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The Words That Mattered In 2012

by Ian C. Friedman

Credit: HNN staff.Like most other presidential election years, 2012 was strongly influenced by the long campaign for the nation’s highest office. When Americans recall the year almost past, we will likely do so by recalling and examining its words, particularly the following ten quotations that shaped and explain this year in American history.“It’s halftime in America” -- Clint EastwoodOver six months before Eastwood made headlines by rambling at an empty chair in prime time at the Republican National Convention, the actor/director was at the center of controversy for his message in a two-minute Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler. The ad, which lauded the resilience and high quality of American auto manufacturing, was a Rorschach test for Americans. President Obama’s supporters loved its implied equation that the auto industry was on its deathbed, the president made the tough decision to help it out, and now it was more than back on its feet. Obama’s detractors feared the same equation.“The fact is, I’m gay…” -- Anderson Cooper

How to Solve the "Fiscal Cliff" Problem Responsibly

by Scot Faulkner

Rep. Robert Dold, Jr., R-Ill.; Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H.; Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio; and Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill. hold a news conference to call on Congress to work together to address the looming "fiscal cliff." Credit: Flickr/Lingjing Bao/Talk Radio News.There are three legs to the stool of federal fiscal solvency -- cutting spending, entitlement reform, and revenue generation. Few of the Washington power players are realistically discussing any of these, but revenue has generated the most polarized rhetoric.All our lives are impacted by the way our federal government raises the $2.9 trillion it needs to function. That is why it is important that any revenue element of a “fiscal cliff” deal is weighed not only for the amount, but for its tax incidence.Tax incidence charts the various ways government amasses its revenue and how these ways impact individuals, industries, demographics, and geography. Our current progressive income tax system and the strategic reform proposals of the flat tax, fair tax, and Value Added Tax (VAT) all generate significantly different impacts on our individual spending habits and our overall national economy.

Will Puerto Rico Become the 51st State?

by Marc-William Palen

San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. Credit: Wiki Commons.Burn your outdated American flags; make room for the fifty-first star on the star-spangled banner.For the first time in Puerto Rico’s more than hundred-year history as an American territory, on Election Day early last month, a slim majority voted in favor of U.S. statehood in a non-binding referendum that now goes to the U.S. Congress.Puerto Ricans had been given a similar option three times before -- in 1967, 1993, and 1998 -- but with opposite results.Why this apparent volte face?Because of a weakening economy, a decreasing population, and because “the current relationship simply does not create the number of jobs that we need,” says Puerto Rican Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock.As it stands, 58 percent of Puerto Ricans now live in the mainland United States. Puerto Rico’s four-million residents -- the 42 percent remaining on the island -- are American citizens but can’t vote in American elections. Such has been the status quo since 1917.

The Hollowing Out of America

Abandoned houses in Detroit. Credit: Flickr/Rrrrred.

Are Evangelicals Politically Homeless?

by David R. Swartz

Credit: Flickr/cseeman.When I tell people about my recently released book Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism, I sometimes get a snort in response: “The evangelical left? All three of them!?” This quip has some basis in reality. Polls from the 2012 election show that over 70 percent of white evangelicals voted for Mitt Romney. The politics of Jesus -- for evangelicals, at least -- appears to be thoroughly Republican.

How Can We Make Congress Work Better?

by Ray Smock

Credit: Wiki Commons.Those of us who follow the work of Congress have known for some time that this vital constitutional institution is not functioning very well, if at all. Many books, articles, reports, blogs, and a chorus of talking heads, from both sides of the political spectrum have offered analysis, explaining what is wrong and in some cases suggesting how to fix it. On November 27 a new report, “Getting Back to Legislating: Reflections of a Congressional Working Group,” written by Don Wolfensberger, a long-time top Hill staffer and congressional scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, states the case as clearly and succinctly as anything I have seen. This report is only 29 pages long, including 11 pages of tables.

How the Republicans See the Democrats: The Party of Treason

by Lewis P. Gould

How the Republican Party sees the Democrats. Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.

Mitch McConnell and the Art of Dysfunction

by Stanley Kutler

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell meet to discuss the debt limit, July 2011. Credit: White House.In most "democratic" countries, whether they have parliamentary or a form of presidential government, opposition leaders traditionally step aside following a defeat. Gordon Brown, the ousted British Labor Party leader, made news only because he visited Malala Yousufzai, the young Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating the right of girls to be educated. So much for typical functions of defeated leaders.

Channelling George Washington: How Much Should the Majority Rule?

by Thomas Fleming

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.“I’ve never seen Jemmy Madison so worried.”“Mr. President! I haven’t heard from you for a while.”“I was waiting for the election campaign to end. I try to be neutral in these contests. I just look and listen, hoping for the best.”“What’s worrying you and Mr. Madison? This so-called fiscal cliff?”“That’s a minor anxiety compared to what’s disturbing us. It’s the triumphal tone the Democratic Party is exhibiting about their victory. It’s an attitude that has had a lot to do with creating the bitter partisanship that has been dividing the federal government. For Jemmy Madison it has a particularly alarming sound.”“Why is he so sensitive on the subject?”

