Vice President | The Magpie Gazette

The Generation Gap

June 23, 2019 Editor

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
— Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Some sociologists have disproved the widely held notion that people become more conservative as they get older, and while that may be the case, and therefore old does not necessarily equal conservative, statistics verify there is still a generation gap between the percentages of older and younger people who vote. Old people turn out to vote in a higher percentage for their age group than young people do in their age group. Old for our purpose here is over 50, which encompasses Baby Boomers, the Silent Generation, and the Greatest Generation. Young is under 50, which includes Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.

The two largest demographic groups of voting age are Baby Boomers and Millennials. In this year, Millennials will surpass Baby Boomers in numbers as Baby Boomers continue dying out. For all that, the voice of Baby Boomers at voting time remains louder than that of Millennials, because the percentage of Baby Boomers who vote remains higher than the percentage of Millennials who vote. Baby Boomers remain in control of the leadership and apparatus of both major political parties, and that led to the debacle of the 2016 presidential election.

The March for Our Lives protest took place on 24 March 2018 in Washington, D.C., and other cities, when hundreds of thousands of students and others marched to demand common sense gun control in the wake of deadly school shootings in the United States. Photo by Mobilus In Mobili.

In the Democratic Party, leadership foisted Hillary Clinton on everyone, and she turned out to be a candidate with little appeal to voters outside of the Coasts and the big cities, a fact that polling consistently pointed out heading into the election, but which the Democratic leadership chose to ignore. For the Republican Party, the crowded field of candidates in the early primaries allowed the demagogue who eventually overtook the field to win with vote percentages only in the teens and twenties, and with that he was able to pick off his rivals one by one, aided by high amounts of free media coverage for his outrageous comments and behavior.

In the end, we got the president we deserved, we meaning all of us, voters and non-voters alike. A dismal statement, but one we need to come to terms with by election day in November 2020. It seems we have all overestimated the liberal leanings of Baby Boomers as a group, and perhaps popular culture is responsible. News coverage of Vietnam War protests in the 1960s and ’70s, the enormous changes in fashion and entertainment, the weekly confrontations on television’s All in the Family between Baby Boomer Mike “Meathead” Stivic and his Greatest Generation father-in-law, Archie Bunker, all may have contributed to a perception of Baby Boomers as liberal overall.

Looking at national Democratic Party leadership since Baby Boomers took over with the election of Bill Clinton as president in 1992, it’s difficult to deny they are in most ways more conservative than their predecessors of the Greatest Generation and particularly going back to Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) a generation earlier. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were certainly more liberal than Bill Clinton. FDR’s policies would be considered dangerous socialism today, which is why candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, whose policy proposals are in line with what FDR might have done, are considered too far left by Democratic Party leadership, and therefore unelectable.

Enumerating goals can be difficult, as demonstrated here in a television skit by Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

In the Republican Party, attitudes have shifted so far right since Baby Boomers took over with leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney that even Richard Nixon, in whose administration Mr. Cheney first took part, might not have a chance to be elected president these days as a Republican. Too liberal! Dwight Eisenhower, in whose administration Mr. Nixon served as Vice President in the 1950s, would be considered by today’s Republican Party leadership, and assuredly by the MAGA (Make America Great Again) crowd, as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), despite the era he presided over being the one they pine for.

There is no evidence to suggest Millennials are overall more liberal than Baby Boomers, but unlike Baby Boomers they do appear willing to act on the most pressing concerns for humanity, starting with climate change. Unless we take action on climate change now, nothing else matters. Next is growing wealth inequity, because that leads to many other problems, among them being affordability of health care for all. Population growth also needs to be addressed, because Earth’s resources are not infinite, much as delusional capitalist economic modelers like to pretend otherwise.

A satirical public service announcement from the Knock the Vote project. Warning: foul language.

