Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Interesting thing about the 1960 election. As it turns out, Kennedy was probably more conservative than Nixon. Someone posted about democrats who were fiscal conservatives, social liberals. JFK probably belongs on that list.

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Because...public school educations.

That's not a dig. I'm serious. People don't know because it doesn't fit the narrative.

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Add in Price Controls and his Stalinistic/progressive approach to governance, and he's almost like a more competent Obama.

It's crazy how far our country has went to the right. My God Nixon would be a centrist Dem.

a War Hawk Blue Dog.

Don't forget Barry Goldwater. I think most people here would vote for him in a heartbeat in 2016, even if he was still alive at 107 years old (he was born in the Arizona Territory).

(10-14-2014 05:24 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  It's crazy how far our country has went to the right. My God Nixon would be a centrist Dem.

He was then, pretty much. JFK was actually the war hawk blure dog, and in retrospect I really think JFK was more conservative than Nixon.

(10-14-2014 05:16 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Add in Price Controls and his Stalinistic/progressive approach to governance, and he's almost like a more competent Obama.

Yep

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved?

He had Zero charisma, and wasn't anyone's idea of handsome. But more than that, he was painfully shy, almost introverted. As president, he went to great lengths in order to avoid any face-to-face contact with people unless he or his inner-staff deemed it absolutely crucial. (I am convinced that habit was a direct cause of his problems with Watergate. He was getting all of his information second- and third-hand (if that), and frequently didn't even know who the original source of the information was. So he had no way of knowing what was real and what was bullish*t. And -- fearing the worst -- he didn't really want to know, either. He paid the ultimate price.)

In addition to all that, I think many liberals viewed him as a kind of interloper, who spoke for the square, small-town types of people that liberals hate(d), and who wrongly won the election that "should" have been won by Bobby Kennedy.

Quote:When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing.

Some legitimate reason for that -- it's a legislative project from 40 years ago that didn't succeed. You can't expect it to be a major part of history. But beyond that, you should realize how deeply hated Nixon was by the academic/media class, and how for a long, long time, that class invested an enormous amount of time/effort into emphasizing the core-idea that Nixon was the proto-fascist embodiment of everything corrupt, venal, and worthless about not just American politics but the human race overall. "Watergate" is the word that was chosen to symbolize that idea. Anyone living in America from about 1973 to about 1993 was given constant reminders of it. Except for the trip to China (which was simply too important and too well-known to completely ignore), anything (like health-care reform) that would tend to distract the public from that core-idea was pushed to the side and eventually forgotten. Perhaps now is the time for a more neutral/detached generation to reappraise his Administration.

Quote:What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Quite so. Nixon (IMHO) was the most compelling, relevant, and consequential political figure of the most compelling, relevant, and consequential era of American politics (1950-75).

(10-14-2014 05:03 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Interesting thing about the 1960 election. As it turns out, Kennedy was probably more conservative than Nixon. Someone posted about democrats who were fiscal conservatives, social liberals. JFK probably belongs on that list.

I would put it slightly differently. Prior to 1960, Kennedy had probably been more conservative than Nixon. From 1960-1963, Kennedy and Nixon were about equally liberal and equally conservative. And after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he "became" more liberal in the public's memory.

Virtually everything about Jack Kennedy's image and legacy is based on historical fraud. That image is perhaps the clearest, most vivid example of a phrase uttered in a famous movie made while Kennedy was serving as President: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Usually parties realign themselves after losing elections. I'll give you my hypothesis and then anybody can give me theirs. How can you explain the GOP's lurch to the right? I have to say it's the rise of the non traditional media. I don't believe the parties leaders are on the ballot anymore.

Another paradox for me is the success at the state level for the GOP though. Truly odd.

(10-14-2014 09:55 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  How can you explain the GOP's lurch to the right? I have to say it's the rise of the non traditional media.

Goldwater (1964) and Reagan (1980) were both nominated prior to the rise of non-traditional media. Since the rise of Limbaugh, FOX News, DrudgeReport, etc., the GOP has nominated Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Anyone who thinks those four people are representative of, or were selected by, the "right wing", needs to get out more.

Quote:I don't believe the parties leaders are on the ballot anymore.

A lot of truth in that, yes.

(10-14-2014 09:56 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Another paradox for me is the success at the state level for the GOP though. Truly odd.

State-level races are more difficult for the national media to influence, compared to a national election for president.

(10-14-2014 09:55 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Usually parties realign themselves after losing elections. I'll give you my hypothesis and then anybody can give me theirs. How can you explain the GOP's lurch to the right? I have to say it's the rise of the non traditional media. I don't believe the parties leaders are on the ballot anymore.

The republican party has "lurched right" only on the social issues. At the same time, democrats have lurched left on the same issues. I would put it to two things.

