Walter Mondale to Gary Hart: "When I hear your 'new ideas,' I’m reminded of that ad, 'Where’s the Beef?'"
When you see the clip, you can see how hard Mondale worked to talk over Hart and get that canned line out ... and how pleased he was with himself afterwards
For the youngsters out there: this was considered *the* pivotal moment of the 1984 Democratic presidential primary
BTW I got to talk to Hart about 1984 a little more than a year, which I wrote about here politico.com/news/magazine/…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
In my latest for @monthly, which talks of the value in threatening to court-pack (but not actually doing it), I delve into the debate over the impact of FDR's court-packing attempt. I include some details you may not know...
@monthly ...Some argue FDR's court-packing bill instigated the "switch in time that saved nine," as the Court flipped from anti-New Deal to pro-New Deal rulings after that.
But the "switch" happened before the bill's introduction...
But as Justice Owen Roberts explained in a 1945 memo academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnso… he cast the "switch" vote on Dec. 19, 1936, so FDR's announcement could not have pressured him...
Having gotten Obama's memior for Xmas, I was struck at how quickly it grabs you.
Which got me thinking about how well does the intro stand up to past presidential autobiographies and memoirs...
...There have been 16 presidential autobiographies and memoirs, covering that time in office (I'm not counting Grant's, which, while celebrated, is a war memoir from a general).
My first history podcast episode–about the creation of the UN–begins with a seemingly unrelated scandal: when Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles sexually propositioned porters on FDR's train
This got me thinking, is this the 1st WH gay sex scandal?...
...Before the Sumner Welles incident was the 1919 Newport sex scandal, which involved Navy sailors and implicated FDR as Asst Sec to the Navy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_s… . But didn't involve sexual activity among people in the administration...
...But perhaps the Welles incident shouldn't qualify either because the scandal never became public during FDR's presidency, though it was gossiped about and led to Welles' resignation...