Populism, defined either as an ideology, or (less commonly) a political philosophy, or a type of discourse, i.e., of sociopolitical thought that compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes, or a type of political mobilization that is essentially devoid of theory. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social movements. It is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as "political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people's needs and wishes". It can be understood as any political discourse that appeals to the general mass of the population, to the "people" as such, regardless of class distinctions and political partisanship: "a folksy appeal to the 'average guy' or some allegedly general will". This is in opposition to statism, which holds that a small group of professional politicians know better than the people and should make decisions on behalf of them. Nevertheless, populist discourse frequently (often, but not always, in the Latin American case) buttresses an authoritarian top-down process of political mobilization in which the leader addresses the masses without the mediation of either parties or institutions.

Academic definitions

Academic and scholarly definitions of populism vary widely and the term is often employed in loose, inconsistent and undefined ways to denote appeals to ‘the people’, ‘demagogy’ and ‘catch-all’ politics or as a receptacle for new types of parties whose classification is unclear. A factor held to diminish the value of ‘populism’ in some societies is that, as Margaret Canovan notes in her 1981 study ''Populism'', unlike labels such as ‘conservative’ or ‘socialist’, the meanings of which have been ‘chiefly dictated by their adherents’, contemporary populists rarely call themselves ‘populists’ and usually reject the term when it is applied to them by others.

Some exceptions to this pattern of pejorative usage exist, notably in the United States, but it appears likely that this is due to the memories and traditions of earlier democratic movements (for example, farmers' movements, New Deal reform movements, and the civil rights movement) that were often called populist, by supporters and outsiders alike. It may also be due to linguistic confusions of populism with terms such as "popular".

Due to the attention on populism in the academic world, scholars have made advances in defining the term in ways that can be profitably employed in research and help to distinguish between movements that ''are'' populist and those that simply ''borrow'' populist ideas. One of the latest definitions of populism comes from Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell who, in their volume ''Twenty-First Century Populism'', define populism as an ideology that "...pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice".

Rather than view populism in terms of specific social bases, economic programs, issues, or electorates—as discussions of right-wing populism tend to do—this conception of populism is in the tradition of scholars such as Ernesto Laclau, Pierre-Andre Taguieff, Yves Meny and Yves Surel, who have all sought to focus on populism ''per se'', rather than simply as an appendage of other ideologies such as nationalism or neo-liberalism.

Given its central tenet that democracy should reflect the pure and undiluted will of the people, populism can sit easily with ideologies of both right and left. While leaders of populist movements in recent decades have claimed to be on either the left or the right of the political spectrum, many populists claim to be neither "left wing", "centrist" nor "right wing."

Styles and methods

Some scholars argue that populist organizing for empowerment represents the return of older "Aristotelian" politics of horizontal interactions among equals who are different, for the sake of public problem solving. Populism has taken left-wing, right-wing, and even centrist forms, as well as forms of politics that bring together groups and individuals of diverse partisan views. The use of populist rhetoric in the United States has recently included references such as "the powerful trial lawyer lobby", "the liberal elite", or "the Hollywood elite". An example of populist rhetoric on the other side of the political spectrum was the theme of "Two Americas" in the 2004 Presidential Democratic Party campaign of John Edwards.

Populists are seen by some politicians as a largely democratic and positive force in society, while a wing of scholarship in political science contends that populist mass movements are irrational and introduce instability into the political process. Margaret Canovan argues that both these polar views are faulty, and has defined two main branches of modern populism worldwide—''agrarian'' and ''political''—and mapped out seven disparate sub-categories:

Agrarian

Commodity farmer movements with radical economic agendas such as the US People's Party of the late 19th century.

Subsistence peasant movements, such as the Eastern European Green Rising militias, which followed World War I.

Intellectuals who romanticize hard-working farmers and peasants and build radical agrarian movements like the Russian ''narodniki''.

Political

Populist democracy, including calls for more political participation through reforms such as the use of popular referendums.

Politicians' populism marked by non-ideological appeals for "the people" to build a unified coalition.

Reactionary populism, such as the white backlash harvested by George Wallace.

Populist dictatorship, such as that established by Getulio Vargas in Brazil.

Fascism and populism

It is believed by some that populist movements can be precursors for, or building blocks for, fascist movements. Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create "a seedbed for fascism." National socialist populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany. In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. The Nazis "parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism." According to Fritzsche:

The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....[b]reaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people's community...

History in Europe

Classical populism

The word populism is derived from the Latin word ''populus'', which means ''people'' in English (in the sense of "nation", as in: "The Roman People" (''populus Romanus''), ''not'' in the sense of "multiple individual persons" as in: "There are people visiting us today"). Therefore, populism espouses government by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses). This is in contrast to elitism, aristocracy, synarchy or plutocracy, each of which is an ideology that espouse government by a small, privileged group above the masses.

Populism has been a common political phenomenon throughout history. The Populares were an unofficial faction in the Roman senate whose supporters were known for their populist agenda. Some of the most well known of these were Tiberius Grachus, Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, all of whom eventually used referendums to bypass the Roman Senate and appeal to the people directly.

Early modern period

Populism rose during the Reformation; Protestant groups like the Anabaptists formed ideas about ideal theocratic societies, in which peasants would be able to read the Bible themselves. Attempts to establish these societies were made during the German Peasants' War (1524–1525) and the Münster Rebellion (1534–1535). The peasant movement ultimately failed as cities and nobles made their own peace with the princely armies, which restored the old order under the nominal overlordship of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, represented in German affairs by his younger brother Ferdinand.

The same conditions contributed to the outbreak of the English Revolution of 1642–1651, also known as the English Civil War. Conditions led to a proliferation of ideologies and political movements among peasants, self-employed artisans, and working class people in England. Many of these groups had a dogmatic Protestant religious bent. They included Puritans and the Levellers.

Religious revival

Romanticism, the anxiety against rationalism, broadened after the beginnings of the European and Industrial Revolutions because of cultural, social, and political insecurity. Romanticism led directly to a strong popular desire to bring about religious revival, nationalism and populism. The ensuing religious revival eventually blended into political populism and nationalism, becoming at times a single entity and a powerful force of public will for change. This paradigm shift was marked by people looking for security and community because of a strong emotional need to escape from anxiety and to believe in something larger than themselves.

The revival of religiosity all over Europe played an important role in bringing people to populism and nationalism. In France, François-René de Chateaubriand provided the opening shots of Catholic revivalism as he opposed enlightenment's materialism with the "mystery of life", the human need for redemption. In Germany, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher promoted pietism by stating that religion was not the institution, but a mystical piety and sentiment with Christ as the mediating figure raising the human consciousness above the mundane to God's level. In England, John Wesley's Methodism split with the Anglican church because of its emphasis on the salvation of the masses as a key to moral reform, which Wesley saw as the answer to the social problems of the day.

Rejection of ultramontanism

Chateaubriand's beginning brought about two Catholic Revivals in France: first, a conservative revival led by Joseph de Maistre, which defended ultramontanism, which is a religious philosophy placing strong emphasis on the supremacy of the Pope, and a second populist revival led by Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais, an excommunicated priest. This religious populism opposed ultramontanism and emphasized a church community dependent upon all the people, not just the elite. It stressed that church authority should come from the bottom up and that the church should alleviate suffering, not merely accept it. Both of these religious principles are based on populism.

Latin America

Populism has been an important force in Latin American political history, where many charismatic leaders have emerged since the beginning of the 20th century, as the paramountancy of agrarian oligarchies had been dislocated by the onset of industrial capitalism, allowing for the emergence of an industrial bourgeoisie and the activation of an urban working class, causing the emergence of reformist and multi-class nationalist politics, centered on a charismatic leadership, such as Aprismo in Peru, the MNR in Bolivia, and the political movements gravitating around Getulio Vargas in Brazil, Perón in Argentina, Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico, Ecuador's Ibarra and others. Ideologically, Latin American populism, with its emphasis on nation-building under an authoritarian leadership as a prerequisite for technological modernization, betrayed the earlier influence of Comtean positivism. Socially, for many authors—such as Brazil's Octavio Ianni—populism should be understood as the political alliance between an emerging industrial bourgeoisie and a newly organizing urban working class, in which the former accepts social reforming for the latter's sake as long as the working class remains politically subbordinated to both a more or less authoritarian State and private enterprise, in a process of controlled inclusion of the "masses" into the political system, a cooptating process some Marxist authors like Brazil's Francisco Weffort ascertain was accepted by the newly urbanized working class given their lack of a previously developed class consciousness.

