Water Cooler

Smoke filled rooms.

71.126.193.179

In Reply to: RE: What great leaders emerged in the 20th C prior to the dominance of primaries? posted by plantsman on May 01, 2008 at 16:45:44

Actually, what I would really prefer is a parliamentary system with proportional representation, but party policy consistency is the short term goal. Right now if you get enough money from interest groups you can win a congressional seat whether or not your policies correspond to what we might expect of a political party. They have no way to stop this, as former Senator Phil Graham demonstrated long ago.

I guess I would include LBJ for the Civil Rights Acts, Truman for post WWII policies, and even Ike for controlling the military industrial complex during his time. I think we exaggerate the importance of the presidency in our government, but I must say that W has greatly weakened my argument that who wins the presidency does not matter because they don't know why they won. I guess he knows why he won (a majority of the SC being Republican) and thus ignored the public, confident that Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere would distort public preferences by not counting or excluding Democratic votes. I think W is an anomaly among American presidents, he lead but in the manner that he ran the baseball team, ignoring that what he was doing harmed rather then helped. His legacy will be that "he lead us to the bottom of the barrel."

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup:

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.