One, I think society as a whole has moved considerably on those issues. This has certainly been fueled in large part by mass media, and that is probably a big factor in the media bias in favor of democrats--and yes that is real, when properly done, it's very subtle and hard to catch with any kind of conventional metric, but a look at Dan Rather's facial expressions when he was delivering news about the Florida electoral vote in 2000 made it pretty clear that he was an extreme partisan. Democrats have been riding that wave, and republicans taking in those who did not accept those changes. As someone who spends a lot of time in the south, I think the republican southern strategy rests far more on religion than race, at least at this point. Neocons were primarily blue dog war hawk democrats who switched parties in protest over the sixties drug and sex culture and their opposition to the Vietnam war. They are not really conservative on anything but the social issues. Their advocacy of limited military intervention is not a conservative principle; the conservative approach to defense is more to have the strongest military in the world and never use it because nobody wants to pick a fight with you.

Two, I think the rise of the primaries has driven both sides further to the extremes. Sixty years ago, the party bosses picked the candidates, and their primary concern was winning in November, so they tended to pick centrists. Now you have to win primaries or you go nowhere. And primaries are dominated by the one issue people on the extremes of both parties. Primaries sounded like a good idea at the time--voice of the people and all that--but looking back, it's not so easy to conclude that they have been a good thing--for republicans in particular, but for both parties and more importantly for the country.

(10-14-2014 09:56 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Another paradox for me is the success at the state level for the GOP though. Truly odd.

Success in SOME states. There are states where you can't win as a social liberal, and republicans do well there, and states where you can't win as a social conservative, and republicans do poorly there. There are some states, primarily in the midwest, that don't fall into either camp, and the people there tend to be fiscal conservatives in their own lives and that translates well into government. I do think the point about national media is a good one. At the state level, many voters actually know the candidates, and many more feel that they do, and impressions formed over the years aren't affected much if the national media come in and do a hatchet job. National elections are popularity contests filtered heavily by the media; state contests aren't.

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Four words...

Wage and Price Controls.

Nixon was in favor of it and if he had gotten his way, you'd be looking at a Central government today that pretty much rivaled any socialist economy.

I'm shocked so few people knew about his HCP proposals. Ironically, I know some people here who are in favor of govtal/Bismarck type controls. If they knew about Nixon's plan, they'd love the hell out of Nixon.

Quote:Another paradox for me is the success at the state level for the GOP though. Truly odd.

Why? Look at it this way...

California is decided liberal, you can't dispute that.
But if you take California vs. MS, AL, KY, TN, GA, SC (that's just six states that are typically heavily Republican). so you've got 6 states and you still can't balance the "power broker" of the one state of California.

(10-15-2014 06:31 AM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved?

Four words...

Wage and Price Controls.

Nixon was in favor of it and if he had gotten his way, you'd be looking at a Central government today that pretty much rivaled any socialist economy.

At the time Nixon initiated the wage/price controls (August 1971), both Congress and the public were clamoring for Nixon to Do Something about inflation. Nixon's plan was very popular and contributed to his landslide reelection the following year. Plus, if he hadn't done that, Congress was poised to enact an even-more-intrusive version of wage/price controls.

In his memoirs (published 1978), Nixon admitted the controls didn't work and that he only implemented them because of the political pressure from Congress and the public.

In a baloon debate i picked Nixon and highlighted all the good Nixon did as president to inform my fellow classmates.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

(10-15-2014 07:40 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(10-15-2014 06:31 AM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved?

Four words...

Wage and Price Controls.

Nixon was in favor of it and if he had gotten his way, you'd be looking at a Central government today that pretty much rivaled any socialist economy.

At the time Nixon initiated the wage/price controls (August 1971), both Congress and the public were clamoring for Nixon to Do Something about inflation. Nixon's plan was very popular and contributed to his landslide reelection the following year. Plus, if he hadn't done that, Congress was poised to enact an even-more-intrusive version of wage/price controls.

In his memoirs (published 1978), Nixon admitted the controls didn't work and that he only implemented them because of the political pressure from Congress and the public.

They were popular back then.. I was referring to Mach's question about why he's not as loved today.

IMO, there are three primary things Nixon is remembered for:
1) Vietnam
2) Watergate
3) Wage and Price Controls

(10-14-2014 05:01 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why wasn't this guy more universally loved? When you look at his environmental record. It's stellar. Then when I read today that he was pushing for a National Health Care Plan??????? I never heard of such a thing. What an interesting figure and TIME!!!!!!

Perfect republican. Just nobody like his personality, very petty small person. Charisma and personality is everything in the tv era. That's why JFK,Reagan, Clinton are loved, while Nixon, Carter, Bush 1 are not.