Despite efforts to charter an ideological pedigree to Populism in Latin America, as has been attempted by some, working, e.g., with concepts taken from Perón's Third Position., Latin American countries have not always had a clear and consistent political ideology under populism. Populist practitioners and movements in Latin America usually adapt politically to the prevailing mood of the nation, moving within the ideological spectrum from left to right many times during their political lives. If populist movements in 1930s and 1940s Latin America had apparent fascist overtones and based themselves on authoritarian politics, as was the case of Vargas' ''Estado Novo'' dictatorship in Brazil (1937–1945), or of some of Peron's openly expressed sympathies, in the 1950s populism adapted—not without considerable unease from its political leadership—to heightened levels of working-class mobilization. Therefore the fact that 1960s populism was associated mainly with radical, left-leaning petty-bourgeois nationalism, which emptied the State of its function as a coercive class-rule apparatus and saw it instead as an organ of representation of the Nation as a whole. Such was the case, for instance, of the Goulart government (1961–1964) in Brazil, Goulart being described as a fiery populist who identified—mainly rhetorically—with the dispossessed and tried to foster a reformist agenda through ties to the organized Left. The fact that Goulart was eventually ousted by the military points, in the views of some authors, to the fact that he , as well as other populist leaders of the time, faced a jeopardy: they were reformists who, in the pursuit of their agenda, had to encourage popular mobilization and class conflict they ultimately abhorred. Therefore the fact that populism was eventually identified by the 1970s military dictatorships as "demagogery" and as a risk to the stability of the existing social order.

If "left", reformist and nationalist populism never died out altogether during the 1970s Latin American military dictatorships—as offered proof by the prompt and successful return of a populist like Brazil's Leonel Brizola to electoral politics in the early 1980s—a different streak of populism appeared in the post-military disctatorship era.This 1980s populism, in the persons of leaders like Argentina's Carlos Menem or Brazil's Fernando Collor, adapted itself to prevailing neoliberal policies of economic adjustment, setting aside nationalistic reforms and retaining the need for charismatic leadership policies, mass support and a concern for the plight of the "common people". In the 1990s and 2000s, with the emergence of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela—albeit Chavez refuses himself to be labelled as "populist"—reformist and nationalism Latin American populism has resurfaced with new patterns, as what is called by some authors socialist populism that appeals to masses of poor by promising redistributive policies and state control of the nation's energy resources.—a blueprint that had already appeared, however—albeit with no openly "socialist" rhetoric, viz., in the nationalist policies—including the launch of the State-owned oil-company Petrobrás—that were the hallmark of Vargas' second term as Brazil's democratically elected president (1951–1954) and that led to his eventual suicide.

In some countries, Populism has been fiscally supported in Latin America during periods of growth such as the 1950s and 1960s and during commodity price booms such as in oil and precious metals. Political leaders could gather followers among the popular classes with broad redistributive programs during these boom times. Conversely, in others countries, Populism has been historically associated with countering the relative decline of export agriculture with deficit spending and import-substitution policies aimed at developing an internal market for industrial consumer goods. Populism in Latin America has been sometimes criticized for the fiscal policies of many of its leaders, but has also been defended for having allowed historically weak states to alleviate disorder and achieve a tolerable degree of stability while initiating large-scale industrialization. Though populist fiscal and monetary policies may be criticized by conservative economic historians and policy makers, who seem in it the ultimately dysfunctional subordination of economic policy to political goals, some authors acknowledge populism to have allowed non-radical leaders and parties to co-opt the radical ideas of the masses so as to redirect them in a non revolutionary direction.—something that would exclude from the spectrum of "populism" governments committed to the social revolution blueprint, such as Allende's Unidad Popular government in Chile and Ortega's first revolutionary government in Nicaragua. It's generally regarded that populists hope "to reform the system, not to overthrow it".

Often adapting a nationalist vocabulary and rhetorically convincing, populism was used to appeal to broad masses while remaining ideologically ambivalent. Notwithstanding, there have been notable exceptions. 21st century Latin-American populist leaders have had a decidedly—even if mostly rhetorical—socialist bent.

When populists take strong positions on economic philosophies such as capitalism versus socialism, the position sparks strong emotional responses regarding how best to manage the nation's current and future social and economic position. Mexico's 2006 Presidential election was hotly debated among supporters and opponents of populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Inequality

Populism in Latin American countries has both an economic and an ideological edge. Populism in Latin America has mostly addressed the problem, not of capitalist economic development as such but its ''inclusiveness'', in the backdrop of highly unequal societies in which people are divided between a relative few wealthy groups and masses of poor, even in the case of societies such as Argentina, where strong and educated middle classes are a significant segment of the population. Therefore the key role of the State in Latin American populism, as an institution mediating between traditional elites and the "people" in general. In appealing to the masses of poor people prior to gaining power, populists may promise widely-demanded food, housing, employment, basic social services, and income redistribution. Once in political power, they may not always be financially or politically able to fulfill all these promises. However, they are very often successful in providing many broad and basic services.

US policy

Since one of the ideological hallmarks of Latin American populism was the empowerment of the ''national'' and its identification with the state, including nationalization of the land, natural resources and key industries as common practice, it was seen almost from the start by American policy makers to offer a challenge to US hegemony over the Americas. The US has intervened in Latin American governments on many occasions where populism was seen threatening its interests: the interventions in Guatemala, when the populist Arbenz government was overthrown by a coup backed by the American company United Fruit and the American ambassador in 1954, and the support given by the US to the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état are just two cases of American intervention. Another example of US intervention has been seen in Colombia, particularly since the assassination of the populist leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in April 1948. Gaitan supported land reform and other initiatives that posed a threat to American interests—although it's claimed that Gaitán, a Liberal as well as a populist, ultimately opposed generalized political violence and died severed from his grassroots basis of support. Either way, Gaitan's assassination is alleged to have been a CIA plot.

Populist "socialism"

Populism has remained a significant force in Latin America. Populism has recently been reappearing on the left with promises of far-reaching socialist changes as seen in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, and in Bolivia under Evo Morales- a process, however, seem by some as contradictory in that it tries to meld the populist traditional celebration of folk wisdom and charismatic leadership with doctrinaire socialism. And, in fact, "socialist" changes in today's Venezuela have mostly included the expenditure of oil revenue to benefit the working poor as a form of social welfare to help enable an eventual (and imprecise) socialist transformation. For some authors, as far as ideology is concerned, Chávez's political blueprint is more of a "throwback" to traditional populist nationalism and redistributivism. The Venezuelan government often spars verbally with the United States and accuses it of attempting to overthrow Chavez after supporting a failed coup against him. Chavez has been one of the most outspoken and blunt critics of U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, a large commodity trade continues between Venezuela and the U.S. due to the economic constraints of oil delivery and the proximity of the two countries.

As populist tradition ascertains the paramountancy of the "people" (instead of class) as a political subject, it suffices to say that, in the 21st century, the large numbers of voters living in extreme poverty in Latin America has remained a bastion of support for new populist candidates. By early 2008 governments with varying forms of populism and with some form of left leaning (albeit vague)social democratic or democratic socialist platform had come to dominate virtually all Latin American nations with the exceptions of Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico. This political shift includes both more developed nations such as Argentina's Front for Victory and Chile with its Socialist Party, and smaller income countries like Bolívia with its Movement towards Socialism and Paraguay with the Patriotic Alliance for Change. Even in middle-income Mexico, a populist candidate like Obrador, albeit defeated, nevertheless appeared as part of a strong neopopulist reaction. Nevertheless, populist candidates have been more successful in poorer Latin American countries such as Bolivia (under Morales), Ecuador (under Correa) and Nicaragua (under Ortega). By the use of broad grassroots movements populist groups have managed to gain power from better organized, funded and entrenched groups such as the Bolivian Nationalist Democratic Action and the Paraguayan Colorado Party.

Countries in Latin America with high rates of poverty, whose governments maintain and support unpopular privatizations and more orthodox economic policies that don't deliver general societal gains, will be under pressure from populist politicians and movements accusing them of benefiting the upper and upper-middle classes and of being allied to foreign and business interests.

Mexico

In Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's candidacy sparked very emotional debates throughout the country regarding policies that affect ideology, class, equality, wealth, and society. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's most controversial economic policies included his promise to expand monthly stipends to the poor and elderly from Mexico City to the rest of the country and to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to protect the Mexican poor.

The ruling party in Mexico, the National Action Party (PAN), portrayed him as a danger to Mexico's hard-earned economic stability. In criticizing his redistributive promises that would create new entitlement programs somewhat similar to social security in the US (though not as broad in scope) and his trade policies that would not fully uphold prior agreements (such as NAFTA), the economic debate between capitalists and socialists became a major part of the debate. Felipe Calderón, the PAN candidate, portrayed himself as not just a standard-bearer for recent economic policy, but as a more proactive candidate, to distance himself from the main criticisms of his predecessor Vicente Fox regarding inaction. He labeled himself the "jobs president" and promised greater national wealth for all through steady future growth, fiscal prudence, international trade, and balanced government spending.

During the immediate aftermath of the tight elections in which the country's electoral court was hearing challenges to the vote tally that had Calderon winning, Lopez Obrador showed the considerable influence over the masses that are a trademark of populist politicians. He effectively led huge demonstrations, filling the central plaza with masses of sympathizers who supported his challenge. The demonstrations lasted for several months and eventually dissipated after the electoral court did not find sufficient cause from the challenges presented to overturn the results.

United States

The populist tradition and its rebirth

There have been several versions of a populist party in the United States, some inspired by the Populist Party of the 1890s. This was the party of the early U.S. populist movement in which millions of farmers and other working people successfully enacted their anti-trust agenda.

Other early populist political parties in the United States included the Greenback Party, the Progressive Party of 1912 led by Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party of 1924 led by Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and the Share Our Wealth movement of Huey Long in 1933–35.

