President James K. Polk

James K. Polk.

James K. Polk was the 11th President of the United States and a Democrat from Tennessee. He served as President from March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1849. He won the election of 1844 with 170 electoral votes to Henry Clay’s 105.

Polk is probably best remembered for the Mexican-American War, but he did much more in office than that. After Thomas Jefferson, Polk expanded the United States more than any other President, claiming California and New Mexico from Mexico, and claiming the Oregon Territory (Washington and Oregon) from England. He was one of the biggest supporters of Manifest Destiny and believed that the United States should expand westward.

Many experts have called James K. Polk the greatest one term President in history. He is a different choice when you look at the 10 and 9 spots on my list, Nixon helped start talks with China and the USSR and Truman defeated the Japanese and helped create the United Nations. But what Polk did was set a precedent for westward expansion in the United States, and manifest destiny is a large part of how this country was expanded to where it is today.

President Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States and served from April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953. He was FDR’s Vice President, and ascended to the Presidency when FDR died in 1945. He was a Democrat from Missouri, and in his only run on the ballot he received a a 303-189 electoral college win over Republican Thomas Dewey, with the famed Strom Thurmond receiving 39 electoral votes as well.

Truman is revered in some circles and despised in many others. His choice to use the atomic bomb against Japan has drawn much criticism in the years since then, but there are still plenty of those who support the decision of President Truman to use the bombs. It is believed that Japan knew they couldn’t beat the US in a ground war, so their goal was to kill as many US troops as possible before they had to surrender, and it was Truman’s goal to end the war quickly, so on August 6, 1945 and then again on August 9 he ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.

The United Nations with the help of Truman, with the goal of preventing future world wars. 22 Nazi leaders were tried and 19 convicted in the Nuremberg trials during his Presidency.

Truman was the creator of the Truman Doctrine which called for American support of people whose freedoms are being threatened elsewhere. He joined Great Britain to help airlift 2 tons of supplies into Berlin, fighting a Soviet blockade to do so. He also agreed to help rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan, sending $13 Billion in aid.

President Truman was one of the first world leaders to recognize the state of Israel when it was created in 1948.

Obviously there are those that are always going to be opposed to Truman because of his willingness to use such a great amount of force in Japan, but you have to look at all of the good he did, and this is why he is #9 on my list.

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President Richard M. Nixon

I debated in my head back and forth on this one, and it was a tossup between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. In the end, I came down on the side of Nixon. Richard M. Nixon, in my mind is the #10 greatest President of all time.

Those who are not really into politics might question this, and those who think I’m some left wing nutjob might be shocked by this, but you have to look at Nixon without the Watergate blinders on. Granted, it was incredibly embarrassing and wrong, but he did so much good in his time in office that you have to set that aside temporarily.

Richard Nixon was the was the 37th President of the United States, and served from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974. He remains the only President to reign the office, but despite all of that, he still lands at number 10 on my list. He was a Republican from California, which no doubt led to his electoral college landslide in 1968. While only receiving about a half a million more votes than Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, Nixon won the election with an electoral college count of 301-191. Without California and it’s 40 electoral votes in that election, Nixon may have never been President.

Nixon had many great accomplishments in office, including ending the draft, helping end segregation in the South, fighting against price gouging in the oil industry, the institution of Equal Opportunity Employment and Title IX, and he is the only President between 1961 and 1998 to have a balanced national budget. All of these things alone lock Nixon in as one of the greatest Presidents of all time, but he had a few other defining moments.

Nixon was desperate to end the Cold War and ensure world stability. In 1972 he visited Beijing and Moscow and worked with Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev to produce a treaty to limit nuclear weapon development and stockpiling. In 1973 he reached an accord with North Vietnam to end American activity in the region, and in 1974 his administration helped end hostility between Israel, and their opponents Egypt and Syria.

On his 1972 trip to Beijing, Nixon became the first American President to meet with Chairman Mao Tse-tung, a meeting that helped open a dialogue with the Chinese – possibly one of the biggest political gambles in American political history.

In 1972 Nixon was re-elected in an embarrassment for challenger George McGovern. Nixon won the electoral college 520-17, carrying 49 states. The only two areas Nixon lost were Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and topped McGovern by some 18 million votes in the popular vote.

These are some of the accomplishments of President Richard Nixon, and if he had not resigned his office in shame, he might have gone down as one of the top 5 Presidents in the history of the United States.

