What If A Really Great President From The Past Was In Office Today?

[Soggy in NOLA]

What if my Aunt had testicles?

 

[peach174]

The Dems would be totally outraged if George Washington ran or Calvin Coolidge.

George Washington. The same guy who lead the command to put down the Whiskey Rebellion after Congress imposed a excise tax on distilled spirits.

Good point !!!!!!
Mine was about, how shocked he would be, at how large our government is, and how much we are in debt.

 

[Modbert]

Good point !!!!!!
Mine was about, how shocked he would be, at how large our government is, and how much we are in debt.

I'd say he'd be more shocked about the internet and the fact we have airplanes. Oh and nuclear weapons. I doubt how large our government is would be at the top of our list.

 

[Sky Dancer]

We need FDR today.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

We need FDR today.

No we don't... he left behind a legacy of entitlement that is sinking us.

 

[Modbert]

As to the premise of this thread, I can't think of any Presidents that I'd consider great. I can think of only one who was mostly alright, and that's Grover Cleveland. If he was in office today I think you'd see a lot of vetoing going on and probably all the troops home, but that's about it. I don't think he could get any kind of legislative agenda through Congress.

American President: Grover Cleveland: Domestic Affairs

Although a reformer, Cleveland used patronage and party organization to win elections. He stood with his party in opposition to temperance, thus winning the support of others who opposed it—including the Irish, Germans, and East Europeans who had migrated to the United States by the tens of thousands in the 1880s. On the issue of race, he agreed with white southerners in their reluctance to treat African Americans as social and political equals, and made special efforts to reach out to Democrats and former Confederates in the South to assure them that they had a friend in the White House. He also opposed integrated schools in New York and saw African Americans as essentially inferior. In believing that government should not interfere with what he regarded as a social problem, he opposed efforts to protect the suffrage of African Americans.

In his first term as President, Cleveland condemned the "outrages" being committed against the Chinese on the nation's west coast. He soon concluded, however, that prejudice towards the Chinese in the region was so deep and their culture so alien that America could not absorb this immigrant group. Thereafter, he worked to limit Chinese immigration and to prohibit those who had left the United States to visit relatives in China from returning. The principal difference between Chinese and European immigrants, he believed, was the unwillingness of the former to assimilate into American society.

In the congressional elections of 1894, Cleveland's failure to deal with the depression instigated the greatest realignment of voters since the Civil War. The Democrats lost everywhere but in the Deep South. One Missouri Democrat said that the election was "the greatest slaughter of innocents since Herod," referring to the King of Judea under the Roman regime who was infamous for his tyranny, violence, and wickedness. Cleveland felt besieged, surrounded by enemies, and beset by hecklers at every turn. He left the White House in 1897 as an embittered but arrogant man, convinced that he had been betrayed by the "agrarian radicals" and "Silverites" within his own party.

 

[Kuros]

Everybody needs to compare FDR's Pecora Commission

The investigation was launched by a majority-Republican Senate, under the Banking Committee's chairman, Senator Peter Norbeck. Hearings began on April 11, 1932, but were criticized by Democratic Party members and their supporters as being little more than an attempt by the Republicans to appease the growing demands of an angry American public suffering through the Great Depression.

. . .

Discovering that the investigation was incomplete, Pecora requested permission to hold an additional month of hearings. His exposé of the National City Bank (now Citibank) made banner headlines and caused the bank's president to resign. Democrats had won the majority in the Senate, and the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged the new Democratic chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, to let Pecora continue the probe. So actively did Pecora pursue the investigation that his name became publicly identified with it, rather than the committee's chairman.

to Obama's Wall Street Submission

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.

. . .

Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major banks, saying it would restrict their ability to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing in a variety of areas, including the bundling of loans in mortgage securities.

 

[Immanuel]

They go after Abe Lincoln like he was Sarah Palin

Would there be a contemporary Conservative supporting Lincoln? I doubt it! Lincoln fought a Civil war to preserve the federal union and sublimate state's rights.

Plus, Lincoln was a brilliant thinker. Are you comparing Palin's intellect to Lincoln's? really?

Can you imagine Abe Lincoln running against Rick Perry in the Primaries. One who wants to keep the country together and one who doesn't care if it gets torn apart? Sorry Sitarro, your objections to that last part are noted in advance.

How about this? How many of you have ever caught an episode of "Deadliest Warrior" on Spike TV? Wouldn't it be interesting to see something in that format pitting Lincoln against Perry, or Adlai Stevenson against Barack Obama and having them "discuss" current day issues? Note: obviously I am not looking at only Presidents in this but candidates and former candidates.

Deadliest Warrior | Legendary Warriors Battle | Full Episodes | Spike

Immie

 

[Two Thumbs]

They go after Abe Lincoln like he was Sarah Palin

Would there be a contemporary Conservative supporting Lincoln? I doubt it! Lincoln fought a Civil war to preserve the federal union and sublimate state's rights.

Plus, Lincoln was a brilliant thinker. Are you comparing Palin's intellect to Lincoln's? really?

Can you imagine Abe Lincoln running against Rick Perry in the Primaries. One who wants to keep the country together and one who doesn't care if it gets torn apart? Sorry Sitarro, your objections to that last part are noted in advance.