George Wallace, Four-Term Governor of Alabama, led a populist movement that carried five states and won 13.5% of the popular vote in the 1968 presidential election. Campaigning against intellectuals and liberal reformers, Wallace gained a large share of the white working class vote in Democratic primaries in 1972.

Populism continues to be a force in modern U.S. politics, especially in the 1992 and 1996 third-party presidential campaigns of billionaire Ross Perot. The 1996, 2000, 2004, and the 2008 presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader had a strong populist cast. The 2004 campaigns of Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton also had populist elements. The 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been described by many (and by himself) as a "one economic community, one commonwealth" populist.

Comparison between earlier surges of populism and those of today are complicated by shifts in what are thought to be the interests of the common people. Jonah Goldberg and others argue that in modern society, fractured as it is into myriad interest groups and niches, any attempt to define the interests of the "average person" will be so general as to be useless.

In 1984, the Populist Party name was revived by Willis Carto, and was used in 1988 as a vehicle for the presidential campaign of former Ku Klux Klan leader, and later member of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, David Duke. Right-wing Patriot movement organizer Bo Gritz was briefly Duke's running mate. This incarnation of populism was widely regarded as a vehicle for white supremacist recruitment. In this instance, populism was maligned by the use of a definition of "the people" that was not the prevailing definition.

Another populist mechanism was the initiative and referendum driven term limits movement of the early 1990s. In every state where term limits were on the ballot, the measure to limit incumbency in Congress passed. The average vote was 67% in favor. However, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down term limits in 1995 in the court case U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton.

In 1995, the Reform Party of the United States of America (RPUSA) was organized after the populist presidential campaign of Ross Perot in 1992. In the year 2000, an intense fight for the presidential nomination made Patrick J. Buchanan the RPUSA standard bearer. As result of his nomination as party candidate there were many party splits, not only from Buchanan supporters after he left the party, but also moderates, progressivists and libertarians around Jesse Ventura who refused to collaborate with the Buchanan candidacy. Since then the party's fortunes have markedly declined.

In the 2000s, new populist parties were formed in America. One was the Populist Party of America in 2002; another was the Populist Party of Maryland formed to support Ralph Nader in 2004, which ran candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senate and state delegate in the 2006 elections. Other examples are the American Populist Party, founded in 2009, and the American Populist Renaissance, founded in 2005. The American Moderation Party, also formed in 2005, adopted several populist ideals, chief among them working against multinational neo-corporatism. Much of the Tea Party movement has used populist rhetoric, particularly in areas and states where Democrats are in power. For instance, in New York, Carl Paladino and his conservative-populist Taxpayers Party of New York have used the motto "Paladino for the People" and have attempted to woo common people to vote for them by pitting them against the state government and the special interests that have influence in it.

Germany

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, a Lutheran Minister, a professor at the University of Berlin and the "father of gymnastics", introduced the concept of Volkstum, a racial notion that draws on the essence of a people that was lost in the Industrial Revolution. Adam Mueller went a step further by positing the state as a bigger totality than the government institution. This paternalistic vision of aristocracy concerned with social orders had a dark side in that the opposite force of modernity was represented by the Jews, who were said to be eating away at the state. Populism also played a role in mobilizing middle class support for the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany. In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. According to Fritzsche:

The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization.... Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....[b]reaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people's community...

In France, the populist and nationalist picture was more mystical, metaphysical and literarian in nature. Historian Jules Michelet (sometimes called a populist) fused nationalism and populism by positing the people as a mystical unity who are the driving force of history in which the divinity finds its purpose. Michelet viewed history as a representation of the struggle between spirit and matter; he claims France has a special place because the French became a people through equality, liberty, and fraternity. Because of this, he believed, the French people can never be wrong. Michelet's ideas are not socialism or rational politics, and his populism always minimizes, or even masks, social class differences.

In the 1950s, Pierre Poujade was the leader of the right-wing populist movement Union de Defense Commercants et Artisans (UDCA). Jean Marie Le Pen (who was UDCA's youngest deputy in the 1950s) can be characterized as right-wing populist or extreme-right populist.

See also

Argumentum ad populum

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Black populism

Bolivarian Revolution

Communitarianism

Charismatic authority

Christian Democracy

Christian Socialism

Christian right

Conservatism

Cultural production and nationalism

Demagogy

Fascism

Far right

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Gaullism

Jim Hightower

Jacobin (politics)

Kemalism

Liberation theology

List of revolutions and rebellions

Marxism

Giuseppe Mazzini

Narodnik

Nationalism

Nazism

Neo-populism

Orator

People's Party

Poporanism

Popular democracy

Populist Party

Poujadism

Producerism

Progressivism

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Religious left

Right-wing populism

José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia

Nicolas Sarkozy

Seattle's Poet Populist

Social Democracy

Socialism

Thatcherism

Union Organizer

Geert Wilders

Notes

References

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Europe

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Fritzsche, Peter. 1998. ''Germans into Nazis.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

United States

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Fink, Leon. 1983. ''Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1976. ''Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America''. New York and London: Oxford University Press.

Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1978. ''The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America''. New York and London: Oxford University Press.

Hahn, Steven. 1983. ''Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890''. New York and London: Oxford University Pres

Hofstadter, Richard. 1955. ''The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R.'' New York: Knopf.

Hofstadter, Richard. 1965. ''The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays.'' New York: Knopf.

Jeffrey, Julie Roy.1975. "Women in the Southern Farmers Alliance: A Reconsideration of the Role and Status of Women in the Late 19th Century South." ''Feminist Studies'' 3.

Kazin, Michael. 1995. ''The Populist Persuasion: An American History''. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-03793-3, ISBN 0-8014-8558-4

Marable, Manning. 1986. "Black History and the Vision of Democracy", in Harry Boyte and Frank Riessman, Eds., ''The New Populism: The Politics of Empowerment''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Palmer, Bruce. 1980. ''Man Over Money: The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Rupert, Mary. 1997. "The Patriot Movement and the Roots of Fascism." Pp. 81–101 in ''Windows to Conflict Analysis and Resolution: Framing our Field'', Susan Allen Nan, et al., eds. Fairfax, Virginia: Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

Stock, Catherine McNicol. 1996. ''Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain''. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3294-4

Miscoiu, Sergiu, Craciun, Oana, Colopelnic, Nicoleta. 2008. ''Radicalism, Populism, Interventionism. Three Approaches Based on Discourse Theory''. Cluj-Napoca: Efes.

External links

Populism and Neo-populism in Latin America, especially Mexico

The Return of Populism

Right-Wing populist resources

Study of populism that discusses Canovan

Official site of Seattle's Poet Populist contest

2007 University of Michigan 7th annual Dewey lecture, on populism as a politics of civic agency and popular empowerment

Populist themes in 2008 US elections

Mainstream Populist Democrats

American Populist Party

Category:Political theories

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Coordinates	45°47′45″N24°09′08″N
Name	Andrew Jackson
Office	7th President of the United States
Vicepresident	John C. CalhounMartin Van Buren
Term start	March 4, 1829
Term end	March 4, 1837
Predecessor	John Quincy Adams
Successor	Martin Van Buren
Office2	Military Governor of Florida
President2	James Monroe
Term start2	March 10, 1821
Term end2	December 31, 1821
Predecessor2	José Coppinger
Successor2	William Duval
Jr/sr3	United States Senator
State3	Tennessee
Term start3	March 4, 1823
Term end3	October 14, 1825
Predecessor3	John Williams
Successor3	Hugh White
Term start4	September 26, 1797
Term end4	April 1, 1798
Predecessor4	William Cocke
Successor4	Daniel Smith
State5	Tennessee
District5	At-Large
Term start5	December 4, 1796
Term end5	September 26, 1797
Predecessor5	Position established
Successor5	William Claiborne
Birth date	March 15, 1767
Birth place	Waxhaws, British America
Death date	June 08, 1845
Death place	Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Party	Democratic Party (1828–1845)
Otherparty	Democratic-Republican Party (Before 1828)
Spouse	Rachel Donelson (1791–1794; 1794–1828)
Children	Andrew JacksonLyncoya JacksonJohn Samuel DonelsonDaniel Smith DonelsonAndrew Jackson DonelsonAndrew Jackson HutchingsCarolina ButlerEliza ButlerEdward ButlerAnthony Butler
Profession	ProsecutorJudgePlanterGeneral
Religion	Presbyterianism
Signature	Andrew Jackson Signature-.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	Tennessee MilitiaUnited States Army
Rank	ColonelMajor general
Battles	American Revolutionary WarBattle of Hobkirk's HillCreek WarBattle of TalladegaBattles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo CreekBattle of Horseshoe BendWar of 1812Battle of PensacolaBattle of New OrleansFirst Seminole WarConquest of FloridaBattle of Fort NegroSiege of Fort Barrancas
Awards	Thanks of Congress }}

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815) and the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814). A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, he destroyed the national bank and relocated most Indian tribes to the west. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party, and the 1830-1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy.

Jackson was nicknamed "Old Hickory" because of his toughness and aggressive personality that produced numerous duels, some fatal. He was a rich slave owner who appealed to the masses of Americans and fought against what he denounced as a closed undemocratic aristocracy. He expanded the spoils system during his presidency to strengthen his political base, regardless of the cost of inefficiency and bias.

