Political Risk Quotes
Not the current Daily News. He was very critical of the NY State Legislature changing the laws affecting wills and inheritance in order to benefit some special interest when there was a profound effect on millions of other people that had not been considered by the legislature, the majority of which had never even read the legislation, but were following party leader’s instructions or that of powerful committee chairmen.
In this case, the Speaker of the House attacked the President of his own party for being willing to conduct disarmament discussions with the Russians. He implied that the outcome could be the appeasement of the Russians just as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938 in Munich, giving the German Fuhrer the “green light” to take over Europe. The Conservative Caucus went even further and explicitly called it “appeasement”. Reagan however always talked about military strength and power, and provided plenty of money for the military and weapons a few of which were boondoggles but he was a very cautious American president in authorizing military force. And he not only was willing to discuss arms control and reductions and enter into treaties for disarmament, much to the distress of the hawks of his own party. Few American Presidents have so well balanced the use of diplomacy with the threat of military force as well as Reagan.
George W. Bush had become very unpopular and many politicians were trying to distance themselves from him, his policies, and the poor implementation of those policies. Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, had just lost his own primary election and was attacked because he advocated support of the American president in war and foreign policy.
The Presidential election of 1800 produced a crisis even greater than that of 2000. There was an Electoral College tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr—both of the same party, Democratic Republicans. The Federalist Party led by President John Adams had been totally rejected by the voters and Adams was in third place. However, the Federalists saw an opportunity of maintaining the Presidency anyway. The Constitution threw the election into the House of Representatives with each State delegation having a single vote. In the House, the Federalists had parity with Jefferson’s party which resulted in 35 tie votes. Finally, Congressman Bayard, the sole Congressman from Delaware, withheld his vote on the 36th ballot, thereby electing Thomas Jefferson of the opposition party. His reason was:
There was some political pressure in the North, to offer terms to the South where they could cease the rebellion and return to the Union and return to the status quo ante—before the rebellion.
