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Oct 4, 2004

Tote That Book, List Those Elections....


by Cliopatria


HNN interns have been busy the last few weeks. Rick Shenkman appears bent on turning HNN into a one-stop shop for US election information. We've still got a way to go before we are in the Political Graveyard's class as a resource: the list of over ten dozen US politicians who have lost seven or more elections is priceless, and the rest of the site is fascinating browsing.

But the output of the HNN interns has been impressive. It started, really with the Republican National convention, with lists of historical allusions in the floor speeches and historians contributions to PBS commentary. The latter article was by Concordia grad student and HNN intern Bonnie Goodman, who has also given us an update on the No Gun Ri controversies, highlights of last week's debate and historians' reactions, and this weeks' chronicle of the Vietnam War in US elections which points out that Vietnam is eclipsed as a perenniel election issue only by the Civil War itself.

Aaron Burkart's discussion this week of front-runners and final results dovetails nicely with Ralph Luker's discussion below of mandates, landslides and squeakers. Finally, Alex Bosworth, recently of Whitman College, gave us a nice basic history of presidential debates and has a forthcoming article on Truman's use of scare tactics to ram the Marshall Plan through congress.


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Oscar Chamberlain - 10/4/2004

I keep hoping the Vietnam War will go away. But the comparison to the Civil War is interesting.

Both had charges of treason.
In one the South lost, while in the other, the whole country lost.
Both had associated racial upheaval.
In both, divisions were sharp enough to lead to impeachment battles (I count Reconstruction as part of the Civil War)
Both were followed by chaotic (if you were living through it) developments in industry and in labor relations.

I'm sure an equally long list of differences can be made, but it seems that history suggests that my desire for the Vietnam war to go away is a vain one.