As president, he supported a small and limited federal government but strengthened the power of the presidency, which he saw as spokesman for the entire population–as opposed to Congressmen from a specific small district. He was supportive of states' rights, but, during the Nullification Crisis, declared that states do not have the right to nullify federal laws. Strongly against the national bank, he vetoed the renewal of its charter and ensured its collapse. Whigs and moralists denounced his aggressive enforcement of the Indian Removal Act, which resulted in the forced relocation of Native American tribes to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

His legacy is now seen as mixed by historians. He is praised as a protector of popular democracy and individual liberty for American citizens, but criticized for his support for slavery and Indian removal.

Early life and career

Parents and birth

Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. His parents were Presbyterian Scotch-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier. Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in Ireland around 1738. The house that Jackson's parents lived in, in the village of Boneybefore in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is now preserved as the Andrew Jackson Centre and is open to the public.

When they emigrated to America in 1765, Jackson's parents probably landed in Pennsylvania and made their way overland to the Scotch-Irish community in the Waxhaws region, straddling the border between North and South Carolina. They brought two children from Ireland, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert (born 1764).

Jackson's father died in an accident in February 1767, at the age of 29, three weeks before Jackson was born. Jackson was born in the Waxhaws area, but his exact birth site is unclear because he was born around the time his mother was making a difficult trip home from burying Jackson's father. The area was so remote that the border between North and South Carolina had not officially been surveyed yet.

In 1824, Jackson wrote a letter saying that he was born at an uncle's plantation in Lancaster County, South Carolina. But he may have claimed to be a South Carolinian because the state was considering nullification of the Tariff of 1824, which Jackson opposed. In the mid-1850s, second-hand evidence indicated that he may have been born at a different uncle's home in North Carolina.

Revolutionary War

thumb|left|''Young Jackson Refusing to Clean Major Coffin's Boots'' (1876 [[lithography|lithograph).]] During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson, at age thirteen, joined a local militia as a courier. His eldest brother, Hugh, died from heat exhaustion during the Battle of Stono Ferry, on June 20, 1779. Jackson and his brother Robert were captured by the British and held as prisoners; they nearly starved to death in captivity. When Jackson refused to clean the boots of a British officer, the officer slashed at the youth with a sword, leaving Jackson with scars on his left hand and head, as well as an intense hatred for the British. While imprisoned, the brothers contracted smallpox. Robert died a few days after their mother secured their release, on April 27, 1781. After his mother was assured Andrew would recover, she volunteered to nurse prisoners of war on board two ships in Charleston harbor, where there had been an outbreak of cholera. She died from the disease in November 1781, and was buried in an unmarked grave, leaving Jackson an orphan at age 14. Later, he taught school and studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1787, he was admitted to the bar, and moved to Jonesborough, in what was then the Western District of North Carolina. This area later became the Southwest Territory (1790), the precursor to the state of Tennessee.

Though his legal education was scanty, Jackson knew enough to be a country lawyer on the frontier. Since he was not from a distinguished family, he had to make his career by his own merits; soon he began to prosper in the rough-and-tumble world of frontier law. Most of the actions grew out of disputed land-claims, or from assault and battery. In 1788, he was appointed Solicitor (prosecutor) of the Western District and held the same position in the government of the Territory South of the River Ohio after 1791.

Jackson was a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention in 1796. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, Jackson was elected its U.S. Representative. The following year he was elected U.S. Senator as a Democratic-Republican, but he resigned within a year. In 1798, he was appointed a judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court, serving until 1804.

Planter, merchant, and investor

Besides his legal and political career, Jackson prospered as a slave owner, planter, and merchant. He built a home and the first general store in Gallatin, Tennessee in 1803. The next year he acquired the Hermitage, a plantation in Davidson County, near Nashville, Tennessee. Jackson later added to the plantation, which eventually grew to . The primary crop was cotton, grown by enslaved workers. Jackson started with nine slaves, held as many as 44 by 1820, and later held up to 150 slaves. Throughout his lifetime Jackson may have owned as many as 300 slaves.

Jackson was a major land speculator in West Tennessee after he had negotiated the sale of the land from the Chickasaw Nation in 1818 (termed the Jackson Purchase) and was one of the three original investors who founded Memphis, Tennessee in 1819 (see History of Memphis, Tennessee).

Military career

War of 1812

Jackson was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia in 1801, with the rank of colonel.

During the War of 1812, Tecumseh incited the "Red Stick" Creek Indians of northern Alabama and Georgia to attack white settlements. Four hundred settlers were killed in the Fort Mims Massacre. In the resulting Creek War, Jackson commanded the American forces, which included Tennessee militia, U.S. regulars, and Cherokee, Choctaw, and Southern Creek Indians.

Jackson defeated the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Eight hundred "Red Sticks" were killed, but Jackson spared chief William Weatherford. Sam Houston and David Crockett served under Jackson in this campaign. After the victory, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson upon both the Northern Creek enemies and the Southern Creek allies, wresting twenty million acres (81,000 km²) from all Creeks for white settlement. Jackson was appointed Major General after this action.

Jackson's service in the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom was conspicuous for bravery and success. When British forces threatened New Orleans, Jackson took command of the defenses, including militia from several western states and territories. He was a strict officer but was popular with his troops. It was said he was "tough as old hickory" wood on the battlefield, which gave him the nickname of "Old Hickory". In the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, Jackson's 5,000 soldiers won a decisive victory over 7,500 British. At the end of the battle, the British had 2,037 casualties: 291 dead (including three senior generals), 1,262 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing.

The war, and especially this victory, made Jackson a national hero. He received the Thanks of Congress and a gold medal by resolution of February 27, 1815. Alexis de Tocqueville later commented in Democracy in America that Jackson "...was raised to the Presidency, and has been maintained there, solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained, twenty years ago, under the walls of New Orleans."

First Seminole War

Jackson served in the military again during the First Seminole War. He was ordered by President James Monroe in December 1817 to lead a campaign in Georgia against the Seminole and Creek Indians. Jackson was also charged with preventing Spanish Florida from becoming a refuge for runaway slaves. Critics later alleged that Jackson exceeded orders in his Florida actions. His directions were to "terminate the conflict." Jackson believed the best way to do this was to seize Florida. Before going, Jackson wrote to Monroe, "Let it be signified to me through any channel... that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished." Monroe gave Jackson orders that were purposely ambiguous, sufficient for international denials.

The Seminoles attacked Jackson's Tennessee volunteers. The Seminoles' attack, however, left their villages vulnerable, and Jackson burned them and the crops. He found letters that indicated that the Spanish and British were secretly assisting the Indians. Jackson believed that the United States could not be secure as long as Spain and the United Kingdom encouraged Indians to fight, and argued that his actions were undertaken in self-defense. Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida, with little more than some warning shots, and deposed the Spanish governor. He captured and then tried and executed two British subjects, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been supplying and advising the Indians. Jackson's action also struck fear into the Seminole tribes as word spread of his ruthlessness in battle (Jackson was known as "Sharp Knife").

The executions, and Jackson's invasion of territory belonging to Spain, a country with which the U.S. was not at war, created an international incident. Many in the Monroe administration called for Jackson to be censured. Jackson's actions were defended by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, an early believer in Manifest Destiny. When the Spanish minister demanded a "suitable punishment" for Jackson, Adams wrote back, "Spain must immediately [decide] either to place a force in Florida adequate at once to the protection of her territory ... or cede to the United States a province, of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is, in fact ... a post of annoyance to them." Adams used Jackson's conquest, and Spain's own weakness, to get Spain to cede Florida to the United States by the Adams-Onís Treaty. Jackson was subsequently named military governor and served from March 10, 1821, to December 31, 1821.

Election of 1824

The Tennessee legislature nominated Jackson for President in 1822. It also elected him U.S. Senator again. By 1824, the Democratic-Republican Party had become the only functioning national party. Its Presidential candidates had been chosen by an informal Congressional nominating caucus, but this had become unpopular. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus. Those who attended backed Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford for President and Albert Gallatin for Vice President. A Pennsylvanian convention nominated Jackson for President a month later, stating that the irregular caucus ignored the "voice of the people" and was a "vain hope that the American people might be thus deceived into a belief that he [Crawford] was the regular democratic candidate." Gallatin criticized Jackson as "an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office."

Besides Jackson and Crawford, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay were also candidates. Jackson received the most popular votes (but not a majority, and four states had no popular ballot). The Electoral votes were split four ways, with Jackson having a plurality. Since no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, which chose Adams. Jackson supporters denounced this result as a "corrupt bargain" because Clay gave his state's support to Adams, and subsequently Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State. As none of Kentucky's electors had initially voted for Adams, and Jackson had won the popular vote, it appeared that Henry Clay had violated the will of the people and substituted his own judgment in return for personal political favors. Jackson's defeat burnished his political credentials, however; many voters believed the "man of the people" had been robbed by the "corrupt aristocrats of the East."

