Extra, Extra

i'm not a fundamentalist christian. a long time ago in high school, i was friends with one, though. i ended up hearing a lot of theories and such about various topics including the rapture, end times and 'the tribulation.'

i'm not one to go jumping on board with these theories, but i have to ask ... what the fuck is going on with people? so many murders and violence these days. it just seems crazy excessive. i mean, obviously, any death is sad, but lately it just seems crazy out of control.

blah.

smussy,
I feel you, but nothing ever really changes. As evidenced by the following article from Daily Kos. It's eerie how similar the Tippicanoe and Tyler Too campaign is to McCain/Palin:

Humor site Cracked.com has a list devoted to the origin of negative ads in presidential campaigns of yore. They're all interesting, but the one that has been the most reliable through the ages is #3 on the list -- the attack on "elitism."

Whenever a presidential candidate speaks well or seems particularly clean, the immediate strategy of that candidate's opponent is to trash them as elitist, someone who thinks he's better than the hardworking, God-fearing general public.

In 1840, this was taken to an awesome, hilarious extreme. The nominee for the Whig party, the old-as-shit William Henry Harrison, gave himself the label of the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider candidate." Basically Joe Six Pack. The plan of course was to make the opposing Democrats and Martin Van Buren look like a bunch of elitist aristocrats.

The truth was that Harrison was from a wealthy and politically connected family. Rather than being born in a log cabin, he was born on a plantation and lived in a mansion. None of that stopped him from claiming to be the champion of the common man.

Harrison was also a war hero. He was the "Tippecanoe" in the "...and Tyler too" slogan. Tippecanoe was a battle that Harrison led against the Shawnee where, despite having a large advantage in forces, his troops still took more casualties. But he later invaded Canada, and everyone thought that was pretty cool.

So we have a wealthy aging war hero who runs as the hard-drinkin' friend of the little folk. And it worked. Harrison won in a blow out. There was just one little problem for team Whig: the "aging" part. Harrison was the oldest president elected pre-Ronald Reagan, and just weeks after settling into the White House, Harrison died. That left "Tyler too" in charge of the place.

John Tyler (described as a "poor, miserable, despised imbecile" and given the nickname "His Accidency") took over the White House. Tyler was one of the most hated presidents of all time and was nearly impeached.

Why did we bring that up? No reason at all. Really.

And what was going on in the US at the time? That would be a collapse of the financial system due to a speculative bubble.

It's unknown how Tyler felt about moose.

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