Richard Herman

It appears that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is finally poised to dig itself out of the mud that is the admissions scandal. All of the influential people including the Board of Trustees and the President of all three campuses had resigned already, leaving only the chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus – the person who many thought was really involved in the admissions scandal. This morning Chancellor Richard Herman resigned, effective October 26. Herman had a controversial tenure as Chancellor at UIUC, drawing much praise and probably even more criticism with his decision to retire the much maligned Illinois mascot, Chief Illiniwek, almost three years ago. After the Chief Illiniwek decision, Herman received a flurry of boos from UIUC students whenever he was shown on the big screen at sporting events.

The latest controversy involved a shady admissions practice, giving special consideration to high school students who didn’t meet the requirements for admission to the selective University of Illinois, but who had politicians or large University donors speak to the school on their behalf.

Many current students were outraged at this revelation, believing that their degree would lose its value upon graduation, because various graduate schools or prospective employers might unfairly tie their degree to the scandal. There had been many calls for Herman to step down or be fired, by students and outsiders, and once President B. Joseph White resigned last month, many thought Herman was going to be very close behind him.

This resignation should help bring the University back around and moving in the right direction to escape the scandal and regain its reputation as one of the finest and more selective of the state schools in this country.

President Obama

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last week, an announcement that enraged the right wing of this country. It took me a few days to blog about this, because I was trying to think of what to say. At about 7:25 in the morning I received a phone call from my mom telling me that the President had won the prize. I was shocked, and excited – and then I went back to bed. When I woke up I started reading all of the negative feedback from all over the country, and it took me a while to organize my thoughts. Four times in the history of our country has a President won the Nobel Peace Prize. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and now Barack Obama. This is a proud moment for the United States. In a time where the world perceives us in such a negative fashion, this is a proud moment – and a loud statement.

Those who throw mud at the President and say he didn’t deserve it, will not stop until they run out of breath. I guess I waited this long to write about it in hopes that they’d be out of breath, and they would finally sit down and listen. Be proud that your President won this prestigious award. It sends a message that the people in charge of this believe that President Obama, must, can, and will do what is necessary to ensure peace in the world. Don’t be upset about this, embrace it. Those in the Republican party who hate the President, the people that railed against him in the campaign often used the word “patriot” to describe themselves, and the reasons that they were opposed to this senator winning the Presidency of the United States.

Where is your patriotism now? Stand up and be proud. It’s easier to throw insults and yell about what’s wrong, and what he’s doing wrong, but stand up and applaud your President, and your country. If President Bush had won the award, I would have been just as proud, the President of my country was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Do I think that they should’ve waited maybe a year or two to award him, until after something had been done that is historically more deserving of the award? Sure I do, but they wanted to send a message. They wanted to put the burden, so to speak, on President Obama to ensure that he lives up to his campaign promises and helps the world become a better place for all. In a time of peril around the globe, they chose the President of the United States, Barack Obama, to call on and say “Congratulations, we have faith in you, now get to work”. These people looked to the United States to help solve the issues plaguing the world, and no one else. Not since the times of Wilson and FDR has the world community looked to the US to help solve problems abroad.

This is a proud moment for America and to be an American. Walk with your head held high, because you can say, “My President was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” There is a bright future on the horizon, and the days of world condemnation of Americas actions are over, it’s our time to lead. So let’s all come together – as Americans and stand tall.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME)

Senator Olympia Snowe, (R-ME) was the only Republican to jump on board with the new Healthcare plan being discussed in the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Snowe was the only Republican “yes” vote when the Finance Committee voted on the 10 year, $829 Billon healthcare program. This isn’t the first time that Senator Snowe has broken ranks and voted with the Democrats either, she was one of just three Republicans to vote for the Presidents $787 Billion stimulus package earlier this year. When asked about the healthcare vote she said, “When history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.”

The Senator also made sure to point out that just because she voted for it in committee does not mean that she will vote for the final bill on the floor. She hopes that many amendments will be proposed to the bill once it hits the floor, “Hopefully, that would improve the legislation, I certainly will be working with my colleagues … to do whatever we can do to improve the legislation and modify it so that we can get the broad support that it truly deserves to address this issue at this moment in time.”

The pure fact that the Senator broke ranks with her party, and voted for this bill in committee gives hope to the idea of a bi-partisan healthcare bill clearing the Senate sometime in the near future. She voted to get it out of committee and onto the Senate floor and where it goes from there is still up in the air. The Democratic Senate surely won’t pass a bill riddled with right wing amendments that protect the insurance lobby or limit the scope of the bill, but hopefully these 100 people can all get together to put the finishing touches on a bill that would have an instant impact on the welfare of our country.

