Tonie Nathan

This morning, I learnt that on March 20th, 2014, Tonie Nathan died. Nathan was the first woman and first Jewish person to win an electoral vote in a presidential election in the United States.

In the 1972 election, Nathan was the vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, which was a new party at the time, serving as the running mate to John Hospers. The party was only on the ballot in two states, Colorado and Washington, but a Republican elector in Virginia chose to vote for Hospers and Nathan instead of Richard Nixon, thus making Nathan the first woman to win an electoral vote; Nathan's being of Jewish faith also made her the first Jew to win an electoral vote (in 1964, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was of Jewish origin and he won electoral votes, but he was an Episcopalian).

The result of the election was not affected by the faithless elector; while Richard Nixon lost an electoral vote in Virginia, he still won the rest of that state's votes (11 out of 12) and secured 49 of the 50 states overall, giving him a landslide victory. It should also be noted that the 1972 election is, to date, the late time a person who wasn't a Democrat or a Republican won an electoral vote, although there have been faithless electors since then.

Nathan's achievement came more than ten years before Geraldine Ferraro won electoral votes as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. While it will most definitely be a day to celebrate how far women have come when the United States does elect a woman president, Nathan will be almost completely forgotten to anyone who isn't familiar with US presidential elections and the non-major party candidates. She's already a footnote, given that most people haven't heard of her; as I wrote earlier, I only learnt about her today.

With Nathan's death, all six people who received electoral votes in the 1972 election - plus Roger MacBride, the faithless elector - are now deceased.

Republican presidents brain teaser answer

Before I present the answer to yesterday's post, I'd like to clarify that the "fact" I was referring to wasn't presented as a "brain teaser" when I initially read about it. That aspect was my idea, and so if any part of yesterday's puzzle was confusing (especially in light of what the answer is), that's entirely my fault. Now I'm hoping the answer won't be a let down!

Remember, for my first clue I posted the names of all five elected Republican presidents and their running mates, and I advised to "carefully look" at those names. If you want to have one last guess, don't read beyond this point.

All right then, the answer is "Nixon and Bush": the last five Republican presidents to have been elected all had someone with the last name "Nixon" or "Bush" on the ticket. Since 1948, the Republicans have not won without them:

Dwight D. Eisenhower/Richard Nixon - 1953-1961

Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew, later Gerald R. Ford - 1969-1974

Ronald Reagan/George H. W. Bush - 1981-1989

George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle - 1989-1993

George W. Bush/Dick Cheney - 2001-2009

From 1952 to 1972, the Republicans won four elections in that period with Richard Nixon on the ticket; from 1980 to 1988 they won three elections with a Bush on board, and in 2000 and 2004 they won with another Bush (with the two Bushes being father and son, not merely two people with the same last name). Nine presidential elections were won with these men: Nixon, 4; H. W. Bush, 3; and W. Bush, 2. Nixon has one defeat as he lost the 1960 election against John F. Kennedy, and H. W. Bush was voted out in 1988. It does not matter if they were running as president or as the vice president: the fact of the matter is, Nixon or a Bush were present on all these tickets.

Gerald R. Ford was discounted despite having served as president from 1974-1977 because he was never elected: in his capacity as vice president, Ford took over when Nixon resigned. I included Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis in yesterday's post as the final clue because 1928 was the last election in which the Republicans won the presidency without someone named Bush or Nixon running for president or vice president. Hoover was defeated in a landslide in 1932.

A small amount of research into all presidential elections from 1928 onwards will confirm that the party has not won without a Bush or Nixon since that year. Putting "without a candidate named Nixon or Bush" into Google will also turn up a few items on this subject.

Perhaps the Republicans should consider a complete Nixon/Bush ticket in 2016 and nominate Cynthia Nixon and Sophia Bush. Both are actresses (from Sex and the City and One Tree Hill, respectively), and Reagan was once an actor and he won election to president in a landslide in both 1980 and 1984 (granted, he was a governor prior to becoming president); the only major problems I can foresee with this particular ticket is that neither women are directly related to the aforementioned Nixon and Bushes, and both women are Democrats!

Republican presidents brain teaser

I discovered an interesting fact a few days ago; it's a small and most likely useless item of history (as well as not really a "brain teaser" as such), but one I feel worth sharing. To begin with, I'll list all Republican Presidents of the United States since 1948 who won election to the position:

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Richard Nixon

Ronald Reagan

George H. W. Bush

George W. Bush

So other than being president, what is distinct about these five men? Have a think for a moment, but if you'd like a clue, carefully look at these names:

Dwight D. Eisenhower/Richard Nixon - 1953-1961

Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew, later Gerald R. Ford - 1969-1974

Ronald Reagan/George H. W. Bush - 1981-1989

George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle - 1989-1993

George W. Bush/Dick Cheney - 2001-2009

I excluded Ford (1974-1977) from the first list because he was never elected to president. Do you see any pattern now? I'll give you one more hint:

Herbert Hoover/Charles Curtis - 1929-1933

I shall reveal the answer in tomorrow's post. Until then, feel free to guess away!

