the other two being Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

Just one intriguing fact from "The Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans," by Lewis L. Gould, published simultaneously by Random House with "Party of the People: A History of the Democrats," by Baltimore Sun political columnist Jules Witcover.

Other little-known tidbits about the GOP:

- Republicans enacted the first income tax, during the Civil War, and defended it by saying that "the rich should be taxed more than the poor."

- Herbert Hoover and his wife were the last president and first lady to dress formally for dinner every night in the White House.

- Because of his record on the environment and social welfare spending, Richard Nixon has been called "the last liberal president."

- Charles Evans Hughes, the party's nominee in 1916, was the last presidential contender to wear a beard.

- Maine's Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to make a serious try for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964.

As for the Democratic Party, the oldest existing political party in the world, first called the "Republican Party" by Thomas Jefferson and later the "Democratic-Republican Party" before assuming its present name:

- Had an elector from Maryland not risen from his sick bed and walked through deep snow to the U.S. Capitol to vote for Jefferson in 1801, Aaron Burr, later charged with treason, would have become president.

- Martin Van Buren of New York, later elected president, was the first Democratic presidential campaign manager, organizing Andrew Jackson's successful bid in 1828.

- Sex raised its head early in Democratic politics when Andrew Jackson's supporters accused the younger John Quincy Adams of having procured a young girl for the Russian czar when Adams was minister to Moscow. Jackson's foes countered with allegations that Jackson and his wife were not legally married and that his mother had been "a common prostitute."

- In the 2000 election, Al Gore won the largest vote ever achieved by a Democratic presidential nominee. His popular vote margin of 539,947 was the largest ever posted by a popular-vote winner denied the presidency in the Electoral College.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[pop 0]

OOhh Trivia. Do I win tequila?

7 ounce wonders, music and dogs that are not into beer

[kai2k1 0]

Cabo wabo or Aguila??

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan

[pop 0]

Patron, but I ma laying off that shit for at least a week and a half

7 ounce wonders, music and dogs that are not into beer

[billvon 3,120]

Some other trivia:

The republican party of the early 1800's was actually the republican-democratic party; its opposition was the Whig party. Back then it was the party of liberalism, equal rights for all men and reduction of defense spending.

In the 1850's the whig party self-destructed, and in 1854 the modern republican party was born. The other party shortened its name to the democrats. The first major issue of the republican party was the prevention of the spread of slavery.

During the civil war, Lincoln (a republican) made the unpopular decision to abolish slavery. Note that contrary to popular belief, this happened _after_ the war started; the civil war was not started over the issue of slavery, nor was that the reason the South rebelled.

After the war, no southerner would be caught dead voting republican (for obvious reasons.) Thus the republicans became the party of equality, representing the industrialized north; the democrats became the party of the still-segregated and still-hurting agrarians of the south. The republicans also picked up the GOP moniker, which was odd considering they were quite new as political parties went.

Over the course of the next 60 years ago, their anti-immigrant policies gradually changed them from the party of equality to the party of exclusion. They favored strong tariffs and strong anti-immigration laws, but small government after that.

Then the depression hit, and people looked for a governmental solution to the problem. The democratic party provided that with Roosevelt and the New Deal.

After WWII, the country was enjoying a new wave of prosperity, and put republicans back in power. They did pretty well until Joe McCarthy started polarizing people with his communist witch hunts. This helped get Kennedy into office.

Which puts us pretty close to today. (Sorry - didn't mean to go off there.)