Election of 1828

Jackson resigned from the Senate in October 1825, but continued his quest for the Presidency. The Tennessee legislature again nominated Jackson for President. Jackson attracted Vice President John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas Ritchie into his camp (Van Buren and Ritchie were previous supporters of Crawford). Van Buren, with help from his friends in Philadelphia and Richmond, revived the old Republican Party, gave it a new name as the Democratic Party, "restored party rivalries," and forged a national organization of durability. The Jackson coalition handily defeated Adams in 1828.

During the election, Jackson's opponents referred to him as a "jackass". Jackson liked the name and used the jackass as a symbol for a while, but it died out. However, it later became the symbol for the Democratic Party when cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized it.

The campaign was very much a personal one. As was the custom at the time, neither candidate personally campaigned, but their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically attacked in the press, which reached a low point when the press accused Jackson's wife Rachel of bigamy. Though the accusation was true, as were most personal attacks leveled against him during the campaign, it was based on events that occurred many years prior (1791 to 1794). Jackson said he would forgive those who insulted him, but he would never forgive the ones who attacked his wife. Rachel died suddenly on December 22, 1828, before his inauguration, and was buried on Christmas Eve.

Inauguration

Jackson was the first President to invite the public to attend the White House ball honoring his first inauguration. Many poor people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes. The crowd became so large that Jackson's guards could not keep them out of the White House, which became so crowded with people that dishes and decorative pieces inside were eventually broken. Some people stood on good chairs in muddied boots just to get a look at the President. The crowd had become so wild that the attendants poured punch in tubs and put it on the White House lawn to lure people outside. Jackson's raucous populism earned him the nickname "King Mob".

Election of 1832

In the 1832 presidential election, Jackson easily won reelection as the candidate of the Democratic Party against Henry Clay, of the National Republican Party, and William Wirt, of the Anti-Masonic Party. Jackson jettisoned Vice President John C. Calhoun because of his support for nullification and involvement in the Petticoat affair, replacing him with longtime confidant Martin Van Buren of New York.

Presidency 1829–1837

Name	Jackson
President	Andrew Jackson
President start	1829
President end	1837
Vice president	John C. Calhoun
Vice president start	1829
Vice president end	1832
Vice president 2	''None''
Vice president start 2	1832
Vice president end 2	1833
Vice president 3	Martin Van Buren
Vice president start 3	1833
Vice president end 3	1837
State	Martin Van Buren
State start	1829
State end	1831
State 2	Edward Livingston
State start 2	1831
State end 2	1833
State 3	Louis McLane
State start 3	1833
State end 3	1834
State 4	John Forsyth
State start 4	1834
State end 4	1837
War	John H. Eaton
War start	1829
War end	1831
War 2	Lewis Cass
War start 2	1831
War end 2	1836
Treasury	Samuel D. Ingham
Treasury start	1829
Treasury end	1831
Treasury 2	Louis McLane
Treasury start 2	1831
Treasury end 2	1833
Treasury 3	William J. Duane
Treasury date 3	1833
Treasury 4	Roger B. Taney
Treasury start 4	1833
Treasury end 4	1834
Treasury 5	Levi Woodbury
Treasury start 5	1834
Treasury end 5	1837
Justice	John M. Berrien
Justice start	1829
Justice end	1831
Justice 2	Roger B. Taney
Justice start 2	1831
Justice end 2	1833
Justice 3	Benjamin F. Butler
Justice start 3	1833
Justice end 3	1837
Post	William T. Barry
Post start	1829
Post end	1835
Post 2	Amos Kendall
Post start 2	1835
Post end 2	1837
Navy	John Branch
Navy start	1829
Navy end	1831
Navy 2	Levi Woodbury
Navy start 2	1831
Navy end 2	1834
Navy 3	Mahlon Dickerson
Navy start 3	1834
Navy end 3	1837 }}

Federal debt

In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished. However, this accomplishment was short lived. A severe depression from 1837 to 1844 caused a tenfold increase in national debt within its first year.

Electoral College

Jackson repeatedly called for the abolition of the Electoral College by constitutional amendment in his annual messages to Congress as President. In his third annual message to Congress, he expressed the view "I have heretofore recommended amendments of the Federal Constitution giving the election of President and Vice-President to the people and limiting the service of the former to a single term. So important do I consider these changes in our fundamental law that I can not, in accordance with my sense of duty, omit to press them upon the consideration of a new Congress."

Spoils system

When Jackson became President, he implemented the theory of rotation in office, declaring it "a leading principle in the republican creed." He believed that rotation in office would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy. To strengthen party loyalty, Jackson's supporters wanted to give the posts to party members. In practice, this meant replacing federal employees with friends or party loyalists. However, the effect was not as drastic as expected or portrayed. By the end of his term, Jackson dismissed less than twenty percent of the Federal employees at the start of it. While Jackson did not start the "spoils system", he did indirectly encourage its growth for many years to come.

Opposition to the National Bank

The Second Bank of the United States was authorized for a twenty year period during James Madison's tenure in 1816. As President, Jackson worked to rescind the bank's federal charter. In Jackson's veto message (written by George Bancroft), the bank needed to be abolished because:

It concentrated the nation's financial strength in a single institution.

It exposed the government to control by foreign interests.

It served mainly to make the rich richer.

It exercised too much control over members of Congress.

It favored northeastern states over southern and western states.

Banks are controlled by a few select families.

Banks have a long history of instigating wars between nations, forcing them to borrow funding to pay for them.

Following Jefferson, Jackson supported an "agricultural republic" and felt the Bank improved the fortunes of an "elite circle" of commercial and industrial entrepreneurs at the expense of farmers and laborers. After a titanic struggle, Jackson succeeded in destroying the Bank by vetoing its 1832 re-charter by Congress and by withdrawing U.S. funds in 1833. (See Banking in the Jacksonian Era)

The bank's money-lending functions were taken over by the legions of local and state banks that sprang up. This fed an expansion of credit and speculation. At first, as Jackson withdrew money from the Bank to invest it in other banks, land sales, canal construction, cotton production, and manufacturing boomed. However, due to the practice of banks issuing paper banknotes that were not backed by gold or silver reserves, there was soon rapid inflation and mounting state debts. Then, in 1836, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, which required buyers of government lands to pay in "specie" (gold or silver coins). The result was a great demand for specie, which many banks did not have enough of to exchange for their notes. These banks collapsed. This was a direct cause of the Panic of 1837, which threw the national economy into a deep depression. It took years for the economy to recover from the damage.

The U.S. Senate censured Jackson on March 28, 1834, for his action in removing U.S. funds from the Bank of the United States. When the Jacksonians had a majority in the Senate, the censure was expunged.

Nullification crisis

Another notable crisis during Jackson's period of office was the "Nullification Crisis", or "secession crisis", of 1828 – 1832, which merged issues of sectional strife with disagreements over tariffs. Critics alleged that high tariffs (the "Tariff of Abominations") on imports of common manufactured goods made in Europe made those goods more expensive than ones from the northern U.S., raising the prices paid by planters in the South. Southern politicians argued that tariffs benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers.

The issue came to a head when Vice President Calhoun, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, supported the claim of his home state, South Carolina, that it had the right to "nullify"—declare void—the tariff legislation of 1828, and more generally the right of a state to nullify any Federal laws that went against its interests. Although Jackson sympathized with the South in the tariff debate, he was also a strong supporter of a strong union, with effective powers for the central government. Jackson attempted to face down Calhoun over the issue, which developed into a bitter rivalry between the two men.

Particularly notable was an incident at the April 13, 1830, Jefferson Day dinner, involving after-dinner toasts. Robert Hayne began by toasting to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States." Jackson then rose, and in a booming voice added "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to Calhoun. Calhoun clarified his position by responding "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"

The next year, Calhoun and Jackson broke apart politically from one another. Around this time, the Petticoat affair caused further resignations from Jackson's cabinet, leading to its reorganization as the "Kitchen Cabinet". Martin Van Buren, despite resigning as Secretary of State, played a leading role in the new unofficial cabinet. At the first Democratic National Convention, privately engineered by members of the Kitchen Cabinet, Van Buren replaced Calhoun as Jackson's running mate. In December 1832, Calhoun resigned as Vice President to become a U.S. Senator for South Carolina.

In response to South Carolina's nullification claim, Jackson vowed to send troops to South Carolina to enforce the laws. In December 1832, he issued a resounding proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." South Carolina, the President declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason," and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union for which their ancestors had fought. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution... forms a ''government'' not a league... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation."

Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" explicitly authorizing the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but its passage was delayed until protectionists led by Clay agreed to a reduced Compromise Tariff. The Force Bill and Compromise Tariff passed on March 1, 1833, and Jackson signed both. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance. The Force Bill became moot because it was no longer needed.

Indian removal

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Jackson's presidency was his policy regarding American Indians, which involved the ethnic cleansing of several Indian tribes. Jackson was a leading advocate of a policy known as Indian removal. Jackson had been negotiating treaties and removal policies with Indian leaders for years before his election as president. Many tribes and portions of tribes had been removed to Arkansas Territory and further west of the Mississippi River without the suffering of what later became known as the Trail of Tears. Further, many white Americans advocated total extermination of the "savages", particularly those who had experienced frontier wars. Jackson's support of removal policies can be best understood by examination of those prior cases he had personally negotiated, rather than those in post-presidential years. Nevertheless, Jackson is often held responsible for all that took place in the 1830s.

