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This is a college paper written in February 1990. It is a summary of President George Bush’s foreign policy in his first year in office.

When he ran for president in 1988, George Bush ran on his resume.  The experience which he cited included the ambassadorship to the United Nations, ambassador to China, CIA director, and vice-president.  Those jobs all prepared him for a career in foreign policy.  In his first year in office, President Bush did emphasize foreign policy, while primarily entrusting domestic affairs to Chief of Staff John Sununu, Budget Director Richard Darman, and Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady.

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This was my final term paper for Political Science 325 at Cal Poly Pomona, dated March 6, 1989.

The Immigration Reform Act of 1986 was a five-year effort to make sweeping changes in United States immigration policy - the first since the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. For the first time, U.S. employers were seen as much of the problem with immigration, and could be fined, or even face jail terms, for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. (Congress and the Nation, Vol.I, p.222)

President Reagan, though not a key player in the bill, was the catalyst for action by making several proposals to Congress in 1981 on ways to fight the rising number of illegal aliens coming to the United States. Congress responded to his recommendations by sending the matter to their Judiciary Committees. Extensive hearings were held by immigration subcommittees from both houses, and it was determined some action should be taken to curb the tide of illegal aliens crossing the border. The problem was many illegal aliens were coming to the U.S. and gaining employment from large agricultural businesses. The hiring of these foreigners was seen by Congress as encouraging more immigration by people in other countries expecting to come to the U.S. to find employment. The matter was placed in the hands of Alan K. Simpson (R-WY) who chaired the Senate Immigration and Refugee Policy Subcommittee, and Ramano L. Mazzoli (D-KY) who chaired the House Immigration, Refugees, and International Law Subcommittee.

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OK so I’ve been quite critical of the far right of the political spectrum, particularly the religious right. Just to be fair, I’m equally offended by the far left, and particularly many of the “elders” of the left, who have roots in the 1960’s young cultural movement… Hippies, flower children, beatniks, et al, were responsible for the explosion of teen sex and drug use in our country. But why don’t they own up to it? Here’s a rant I wrote back in 1999 that I still stand by today…

Many of the problems in America today can be traced back to the so-called peace movement of the 1960’s. The hippies of the 1960’s were a bunch of stoned whacked-out youth who happened to have some great music. And like to complain about “the establishment.”

The Woodstock concert is remembered as an event of historical significance. It was significant for the talent that played, not for the people who attended. There were half a million stoned hippies rolling around in the mud for a “greater cause.” But that cause for most people wasn’t the war - it was drugs and sex. If they were so peaceful, then why did they tear down the fence and barge in, forcing the promoters to lose so much money? I guess freedom at someone else’s expense was OK for them.

Look at the problems in our country. So many of them have roots in drug use, which goes back to the hippies who in many cases introduced or popularized them.

Then the hippies grew up and became parents. But instead of growing up, many became permissive and wanted to be “cool” parents. Their children grew up to mock authority, to take drug abuse lightly, and to devalue morals. And now these hippies are becoming grandparents, they see the problems their grandkids are facing, and now they say “it wasn’t like this when I was a kid.” It probably wasn’t, but they planted the seeds themselves.

But these hippies will insist that they came from a great era where peace and love ruled. They will find a way to blame Republicans or minorities or the schools - or anyone but themselves.

Vietnam was their cause, and a good one. It was a war that should have never been fought. But that war has nothing to do with drugs, permissiveness, and defiance.

Bottom line…
The hippies of the 1960’s have forever stained this country, and they don’t have the courage to admit it. Hippies were the first to ever use drugs or even bring them into this country, but they were on the front lines of the explosion in popularity which did not exist before that era.

A quick Google News search shows Obama and Clinton have about 50,000 more news listings than John McCain. Today’s main pages for Fox News, CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC have McCain completely off the radar. Only Fox had a single McCain story (barely) visible on their main page’s initial loading screen. The others required scrolling down to see anything McCain-related.

The Obama/Clinton horse race has the media riveted, while McCain continues to vanish from the radar. While in some ways it’s good that McCain is able to concentrate on raising funds for the general election, and focus his attacks on the Democrats, the lack of media coverage negates those benefits, particularly the latter.

It remains to be seen if the ultimate nominee on the Democratic side will emerge stronger as a result of the drawn-out race, or if that person will be able to reach out successfully to the loser’s base. There is surely talk of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket, which would perhaps be able to use the constant media coverage of late as fuel for their general election campaign. A splintered party full of disenfranchised voters could be the death knell for Democrats. And McCain appeals to independents and disenfranchised party voters. A splintered party could be a real possibility if both of the current candidates don’t end up on the Democratic ticket.

McCain knows this and he is watching carefully. In fact a successful White House bid may depend on it.

John McCain is essentially off the media radar and will continue to be so for nearly 6 months. He can’t hope to catch up in the couple months between the Republican convention and the general election. He needs a splintered Democratic party, and for the electorate to follow recent historical trends, which slightly lean in his favor.