Down the list but hanging over every creature on Earth is the bugaboo of all generations alive since 1945 – nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are down the list because while they are obviously capable of ending everything quickly, they may be the hardest nut to crack on account of their continued proliferation being due to human nature. Addressing these problems requires becoming informed, and voting as well as activism, and it is up to Millennials to rise to the challenges their forebears have been reluctant to grasp. It’s time for Baby Boomers to let go of power if they cannot or will not contribute to battling the world’s most pressing problems, though we know it’s human nature to cling to power, and usually the grave provides the only means of separation.
— Ed.

Voting 2016 Election, 2020 Election, All in the Family, Baby Boomers, Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Capitalism, Climate Change, Conservatives, Democratic Party, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Dwight Eisenhower, Earth, Elizabeth Warren, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Generation X, Generation Z, Greatest Generation, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), Knock the Vote, Liberals, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), Make America Great Again (MAGA), March for Our Lives, Mark Twain, Media, Millennials, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Newt Gingrich, Nuclear Weapons, Old People, Population Growth, President, Primaries, Republican In Name Only (RINO), Republican Party, Republicans, Richard Nixon, Silent Generation, Socialism, Sociologists, United States, Vice President, Vietnam War, Voters, Washington D.C., Wealth Inequity, Young People

Boondoggles ad Infinitum

August 10, 2018 Techly DoRight

The current presidential administration trotted out their front man for ostensibly serious projects on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence, to make the case for entangling the country in a boondoggle called “Space Force”. At first glance, this seems like a waste of national resources in an attempt to appease one special interest, defense contractors. Deeper scrutiny, however, uncovers Space Force as a waste of national resources on behalf of boosting the reelection campaign coffers of the current administration as well titillating the chickenhawks amongst their donors. The presidential administration is monetizing the creation of this unnecessary new branch of the military as if it were a television show.

A September 1954 promotional photo from the television series Space Patrol. Ed Kemmer as Commander Buzz Corry works the controls of the space ship while Lyn Osborn as Cadet Happy Osborn looks on.

This latest development in the kleptocracy that is the current administration should not be surprising to those who have kept their cynicism up to date. The Space Force hubbub will also serve usefully as a distraction for the next week or two from real problems closing in on the administration, such as the investigation of Independent Counsel Robert Mueller into criminal mischief by the administration’s personnel and, before it, it’s campaign staff. More indictments are coming, and probably a subpoena for Orange Julius himself, who will no doubt waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money fighting to avoid being dragged into court by asserting he is above the law. Meanwhile, in the fantasy land of Space Force, the gravy will be flowing for all the billionaire and millionaire defense contractor executives who profess libertarian ideals while feeding greedily at the government trough filled by their benefactors, Commander Buzz Corry and Cadet Happy Osborn, aka Orange Julius and the Duncy White Knight.
— Techly

Grabbing fistfuls of candy bars will be mere kids’ stuff in the new Space Force marketing.

Military Cadet Happy Osborn, Chickenhawks, Commander Buzz Corry, Defense Contractors, Duncy White Knight, Ed Kemmer, Independent Counsel, Kleptocracy, Lyn Osborn, Mike Pence, Orange Julius, President, Robert Mueller, Space Force, Space Patrol, Vice President

It Ain’t Heavy

May 20, 2018 Editor

In the first of two presidential campaign debates in 1988, when Vice President George H.W. Bush referred to his opponent, Democratic Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, as a “card-carrying member of the ACLU” (American Civil Liberties Union), he was actually citing Governor Dukakis’s own words from his speeches during the Democratic primaries, when he wanted to appeal to the left wing of the party. Governor Dukakis’s choice of words were unfortunate for him given the connotations of the phrase “card-carrying member” ever since the red-baiting days of the early 1950s Joseph McCarthy era, and the Bush campaign probably couldn’t believe their luck in that Governor Dukakis handed them such a juicy gift with which to smear him.

