Killing the King - Sidney Blumenthal on John Kerry

[reprehensor]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012304E.shtml

"Kerry is sitting on top of his party, but will he be knocked off when he arrives in New Hampshire?

One year ago the congressional Democratic party gathered to applaud George Bush's state of the union address, a call to arms in Iraq. Having just lost the Senate - its patriotism impugned - the party was disoriented, dispirited and disjointed. It was against that tableau that the feisty former Vermont governor Howard Dean began his ascent as the anti-war, anti-Washington Democrats, and generally anti-Bush candidate. He had this vast unpopulated territory to himself. In Iowa, where congressman Richard Gephardt from Missouri was always the favourite, Dean pulled ahead - as he did nationally. But then his march veered on to a murder-and-suicide scene.

No sitting member of the lower House of Representatives has ever been elected to the presidency. Gephardt's earnest manner, measured flat speech and universally acknowledged decency belied his loudly ticking ambition.

His early distinction came in the aftermath of the 1984 Reagan landslide, when he became the first head of the newly founded Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group created in reaction to Walter Mondale's dependence on the unions. But in 1988 Gephardt ran for the presidential nomination as the champion of trade protectionism and aggrieved industrial labour, winning the Iowa caucuses. But his candidacy soon collapsed.

In the first year of Bill Clinton's administration, Gephardt rancorously split the Democrats by opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement, and that division contributed to the party losing the Congress in 1994 for the first time in two generations.

Gephardt planned his 2004 campaign as a reprise of Iowa in 1988, but the labour federation as a whole refused to endorse him and he was left with a handful of unions and little else. His last hurrah was a last stand. His message was reduced to the nub of raw protectionism and he devoted himself to tearing down Dean, attacking him as a conservative wolf in liberal sheep's clothing."
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Is this comment true? "No sitting member of the lower House of Representatives has ever been elected to the presidency."

[Indiana Democrat]

1. Why would you doubt it?

[jsw_81]

2. No

Representative James Garfield was elected president in 1880. I'm surprised that Blumenthal forgot about him.

[reprehensor]

3. Thank you.

You should write Mr. Blumenthal a little note.

[Guaranteed]

5. Was that the "lower" house, though?

What does that mean? The minority party in the House?

[dfong63]

9. the "upper house" is the senate; the "lower house" is the house of reps

[Guaranteed]

12. Yeah...that's what I had thought...but that would make

the phrasing in the article redundant.

[Nederland]

11. Wrong, sort of

I think Blumenthal hedged by saying "sitting member". At the same time Garfield became president, he had just won a Senate seat.

Garfield helped elect Rutherford B. HAYES president, serving on the electoral commission formed to settle the disputed election of 1876. During the Hayes administration he was minority leader of the House. In January 1880 he was elected to the U.S. SENATE.

But Garfield never had a chance to take his Senate seat. In May 1880 he was a delegate to the REPUBLICAN National Convention. A well-known party leader for whom a presidential movement was already afoot, he attracted much favorable attention. Garfield placed John Sherman's name in nomination for president. After 34 ballots had failed to nominate Ulysses S. GRANT, James G. Blaine, or Sherman, the supporters of Blaine and Sherman united on Garfield, who won on the 36th ballot.


http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/bios/20pgarf.html

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. Interesting to blame the NAFTA split for the Dem loss of the House

Interesting too that Clinton had shown the support behind him after the govt. shut down.

[AP]

7. In the Clinton Wars, he more generally blames Gephardt for criticizing

Clinton incessantly. He says Gephardts attacks from the left were a big reason we lost the House.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. Well.... why couldn't he work with Clinton on an "agenda"

I see now why Clinton couldn't get anything done in those 2 short years.

[AP]

6. Lincoln's last job in gov was House of Rep prior to being Pres, however...

...he had been out of office for a few years, and lost a senate race in between.

He was a lawyer and was barnstorming the nation with anti-slavery speeches, which is how he made his name.

[JaneQPublic]

10. Very few sitting senators have been elected, as well

Kennedy and Harding are the only ones I can think of.