The conservative wing of the party, as reluctant as they are to support John McCain, are actually the ones keeping his name from disappearing completely off the map. They are the ones discussing his conservative or liberal voting record. They are the ones discussing his faith. They are the ones who are discussing his Washington network.  In other words, as disappointed as they are, the conservatives are keeping McCain’s name out there.

Recent mini-scandals including his flare up at a NY Times reporter and his alleged affair with a lobbyist years ago are the best things to happen to McCain since Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race.

In other words, McCain needs all the controversy he can get… just to stay above the radar.

One has to wonder if Howard Dean has pulled any strings to keep the Obama/Clinton race as tight as possible. It makes for riveting political talk and speculation. And keeps McCain conveniently forgotten.

Good thing we have Rush and the angry conservatives to keep McCain’s name alive.

What do you get when you cross a political science college minor with someone who has spent over a decade crunching numbers for sports handicappers… and apply that to this year’s electoral college in the general election for President?

5 McCain Victories
5 with no winner but a McCain edge
1 with no winner but an Obama/Clinton edge
1 Tie

These are not predictions, but instead numbers generated based on historical analysis of each state. Let’s break down each of the 12 scenarios. Click on each link to see the data used for each scenario.

Scenario 1a – 269-269 Electoral Tie
This merely takes each state’s voting history for the past 5 elections and awards the party with the most victories the electoral votes this year. For example, Alaska has voted Republican in the past 5 elections, so McCain is awarded Alaska’s 3 electoral votes in 2008. This scenario does include borderline states, such as Arkansas, which voted Republican 3 times and Democrat 2 times.

Scenario 1b – 199 McCain – 255 Obama/Clinton
This uses the same data as Scenario 1a, but removes borderline states.

Scenario 2a – 278 McCain – 260 Obama/Clinton
Again, we’re using the same data as Scenario 1a, but this time we’re going back the past 7 elections, which includes the Reagan 1980 and 1984 victories in the averages. Borderline states are included.

Scenario 2b – 269 McCain – 102 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 2a, but excluding borderline states.

Scenario 3a – 414 McCain – 124 Obama/Clinton
Scenario #3 takes a look at how likely a state is to vote for the incumbent party versus the non-incumbent party, going back to 1988. In this situation, we are calling Republicans the incumbent party and Democrats the non-incumbent party. Most states are borderline in this category.

Scenario 3b – 42 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but removing borderline states. As you can see, most electoral votes are not counted with this method.

Scenario 4a – 438 McCain – 100 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but going back to 1980. McCain is given a bigger boost with this method.

Scenario 4b – 56 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 4a data is used, but omitting borderline states.

Scenario 5a – 274 McCain – 264 Obama/Clinton
Scenarios 5 and 6 are perhaps the most interesting, as they combine states voting history by party with their likelihood to vote for the incumbent or non-incumbent party. The race tightens up here, but the edge goes to McCain. Again borderline states are included and this data goes back to 1988.

Scenario 5b – 172 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
The same data as Scenario 5a, but with borderline states omitted.

Scenario 6a – 274 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
Again, the same as Scenario 5a, but using a data pool going back to 1980, and includes borderline states.

Scenario 6b – 172 McCain – 13 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 6a data but with borderline states omitted.

As obvious as the information below is, I couldn’t seem to find some of it easily online. So if you’re looking for the ages of presidents when they left office, here is a good chart for you. For a discussion about how recent presidents have aged, take a look at this recent blog post.

You can find the chart presidents here.

The 2008 Republican campaign dealt a well-deserved blow to the Religious Right of the Republican party. But didn’t they see it coming? The presumed front-runner throughout all of 2007 was Rudy Giuliani, who was the only vocal pro-choice candidate. After his disastrous wait-for-Florida strategy put him out of the race, we were left with Mormon Mitt Romney, moderate and 2000 also-ran John McCain, and ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee. With a split in evangelical votes, McCain surprised everyone on the right and pried the nomination away from the right wing of the party.

For the record, I am a Republican. A moderate, and proud of it.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are beside themselves with no “true” conservative to support. In other words, McCain doesn’t pander to the right wing of the party. This is supposed to be a bad thing?

What the Religious Right fails to realize is that they are not the only Republicans. There are fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. It’s not always a happy marriage.

Why is it that whenever a moderate Republican is poised to be President, we hear how he has to appease the conservatives. Why is that? Why don’t we ever hear how a conservative has to appease the moderates? Rush Limbaugh recently stated that conservatives are the base of the party, implying that they somehow earn special treatment. He also said that moderates are essentially those who can’t make up their minds.

It’s rarely fiscal or foreign policy issues that split the Republican party, but social issues. Evangelicals have an agenda that extends far beyond politics and can be found in the pages of the Holy Bible. So much for separation of church and state? Even conservative hero Barry Goldwater warned for years of religion crossing over in to politics.