They knew and counted on the reality that most of the public do not delve deeply into the true meaning of things, and instead are all too eager to fall back lazily on shorthand terms. Conservative independents, to the extent they understood at all what the ACLU was about, had only to hear that the organization had the words “civil liberties” and “union” in it, and that Governor Dukakis was a “card-carrying member” of it, to jump to the conclusion that the man from Massachusetts with the foreign sounding name was practically a Communist, resulting in their bolting toward Vice President Bush. Governor Dukakis spent the rest of the campaign explaining himself regarding that and other blunders, and once he went on the defensive the campaign was over. Ever since then, mainstream Democrats have been careful to define themselves as Republicans Lite, rather than being card-carrying members of any organization other than Corporate America.

A logo designed in 2010 by Sean Monahan for a wing of the Democratic Socialists of America. Since 2016, about 24,000 people have joined the DSA, most of them under age 35.

A public service announcement from the ACLU in reaction to the use in 1988 by the Bush campaign of the phrase “card-carrying member” as a smear tactic. Interesting to note the mentions of the ACLU defending Oliver North.

In good news for people who would still like to work within the Democratic Party but who see it as hopelessly beholden to corporations while cynically throwing identity politics bones to the left wing in order to appease them, candidates for local and state offices around the country who are endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are having success in elections since 2016. The DSA is not a political party. It is an activist movement within and sometimes without the Democratic Party, and it endorses candidates who push its policy goals such as a $15 an hour minimum wage and getting the corrupting influence of corporate money out of politics. Michael Harrington founded the DSA in 1982, and the organization had not seen much success until the past two years, when Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders openly avowed socialist principles in his presidential campaign, for many people doing away with the stigma of socialism that Governor Dukakis had tried to wipe off himself in 1988.

Most of the people inspired to become members of the DSA by Senator Sanders’s example, even though he himself had never joined, were not yet born in 1988 when the Bush campaign found it incredibly easy and profitable to brand Governor Dukakis an extreme leftist and make it stick with the public. For these downwardly mobile Millennials, some of them highly educated and many of them underemployed, the myth of capitalism raising all boats is for suckers. These were the people who formed the core of the Occupy movement in 2011, and when the establishment in the Democratic Party pushed everyone to accept their Republican Lite candidate, Hillary Clinton, while using subterfuge to undermine Senator Sanders’s candidacy, leading ultimately to the debacle of the general election, some of these same politically active young Democrats turned to the DSA to work to change the Democratic Party from the grass roots on up.

As the 2018 mid-term elections approach, Cenk Uygur delivers an astute analysis of the Democratic Party establishment from a perspective to the left of the mainstream. As always in keeping a wary eye on politics and politicians, it is good advice to follow the money.

The national Democratic Party establishment is too compromised and seduced by corporate money to listen to what working class and middle class people in places like western Pennsylvania are concerned about, the same people who essentially cast protest votes for Orange Julius in 2016, as ill-advised as that may have been. The Democratic establishment will try to make the 2018 midterm elections a referendum on Orange Julius, and to a certain extent they should, but what they are missing in their tone deafness to the needs of Americans in places like western Pennsylvania and Flint, Michigan, and the dairy farms of Wisconsin, is the desire of citizens there to see Democrats demonstrating real intentions to implement policies once they are in office that will improve the lives of the majority, instead of just big money corporate donors. The national Democratic Party establishment is hopelessly out of touch with those citizens. Card-carrying DSA members, working with local and state candidates, understand positive change will only come by listening to and serving citizens directly, and ignoring the cumbersome Democratic Party establishment, which is interested only in perpetuating itself by offering the easy way out by criticizing the current president’s disastrous administration, and in replacing his corporate water carriers with their own.
— Ed.

Politics American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Bernie Sanders, Burt Lancaster, Cenk Uygur, Corporate America, Corporations, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Democrats, Fight for $15, Flint, George H.W. Bush, Governor, Hillary Clinton, Jill Eikenberry, Joseph McCarthy, Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, Michael Harrington, Michael Tucker, Michigan, Middle Class, Millennials, Occupy Wall Street, Oliver North, Orange Julius, Pennsylvania, Republicans, Republicans Lite, Sean Monahan, Vermont, Vice President, Wisconsin, Working Class

I Alone Can Fix It

September 15, 2017 Vita Historia

Strange, megalomaniacal words from a potential head of state, who would become the 45th president of the United States after his 2016 campaign. Enough voters believed him, whatever “it” might have been in their own minds, to make him president in 2017. “It” was left open to interpretation in the election. Whatever “it” was, the strongman would fix “it.” That was good enough for a significant portion of the electorate to put him into office regardless of the will of the majority expressed through the popular vote.