General Motors vs. General Electric

by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer

Credit: Wiki Commons.During the 2012 election, journalists and historians noted the symbolic political torch being passed from American Motors Corporation executive and Michigan governor George Romney to his son Mitt. The younger Romney was also a businessman but had forged his career as an executive and moderate Republican far outside the Motor City. And pundits generally used the pair as an illustrative example of how far the Republican center had shifted to the right since the elder Romney’s 1968 primary run. But his son’s business credentials should have given scholars more pause. Father and son dramatically symbolize the momentous shift from factories to finance, as Judith Stein recently put it.

The Origins of the Latino "Immigration Problem"

by Amy S. Greenberg

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.

After the Election, Reaping the Climate Change Whirlwind

by Tom Engelhardt

Credit: Flickr/HNN staff.In the fall of 1948, Harry Truman barnstormed the country by train, repeatedly bashing a “do-nothing Congress,” and so snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in that year’s presidential campaign. This year, neither presidential candidate focused on blasting a do-nothing Congress or, in Obama’s case, “Republican obstructionism,” demanding that the voters give them a legislative body that would mean an actual mandate for change. 

Reclaiming Our Coasts and Shorelines

by John R. Gillis

Belford Harbor, NJ -- a relatively rare example of a working harbor on the modern Atlantic Coast. Credit: Wiki Commons.Chances are that in a few months Hurricane Sandy will be forgotten.Politicians are already talking about rebuilding and restoring, wholly ignoring the fact that coasts have always been the most changeable of all American landscapes. As places where water and land coexist, where, as Rachel Carson put it, "today a little more land may belong to the sea, tomorrow a little less," shores are in perpetual transformation.

Another Election Year, Another Catastrophe in Florida

by John Willingham

Early voting lines in Florida. Credit: Flickr/Natures Paparazzi.Twelve years after the 2000 election debacle, the newly-reelected President Barack Obama found it necessary in his acceptance speech to say that “we need to fix” the problems that continue to plague the voting process, especially in the state of Florida.Just as Florida most clearly exemplified the electoral problems of 2000, it now is the case study for an emerging set of issues that are more serious than hanging chads because they are largely the result of increased partisan manipulation of the system.

What Sunk Mitt: GOP Extremism

by Robert Brent Toplin

Credit: Flickr/DonkeyHoty When analyzing the 2012 election results, pundits are focusing on Democratic and Republican strategies. They note that Barack Obama’s organization effectively defined Mitt Romney early in the campaign by characterizing the Republican as a heartless business investor. Pundits note, too, that Obama more effectively won the public’s confidence, convincing people that he cared sincerely about their problems. Also, important, the Democrats ground game operated like a well-oiled machine. Armies of volunteers ensured that backers of the president turned up at the polls on November 6.

How Obama Won Ohio

by David Stebenne

Credit: Wikimedia Commons In retrospect, the single most important fact of the 2012 presidential campaign was that Barack Obama led steadily in Ohio from the late spring (when the Republicans settled on Mitt Romney as their nominee) through Election Day. Only in the aftermath of his strong performance in the first presidential debate did Romney briefly surge into a tie with Obama in Ohio, but even that situation quickly proved ephemeral, as Obama soon regained his narrow lead there. In view of the fact that Ohio generally leans Republican, and especially so in close presidential races like this one, Obama’s narrow but consistent lead in the Buckeye State during 2012 appears all the more remarkable -- and ultimately decisive.

HNN Election Night Special: Google Hangout Livechat

HNN hosted a live chat on Google+ Hangout on election night, featuring our publisher and editor-in-chief Rick Shenkman, editor David Austin Walsh, professor of history at McGill University and HNN blogger Gil Troy, professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross Edward O'Donnell, Brooklyn College professor of history K.C. Johnson, and Berkeley PhD candidate Sam Redman.The conversation covered all the bases -- the election, the campaign, the media, the future, and -- naturally -- Grover Cleveland.Click here to start from the beginning.***FINAL UPDATE 11:45 PM***

Letting Go of "Mother Nature"

by Nancy C. Unger

Credit: Flickr/Alice Popkorn.The notion that people should be stewards of the earth and its resources is popular among many in the modern environmental protection movement. Others in that same movement complain that the concept of stewardship imposes a false value system: as an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources, it suggests that non-human nature needs the guiding hand of humans to thrive. These critics complain that the stewardship model creates an illusion of human’s ability to control both people and nature for the better -- an illusion that was surely shattered by the superstorm named Sandy.

I Hope Obama Wins, But I’m Still Mad at Him

by Leigh Ann Wheeler

Credit: Flickr/justgrimes.As in elections past, women’s rights issues and the gender gap are playing a prominent role in the 2012 presidential race. If the most recent New York Times poll is to be believed, a majority of women are lining up behind President Obama and a majority of men behind Governor Romney.This might not seem surprising given positions taken by the political parties and candidates on issues of women’s rights.President Obama touts his endorsement of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, his support for women’s right to abortion, and his insistence that health insurance plans cover prescription birth control.

Campaign Finances and Original Intent

by Ray Raphael

Left to right: Gouverneur Morris, Clarence Thomas. Credit: Flickr/Wikimedia Commons/HNN staff.The founders saw it coming.“The rich will take advantage of their [the people’s] passions & make these the instruments for oppressing them,” Gouverneur Morris fretted at the Constitutional Convention. Morris, who spoke more often than any other delegate and who penned the final draft of the Constitution, knew a thing or two about aristocracy and the ways of the rich. His father was Lord of the Manor of Morrisania, the present-day Bronx.