Bush impeachment polls more like Nixon than Clinton

after the impeachment of Clinton. They didn't lose power until 2006.

.

busy buying the Dem candidates for office...

practically unheard of for the opposition party in the sixth year of a President's term.

with the question I responded to.

Impeachment FAQ

David Swanson
June 19, 2007
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT IMPEACHMENT

snip -

Isn't it more important to win the next election(s)?

No. It isn't. But if it were, we would be wise to recognize that impeachment is the best guarantee of electoral success for Democrats and Republicans alike. Voters appreciate efforts to push for a cause. Cowardice and restraint are not very popular.

When the Democrats held back from impeachment during Iran Contra, they lost the next elections. When the Democrats led the effort to investigate and impeach Nixon, they won big in the next election, even though Ford was running as an incumbent. When the Republicans tried to impeach Truman, they got what they wanted out of the Supreme Court and then won the next elections. Articles of Impeachment have been filed against 10 presidents, usually by Republicans, and usually with electoral success following. When the Republicans impeached Clinton, impeachment was actually unpopular with the public. Even so, the Republicans lost far fewer seats than is the norm for a majority party at that point in its tenure. Two years later, they lost seats in the Senate, which had acquitted, but maintained their strength in the House, with representatives who had led the impeachment charge winning big.

Parties that seek to impeach are not punished at the next election. In fact, they frequently improve their position -- as evidenced by Dems in 1974, Republicans in 1952, and all the way back to the Whigs of last century. In every election back to 1842 where House members of an opposition party to a sitting president have -- as a whole or a significant caucus within the party -- proposed impeachment of the president, that opposition party retained or improved its position in the House at the following election. There is no instance of voters responding to a significant impeachment effort by sweeping its advocates out of office. In fact, history points in a different direction -- suggesting that voters frequently reward parties for taking the Constitution and the rule of law seriously.

more -

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=30042

whether they have the majority in congress or not, the party opposite to the President almost always gains seats in the 6th year election. The Republicans lost seats.

Here's another clip from an article by John Nichols (author of The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism). Though it doesn't directly address the 6th year election, it does talk about impeachment being a political winner:

The lost seats and the pattern.

There was no back lash.

"Opposition party" is the party opposite the president. Let's look at history:

1988, Reagan's 6th year: Dems picked up 5 House seats, 8 Senate seats.
1958, Eisenhower's 6th year: Dems picked up 49 House seats, 14 Senate seats.
1938, Roosevelt's 6th year: Republicans picked up 81 House seats, 6 Senate seats.
1917, Wilson's 6th year: Republicans picked up 25 House seats, 5 Senate seats.
1908, T. Roosevelt's 6th year: Democrats picked up 32 House seats. Can't find the results of that year's Senate election.

So Bill Clinton was the only two-term president of the 20th Century to gain seats for his party in the 6th year, bucking a trend not only of losing seats, but losing a LOT of seats.

The House Judiciary Committee conducted no investigations of its own into Clinton's alleged wrongdoing, and it held no serious impeachment-related hearings before the 1998 mid-term elections. Nevertheless, impeachment was one of the major issues in the election; the Republicans were for it, and the Democrats were against it. In November 1998, the Democrats picked up seats in the Congress. It is unusual for the President's party to gain seats in a mid-term election, especially during the second "lame duck" term. (The previous mid-term election, in 1994, had been a major debacle for Clinton's Democratic Party.)


The impeachment efforts didn't begin until after the mid terms. Go try to distort the truth somewhere else.

.

do you really think impeachment was not a big issue in the 1998 election? It very certainly was, as your own quote suggests.

It may have been an issue as it is now, the people wanted impeachment hearings and the republican controlled congress wasn't conducting them, thus the back lash. Seriously dude, the repulicans couldn't prove any crimes and wasted thousands of dollars, yet they retained control of congress in 2000, 2002 and 2004, after the major failings. Losing control of congress after the bogus impeachment proceedings would have been the back lash.

.

impeachment was a major issue in the 1998 election, and clinton was the only two-term president of the 20th Century to gain seats for his party in his 6th year.

Republicans lost seat in a year they should've picked up plenty.

after the mid terms.

So you can't really claim that because the Repos achieved an unpopular impeachment that they then were punished for it, since impeachment occured after the mid terms.

Of course there is widespread approval of impeaching chaney/bush which was lacking when the Repos went after Clinton. So that's a very different factor as well.