The fireball and developing mushroom cloud of the Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific on March 1, 1954. Photo by the United States Department of Energy.

Since the election of the 45th president, people have speculated on what will contribute to his ultimate demise, a speculation which seems natural considering the 45th president’s proclivity for self-destructive public pronouncements via Twitter and his other activities. The president’s critics have said he will be impeached, or that the Vice President and Cabinet will invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. These are all pipe dreams, because they imagine real political courage among high level members of the Republican Party, which is not about to manifest itself.

American psychologists will deliver pronouncements on the president’s mental state and people will call on that account for his removal, invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, but his removal will never happen as long as Republican leaders lack the will to effect it. Republicans hold majorities in the federal House and the Senate, as well as in State Legislatures and Governorships. To attempt the removal from office of a Republican president without their approval and active participation is pointless. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment is dependent every bit as much on political considerations as on physical and psychological evaluations of the president. Invoking it will be difficult, to say the least.

In the 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick, the president is portrayed as a mild-mannered, reasonable character surrounded by eccentric lunatics. What if the situation were different in that the head of state was the lunatic? In this scene, Peter Sellers plays Dr. Strangelove and President Merkin Muffley, and George C. Scott plays General “Buck” Turgidson.

Will the 45th president shoot himself in the foot? Quite likely, considering his past behavior. Will that be enough to secure his removal from office? That depends on the reactions of other Republicans in legislative offices and in the presidential administration, and while they may look to psychologists’ reports for corroborative evidence, ultimately they will base their case on legal and fiscal wrongdoing and their own political calculations, looking to a history in legal precedent that is cut and dried.
― Vita

Disorders 25th Amendment, Bikini Atoll, Cabinet, Castle Bravo, Constitution, Dr. Strangelove, George C. Scott, Governors, Marshall Islands, Nuclear War, Peter Sellers, President, Psychologists, Republicans, South Pacific Ocean, Stanley Kubrick, State Legislatures, Thermonuclear Weapons, Twitter, United States, United States Department of Energy (DOE), Vice President

Mnuchin in Love Nest with “Actress”

August 25, 2017 Editor

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his new bride, “actress” Louise Linton are the very latest models of a Washington power couple. The two gaga lovers tied the knot in June in a ceremony attended by Washington, Wall Street, and Hollywood elite. You were not invited. Mr. Mnuchin, fresh off his stint foreclosing on old ladies for his company, OneWest bank, was sworn in to his new gig as Treasury Secretary in February in an exclusive Oval Office ceremony attended by only a select few. Ms. Linton was there, because even though she and Steve hadn’t gotten hitched yet, she was still his very significant other.

Steve Mnuchin swearing in, with P. and V.P. in attendance, and the fabulous Louise Linton looking on soulfully. Now that’s acting! Wish you could’ve been there – not!

The two lovebirds have been caught up in controversy lately – oh, that liberal media! – which really amounts to nothing to people who know what’s really important, like shopping! First, the Mnuchster had to fend off a plea from his Yale (only the best schools) classmates asking him to consider resigning from his post in the administration due to some unfortunate remarks made by his boss – again, it’s the liberal media stirring up trouble! No way, he replied, I’m in this for the long haul and there’s plenty of draconian fiscal measures I have yet to implement with the boss’s blessing. Besides, all that brouhaha was stirred up by the liberal media mischaracterizing the words which spilled out of El Supremo’s mouth. The words (only the best words) would seem to indicate he is a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi sympathizer, but that’s only if you slant things by listening to the words in the order he said them.

Lionel Barrymore as the greedy, unscrupulous Mr. Potter tempts James Stewart’s George Bailey in the 1946 Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life.