Scholastic Student Vote

For the past couple of weeks the polls for the presidential election in the United States have gone haywire. Given both the abundance of polls and how President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are continually switching back and forth in swing states and in the national popular vote, no one really knows whether to trust any of the polls or not. Do we really need yet another poll?

The results of the Scholastic Student Poll were released today, and 51% of the poll's respondent's chose to re-elect Obama, with 45% going to Romney, and remaining 4% going to other candidates. They predicted that Obama would win all of his 2008 states minus Indiana and Virginia, but would pick up Arizona and South Carolina. Only young people below the age of 18 could participate in the vote.

Why is this vote significant? After all, who cares what kids think...right? I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the result: the Scholastic Student Vote has correctly predicted the outcomes of 16 of the past 18 elections. The only two they got wrong were 1948 and 1960 - backing Thomas E. Dewey and Richard Nixon over the victors in each election; neither of these are surprising given how the polls showed that Harry S. Truman was supposed be defeated in 1948, and the 1960 election was incredibly close with John F. Kennedy winning only 0.2% more of the popular vote over Nixon.

I am glad that the vote does spark young peoples' interest in politics; with the way adults often behave, I'm inclined to trust kids more - in a variety of circumstances! Will the Scholastic Student Vote correctly predict the results for the seventeenth time? We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Questions from "World Turn'd Upside Down"

A couple of days ago my friend Stephanie posted a list of questions on her blog, World Turn'd Upside Down, as a way for her readers to learn a bit about each other. I commented over there saying that I would be glad to do the list; here are my answers:

1. Websites, blogs and social media can skew our lives and make us look hyper-focused on one aspect of your life. What are some interests/hobbies/etc. that you have that you think your readers/friends might not know about?
I proofread/copyedit the writings of other people (I admit it is easier to proofread and copyedit the works of others than my own!), as that is what I am working on career-wise. I love following politics, mainly in the US and UK but sometimes in other countries, too; and while I am not a sports fan, I do not mind occasionally following Wimbledon (as I am at the moment) or the Olympics. I also love meeting with people in person!

2. What have blogs/the Internet introduced you to that you never knew about before?
I have spent my entire life in the United States and the United Kingdom, and have barely ventured beyond those two countries; as such, I have not really experienced what people are like in other places. However, from interacting with different people on the Internet I have learnt that people are similar the world over: the average American wants to live the best life possible, as does the average Brazilian and the average Chinese person (while I would have preferred to have met these people in person, at least I have some insight into them). Labeling people you have never met as "enemies" serves no good purpose whatsoever.

3. What are your top 10 most visited websites?
Google sites (while there are several, I am counting them as one), Yahoo! sites, Wikipedia, BBC News, various dictionary sites, Politico, and The Huffington Post (not ten examples, I know). Beyond them, there are probably dozens more that I use for research, although they are more spread out in how much I visit them and therefore do not qualify among my "most visited".

4. What is your favorite/most bizarre/interesting fact about something in history?
Apparently, when Richard Nixon was courting his future wife, Pat Ryan, he loved her so deeply that he would take her to her dates with other men (sources here and here) merely to spend some time with her. Disregarding his problems as president, I think this shows a little-known, positive side to the man. I consider this to be my favorite historical fact.

5. If you could wake up tomorrow and have acquired a new skill in your sleep, what would it be and why?
The ability to play the piano: I currently do not play any type of musical instrument, and I have heard that the piano is amongst the most difficult to master.

6. If you could spend 1 year in a different time period, which would you choose and why?
The United States in 1977, for no other reason than to experience living under one of my favorite US presidents, Jimmy Carter.

7. What are your Internet pet-peeves?
Harassment issues aside, I would say my biggest annoyances on the Internet are when some people post uninformed comments on news articles, post off-topic trolling comments to light-hearted pieces, or "debate" by insulting other people rather than coming up with a reasonable argument to support their view(s).

8.  What is your newest hobby/interest? Tell us a little about it.
Related to answer #1, exploring the website lang-8.com: it has been a worthwhile experience to increase my proofreading/copyediting skills by correcting the writings of people who are not native English speakers. It has also been something new to do while the weather has been incredibly wet recently!

9. If you could invite 3 deceased people to dinner who would it be and what would you talk to them about?
The aforementioned Nixon would be one and I would talk to him about his courting of and love for Pat. Another would be Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh politician who was the driving force behind the establishment of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom; I would be interested in his thoughts on the NHS when it was implemented and on its current state. The third would be my great-grandfather (the father of my Dad's mother), as he was the only one of my great-grandparents alive at the time of my birth and I hardly knew him.

