Where I Pivot away from the Primaries, and Towards the General Election

Putting it out there right now: Bernie Sanders will not be the nominee of the Democratic party for the 2016 Presidential race.

Look, I know the Sanders camp is still beating the drums and saying it's still feasible for them to win. "Wait 'til New York, Bernie's a native." 

"California, folks, that's the place you oughta be. Bernie will win there."

"Don't forget Montana and Idaho. Bernie will do great there!"

Nope. Uh-unh. And true, but those states have like six delegates. It's not enough. The math is just not there.  Anybody who thinks otherwise is either a) Just not ready to face the facts or b) is willfully lying in the pursuit of their own interests. If you're the latter, well, you won't be convinced by me because you're lying. But if you're the former, perhaps you can be convinced.

Ugh: The 2014 Midterms

So I'm sitting here in a hotel room (so I have cable for the election) sipping whiskey and just generally trying to process the ass-whupping the Democrats took this midterm election. Yep, there's no denying this was a bad defeat. Forget purple states like Iowa, Colorado, and Florida, all of which Democrats lost key Senate or Governor's races. The Democrats lost governor's seats in reliably Democratic Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

It was a pretty bad night for the men (and women) in blue. The Senate is now in the hands of Mitch McConnell, the Republicans padded their lead in the House, and they continue to control a distressing number of governor's mansions and state legislatures. Of the three stooges (Walker, Scott, and LePage) I was hoping would be shown the door, all three were reelected. Nope, not a fun night.

How we got here, Part 2: 1824

Remember how I said that 1796 was the beginning of two party politics in the United States? Well, it was, but only the first beginning. You see, after 1800, the Federalists, always little more than a minority party primarily centered around the elites of New England, started to wane in importance. Sure, they ran candidates for the Presidency up through the 1816 election, and a few held on even longer in Congress and the Supreme Court. However the party's power had diminished as Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe each served two terms. By 1820, James Monroe ran virtually unopposed for his reelection, with one elector voting for John Quincy Adams. It was the "Era of Good Feeling", and it appeared that our partisan divide had been eliminated.

Of course, just because everybody called themselves "republicans" didn't mean that they were in harmony on every issue. As the "American System", a combination of tariffs and internal improvements, was pushed by leaders such as John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, many southern and western leaders pushed back, arguing that tariffs hurt their constituents, and that internal improvements were the domain of the states, not the Federal government. In the middle of these fights came the contentious debate over the admittance of Missouri, and the ultimate compromise which brought Maine and Missouri into the Union, and kept a nation divided over the issue of slavery together for another three decades. Everybody was a part of one party, sure, but as the 1820s dragged on there became a clear division between two factions of that party.

Thus, as the nation came together to choose it's next President in 1824, it was clear that a near unanimous vote was unlikely. In fact, quite the opposite was to occur. Four candidates won electoral votes in the race, with Adams and Andrew Jackson, a war hero and lawyer from Tennessee being the two clear favorites. Jackson won the popular vote and the electoral vote, but did not reach the necessary majority of the latter. For the second time in our country's history, a Presidential election headed to the House of Representatives.

As per Constitutional rules, only the three candidates with the most electoral votes were allowed to be selected by the House. Therefore, the House could choose from Adams, Jackson, and William Crawford of Georgia. The fourth major candidate, Henry Clay of Kentucky, was left out. However, as he was Speaker of the House, it was likely he would play a major role in the selection of the next president.

Unlike the contentious 1800 House vote for President, the 1824 vote picked a president on the first vote. The winner was Adams, who beat Jackson and Crawford 13-7-4. Clay, who agreed with Adams on his plan of tariffs and internal improvements and did not like Jackson at all, played a big role. He put all of his support behind Adams and was a big reason that the Massachusetts politician took the office his father had held previously. Whether part of a "corrupt bargain", or because Adams thought Clay was the best man for the job, Clay would become Adams' Secretary of State.

With good reason, Jackson was incensed. He had won the popular and electoral vote, albeit with pluralities instead of majorities. For him and his supporters, it was clear that Clay had bargained the Presidency for the job as Secretary of State. For the next four years this would be their rallying cry, as they were determined to right that wrong in 1828. Jackson supporters, which included a large amount of poor and middling Americans who could vote now that property restrictions were falling away, started calling themselves Democrats. Adams, Clay, and their supporters chose instead to call themselves National Republicans. Partisanship was back in America in a big way.

Next Time: Anti-Masons get their trip into the history books, as the birth of nominating conventions come about in 1832

The source for this post is the Wikipedia article on the 1824 Presidential election. Yeah, I used Wikipedia as a source. This is a little read political blog, not a scholarly paper. Also, I know for a fact that Napoleon helped Adams make his agreement with Henry Clay and Magneto.