To try to predict political fortunes today based on a very different situation during the Clinton era is silly at best.

impeaching Bush and Cheney?

of impeachment and opposed to impeachment suggest that impeaching cheney, or both bush and cheney, would be quite popular, espeacially when comparded to the polls on impeaching Clinton.

The notion that impeaching cheney or bush and cheney, would be unpopular is not substanciated by these polls.

Not exactly a public clamor for removing them both.

the situation now is very different than during the Clinton impeachment, which is the point I was making to rebut your contention that impeachment would somehow hurt the Dems.

Do you concede that impeachment of cheney, cheney/bush would be far more popular than impeaching Clinton was?

Or do you still maintain that impeachment now would duplicate the history you presented?

I believe it would be more popular than Clinton's impeachment, but it would still hurt Democrats because it's doomed to fail.

Congress voted to begin an impeachment inquiry on October 8, 1998. Both occured before the election.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Clinton_in_crisis/Story/0,2763,210024,00.html

the mid terms.

bush's lies about Iraq reached the public years ago.

but I guess we should just expect the executive to lie us into war, after all, it doesn't seem to bother a whole lot of members of the House, or the Senate.

If, as I maintain and you disagree with, a long-term wholesale multi-faceted operation has from many different angles (media, psychological "advertising" and PR, weakening of the foundations of the Constitution, inserting Loyal Bushies into key position where they can foil prosecution of lawlessness, neutralization of the Democratic Party as oppositional force, and more and more and more, all successfully or nearly achieved by now), then it would make sense that any data-point the came closer and closer to the "event horizon" of the late 90s and the Stolen Election of 2000, would begin to strongly reflect the new Bushie Reality, that has laid it's shadow all over our once-great, once-free nation...that any data-point would look, more suppressed the "backlash" the closer you got.

And of course I forgot to mention the effect of Extreme Gerrymandering, another place the relative ethical level of the Democrats compared to the Bushies prevents them from being as ruthless in it's application as Loyal Bushies, like DeLay in TX in 2002 which stands today a great and hideous example of what Extreme Gerrymandering can do compared to the relatively benign, non-technological Old American version.

Reagan's sunny puppet-like cluelessness and his lie-telling ratio of 40% (staggeringly high for that time during the Old American Republic, was explained away by his doddering senility, which turned out to be real and onsetting Alzheimers...but he lied an AWFUL lot and answered "I don't remember" more than 100 times during his videotaped Iran-Contra testimony...remember?) was merely a mild prototype of Lil Boots' reign and his 98% lie-telling ratio.

Hmmm. Ike lost 49/14, but Reagan lost 5/8.

As molecular biologist, accustomed to analyzed data, full disclosure compels me to say that two data points do not make much of a proof, but those are all the data-points we have and I maintain the hypothesis with what data does exist.

Voters appreciate efforts to push for a cause. Cowardice and restraint are not very popular.

instead of pre-compromising then folding altogether like the Democrats do.

the Democrats make a token, half effort and then surrender.

The benefit of an impeachment fight to an opposition party comes not in the removal of an individual who happens to wear the label of another party. Rather, it comes in the elevation of the discourse to a higher ground where politicians and voters can ponder the deeper meaning of democracy.

When the whole of a political party finally concludes that it must take up the weighty responsibility of impeaching a president, as Democrats did in 1974 but Republicans never fully did in 1998, its language is clarified and transfigured. What Walt Whitman referred to as "long dumb voices" are suddenly transformed into clarion calls as a dialogue of governmental marginalia gives way to discussion of the intent of the founders, the duty of the people's representatives, and the renewal of the republic.

When a political party speaks well and wisely of impeachment, frustrated voters come to see it in a new way. It is no longer merely the tribune of its own ambition. It becomes a champion of the American experiment. To be sure, such a leap entails risk. But it is the risk-averse political party that is most likely to remain the permanent opposition.

If Pelosi hopes to build a new and more vital relationship with the American people, she must overcome the irrational fear of presidential accountability in general and impeachment in particular that have so paralyzed Democrats. Tuesday's Democratic win resulted from the recognition by voters across the country that America needs an opposition party, not to reshuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, but to turn the ship of state in a new direction. Pelosi owes it to Salli Martyniak and all the other activists who poured their hearts and souls into making her the next speaker of the House to put impeachment back on the table. She owes it to her San Francisco constituents, who so clearly favor impeachment. Most importantly, Pelosi owes it to the republic that as speaker she will have it in her power to restore and redeem.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1109-27.htm

There've only been three administrations since FDR that've had a "sixth year" ... Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton. That's not a very large base, now, is it? Seems we have a bit of hyperbole there, I'd say.

