September 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
“And so tonight — to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans — I ask for your support.”
In November of 1969, Richard Nixon uttered this line in a televised address to the nation, explaining his plans in Vietnam.
At the time, the nation was enveloped in social, economic and racial turmoil. Nixon was speaking to the folks in the country who were respectful of authority, preferred order to chaos, disdained the revolutionaries and distrusted the intellectual elite who were attacking the pillars of American society.
The silent majority came to mean the white middle and lower middle class of America, and Nixon’s phrase came to be seen as a way to polarize an already polarized society.
But the phrase still has some uses.
The Republican Party has been embroiled in revolution from the so-called Tea Party Patriots.
These Tea Party Republicans were the first to embrace Sarah Palin. They gained inspiration from Glenn Beck back when Beck was the man. They held large protests around the country and on the National Mall. They targeted Republicans in primary fights in the midterm election, and successfully took out Bob Bennett, the senator from Utah; Mike Castle, the favorite to win the Delaware Senate seat; and Lisa Murkowski, the sitting senator from Alaska (who ended up winning the general election in a daring third-party challenge). Read more...
Tags: Bob Bennett, Buchanan, bush, Bush II, Chambers of Commerce, Dole, Glenn Beck, Herman Cain, Jeb Bush, Jon Huntsman, Kiwanis Clubs, Lisa Murkowski, majority, McCain, Michele Bachmann, Mike Castle, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Politics, presidential campaign, Presidential election, Reagan, Richard Nixon, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Robert Taft, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Republicans, Vietnam, white middle and lower middle class
Posted in GOP, Government, History, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Reviews, Theory, election, speeches, spending, taxes | 2 Comments »
August 3rd, 2011 by John Feehery
The President turns 50 tomorrow, which is a big deal, especially to the President’s fundraisers, who are doing their best to milk it for all it is worth. Apparently, they are throwing a big bash for him in my hometown of Chicago. My invitation must have got caught up in my spam filter.
50 isn’t nearly as old as it used to be (especially if you are 47, like a blogger I know pretty well), and to many old-timers who depend on Social Security and Medicare to survive, 50 is pretty darn young.
I was talking to a neighbor of mine who happens to be a big Democratic activist, and he told me about how panicked his 84-year old mother was over the possibility that she wasn’t going to get her Social Security check.
She comes from a generation where they listen closely to their political leaders, and when the President says that Social Security checks may not be delivered because America can’t pay its debt, that generation takes those threats seriously. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, dollar, Economy, election, GOP, Government, health care, House Republicans, medicare, President Obama, Presidential election, senior citizens, Social Security, Social Security checks, spending, voters, Washington
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Reviews, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, spending, taxes | No Comments »
July 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
John Boehner is doing an exceptional job as Speaker under extraordinarily tough times.
When I first started working in Congress, Tom Foley had just taken over from Jim Wright as Speaker of the House. Unlike the dictatorial Wright, Foley ran a decentralized process that gave too much power to Committee barons like Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Brooks and John Dingell.
Foley could never quite get the Chairmen to work together enough to overcome their jurisdictional squabbles, and Democrats faltered under the House Bank scandal, the Post Office debacle and a series of other damaging revelations about a Congress that was out of control.
When Newt Gingrich came to the Speaker’s Office, he leap-frogged over the gentlemanly Bob Michel (my former boss) who unfortunately announced his retirement before he could see the promised land of a Republican majority. Gingrich learned the lessons of the ineffective Foley, centralized power in his chambers, and bull-rushed an ambitious Contract with America legislative agenda. Along the way, Gingrich alienated some of the new Freshmen, his committee Chairmen, and some key members of the leadership, so much so that a few of them launched a failed coup against the embattled Speaker. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Michel, Congress, Conservatives, Dan Rostenkowski, Democrats, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, George Bush, GOP, Government, Grand Bargain, House Republicans, Jack Brooks, Jim Wright, John Boehner, John Dingell, Mark Foley scandal, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, President Obama, Republican, Republican Conference, Republicans, Speaker of the House, spending, taxes, Tea Party, the Iraq War, Tom DeLay, Tom Foley, White House
Posted in Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Promises, Reviews, Scandals, Theory, election, speeches, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »
July 26th, 2011 by John Feehery
President Obama has not been shy lately in trying to use the power of the bully pulpit to get his way on Capitol Hill.
It is not clear that his bully pulpit approach is working.