In his December 8, 1829, First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson stated:

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Before his election as president, Jackson had been involved with the issue of Indian removal for over ten years. The removal of the Native Americans to the west of the Mississippi River had been a major part of his political agenda in both the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections. After his election he signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830. The Act authorized the President to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the east in exchange for lands further west, outside of existing U.S. state borders.

While frequently frowned upon in the North, and opposed by Jeremiah Evarts and Theodore Frelinghuysen, the Removal Act was popular in the South, where population growth and the discovery of gold on Cherokee land had increased pressure on tribal lands. The state of Georgia became involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokees, culminating in the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court decision (''Worcester v. Georgia''), which ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. Jackson is often quoted (regarding the decision) as having said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" Whether he said it is disputed.

In any case, Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. A small faction of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated the Treaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate. Over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal; the list was ignored by the Supreme Court and the U.S. legislature, in part due to delays and timing. The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren, who ordered 7,000 armed troops to remove the Cherokees. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered until troops arrived. This abrupt and forced removal resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Cherokees on the "Trail of Tears".

By the 1830s, under constant pressure from settlers, each of the five southern tribes had ceded most of its lands, but sizable self-government groups lived in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. All of these (except the Seminoles) had moved far in the coexistence with whites, and they resisted suggestions that they should voluntarily remove themselves. Their nonviolent methods earned them the title the Five Civilized Tribes.

More than 45,000 American Indians were relocated to the West during Jackson's administration. A few Cherokees escaped forced relocation, or walked back afterwards, escaping to the high Smoky Mountains along the North Carolina and Tennessee border.

Jackson's administration bought about 100 million acres (400,000 km²) of Indian land for about $68 million and 32 million acres (130,000 km²) of western land. Jackson was criticized at the time for his role in these events, and the criticism has grown over the years. U.S. historian Robert Vincent Remini characterizes the Indian Removal era as "one of the unhappiest chapters in American history."

Attack and assassination attempt

The first attempt to do bodily harm to a President was against Jackson. Jackson ordered the dismissal of Robert B. Randolph from the Navy for embezzlement. On May 6, 1833, Jackson sailed on USS ''Cygnet'' to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was to lay the cornerstone on a monument near the grave of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother. During a stopover near Alexandria, Virginia, Randolph appeared and struck the President. He then fled the scene with several members of Jackson's party chasing him, including the well-known writer Washington Irving. Jackson decided not to press charges.

On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a sitting President of the United States occurred just outside the United States Capitol. When Jackson was leaving the Capitol out of the East Portico after the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren R. Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed and deranged housepainter from England, either burst from a crowd or stepped out from hiding behind a column and aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence then pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. It has been postulated that moisture from the humid weather contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was then restrained, with legend saying that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane, prompting his aides to restrain him. Others present, including David Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence.

Richard Lawrence gave the doctors several reasons for the shooting. He had recently lost his job painting houses and somehow blamed Jackson. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty" (a reference to Jackson's struggle with the Bank of the United States) and that he "could not rise until the President fell." Finally, he informed his interrogators that he was a deposed English King—specifically, Richard III, dead since 1485—and that Jackson was merely his clerk. He was deemed insane and institutionalized.

Afterward, due to curiosity concerning the double misfires, the pistols were tested and retested. Each time they performed perfectly. When these results were known, many believed that Jackson had been protected by the same Providence that had protected the young nation. This national pride was a large part of the Jacksonian cultural myth fueling American expansion in the 1830s.

Judicial appointments

In total Jackson appointed 24 federal judges: six Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States and eighteen judges to the United States district courts.

Supreme Court appointments

John McLean – 1830.

Henry Baldwin – 1830.

James Moore Wayne – 1835.

Roger Brooke Taney (Chief Justice) – 1836.

Philip Pendleton Barbour – 1836.

John Catron – 1837.

Major Supreme Court cases

''Cherokee Nation v. Georgia'' – 1831.

''Worcester v. Georgia'' – 1832.

''Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge'' – 1837.

States admitted to the Union

Arkansas – June 15, 1836.

Michigan – January 26, 1837.

Regrets

On the last day of the presidency, Jackson admitted that he had but two regrets, that he "had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun."

Family and personal life

Shortly after Jackson first arrived in Nashville in 1788, he lived as a boarder with Rachel Stockley Donelson, the widow of John Donelson. Here Jackson became acquainted with their daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. At the time, Rachel Robards was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, a man subject to irrational fits of jealous rage. Due to Lewis Robards' temperament, the two were separated in 1790. According to Jackson, he married Rachel after hearing that Robards had obtained a divorce. However, the divorce had never been completed, making Rachel's marriage to Jackson technically bigamous and therefore invalid. After the divorce was officially completed, Rachel and Jackson remarried in 1794. To complicate matters further, evidence shows that Donelson had been living with Jackson and referred to herself as Mrs. Jackson before the petition for divorce was ever made. It was not uncommon on the frontier for relationships to be formed and dissolved unofficially, as long as they were recognized by the community.

The controversy surrounding their marriage remained a sore point for Jackson, who deeply resented attacks on his wife’s honor. With his anger over attacks about Rachel, and his participation in violent confrontations, Jackson gained a reputation as a quarrelsome and vengeful man. By May 1806, Charles Dickinson had published an attack on Jackson in the local newspaper, and it resulted in a written challenge from Jackson to a duel. In the duel Dickinson shot Jackson in the ribs before Jackson returned the fatal shot; Since Dickinson was considered an expert shot, Jackson and his friend, Thomas Overton, determined it would be best to let Dickinson turn and fire first, hoping that his aim might be spoiled in his quickness. Jackson would wait and take careful aim at Dickinson. Dickinson did fire first, hitting Jackson in the chest. Under the rules of dueling, Dickinson had to remain still as Jackson took aim. The bullet that struck Jackson was so close to his heart that it could never be safely removed. Jackson had been wounded so frequently in duels that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles." Jackson’s reputation suffered greatly from the duel.

Rachel died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, two weeks after her husband's victory in the election and two months before Jackson took office as President. Jackson blamed John Quincy Adams for Rachel's death because the marital scandal was brought up in the election of 1828. He felt that this had hastened her death and never forgave Adams.

Jackson had two adopted sons, Andrew Jackson Jr., the son of Rachel's brother Severn Donelson, and Lyncoya, a Creek Indian orphan adopted by Jackson after the Creek War. Lyncoya died of tuberculosis in 1828, at the age of sixteen. The Jacksons also acted as guardians for eight other children. John Samuel Donelson, Daniel Smith Donelson and Andrew Jackson Donelson were the sons of Rachel's brother Samuel Donelson, who died in 1804. Andrew Jackson Hutchings was Rachel's orphaned grand nephew. Caroline Butler, Eliza Butler, Edward Butler, and Anthony Butler were the orphaned children of Edward Butler, a family friend. They came to live with the Jacksons after the death of their father.

The widower Jackson invited Rachel's niece Emily Donelson to serve as host at the White House. Emily was married to Andrew Jackson Donelson, who acted as Jackson's private secretary and in 1856 would run for Vice President on the American Party ticket. The relationship between the President and Emily became strained during the Petticoat affair, and the two became estranged for over a year. They eventually reconciled and she resumed her duties as White House host. Sarah Yorke Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson Jr., became cohost of the White House in 1834. It was the only time in history when two women simultaneously acted as unofficial First Lady. Sarah took over all hosting duties after Emily died from tuberculosis in 1836. Jackson used Rip Raps as a retreat, visiting between August 19, 1829 through August 16, 1835.

Jackson remained influential in both national and state politics after retiring to The Hermitage in 1837. Though a slave-holder, Jackson was a firm advocate of the federal union of the states, and declined to give any support to talk of secession.

Jackson was a lean figure standing at 6 feet, 1 inch (1.85 m) tall, and weighing between 130 and 140 pounds (64 kg) on average. Jackson also had an unruly shock of red hair, which had completely grayed by the time he became president at age 61. He had penetrating deep blue eyes. Jackson was one of the more sickly presidents, suffering from chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a hacking cough, caused by a musket ball in his lung that was never removed, that often brought up blood and sometimes made his whole body shake. After retiring to Nashville, he enjoyed eight years of retirement and died at The Hermitage on June 8, 1845, at the age of 78, of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, and heart failure. In his will, Jackson left his entire estate to his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr., except for specifically enumerated items that were left to various other friends and family members. About a year after retiring the presidency, Jackson became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville.

Jackson on U.S. Postage

Andrew Jackson is one of the few American presidents ever to appear on US Postage more than the usual two or three times. He died in 1845, but the U.S. Post Office did not release a postage stamp in his honor until 18 years after his death, with the issue of 1863, a 2-cent black issue, commonly referred to by collectors as the 'Black Jack'. In contrast, the first Warren Harding stamp was released only one month after his death, Lincoln, one year exactly. As Jackson was a controversial figure in his day there is speculation that officials in Washington chose to wait a period of time before issuing a stamp with his portrait. In all, Jackson has appeared on thirteen different US postage stamps, more than that of most US presidents and second only to the number of times Washington, Franklin and Lincoln have appeared. During the American Civil War the Confederate government also issued two Confederate postage stamps bearing Jackson's portrait, one a 2-cent red stamp and the other a 2-cent green stamp, both issued in 1863. Jackson also appears on other U.S. Postage stamps of the 19th and 20th centuries. In all, Jackson appears on twelve US Postage stamps to date.