Shortly after that kerfuffle, the newly minted Mrs. Mnuchin, “actress” Louise Linton wrote some things on Instagram that the plebeians expressed indignation about, and Louise had to set them straight. To paraphrase, she told them to eat Little Debbie snack cakes, or whatever horrid stuff you working class dullards stuff in your mouths with your pudgy fingers. Louise and her figure are too fabulous to touch that kind of ick! Anyway, it all started with a plane trip to Fort Knox in Kentucky that Louise and hubby made – coincidentally! – on Monday, the day of the solar eclipse, in a place where the eclipse was near total. Fabulous! but a total coincidence, mind you! So there was a government plane involved, the shopping and eclipse viewing were fantastic! Eat your Little Debbie fudge fingers, or whatever they’re called, and shut up!

The talented and charming Eva Gabor sings the praises of luxury while Eddie Albert sings of integrity and honest toil. It’s not so much that they were giants in those days of the late 1960s, as that we have sunk to the bottom of the barrel since then.

That’s the news from the upper crust, your fabulous betters. You may return to your hog slopping or whatever it is you do, you pathetic prole. And pay up on that mortgage, slacker! Now go away.
― Ed.

Fraud Eddie Albert, El Supremo, Eva Gabor, Fort Knox, Frank Capra, Green Acres, Hollywood, Instagram, It's a Wonderful Life, James Stewart, Kentucky, Liberal Media, Lionel Barrymore, Little Debbie, Louise Linton, Mortgage, Neo-Nazis, OneWest Bank, Oval Office, Plebeians, President, Proletarians, Secretary of the Treasury, Slackers, Solar Eclipse, Steven Mnuchin, Vice President, Wall Street, Washington D.C., White Supremacists, Working Class, Yale University

Bury the Hatchet

July 21, 2017 Vita Historia

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned this week, originally stating his intent to stay on until August. Apparently new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci decided August was too long to wait for Spicer to leave and, as Spicer’s immediate boss, took the opportunity to name Spicer’s deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the new press secretary, effective immediately. Mr. Spicer will most likely not be missed by anyone either inside the administration or in the press corps, though the satirists on the Saturday Night Live television show may miss him. They still have plenty of targets for satire in the current administration, starting with the Man with a Daily Message himself, the Tweeter-in-Chief.

The current administration has made no secret of its disdain for most of the press corps, certain favorites excluded, and may try to end daily briefings of White House reporters. It seems the briefings have been a White House ritual for so long that there was never a time they were not part of the scene. That is not the case. They are a fairly recent phenomenon in American history, and were not recognizable in their present form until the Eisenhower Administration. Even then the briefings were not conducted daily. It wasn’t until Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, was elected president at the end of the 1960s that press briefings became a daily occurrence. Nixon also had the Press Briefing Room moved to its current location in the West Wing when he ordered the indoor swimming pool covered over and converted to that purpose.

Spiro Agnew by Edmund S. Valtman ppmsc.07953

A 1970 caricature by Edmund S. Valtman of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who was widely recognized as President Nixon’s “hatchet man” in dealing with the press.

Strange that President Nixon should have been the one to increase the frequency of press briefings, considering his often contentious relationship with the Fourth Estate. Nixon was not alone among presidents in feeling vilified by the press, and vilifying the press in turn. Most presidents have kept the press at arm’s length at best, viewing them as a necessary evil and trying when they could to control the tone and substance of their reporting about the administration. “Spin control” has always been a concern of presidents and their aides, though that particular phrase for it didn’t catch on until the Reagan Administration.

A scene from the 1983 film The Right Stuff, directed by Philip Kaufman, in which the 7 Mercury astronauts assert their priorities over those of NASA scientists by pointing out their leverage with the press.

Theodore Roosevelt was a rarity in that he cultivated a cordial relationship with the press, all the more to get them on his side when he used the Bully Pulpit to push his favored policies through Congress. His distant cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, went even further in developing good relations with the press, personally conducting twice weekly off the record briefings in the Oval Office. As briefings and presidential press conferences became more common through the twentieth century, people came to accept them as an indication of openness and a window into the executive branch, however distorted and murky the view might be. At least there was communication, and official positions could be known by the press and public.