How we got here: A history of partisan politics in America

For about twenty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the vast majority of the leaders of the young United States of America attempted to rise above partisan politics. It wasn't that they agreed with each other (far from it), but more that as "gentlemen" they were supposed to be above the rough, seemingly destructive nature of party politics. Sure, there had been an informal division between supporters of the Constitution (Federalists) and those who had doubts about parts, or even the entire document (Anti-Federalists). Still, these groups were far from the nineteenth century parties, let alone our modern concept of parties.

By the time George Washington set a very important precedent by stepping down at the end of his second term, partisanship was already well entrenched. On one side were the Federalists, led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. There power was based in the aspiring aristocracy of the Northeast, with a much smaller base centered around the lowland plantations of South Carolina. On the whole, they were proponents of a strong activist government, a central bank, and good relations with Great Britain. They were suspicious of too much democracy, rattled by the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania, as well as the deteriorating mess of the French Revolution.

The other group would eventually be known as the Democratic-Republican. Led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, their power base were the farmers and most (but not all) of the plantation owners of the south, as well as many of the business owners and merchants in the Middle Atlantic and New England states. They were generally in favor of smaller government, and shunned most of the pomp and ceremony held dear by Federalists. Most of them were skeptical of a central bank, mistrustful of its power over the economy. They tended to favor the French, seeing them as fellow republicans amidst a sea of absolutists and aristocrats. Unlike the Federalists, they were incredibly wary of standing armies, and believed commerce between republics would ultimately end the need for war.

The election of 1796 was the first contested Presidential election in the history of the United States. At the time only nine of the sixteen states at the time bound their electoral college votes to the popular vote. Just a small percentage of the population could vote even in the states where it mattered, in most cases only white property owning men 21 years or older. John Adams won the most electoral votes and Thomas Jefferson came in second. Under the Constitution at the time this made him Vice-President. As Adams' term went on, it was clear that having a hostile Vice President was not exactly the best idea, particularly in a partisan world.

As the European wars continued, and both French and British fleets harassed American merchant ships, tensions continued to rise. At various times it appeared the USA would go to war against Great Britain, France, or both. The Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition acts, which led Madison and Jefferson to push for the theory of nullification, first by the young state of Kentucky, and later by the Old Dominion of Virginia. By the election of 1800, which would pit Adams and Jefferson against each other again, it was clear partisan politics were here to stay.

Over the next couple of weeks, as the Republicans congregate in Tampa and the Democrats meet in Charlotte, I'll be taking a trip through our nation's tumultuous history of partisan politics. My main purpose for this is to shed some light on how the modern parties became what they are. I figure the best way to do this is to divide posts up by various election years that I find most important. Note that these years don't always line up with Presidential election years, or with the most obvious years. However, they are the years which to me seem most pivotal in the development of our two party system. Two of the years will be midterm elections, harbingers of much larger developments for the waves that would happen the next Presidential elections. Since they are so recent, and we have yet to see their last impact, I'll tackle 2006, 2008, and 2010 together.

One final note before I give you the list of years I'll be writing about. Clearly this blog is tinted a deep, dark blue. However, I have no intention of clouding these posts with any sort of judgement, merely to document what led to these shifts, and what impact they would have for years to come. The one exception is the last post, which will detail where we sit here in 2012, and where I see things going.

And now, here are the years we'll be visiting.

Part 1: Introduction and 1796 (This post)
Part 2: A Return to Partisanship: 1824
Part 3: The Legacy of the Anti-Masons: 1832
Part 4: The Junior Party is Born: 1856
Part 5: Silver and Gold: 1896
Part 6: Progressives Ascendant: 1912
Part 7: The Business of Americans is Business: 1920
Part 8: The New Deal Coalition Emerges: 1930
Part 9: The Great Southern Shift Begins: 1964
Part 10: The Rise of the Rabid Right: 1978
Part 11: The New Democrats and Triangulation: 1992
Part 12: Bush v. Gore: 2000
Part 13: A Partisan Roller Coaster Ride: 2006, 2008, and 2010
Part 14: Where We Stand Today: 2012

In Regards to the NY 23

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I bet that "tip of the spear" is looking awfully sharp right now, eh Mr. Armey?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Of course, it does suck that a crappy governor tied to a crappy financial mess of a company was beaten by a crappy candidate that apparently is doom for Obama even if the exit polls don't say so. Also, it sucks that a weak-ass Democrat ran away from his base and the young folks that helped Obama turn VA blue last year lost to a candidate who played to the middle. And don't get me started on the equal rights of some of our nations citizens being denied once again thanks to stupid ass ballot initiatives. There are many things referendums are good for, but equal rights are not one of them.

It appears that the tally will be a +2 Governors seat gain for the GOP, and a +1 shift for the Democrats in the House. Of course the media will spin this as an absolutely terrible sign for the Obama administration and the Democrats on Capitol Hill. It will be, if they decide more mealy-mouthed crap and Republican Lite posturing is the strategy to use in 2010.

The "real" grading period for Obama has just begun, as the 2010 midterms begin to get ready for the main stage. Game On!