{| |- | | | |}

Memorials

Jackson's portrait appears on the United States twenty-dollar bill. He has appeared on $5, $10, $50, and $10,000 bills in the past, as well as a Confederate $1,000 bill.

Jackson's image is on the Black Jack and many other postage stamps. These include the Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) 10¢ stamp.

Memorials to Jackson include a set of four identical equestrian statues located in different parts of the United States. One is in Jackson Square in New Orleans. Another is in Nashville on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol. A third is in Washington, D.C. near the White House. The fourth is in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Equestrian statues of Jackson have also been erected elsewhere, including one with Jackson on horseback together with seated figures of James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson on the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Numerous counties and cities are named after him, including Jacksonville, Florida; Jackson, Louisiana; Jackson, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; Jackson County, Mississippi; Jackson, Missouri; Jackson County, Oregon; Jacksonville, North Carolina; Jackson, Tennessee; Jackson County, Florida; Jackson Parish, Louisiana; Jackson County, Missouri; and Jackson County, Ohio.

Andrew Jackson State Park is located on the site of his birthplace in Lancaster County, South Carolina. The park features a museum about his childhood, and a bronze statue of Jackson on horseback by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington.

In Nashville, Old Hickory Boulevard, named for Jackson, is a historic road that encircles the city. Originally the road, aided by ferries, formed an unbroken loop around the city. Today, it is interrupted by lakes and rerouted sections. It is the longest road in the city.

Two suburbs in the eastern part of Nashville, near The Hermitage, are named for Jackson and his home: Old Hickory, Tennessee, and Hermitage, Tennessee.

A main thoroughfare in Hermitage, Tennessee is named Andrew Jackson Parkway. Several roads in the same area have names associated with Jackson, such as Andrew Jackson Way, Andrew Jackson Place, Rachel Donelson Pass, Rachel's Square Drive, Rachel's Way, Rachel's Court, Rachel's Trail, and Andrew Donelson Drive.

One of the most popular lakes in middle Tennessee is Old Hickory Lake.

Andrew Jackson High School, in Lancaster County, SC, is named after him and uses the title of "Hickory Log" for its Annual photo book.

The section of U.S. Route 74 between Charlotte, North Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina is named the Andrew Jackson Highway.

The U.S. Army installation Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, is named in his honor.

Fort Jackson, built before the Civil War on the Mississippi River for the defense of New Orleans, was named in his honor.

USS ''Andrew Jackson'' (SSBN-619), a ''Lafayette''-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, which served from 1963 to 1989.

Jackson Park, the third-largest park in Chicago, is named for him.

Jackson Park, a public golf course in Seattle, Washington is named for him.

Andrew Jackson Centre, the ''Andrew Jackson Cottage and US Rangers Centre'' is a "traditional thatched Ulster–Scots farmhouse built in 1750s" and "includes the home of Jackson's parents. It has been restored to its original state."

See also

Second Party System

List of Presidents of the United States

List of US Presidents on US currency

US Presidents on US postage stamps

References

Secondary sources

Biography

Brands, H. W. ''Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times'' (2005), scholarly biography emphasizing military career excerpt and text search

Brustein, Andrew. ''The Passions of Andrew Jackson''. (2003). online review by Donald B. Cole

Hofstadter, Richard. ''The American Political Tradition'' (1948), chapter on Jackson. online in ACLS e-books

James, Marquis. ''The Life of Andrew Jackson'' Combines two books: ''The Border Captain'' and ''Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President'', 1933, 1937; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1938.

Meacham, Jon. ''American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House'' (2009), excerpt and text search

Parton, James. ''Life of Andrew Jackson'' (1860). Volume I, Volume III.

Remini, Robert V. ''The Life of Andrew Jackson''. Abridgment of Remini's 3-volume monumental biography, (1988).

* ''Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821'' (1977); ''Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832'' (1981); ''Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845'' (1984).

Remini, Robert V. ''The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery'' (1988).

Remini, Robert V. ''Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars'' (2001).

Remini, Robert V. "Andrew Jackson", ''American National Biography'' (2000).

Wilentz, Sean. ''Andrew Jackson'' (2005), short biography, stressing Indian removal and slavery issues excerpt and text search

Specialized studies

Cave, Alfred A.. ''Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830'' (2003).

Gammon, Samuel Rhea. ''The Presidential Campaign of 1832'' (1922).

Hammond, Bray. ''Andrew Jackson's Battle with the "Money Power"'' (1958) ch 8, of his ''Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War'' (1954); Pulitzer prize.

Latner Richard B. ''The Presidency of Andrew Jackson: White House Politics, 1820–1837'' (1979), standard survey.

Ogg, Frederic Austin ; ''The Reign of Andrew Jackson: A Chronicle of the Frontier in Politics'' 1919. Short popular survey online at Gutenberg.

Parsons, Lynn H. ''The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828'' (2009) excerpt and text search

Ratner, Lorman A. ''Andrew Jackson and His Tennessee Lieutenants: A Study in Political Culture'' (1997).

Rowland, Dunbar. ''Andrew Jackson's Campaign against the British, or, the Mississippi Territory in the War of 1812, concerning the Military Operations of the Americans, Creek Indians, British, and Spanish, 1813–1815'' (1926).

Schama, Simon. ''The American Future: A History'' (2008).

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. ''The Age of Jackson''. (1945). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. history of ideas of the era.

Syrett, Harold C. ''Andrew Jackson: His Contribution to the American Tradition'' (1953). on Jacksonian Democracy

Historiography

Bugg Jr. James L. ed. ''Jacksonian Democracy: Myth or Reality?'' (1952), excerpts from scholars.

Mabry, Donald J., ''Short Book Bibliography on Andrew Jackson'', Historical Text Archive.

Sellers, Charles Grier, Jr. "Andrew Jackson versus the Historians", ''The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' Vol. 44, No. 4. (March 1958), pp. 615–634. in JSTOR.

Taylor, George Rogers, ed. ''Jackson Versus Biddle: The Struggle over the Second Bank of the United States'' (1949), excerpts from primary and secondary sources.

Ward, John William. ''Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age'' (1962) how writers saw him.

External links

The White House

Andrew Jackson Biography and Fact File, via American-presidents.com

Andrew Jackson, the national bank and censure

American Political History Online

White House Biography

Andrew Jackson on the Web (resource directory)

Critical Resources: Andrew Jackson and Indian Removal

A genealogical profile of the President, via argeron.com

Jackson's medical history, via doctorzebra.com

Jackson letters to Richard K. Call

Jackson's Cheddar

Andrew Jackson's Candidacy, August 25, 1828 From Texas Tides

Andrew Jackson's veto speech in 1832 regarding the Bank of the US

Transcripts of letters of Andrew Jackson at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Essay on Jackson, each member of his cabinet and First Lady - the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Category:1767 births Category:1845 deaths Category:American military personnel of the War of 1812 Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American planters Category:American Presbyterians Category:American prosecutors Category:American Revolutionary War prisoners of war Category:American shooting survivors Andrew Jackson Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Burials in Tennessee Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Deaths from edema Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Democratic Party Presidents of the United States Category:Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Democratic-Republican Party United States Senators Category:Duellists Category:Governors of Florida Territory Category:History of the United States (1789–1849) Category:Infectious disease deaths in Tennessee Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee Category:People from Lancaster County, South Carolina Category:People from Nashville, Tennessee Category:People of the Creek War Category:People of the Seminole Wars Category:Presidents of the United States Category:Second Party System Category:Tennessee Democratic-Republicans Category:Tennessee Democrats Category:Tennessee Jacksonians Category:Tennessee Supreme Court justices Category:United States Army generals Category:United States military governors Category:United States presidential candidates, 1824 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1828 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1832 Category:United States Senators from Tennessee Category:U.S. Presidents surviving assassination attempts

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Coordinates	45°47′45″N24°09′08″N
name	Walter Estes Dellinger III
office	Solicitor General of the United States
term start	August, 1996
term end	October, 1997
president	Bill Clinton
predecessor	Drew S. Days, III
successor	Seth P. Waxman
birth date	May 15, 1941
birth place	Charlotte, North Carolina
party	Democrat }}

Walter Estes Dellinger III (born May 15, 1941 in Charlotte, North Carolina) is the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke University and head of the appellate practice at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He also currently leads Harvard Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Clinic. He served as the acting United States Solicitor General for the 1996-1997 Term of the Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment as acting Solicitor General, Dellinger was an Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton. He has also appeared as a commentator on ''This Week'', the ABC News Sunday morning program hosted by George Stephanopoulos. Dellinger is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Yale Law School.

He is the father of lawyer and political candidate Hampton Dellinger.

On March 18, 2008, he unsuccessfully represented the District of Columbia before the United States Supreme Court in ''District of Columbia v. Heller''. The District argued that its Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 should not be restricted by the Second Amendment. The ban was overturned by the Supreme Court.