I posted the results for the entire 20th Century. Clinton was the only two-termer to pick up seats for his party in the 6th year.

So yeah, unheard of.

There's no way that impeaching Bush would help the Republicans pick up seats. The opposite, I'd say.

"He voted to KEEP the most dangerous, incompetent, and corrupt president in American history in office. Sen. Fascistpants--is it really safe to send him back to Washington?"

don't you? How could the losses in 1998 have anything to do with impeachment back lash?

The House Judiciary Committee conducted no investigations of its own into Clinton's alleged wrongdoing, and it held no serious impeachment-related hearings before the 1998 mid-term elections. Nevertheless, impeachment was one of the major issues in the election; the Republicans were for it, and the Democrats were against it. In November 1998, the Democrats picked up seats in the Congress. It is unusual for the President's party to gain seats in a mid-term election, especially during the second "lame duck" term. (The previous mid-term election, in 1994, had been a major debacle for Clinton's Democratic Party.)

:shrug:

the month after the election. Impeachment was certainly a hot topic at the time, and was a big election issue. don't be silly.

Articles of Impeachment had been introduced in '94 by that Representative from Georgia but it was never even brought to a vote. I don't know where you are dredging up your facts from but they don't wash very well.

Bill Clinton said the famous words "I did not have sex with that woman" in January of 1998. The transcript from the Paula Jones deposition was released in March of 1998.


I love how people here just make shit up to defend their positions.

disagrees with the idea that corrupt Republicans wanted Clinton impeached and the people didn't.

In fact, that's sort of my point. But thanks for worrying about my stooginess.

Yes, I do agree that was probably one of the last, reasonably unfettered expressions of the Will of the People, of the Old American Republic.

I know, I know, this is just another normal swing of the pendulum and evrything is a-OK, right MonkeyFunk? We've had enough online internet exchanges that I believe this correctly summarizing your basic disagreement in these types of discussions with DUers. And that you agree that gaming for 2008 is the correct way for the Democratic Leadership to go.

But it isn't. And privatized voting, as well as extreme gerrymandering using tcehnologically unprecedented information gathering & analysis technology, are merely two facets of a three decade assualt on the foundations of democracy that has dozens of facets.

Yes, 1998 was wonderful, and I shall always remember it fondly with other highlights of the Last Days of the Old American Republic (1993-2000), who's very last act can be viewed in the opening scense of "Farenheit 9/11" and by the Congressional Black Caucus, a fitting and moving end that I hope shall one day be enshrined by future historians.

But we must agree to disagree.

One more thing:



"Evil Monkey! Get out of my closet!"

I witnessed redistricting in the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1980 from a good inside seat. They had computers and results of elections and registration counts and population trends and census data and everything they needed to have an informed fight. No technology could replace the skill of seasoned pols at recognizing why one candidates wins and another loses in a given precinct. They knew who the candidates were.

But, I've never heard what you have to say before. So, I'm wondering if I have the wrong picture.

Perhaps even more, perhaps 1/10000th or 1/1,000,000th, though I am no computer expert, is is clear that computing has increased AT LEAST two magnitudes since 1980.

This allows data and analysis that is probably at least one order of magntidue more specific, with alonger span of time, and with more detailed information able to be collated and analyzed as never before. The difference is in the tailor-making of districts far tighter (again, DeLay's Texas in 2002 and Colorado in 2003, as well as the PA 6th) and in far less danger of "surprises" to the extreme gerrymanderers.

That's what I mean about new technologies making old system turn into something new. You can talk about reams of those old raster pages generated by some old Apple II, but if you think the data output and analysis equals one Microsoft Works Spreadsheet, well then I can't say anything more and we must agree to disagree.

Another component of Extreme Gerryamdering is not just the existance of such new computing tools is the willingness to use them in increasingly unethical and unlawful ways. For this moment in history, there is a vast difference in the ruthlessness and criminality of the Bushies and the Democratic Party, so in a microcosm of what is playing out on the national stage, I would not expect State Democrats to use Extreme Gerrymandering as the Republics do.

