Althouse: What President, on winning reelection, said he would devote his second term to "lifting the weak and nurturing the less fortunate"?

July 15, 2012

What President, on winning reelection, said he would devote his second term to "lifting the weak and nurturing the less fortunate"?

Answer here.

24 comments:

Dr Weevil said...: Without reading the article, I'm going to guess (a) Nixon, (b) G.W. Bush, or (c) Reagan. Someone mildly counterintuitive, anyway. I'm certainly not going to read the New York Times to find out.; 7/15/12, 10:22 AM
Dr Weevil said...: By the way, I would have omitted the elder Bush as too obvious even if he'd won a second term.; 7/15/12, 10:23 AM
pm317 said...: Romney, did you hear? Compassionate Capitalism!; 7/15/12, 10:35 AM
Chase said...: Does it matter?

We are under the Most.Incompetent.President.Ever, A true Fuck-up. Worst record on unemployment EVER.

And yet, we have so many Americans that want free stuff, they are willing to send America down the tubes with the Liar in Chief.

Obama outsourcing American jobs, with your tax dollars. Does that matter to you?; 7/15/12, 10:43 AM
edutcher said...: Keep in mind he did that by improving the economy, not expanding the welfare rolls.

It's the means that count.

PS Ann, are you going wobbly on us?

For the same reasons as John Roberts?; 7/15/12, 10:46 AM
chickelit said...: Obama's problem is that he his mom's ideology which is to elevate the third world while leaving most Americans higher and drier and more impoverished. Bush did a lot for the third world too, even as a matter of public policy, not just private charity, but Obama has always carried scads of scorn and disdain for ordinary Americans which Bush, despite his blue blooded background, managed to avoid. I credit his Texas essence which the Eastern elite of course scorned.; 7/15/12, 10:56 AM
Wally Kalbacken said...: The night of that 49-state blowout I was attending a seminar at the LaFollette Institute on the campus of UW, being conducted in South Hall, spitting distance from the law school. The professor recognized that everyone was eager to get out of the session and get home to watch the returns that evening so he cut it short at about 8:00 pm. I walk down Bascom Hill and head for Rocky Rococo's Pizza, grab a slice and just as I sit down and face the projection screen TV, the race is called across the country for Reagan. No suspense for the rest of the evening, except for Minnesota, which teetered on the edge of making it a full run of the table. It went back and forth with projections made, then retracted, made, and retracted again, until at about 2:00 am. Walter Mondale, Favorite Son, finally pulled it out.

That is the way to do a landslide. A crushing, obliterating repudiation. I think Romney will exceed expectations on November 6th, but alas, not 49 states.; 7/15/12, 11:05 AM
Unknown said...: And then he was one upped by"kinder gentler" Bush 1 and the left calls Rs greedy.; 7/15/12, 11:05 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: We will all be Obama's helpless babies. Please Obama, hand me my government nipple. waaaaa.
Look how many babies need feeding!; 7/15/12, 11:19 AM
tim said...: Long term peace, economic expansion and removing millions from the yoke of centrally planned economies... I would call that "a promise kept."

All to be undone by the brilliance that was the electorate that bought obamas bull shit.; 7/15/12, 11:31 AM
bagoh20 said...: And that's exactly what happened. The multi-decade period following his first term was the greatest expansion of wealth in history, with more lifting and nurturing than had ever happened anywhere before.

We could do it again if we trust what we have learned from the experiments of the last 100 years. Isn't that the point of experimenting?; 7/15/12, 11:31 AM
Dante said...: Imagine a very smart man becoming a community organizer, spending years working with people who probably don't have H.S. diplomas. Who have vague emotions they can not articulate, whose origins they can not divine, due to their ignorance. It takes someone like Him to understand their trouble.

Now imagine this smart man comes to work with the elites, and realizes they aren't smarter than he is. Imagine a narcissism that was there all along taking root and growing huge.

The street smart narcissist knows better than to expose it too much, he's smart enough for that, but meanwhile he pushes his ideas into policy, taking actions that subvert law in whatever way he can, knowing he has the press in his back pocket.; 7/15/12, 11:41 AM
Kchiker said...: Reagan was obviously a socialist.; 7/15/12, 11:56 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: What president said during his campaign he would um, er, ah, eh,...; 7/15/12, 12:01 PM
Bob_R said...: ...and then he let Pinky and the Brain run foreign policy out of the White House basement. Ollie and Poindexter should be more widely reviled for screwing up Reagan's second term.; 7/15/12, 12:17 PM
Kurt said...: Clearly, Dr. Weevil had the right approach. I toyed with the "counterintuitive" strategy, but ultimately decided I would guess the obvious one who seemed most likely to have said it, FDR. Needless to say, I was wrong.

The article, though, made me nostalgic for the 80s. In fact, I had a flashback to working in Washington, DC in 1987 just after I turned 21, and I wished I could go back there.; 7/15/12, 12:28 PM
traditionalguy said...: Reagan was an ISFJ type on the myers-briggs standards which meant that he wanted to be the Guardian, so naturally he guarded the middle class people he grew up with, and the outcasts as well, from manipulation and robbery by the evil Welfare State's rules and regulations.

After working as a Democrat in the Actors' Union in the late 1940s, Reagan knew up close and personal that the Communists were in a fight to the death with free people called the American middle class.

And that final battle to survive the long Communist onslaught today contained in the EPA of King Obama and in unlawful Decrees by King Obama comes up this November, 2012.; 7/15/12, 12:41 PM
harrogate said...: That's cute.; 7/15/12, 1:08 PM
gk1 said...: I think this struggling president will be saying alot of things on his way to defeat. I guess we have skipped past, DENIAL and ANGER and obama is now on his BARGAINING phase; 7/15/12, 1:16 PM
Tim said...: "PS Ann, are you going wobbly on us?"

"Going wobbly" suggests she somehow, sometime stated she was going to vote against Obama.

I don't read this blog all the time, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't made that declaration.

More to the point, as she voted for Obama in '08, the default position, absent any clear declaration, is that Althouse will vote for Obama in '12.

She can't say, or won't say, as I can - I'm voting for Romney.

And until she does, you should presume she's voting for Obama.; 7/15/12, 2:38 PM
Lyle said...: Through capitalism of course.; 7/15/12, 3:59 PM
gk1 said...: Yeah Reagan only created 22% growth of the GNP during his term. Maybe if he gave away "free" healthcare some folks might notice.; 7/15/12, 4:06 PM
ken in tx said...: My guess was Teddy Roosevelt. Not even close.; 7/15/12, 7:31 PM
Paul said...: Obama DIDN'T spend his first four years 'uplifthing' anyone... but himself and Michelle. It was vacation this.. vacation that. party here, party there... Golf and golf and golf.

Yes he makes Jimmy Carter look good, real good!; 7/15/12, 9:06 PM