How about this? How many of you have ever caught an episode of "Deadliest Warrior" on Spike TV? Wouldn't it be interesting to see something in that format pitting Lincoln against Perry, or Adlai Stevenson against Barack Obama and having them "discuss" current day issues? Note: obviously I am not looking at only Presidents in this but candidates and former candidates.

Deadliest Warrior | Legendary Warriors Battle | Full Episodes | Spike

Immie

Licoln actually knew how to use rifles of the day as well as the splitting ax and saber.

'course Perry has the edge in long range.

 

[George Costanza]

What if my Aunt had testicles?

Then she would probably be your uncle.

"Balls, balls, cried the Queen,
If I had to, I'd be King.
The King laughed, because he had two already."

Or something like that . . . am calling back this one from college days.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

As to the premise of this thread, I can't think of any Presidents that I'd consider great. I can think of only one who was mostly alright, and that's Grover Cleveland. If he was in office today I think you'd see a lot of vetoing going on and probably all the troops home, but that's about it. I don't think he could get any kind of legislative agenda through Congress.

American President: Grover Cleveland: Domestic Affairs

Although a reformer, Cleveland used patronage and party organization to win elections. He stood with his party in opposition to temperance, thus winning the support of others who opposed it—including the Irish, Germans, and East Europeans who had migrated to the United States by the tens of thousands in the 1880s. On the issue of race, he agreed with white southerners in their reluctance to treat African Americans as social and political equals, and made special efforts to reach out to Democrats and former Confederates in the South to assure them that they had a friend in the White House. He also opposed integrated schools in New York and saw African Americans as essentially inferior. In believing that government should not interfere with what he regarded as a social problem, he opposed efforts to protect the suffrage of African Americans.

In his first term as President, Cleveland condemned the "outrages" being committed against the Chinese on the nation's west coast. He soon concluded, however, that prejudice towards the Chinese in the region was so deep and their culture so alien that America could not absorb this immigrant group. Thereafter, he worked to limit Chinese immigration and to prohibit those who had left the United States to visit relatives in China from returning. The principal difference between Chinese and European immigrants, he believed, was the unwillingness of the former to assimilate into American society.

In the congressional elections of 1894, Cleveland's failure to deal with the depression instigated the greatest realignment of voters since the Civil War. The Democrats lost everywhere but in the Deep South. One Missouri Democrat said that the election was "the greatest slaughter of innocents since Herod," referring to the King of Judea under the Roman regime who was infamous for his tyranny, violence, and wickedness. Cleveland felt besieged, surrounded by enemies, and beset by hecklers at every turn. He left the White House in 1897 as an embittered but arrogant man, convinced that he had been betrayed by the "agrarian radicals" and "Silverites" within his own party.

He signed an income tax into law as well, and that's why I say he was only mostly alright. That said, the free silver wing of the Democratic Party was opposed to Grover Cleveland and eventually took over the party causing a split that created the National Democratic Party which Cleveland supported.

 

[Modbert]

Can you imagine Abe Lincoln running against Rick Perry in the Primaries.

Rick Perry? Don't you mean Douglas C. Neidermeyer?

 

[uscitizen]

The Dems would be totally outraged if George Washington ran or Calvin Coolidge.

George Washington. The same guy who lead the command to put down the Whiskey Rebellion after Congress imposed a excise tax on distilled spirits.

Yep Washington the first "tax and spender"

"The father of our quandry"

 

[Immanuel]

Jackson or Jefferson would be great about now. We need an anti-bankster President more than ever. Obama actually makes me miss FDR . . . yes, things are so bad that I'd swallow FDR's hideous Constitutional overreaches and behemoth social programs to have someone in the White House who'd fight the theft of this country.

You don't think that the banks would have Jefferson in their back pockets if he were alive right now and seeking office? You kidding me? And if they didn't, he would not be a viable candidate because they would have walked him right out of Washington before he made a name for himself.

Immie

 

[Modbert]

Also, the national debt after the Revolutionary War was $54 million, with the states having a debt of around $25 million. I have to imagine that would be least a couple trillion today.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Already it's starting - "We are going to have a choice of NOTHING in 2012. Aren't there any GOOD candidates out there running for President?"

It got me to thinking. Yes, it's tempting to compare today's candidates to the really good Presidents of past decades. But is that really a fair comparison? I guess what I am wondering about is this - is our almost universal dissatisfaction with current presidents and presidential candidates a function of their incapability or are they just as capable as ever, it's just that modern society has become so complex and so politically fragmented that their capabilities somehow fade away in the smoke and fog of all the b.s.?

To put it another way - how popular would Dwight Eisenhower, Ted Kennedy or Ronald Reagan be today if they held office in these troubled times?

I think that's an interesting thing to consider - how about you?

well Ronald Reagan took office under VERY SIMILAR economic conditions to President Obama......Reagan at this point into his presidency was seeing a booming economy and much better approval numbers than obama.

So, economically speaking, we would be better off if Obama was Reagan.....just based on the pure economic numbers of GDP growth, unemployment, and polling job approval/dissaproval numbers.

Ronald Reagan would not get nominated in today's far rightwing Republican Party. And it is for just that reason why the Republican Party is in trouble in 2012. Until the GOP stops catering to the far rightwing of its party, it will not fair well with independents in the general elections. And that will result in 'no' Republican President in 2012.

I think you are wrong on that. If, somehow, a Ronald Reagan-esque choice were to arise you would not only find rightwingers and teapartiers supporting him but independants and libertarians too.