Does this mean I don't think they would gerrymander or that I think they are completely 100% moral because the Bushies are 100% corrupt? Of course not. It means, like Hitler and Caesar before them, the Bushies are very comfortable with restructuring the very nature of Old America becuase at bottom they don't like freedom (I think this is why Bushler projects these motivations onto his al-Qaeda pals masqeuerading as Bushie enemies as well as the 74% of Americans they view as the REAL ENEMY) and therefore will push the envelope more frequently and more powerfully than any Democrat trying to preserve the system would go in it's defense.

It is the age-old dilmena which relatively free nations (Weimar Germany or the Roman Republic come to mind) are assaulted from within by groups of people who literally wanted to transform their nations into Tyrannical States.

Anyway, I am not sure I can give you an "on the ground" mechanical explanation of what is the differnce between them except to helplessly point at an Apple II from 1980 and a modern PC with a 10 GHz processor, probably stronger than 1980s strongest bank of Cray Supercomputers.

A computer expert, a statistics expert, or a sociologist with experience in analyzing that kind of data could tell you. I can't. I can only posit. Maybe you should sit in on PA's 2010 gerrymandering session to get a closer look. Make sure it is from the Bushie side, so that you can undrestand how all this deeply organized, collated, and analyzed data can be used to corrupt representative democracy, IF you are willing to have no conscience and care nothing about the dream of equal represenatation for anyone but yourselves and unequal for everyone else (how else do you win every time unless the game is fixed, eh?).

Anyway, that's my "explanation", and I well know that from a technical viewpoint, it is not a very good one.

Look at DeLay's Texas redistricting in 2002, for a clear example of the power of Extreme Gerrymandering.

It is not suprising you have never heard of this, it is something that is more taboo to be talked about than the established fact that Bushler lies 98% of the time, or the fact that Congress no longer feels it necessary to put everyone who appears before them under oath, even though it worked from the previous 224 1/2 years before 12-12-2000, the day everything changed.

This time, most of the country thinks that the Democrats should impeach the chimp.

as Congressional Democrats.

They still maintained power in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

lol

:hi:

the only time in the 20th Century a two-term president picked up seats for his party in the 6th-year election. But you knew that.

to do it.

You think the Bushies would have won ANY elections if we had a trustworthy voting system?

Add to that, if the media was not a laughable carnival of stupidity and nonsense, unable to investigate the Bushies much beyond, "I called their office and they said they didn't do it."

Or if it only transmittted unfiltered Bushie Lies and Spin as a mere "he-said/she-said" choice when they are TRANSPARENTLY UNFACTUAL, if it did this only 20% of the time instead of 75% of the time?!?

My God, it would be like 1964 again in terms of overwhelming Democratic majorities!

But, no use wishing for that which we don't have...Liberty and a Free Press.

And I'm deeply suspicious of their gains in Congress, as well. Rigged voting machines and all kinds of irregularities all over the country.

the reality is that in 1998 (after the impeachment effort against Clinton began, but before the articles were voted), the repubs lost 6 seats in the House and failed to pick up anything in the Senate -- the first time in over 150 years that the non-presidential party had failed to pick up ground in the sixth year of an opposition presidency.

In 2000, after the impeachment process was over and done, the repubs lost 4 seats in the Senate and two more in the House (and they lost the popular vote for the presidency and, but for the scotus, would've lost the electoral college vote as well).

In 2002 and 2004, the repubs picked back up Senate seats and house seats -- gains that were attributable to the public's reaction to 9/11 and the war, not to the clinton impeachment effort.

Put another way, the "historical" record shows that the GOP did not come back with bigger majorities as a result of the clinton impeachment effort. To the contrary, they lost ground which they only made up after 9/11.

I don't trust any of the elections - the rigged machines were all over the country.

During the Nixon problem, there were still outlets that weren't wholly owned subsidiaries of GE et all.

If Nixon had kept the war in Vietnam going he wouldn't have been driven out of office either.

For Bush, that's the real lesson of Vietnam.

And we already "have the votes."

--

but we need ways to hold Bush/Cheney responsible for the bankrupting of the Treasury ---
and presumably he is now set to destroy Social Security as a way to privatize it --
not to mention his near-destruction of Education in America . . .

and the many, many other areas of destruction --

These are the destroyers . . . .

The Constitution talks about action based on mere "suspicion" . . .and notably when there may be collaboration between Prez and VP . . .

Americans are dumb for letting this go on so long --
The Founders were not as dumb --

These are simply criminals -- crooks and thugs -- in suits --