Will Rogers Quotes

The "Virginia Dynasty": Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. George Washington, a Virginian, was followed by John Adams of Massachusetts, and is apart from the Virginia Dynasty.

Actually, it was the Tea Party members of the Republican Party whose unprecedented willingness to risk the full faith and credit of the United States when the majority of the Republican legislators and almost all the Democrats were not, who held the required Debt Ceiling Increase hostage to getting their legislative way. But in this particular debate and legislation the Democrats gained nothing except that the anger of the American People was much greater against the Republicans than the Democrats, many of whose usual supporters thought that the Democrats had been totally intimidated by the Tea Party.

This appears to be the first use of the term 'grass roots' in the context of political activity. See James A. Reed for a slightly earlier use of the term in another context.

Explaining why he led an unsuccessful fight to restrict abortions in Florida pleasing some of his hard core constituency but alienating many other voters:

Republican Party primary elections had become very contentious. The radical right and the Tea Party, though a minority of the party, had the power to destroy almost any Republican candidate’s chances. So those Republican political candidates were forced to pander to the extreme right and then try and backtrack to the center for the general election. As a result, few people believed the statements of Republican office seekers as no one knew what they really believed including members of their own party, Bush, no longer running for any political position, found himself with much more credibility and influence in the party than those who were running for office. The problem of appealing to party extremes was not unique to the Republicans at that time, but the degree and extent was unprecedented accounting for the distrust.

Mrs. Roosevelt, on her own, would criticize the ethics of certain campaign techniques and would criticize them. However she doesn’t say publicly which party she was chastising—her Democrats or the Republicans. And she starts by honestly stating that both parties do this and she tells the readers that it is the campaign headquarters who go to these extremes. Her technique was very effective in that the political operatives who released the sleazy material knew who they were, and realized that if they kept doing it, people would find out that they were the villains. Very often they just stopped, and that was what Mrs. Roosevelt wanted. She wrote this two months before the Presidential elections without every checking with the campaign staff and leaders who read it in the newspapers every day like everyone else. Needless to say that they were not happy, but the President was fine with it and she has had more independence of action and writing than any First Lady in history. She even disagreed with the President slightly sometimes, but usually she was very supportive of FDR and the New Deal. It is hard for us years after to realize that she had a newspaper column published every day in papers throughout the country, she had a regular radio show. Her views reached more Americans every day than the President’s and the campaign staff’s. Her husband was elected to 4 terms—more than any other American President, and yet until Hillary Clinton, no first lady every had gotten overtly involved with public campaigning and political communications, and Mrs. Clinton was nowhere near as active or independent as Mrs. Roosevelt.

While all the traditional Democratic interest groups supported Mondale, the average voters were not so enthusiastic. The Democrats lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan. The interest groups in the base of each party can help increase the turnout for a candidate or sit on their hands and suppress it. But if the individual voters are not generally enthused for a candidate, the interest groups cannot deliver a win in a presidential election.