Now this administration wants to pull down the shades on its workings. It makes no difference that Mr. Spicer is being replaced by Ms. Sanders. It hardly makes any difference that briefings are fewer and characterized by disrespect for the press, since this administration has demonstrated openly its contempt for norms of civil political discourse. When you know you will be lied to and treated shabbily, why stand there and continue to take it? Sooner or later, even the most profit hungry of the media outlets may abandon the White House press briefing as a source of anything other than insubstantial blathering worthwhile only as a target for satire. This administration may then find out, if the people in it are capable of learning anything at all, that if no one is taking seriously their side of any story or even listening, then there is no more spin control. With a little self control, the press may even stop giving undue attention to the daily distraction of outrageous tweets issuing from the Oval Office, and start paying attention to the important issues affecting this country.
― Vita

Media America, Anthony Scaramucci, Bully Pulpit, Communications Director, Congress, Deputy Press Secretary, Dwight Eisenhower, Edmund S. Valtman, Fourth Estate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Man with a Daily Message, Mercury Space Program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Oval Office, Philip Kaufman, President, Press Briefing Room, Press Corps, Press Secretary, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Saturday Night Live, Sean Spicer, Spiro T. Agnew, Swimming Pool, The Right Stuff, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), Tweeter-in-Chief, Vice President, West Wing, White House

The Kolledge of Electoral Knowledge

December 18, 2016 Editor

Meeting of the 2012 Ohio Electoral College; photo by Ibagli

The 538 members of the Electoral College meet tomorrow, December 19th, in the 50 state capitols and in Washington, D.C., to cast their ballots for President and Vice President. Many people across the country are unsure about the purpose of or need for the Electoral College, and they think we could do better without it. In Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College, though they never named it as such.

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . . “

There is further elaboration on the Electoral College in the 12th and 14th Amendments.

Nowhere in the Constitution is there anything about constraining the Electors to vote for the winner of their state’s popular vote. In 26 states and in Washington, D.C., Electors are bound by state laws or party pledges to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state. The Founding Fathers did not foresee the rise of political parties, and they imagined the Electors would act more independently than has proved to be the case. Political parties now choose the Electors and dictate how they vote, and over half the states have codified that policy into state law. The Electoral College functions now as nothing more than a rubber stamp for the winner take all system in all the states except Nebraska and Maine, which allocate their electoral votes by congressional district.

If the Electors exist only to rubber stamp the electoral votes determined by the popular vote in each state, then why bother with human Electors at all? If the purpose of the electoral vote system is to protect the minority rights of less populous states from being overrun by more populous states, then tally the electoral votes allocated by each state’s popular vote and do away with the Electoral College members altogether. If, on the other hand, we expect Electors to act at their own discretion, then do away with the restrictions placed on them by the states and by the political parties, all of which may be unconstitutional, and allow them to vote their consciences.

The Founding Fathers had some good reasons for establishing the Electoral College, though they failed to envision how it has played out since the 18th century. As it exists now, it is neither fish nor fowl, neither a body independent of the will of the people nor beholden to it. The Electoral College is beholden to the will of the political parties, and any member who votes independently of that will is termed a “faithless Elector,” and may be subject to legal penalties as well as party ostracism. What good is an institution like that?
– Ed.

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, a painting by Howard Chandler Christy. The figures in this painting who were instrumental in the establishment of the Electoral College were James Wilson, in the green coat directly beneath the flags, who proposed it; and seated to either side of Benjamin Franklin, at the center, were James Madison on the right and Alexander Hamilton on the left, the two men who explained it’s function and lobbied for it’s inclusion in the Constitution.

Voting 12th Amendment, 14th Amendment, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Congressional District, Constitution, Electoral College, Electors, Founding Fathers, Howard Chandler Christy, James Madison, James Wilson, Maine, Nebraska, Ohio, Political Parties, President, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, States, Unconstitutional, Vice President, Washington D.C.