David Hoffman

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a virtual no-name candidate who was about to enter the Democratic field for the US Senate seat. In a poll commissioned by the Hoffman for Illinois campaign, Democratic Senate Candidate David Hoffman received some very promising news. Hoffman hired respected Democratic pollster, Geoffrey Garin to put a poll into the field to take the temperature of likely Democratic primary voters. The poll comes as some good news to the campaign, as an e-mail sent out to those on Hoffman’s e-mail list stated today. According to the e-mail sent out by Hoffman campaign manager, Michael Powell, “In short, the poll shows that David Hoffman is the strongest candidate to beat back the Republican effort to swing President Obama’s former Senate seat.”I decided to look at the poll results myself to determine the real impact of this poll. The obvious thing to look at first was the results of the poll, including those just leaning one way or another. The results looked like this, Alexi Giannoulias 26%, Cheryle Robinson Jackson 12%, David Hoffman 7%, Undecided 55%. At first glance, one would think that 7% is pretty weak, especially compared to Giannoulias’s 26%, but this is misleading.

For starters, Giannoulias has an extraordinary advantage in fundraising, political clout, and name recognition, and yet he is only managing 26%

Alexi Giannoulias

amongst likely voters, a mixture of those who know about the candidates and those who don’t. Jackson and Hoffman just got in the race like two minutes ago in comparison to Giannoulias who was long considered the presumptive Democratic nominee for the seat.

According to the polling breakdown, “Only 19% of Giannoulias’s supporters say their minds are made up to vote for him, while the balance say that there is a good chance they could change their minds as they hear more about the candidates. In other words, only 5% of all likely primary voters begin this race with a hard commitment to support Alexi Giannoulias, notwithstanding the fact that he is by far the best-known candidate in the field.“

These initial results are staggering, when you consider that Giannoulias wasn’t even receiving a formidable challenge until a few weeks ago. In addition to this, the poll goes on to say, “Of the three candidates, David Hoffman’s background and record appeals most to Democratic primary voters. While Democratic primary voters respond favorably to Alexi Giannoulias when they hear his positive profile, they find David Hoffman even more likable. Consequently, in an informed trial heat based only on positive information about the three candidates, David Hoffman moves into the lead, ahead of Alexi Giannoulias.”

According to the poll after the positives of all three candidates are heard, Hoffman takes a 9 point lead, with 26% still undecided.

Cheryle Jackson

The final portion of the poll includes possible Republican attacks on the three candidates and it shows a staggering difference from the beginning of the poll. One of the biggest knocks against Giannoulias is his ties to Tony Rezko. Here is the final result from the poll, “Giannoulias stands out, because his supporters abandon him after hearing criticisms of him. At the end of the survey, fewer than half of the voters who started supporting Giannoulias stick with him in the final trial heat, and subsequently he falls to third place. While Giannoulias’s support drops, David Hoffman’s continues to rise, and he is the clear leader in the final trial heat, with more than double the support of either of the others.”

The final trial numbers from this poll looked like this: David Hoffman 43%, Cheryle Robinson Jackson 18%, and Alexi Giannoulias 16%, with 23% still undecided.

The obvious thing to keep in mind is that this is one poll, one commissioned by the Hoffman campaign no less, but if these results are any resemblance of how things are going to go once the public is informed about the candidates, it shouldn’t be long before money and support start pouring in for this newcomer to the Illinois political scene.

Check out the results for yourself.

http://libertycontrol.net/uploads/hoffman/HoffmanPollResults.pdf

]]> http://anythingpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/hoffman-poll-shows-senate-race-tightening/feed/ 0 JR David Hoffman Alexi Giannoulias Cheryle Jackson http://anythingpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/healthcare-bill-set-for-committee-vote-on-tuesday/ http://anythingpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/healthcare-bill-set-for-committee-vote-on-tuesday/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:18:11 +0000 JR Patton http://anythingpolitics.wordpress.com/?p=89 ]]> The Senate Finance Committee will vote on a sweeping healthcare reform bill next Tuesday, according to Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Congressional Budget Office – a non-partisan entity – estimated that the bill will cost $829 Billion over the next ten years, decreasing our deficit by more than $80 Billion. This committee is the last of five panels in the Senate to vote on healthcare reform. This brings us one step closer to sweeping reform in healthcare coverage for those Americans that do not have it, or those who are paying far too much. Healthcare reform is something that needs to be done quickly. It was a key piece of President Obama’s campaign last fall, and there isn’t much time left before the midterm elections, and every member of the House is going to be gearing up for tough re-election campaigns very soon.

On the other side of the building, the House is trying to merge the three versions of the healthcare bill that came out of three different House committees.