tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719252574677567989.post3683584258942244958..comments2024-03-26T05:22:08.256-04:00Comments on Frontloading HQ: Happy 4th of July!!!!Josh Putnamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301836432446874997noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719252574677567989.post-79238231635840565802008-07-05T17:08:00.000-04:002008-07-05T17:08:00.000-04:00Nice addition, Scott. It was indeed a slow day fo...Nice addition, Scott. It was indeed a slow day for the blog yesterday and I've been on the road again today. <BR/><BR/>Your point about the Founders re: the states is a valid one. The only real remnant of that is the electoral college tiebreaker in the House (done by state delegations). And I agree, that aspect probably would have agitated the broadest cross-section of the Founders more than any of these other issues.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719252574677567989.post-54991263151032158362008-07-05T09:48:00.000-04:002008-07-05T09:48:00.000-04:00Happy Independence Day + 1!I think the Founding Fa...Happy Independence Day + 1!<BR/><BR/>I think the Founding Fathers, for the most part, would be delighted with the diversity of this year's contest, and not all that surprised.<BR/><BR/>Start with age. Interestingly, the idea that a President should be young and vigorous doesn't seem to have shown up until the mid-nineteenth century. Of the first seven Presidents, the youngest at the time of ascension was George Washington, and he was 57. That puts them all above the median for US Presidents! I don't think they saw life expectancy the same way that we do. Every four years was a risk, whether you were 35 or 75. If you'd made it to 70 and were evidently sound of mind and body, your odds of going another four years didn't seem all that much worse than a 40 year old. (William Henry Harrison seems to have been the turning point.)<BR/><BR/>An African American? The Founding Fathers clearly struggled with slavery and ideas of equality. For some of them, the idea that it took 232 years from 1776 to get to this point probably would have seemed slow.<BR/><BR/>A woman? I'm not as sure on that one, but the Founding Fathers were a pretty progressive bunch. One glance at the changes in our society--for instance, more women seek higher education than men--and I think it would seem obvious to them. <BR/><BR/>But here's the part that I think would have been disturbing to some of them, but not to others: the idea that we vote for President as a nation at all. Originally the President was chosen by the <I>states</I>, not directly by the <I>people</I>. We still have an echo of that in the Electoral College. Sovereignty of states was a very important concept to some of the FF's, and it's clearly diminished dramatically.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14690577323454357276noreply@blogger.com