Let’s consider two imaginary Republicans: a non-church going CEO of a large company, and a deeply religious middle-class school teacher. Both are Republicans, but for completely different reasons. The CEO wants tax breaks, and business-friendly politicians in office. Abortion is probably the last thing on his mind. He might even be pro-choice, but it isn’t an issue he votes on. The teacher could care less about business friendly politicians, but wants someone who will represent his core values, one of them being a pro-life stance.

The Religious Right cries of being persecuted and discriminated against, yet they are often the ones with the most power. If a minister walked into a room of atheists and said he believed in God, he’d probably be ignored. If an atheist walked into a room of believers and expressed his disbelief, he would find a crowd of believers attempting to “save” him from his belief.

It’s the Republican party, not the Christian Party or the Religious Party. Secular Moderates have every reason to be Republicans and to strongly believe whatever they desire. And just because they happen to agree with the Religious Right on fiscal and foreign policy issues, doesn’t mean that they embrace every element of the party platform.

Most Republicans believe in state’s rights, smaller government, lower taxes, strong defense, a free-market system, oppose labor unions, and wish to halt the avalanche of illegal immigration into our country. I rarely find a Republican who doesn’t agree on all of those issues.

On the other hand, social issues such as prayer in public school, teaching creationism, abortion, and a rejection of stem cell research are brought to the tables for religious reasons alone.

Prayer in public school
I just don’t get this one. If someone wants to bow their head and silently say a prayer, more power to them. Why does this have to be legislated? It was never a problem when I was a kid… and there was no prayer in school. If someone wanted to pray to himself, no one minded either way.

Teaching creationism
If you take the Genesis fable out of the picture, where else can scholars go to learn of this? What do you want a science teacher to say? “Some people believe that God created man, I just have no evidence or scientific data to back this theory up.” Or should he just go grab the Bible and start reading Genesis? Even some Christians have jumped off the creationism bandwagon and call it an allegory. Problem is that Jesus traced his lineage back to Adam.

Abortion
This is a big issue promoted by modern Christians via Biblical interpretation. I won’t go into it here, but you can easily debate if aborting a few cells early in a pregnancy amounts to “murder” as outlined in the Bible. Recent polls suggest that around 60% of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all cases. A full 70% of Americans said they would vote for a president if they agreed with all issues except abortion with him. In other words, this is a big issue with evangelicals, but most people are content with abortion being legal.

Same Sex Marriage
There is mention of homosexuality being wrong in the Bible, so I actually understand why someone who believes the Bible will be against this. This leads me to something my cousin said to me today… If Christians want to stop being “persecuted” (as they think they are), they should stop trying to tell everyone else what to do. With same sex marriage – who really cares what two consenting adults choose to do? I know… Christians feel that acceptance of this will lead to moral decay and doesn’t preserve the values by which our country was founded. Of course many of these same Christians by no means follow the Bible to the letter… but they certainly are willing to take the moral reins, flaws and all, and lead those of us they deem morally impotent around. Why are these hypocrites so set on forcing their set values – which they themselves often break – down everyone else’s throats?

I attended the Nevada Republican Caucus this year. Each precinct had its own meeting, and people from each pricinct were asked if they wanted to say anything about the candidates they supported. A woman got up and started talking about Mike Huckabee, and said, “He represents the evangelical views that I hold…” I looked around and noticed some people lit up like a Christmas tree, while others rolled their eyes. The Republican divide is real.

Should McCain win the election, it will be interesting to see if evangelical Republicans can twist his arm enough to make him take a couple steps to the right. Arm twisting (among other things) didn’t work in the Hanoi Hilton, but maybe 40 years later he’ll crack.

I remember as a kid how people thought Jimmy Carter aged badly during his administration. I don’t know that he aged so bad, as much as his trademark smile was wiped off his face during the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Recent thoughts of that made me want to go back and see how other recent presidents looked at the beginning and end of their terms. It does appear that being president ages some men more than others.

For a list of presidents and their ages upon leaving office, look here.

Nixon coasted to an historic landslide in 1972, only to resign in disgrace two years later. He was consumed by the scandal and it took a toll on him.

Reagan liked to delegate and shun details. Even though he had the Iran Contra scandal, he left the office positive and largely unaffected by the pressures of the office.

The elder George Bush (by the way, it’s NOT George Bush Sr and George Bush Jr., as the elder Bush has two middle names) was a career Washington politician. The pressures of office were old hat to him. He left office after 4 years in relatively good physical shape.

Bill Clinton, though always presenting himself as a positive leader, was famous for his micromanagement and quick temper. He also became only the second president to be impeached (history 101 - being “impeached” doesn’t mean being removed from office… it just means impeachment proceedings were brought against him). He also had his girlfriend Monica Lewinsky to deal with and deny. He left office a bit weathered.

George W. Bush had 9/11 and two wars to wage, not to mention the wars he had to wage at home against an army of detractors. He looks 20 years older in his last year in office than he did in his first.