10. If you had to play a character in a movie, who would you play and why?
This may not be very original, but I choose Marty McFly from all the Back to the Future films. I find time travel fascinating, and McFly did go on some exciting adventures! I have always loved the third part, where he went back in time to the Wild West.

This has been an interesting set of questions to answer. Thank you, Stephanie!

About the United States Electoral College

During the United States presidential election of 2000, my mother told me that the president was not chosen directly by the people, but rather via the Electoral College. Back then I took her comment literally and thought that there was a college somewhere in the United States where a group of students chose the president. I later learnt that this was not the case.

So what is the Electoral College? Back in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention (a gathering formed to address the challenges of governing the United States and to overcome the difficulties the Articles of Confederation was having in keeping the states united), it was agreed that Congress would choose the president, and a certain amount of electors would be allocated to each state depending on its population size. Delegates from smaller states favored this method, as they were concerned about the populations of bigger states dominating the presidential elections. During that period only some states held direct votes to determine which candidate their presidential electors would give their votes to, unlike today where all states have a popular vote.

There are 538 electoral votes, and a candidate needs 270 to win the election; the 538 figure comes from adding up all members of the House of Representatives (435), the senators (100), and the three electoral votes granted to Washington D.C. after it was allowed to vote in the presidential elections under the 23rd Amendment. It is not necessary to win a majority of the states or even win the largest share of the popular vote to be victorious in a presidential election.

While the people of each state vote to decide who their state's electoral votes will go to, 26 states do not have any laws to prevent "faithless electors". A faithless elector is an elector who votes for a candidate that the people of their state did not vote for. As an example, Texas does not have any laws punishing faithless electors; in 2008, there was nothing legally stopping the the electors of Texas from supporting then-Senator and subsequently President Barack Obama despite the state voting for Senator John McCain. Fortunately, in the absence of laws the vast majority of the presidential electors respect the vote of their state and votes in accordance with the people.

Under the 2010 Census, theoretically a candidate could win the 11 largest states by population while simultaneously losing the smaller 39. The electoral votes of California (55), Texas (38), New York (29), Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), Illinois (20), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), and New Jersey (14) would carry a candidate to 270 and thus narrowly win the election. However, under the current political demographics of the United States this is unlikely: for example, Vermont is worth three electoral votes, and is a highly liberal state; California and New York are also liberal states, and therefore all three vote the same way.

There are arguments for and against the Electoral College. The main reason I have observed for its preservation is that it ensures the smaller states and rural areas have a voice in the presidential elections: if the the elections were decided on the popular vote only, it has been said that the candidates would campaign hard for votes in the big states and cities at the expense of the smaller places. Regarding arguments against, critics of the Electoral College have stated that under the current political demographics it ensures that roughly 10 "swing states" decide the elections while the remaining 40 are mostly safe states for both major parties. In addition, it has been said that if the governors, senators and House representatives are all decided by a direct vote then the president should be as well.

At the present time all attempts to abolish the Electoral College have been unsuccessful. The last major attempt to fail was during 1969-1971 under Richard Nixon, when a constitutional amendment to have the president directly elected by the people was approved by the House; but in the Senate it was filibustered, put aside by the Senate Majority Leader, and ultimately expired when the Congress of that time came to the end of its term. Currently, a new movement to end the Electoral College and change to a system where the president is directly elected is being worked on by the states themselves, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Eight states and D.C. have ratified the agreement, totalling 132 electoral votes among them; should more states ratify and the amount of electoral votes of the states in the agreement surpasses 270, then the NPVIC would come into effect and the next presidential election would be decided by the popular vote rather than the Electoral College. However, it is likely that congressional approval would be sought before the NPVIC overrides the Electoral College.

I hope this post gives useful insight into the Electoral College of the United States; I can say that I certainly learnt some more about the system while doing my research for this piece. Finally, I would like to thank my brother for his help in clarifying a few points for me.

Ohio's voting record

In my post about US state nicknames, I wrote that I mistakenly thought Ohio to be nicknamed the "Bellwether State". I led myself into thinking that because of Ohio's ability to vote with the winning candidate of the presidential elections over 90% of the time.

Since 1896 onwards, Ohio has voted for the winner in all except two elections: 1944 and 1960. In 1944, Governor Thomas E. Dewey narrowly carried the state over President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in 1960 Vice President Richard Nixon comfortably won the state over Senator John F. Kennedy; in addition, 1960 was the last time Ohio voted against the victor of an election.

Missouri had the best record of being a bellwether until the 2008 election, when it voted against the winner (although the state was incredibly close); before then the last two times it voted the opposite way to the victor was in 1956 and 1900...hence its lower win rate than Ohio. Despite Ohio's record, apparently the state with the better track is Nevada, as it has supported the winner in every election since 1912 except for 1976; however, if Nevada is put on the same timeline as Ohio, it voted against the winner in 1896, 1900, and 1908.