I listened to the President’s address last night on the radio (yes, I went old school), and predictably, I found his comments to be unconvincing. He talked about his balanced approach (which, to be clear, is different than a balanced budget; which is a pipe dream in his vision of the future), he blamed Republicans for being stubborn, he talked about raising taxes on the wealthy (which nobody in Congress includes in their plan), and then he used the same rhetoric he has used time and again.
I doubt the speech worked well for the President. He has been pounding on these message points for weeks, and if anything, his poll numbers have grown worse. Both Gallup and Rasmussen have found that the President has hit historically high disapproval ratings. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bill Daley, boehner, bully pulpit, Cantor, Capitol Hill, Congress, Congressional Republicans, Conservatives, Economy, gallup, GOP, Government, health care, House Republicans, McConnell, medicare, Obama, Politics, President Obama, raising taxes on the wealthy, Rasmussen, reform, Republicans, Senate Majority Leader, Social Security, spending, Tax cuts, taxes, Tea Party, Washington, White House
Posted in Bad Decisions, Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Promises, Reviews, Theory, bad news, election, health care, medicare, speeches, spending, taxes | No Comments »
October 4th, 2010 by John Feehery
The headline in yesterday’s New York Times blared: “House Majority Still Uncertain, Republicans Say.” Politico reports this morning, “Democrats seize on signs of hope.”
On the one hand, you have Republican strategists trying to play down expectations so that when they win big, it will come as a big surprise.
Republicans hope that their numbers in the chamber will grow in 2010. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
On the other hand, you have Democrat strategists trying to pump up their base by saying all is not lost.
Of course, nobody can predict the future, but by spinning the present, the strategists on both sides hope they can shape it.
Here are the facts:
The number one accomplishment of the Democratic Congress is their health care law and that is one of the top issues that Republicans are running against. The health care law is extraordinarily unpopular with the people who are most likely to vote (or are voting now). That is not a good sign for the Democrats.
The unemployment rate is not budging and the President is not talking about it much, if at all. The Democrats will take the fall for the lack of success on jobs. Read more...
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, election, George W Bush, Government, health care, Obama, Politics, Presidential election, Republican, Republicans
Posted in Bad Decisions, Economy, Government, Media, Politics, Promises, Reviews, Theory, Unemployment, election | No Comments »
April 30th, 2010 by John Feehery
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Fair, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in America. Designed by Daniel Burnham, the man who said, “Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir man’s blood,” and Frederick Olmsted, the famed landscape architect, the Chicago Columbian Exposition, sent a clear signal to the rest of the world: Watch out, because America is coming.
A century later, the United States government decided not to fund expositions any more, probably scarred by the memory of the 1984 New Orleans Expo, which is the only Expo to ever go bankrupt. Everything we do now is paid for by corporate America.
This history all came to my mind as I read the story in today’s Washington Post about the opening of the Shanghai Expo. The Chinese are taking this event very seriously, as they usually do. They get the symbolism. Read more...
Tags: china, Communism, Constitution, Corporations, democracy, Exposition, First Amendment, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hu Jintao, Shanghai, Shanghai Expo
Posted in Financial Crisis, Food, Foreign Relations, Government, Reviews | No Comments »
March 11th, 2010 by John Feehery
I always liked David Bonior. Sure, he was a left-wing, pro-labor, hard-core Democrat, who opposed much of what my personal world-view may be.
But he had integrity. He was pro-life Democrat, which takes a lot of courage. And you could tell he really cared about people.
My former boss, Speaker Denny Hastert, liked Bonior too. He was somebody in the opposition’s leadership who would always give the Speaker the straight scoop.
So, when he and his wife invited my wife and I to dinner at their new restaurant on Capitol Hill’s Barrack’s Row, I was happy to accept. Bonior is the major investor, and his son and daughter-in-law, who have long experience in the restaurant business, actually run it.
Called “Zest”, the restaurant is just about what you would expect from somebody like David Bonior. It serves good, American food at great American prices. It’s not particularly flashy, but it is very comfortable, nicely lit, with a good vibe to it.
There is a bar towards the front of the restaurant with a nice-sized big screen television, which I am fairly certain will have ESPN on it all day. Read more...
Tags: David Bonior, Denny Hastert, Jennifer Granholm, John Edwards, Restaurant, Zest
Posted in Food, Politics, Reviews | No Comments »
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