11.03.2005

Today in History - 2008 Preview Edition

Lets have a similar story written in 2008 for the Democrats. There are a bunch of lessons here as well:

Roosevelt Sweeps The Nation; His Electoral Vote Exceeds 500

Accepting the President as the issue, nearly eight million more voters than ever before had gone to the polls in the United States--about 45,000,000 persons--yesterday gave to Franklin Delano Roosevelt the most overwhelming testimonial of approval ever received by a national candidate in the history of the nation.

--the President was the choice of a vast preponderance of the voters in all parts of the country, and with him were re-elected as Vice President John N. Garner of Texas and an almost untouched Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. The Democratic national ticket will have a minimum of 519 electoral votes and a possible popular majority of ten millions.

The Republican candidates for President and Vice President, Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas and Colonel Frank Knox of Illinois, are the worst-beaten aspirants for these offices in the political annals of the United States

And to assure his reputation as the greatest vote-getter in the annals of the United States he--a Democrat--had overwhelmingly swept Pennsylvania, unfailingly Republican for generations in national elections.

Mr. Landon and the Republican national chairman, John D. M. Hamilton, announced their intentions of letting the night pass before agreeing to the fact of the stupendous party defeat.

All the important newspapers supporting the Republican ticket (about 90 per cent of the metropolitan and country press) had given up many hours before.

We can win by stressing the good we can do through government:

two Republican Senators who voted against the Social Security Act, on which the party managers made a last-minute attack--Hastings of Delaware and Metcalf of Rhode Island--were also rejected by the voters in their States.

Dissension in the Republican party over Chairman Hamilton's conduct of the campaign was fore-shadowed early last night when Representative Hamilton Fish of New York criticized the attack on the Social Security Act, for which a large Republican majority in Congress, including the Senate and House leaders, had voted.

Plus, it looks like the Republicans valued lies and half truth's just as much then:

Every sign, as the returns piled up, was that Republican campaign strategy had come to a disastrous finish. A year ago the prevailing idea among Republican leaders was to make a frontal assault on the New Deal

(Republicans put out) an attack in the industrial centers on the Social Security Act in an effort to win back unorganized labor. The payroll contribution of employees was stressed without mention of the employers' levy

Read it all at:

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1103.html#article

Other interesting events:

Bad day for William Jennings Bryan
1896
Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency.
1908
Republican William Howard Taft was elected president, outpolling William Jennings Bryan.


Foreshadowing 2005?
1986
A Lebanese magazine broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran, a revelation that escalated into the Iran-Contra affair.


YAY!
1992
Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush.


Run for office, you never know what might happen...
1998
Former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota.


http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20051103.html

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