Newt would devastate Barack Obama if they are ever in a forum where knowledge of history is a factor. Barack Obama missed learning all that American History we learned as children – to the extent he learned things in Hawaii, undoubtedly he was taught by Hawaiin teachers who resent being part of the United States.
I didn’t watch it, but I’ve heard a few clips of Newt getting standing ovations in South Carolina over the weekend. He particularly stuck it to Ron Paul and his isolation by bringing up Andrew Jackson and how having been disfigured by a British Soldier at the age of 13, he had no problem fighting against the British in the war of 1812. I suggested that he would bring up a historical Southern person to play on the regional sentiments of people in the South against those Yankees like Romney.
That having been said, Newt got away with a whopper, knowing that nobody in the room knows history – especially Ron Paul and people that work in TV.
New Orleans became part of the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. During the War of 1812, the British seized New Orleans with the hope of cutting off river traffic in the Mississippi River and disrupting commerce and preventing the United States from using the river to move troops and supplies. Andrew Jackson led the troops that just devastated the British and regained control of the city (which happened actually after the war was officially over, but it took a long time for the order that the war was over to get from Washington DC to New Orleans).
Ron Paul would have had no problem with the US Military fighting the British at New Orleans – that’s exactly the kind of thing Paul sees as the right role – the British had invaded US sovereign territory and it was the Federal Government’s obligation to expel the invaders.
If I can go so far as to put ideas into Ron Paul’s mouth, Ron Paul would have pointed out that the reason the United States got into the War of 1812 to begin with was the United States invading Canada (then called British North America) and getting involved in taking sides (again) in the wars between England and France.
If you were to ask “Which president would Ron Paul be most like?”, Andrew Jackson is the obvious choice. Andrew Jackson was a real outsider. he was a “rube” from Tennessee who didn’t know how much he didn’t know. One of his priorities was to dissolve the Second Bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve bank of its time.
Jackson was a Democrat in the literal sense – he was an egalitarian who saw Government as a tool of rich people to control the country and use its power to engorge their own profit. He wanted government to serve the common people, not the big industrialists and bankers of the NorthEast.
Jacksonian Democracy would ultimately break apart the Democratic-Republican party (the Anti-Federalists) into the Democratic Party and the Whig Party (which would evolve into the Republican party), aligning the people of the South against the powerful economic interests of the NorthEast bankers and factory owners – laying the foundation for the Civil War. The fight over tariffs under Jackson began to build up the anti Federal sentiment.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/23f.asp
http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Washington-Johnson/Andrew-Jackson-Nullification.html
Being so anti-establishment, Jackson quickly found that both parties did not want to follow his lead, making him ineffective as President, as surely Ron Paul would face if he is elected.
Much of what people dwell on about Jackson is his dislike of Native Americans and pushing them out to Oklahoma and fighting to “liberate” Florida from Spain. In today’s PC world where Native Americans are revered as special spiritual people who are more in touch with God than other peoples, the actual history gets overlooked. Jackson’s opinions about the Native Americans was based on his experiences with them – in his youth growing up in Tennessee and South Carolina, and the English and Spain had been cultivating the support of the Indian tribes to rebel against the United States and destabilize the country while England was trying to destroy the United States.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_39/b3750017.htm
Even though a number of tribes had fought with the United States in the War of 1812, ultimately he wanted them all moved out to Oklahoma against their will.
[And yes, the world could survive without Wikipedia]
>”If you were to ask “Which president would Ron Paul be most like?”, Andrew Jackson is the obvious choice. Andrew Jackson was a real outsider. he was a “rube” from Tennessee who didn’t know how much he didn’t know. One of his priorities was to dissolve the Second Bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve bank of its time.”
Classic ! You don’t hear the word “rube” used much anymore. Jackson sure as hell didn’t like Indians either !
Art you are right, all Newt the Fruit would have to do, is play the “Yankee card” in the Palmetto state! LOL
send Karl Rove a suggestion for Newt, or is colonel Karl under the influence of the Romney Kool-aid? Ann Coulter and poor ol Dennis Prager sure is.
parrott
Newt obviously can’t say anything that would look like supporting the Confederacy, so Andrew Jackson is an interesting choice (not to be confused with Stonewall Jackson). If he doesn’t do well in South Carolina, he’s probably done – so he is willing to alienate Yankees (who are not likely to vote for Santorum). People whose only contact with the South is while driving to Florida to their winter house have no clue about the extent of resentment toward the NorthEast 150 years later.
South Carolina is about 1/3 black – watching to see if large numbers show up to vote Republican will give an indication of the Democratic party strategy.
One of the odder memories of my teenage years was being taken to Columbia SC to a meeting of blind people. The group met with William Jennings Bryan Dorn, who served in the US House from 1947-1975. He was named after William Jennings Bryant. Bryant was the lawyer at the Scopes trial trying to put Mr Scopes in jail for teaching Evolution. He also was the Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and a populist leader of his era.
Going to South Carolina was turning the clock back 50 years. While I went to a DEsegregated high school in North Carolina and the students were treated equally (but curiously the black students self-segregated in the cafeteria) – in South Carolina there was the distinct feeling that slavery had never ended and if you’re black, you need to “know your place” and not make eye contact with a white person. That’s the environment the Republicans are stepping in to.
South Carolina was “flipped” by Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy – pitting Conservative southerners against the George McGovern portion of the Democratic party, which was becoming dominated by black Americans, which white Southerners viewed as a threat to their power.
The Republican party today is an attempt to splice together two main factions – the moderate Rockefeller / Teddy Roosevelt faction that used to be the whole party – the Yankees who fought the civil war and imposed Reconstruction on the South – and the former Southern Democrats – staunchly Conservative and religious – motivated more by their fear of losing control to the blacks and the lesbians, etc…
The Northeast Republicans no longer have any significant influence in New England. A lot of that is shifting Demographics as the WW II generation is dying, and some of it is them moving South to escape high taxes in retirement.
Chaos in The republican primary. LOL Newt throws zinger, wins. Biggest group of voters are ABR. (anyone But Romney)
Here’s a message: establishment RINO’s suck.
That’s why you do not see much change when a Democrat is in or when a Republican is in the White House.
Bad thing is the problems of this country are probably way beyond a political solution.
parrott
Reagan was the one who got past the “system”, which is why the Republican establishment never warmed up to him and saddled him with Bush as VP.
What you have is “Regression to the mean” in politics. The bigger the pool of candidates, the more voters will gravitate to the one in the middle.
Choose a Goldwater, you get Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society in reaction to the extremism.
Just a guestimate that around 40 million women alive today have had at least one abortion since Roe v Wade – and they have families and men involved in the decision. You are never going to get those people to say “Yes, I murdered my child”. You may have the moral high ground, but you don’t get anything by choosing to charge that windmill. Get control of the decision making power first, and then push for what you want.
The problem with Roe v Wade is it read things into the Constitution that aren’t there – the right way to Federalize abortion law (if that’s REALLY what you want) is to modify the Constitution to give that power to the Federal Government. But that takes a larger majority than you will ever get to agree, so in the eyes of the Founding Fathers you move on to something else untli you have that 3/4ths majority agreeing with you.