In February 2008, Dellinger represented Exxon Mobil Corporation in the Supreme Court in ''Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker'', which addressed whether certain punitive damages are available under federal maritime law. This case relates to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989.

On March 5, 2010, the ''Washington Post'' published an op-ed by Dellinger defending Karl Thompson, a former subordinate of his. Nine lawyers who had been appointed to positions within the Presidency, including Thompson, became the focus of criticism, because they had all worked on behalf of Guantanamo captives. In the op-ed Delligner said that Thompson had added assisting Lieutenant Commander William Keubler in his defense of Omar Khadr at his request. He said Thompson had helped assist Keubler for several months, in addition to his previous duties.

In 2010, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue inducted Dellinger into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, calling him "North Carolina’s best friend, legally, that we’ve ever had."

References

External links

Duke Law School biography

Office of the Solicitor General

Harvard Law School Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Clinic

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:United States Assistant Attorneys General Category:Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Category:Duke Law School faculty Category:Harvard Law School Category:United States Solicitors General Category:Washington, D.C. lawyers Category:Yale Law School alumni Category:Clinton Administration personnel Category:People from Charlotte, North Carolina

de:Walter E. Dellinger

Coordinates	45°47′45″N24°09′08″N
name	Glenn Beck
birth name	Glenn Edward Lee Beck
birth date	February 10, 1964
birth place	Everett, Washington, U.S.
education	Sehome High School
nationality	American
occupation	Political commentator, author, media proprietor, entertainer
spouse	Claire (1983–1994)Tania (m. 1999); 4 children total
website	Glenn Beck's Official Website
religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Residence	Manhattan, New York City
Home town	Mount Vernon, Washington, U.S. }}

Glenn Edward Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the ''Glenn Beck Program'', a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the ''Glenn Beck'' television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six ''New York Times''-bestselling books. Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for FOX News Channel and FOX News' digital properties". Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011.

Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending their traditional American values, while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.

Personal life

Early years

Glenn Edward Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington, to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.

Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.

After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.

Adulthood

While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.

In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.

Beck's then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors, comprising what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later.

In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and his current wife have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple live in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.

Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.

In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Dallas–Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.

Career

In 2002 Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over various broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show entities.

Radio

In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called ''Captain Beck and the A-Team''. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.

Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.

Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Hamden, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.

The ''Glenn Beck Program'' first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, Florida, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, ''The New York Times'' reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. Glenn Beck is number three in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Television

In January 2006, CNN's ''Headline News'' announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block ''Headline Prime''. The show, simply called ''Glenn Beck'', aired weeknights. ''CNN Headline News'' described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.

In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted ''Glenn Beck'', beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program ''The O'Reilly Factor'' titled "At Your Beck and Call". Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.

His show's high ratings have not come without controversy. ''The Washington Post''s Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" has complicated the channel's and their journalist's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."

In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn’t belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet channel.

GBTV

On June 7, 2011, Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, announced the new subscription-based internet TV network, GBTV. Glenn Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and his new two-hour show will begin on GBTV.com starting September 12, 2011.

Books

Beck has reached #1 on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.

''The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland'', Simon & Schuster 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-9696-4

''An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems'', Simon & Schuster 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''The Christmas Sweater'', Simon & Schuster 2008. ISBN 978-1-4165-9485-7

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', 2008 (Audiobook) ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck'', Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). ISBN 978-1-59038-944-7

''The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book'', Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. ISBN 978-1-4169-9543-2

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-7435-9854-5

''Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4

''Idiots Unplugged'', Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1-4423-3396-0

''The Overton Window'', Threshold Editions 2010. ISBN 1-4391-8430-5 ''Idiots Unplugged'', 2010 (Audiobook) ''Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure'', Simon & Schuster 2010. ISBN 1-4423-3457-6.

''The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life'', Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451625516.

''The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century'', with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451650617.

Beck also authorized a comic book: ''Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011; ISN B004VGB4FO

Stage shows and speeches

Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, ''Salon Magazine's'' Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist". A show from the ''Beck `08 Unelectable Tour'' was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country. The finale of 2009's ''Common Sense Comedy Tour'' was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.

In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009 as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.

In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.

Projects and rallies

9-12 Project and Tea Party protests

In March 2009 Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and twelve values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9-12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".

Restoring Honor rally

The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally — which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism — was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.

''America's First Christmas''

In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.

2011 international tour

Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.

Political views

Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.

Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming. He holds that there is a legitimate case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind, and has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design. He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

Opposition to progressivism

During his 2010 keynote speech to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote the word "progressivism" on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck’s book ''Common Sense'', he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."

A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform America. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:

Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they’ve got access to secret knowledge."

Ideological influences

Political and historical

An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with Communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's ''The Naked Communist'' and especially ''The 5,000 Year Leap'' (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, ''Leap'' reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of ''Leap'' and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative ''Weekly Standard'' criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.

In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley’s ''Tragedy and Hope'' (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict", noting that in Beck's novel ''The Overton Window'', which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in ''Tragedy and Hope'', the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."

Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."

Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's ''The Forgotten Man'', Jonah Goldberg's ''Liberal Fascism'', Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's ''A Patriot's History of the United States'', and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s ''New Deal or Raw Deal''. Beck has also urged his listeners to read ''The Coming Insurrection'', a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and ''The Creature from Jekyll Island'', which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by G. Edward Griffin.

On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work ''The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots'', remarking "this is a book, ''The Red Network'', this came in from 1936. People — [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.

Religious

Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck''.

Religious scholar Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and for not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that the Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."

Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds. Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, Director of Research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:

Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian.” ''Newsweek'' religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."

After attempting unsuccessfully for a year to arrange a meeting with Protestant evangelist Billy Graham, Beck was invited to meet with Graham on February 19, 2011. Days later, Beck described the circumstances, writing: "Two weeks ago, as I have been struggling with some ideas and some things that I am working on for the future and I am trying to get clarity again, I thought of Billy Graham. When the phone rang and they said the Reverend feels it’s time to meet, I met with him. We had an hour scheduled. It lasted three hours." Earlier, in a January 2011 interview with ''Christianity Today'', Graham had said he regretted instances where he had strayed into politics in the past.

Public reception

In 2009, the Glenn Beck show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America’s "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for the Times top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.

Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, and a "rodeo clown".

thumb|Beck at the [[Time 100|''Time'' 100 Gala, 2010]]''Time Magazine'' described Beck as "[t]he new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program. (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, ''Time'' argued, is a sense of siege. One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".

Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at ''The Atlantic'''s 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director Peter Hart argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries as well as promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz of ''The Washington Post'' has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."

Glenn Beck was honored by Liberty University during their 2010 Commencement exercises with an honorary Doctoral Degree. During his keynote address to the students, he stated "As a man who was never able to go to college — I’m the first in my family that went; I went for one semester; I couldn’t afford more than that — I am humbly honored." In June 2011, Beck announced he was to be the honored with the Zionist Organization of America's 2011 Defender of Israel Award.

Laura Miller writes in Salon.com that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:

"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" reads like a playbook for the career of Glenn Beck, right down to the paranoid's "quality of pedantry" and "heroic strivings for 'evidence, embodied in Beck's chalkboard and piles of books. But Beck lacks an archenemy commensurate with his stratospheric ambitions, which makes him appear even more absurd to outsiders.

Critical biographies

In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', with a title mocking Beck's work, ''Common Sense''. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized that "Beck’s politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating: "Beck’s true religion is not Patriotism, Mormonism, or Conservatism. His true religion is cross-platform self-marketing ... According to Beck’s worldview, there’s no inherent contradiction between his sophisticated instinct for self-promotion, his propagandist rodeo clown act, his self-image as a media mogul, and his professed belief system. I think he actually believes that God wants him to make a ton of money and become this huge celebrity by fear mongering and generally doing whatever it takes in the media to promote right-wing causes."

In September 2010, ''Philadelphia Daily News'' reporter Will Bunch released ''The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama''. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film ''Leap of Faith'', before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona: In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: ''Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America''.

Satire, spoof and parody

Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on ''Saturday Night Live''. ''The Daily Show''s Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9-12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of ''The Colbert Report'' satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, ''South Park'' parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". ''The Onion'', a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an ''Onion News Network'' video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the ''Current TV'' cartoon ''SuperNews!'' ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while ''The Buffalo Beast'', named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 31 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.

Public disputes

Obama

Several incidents involving Beck and President Barack Obama have resulted in notable public controversy. In response to Obama's remarks on the Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change. In 2009, the boycott resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black liberation theology.

Van Jones

In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in STORM, a left wing non-governmental group, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the 9/11 attacks happen. In a move attributed by ''The New York Times'' to criticism of his earlier statements by conservatives and Republicans, Jones resigned his position in September 2009. ''Time'' magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".

ACORN

In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of heavily edited undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which seemed to portray ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax advice to people who said they were engaged in illegal activities. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.

Satire website

In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (''Beck v. Eiland-Hall'') against the owner of a satirical website named ''GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com'' with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.

Jewish Funds for Justice

In January 2011, in protest at what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter in paid advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion''". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "...diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".

Reform Judaism

On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, Jewish rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks as "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".

2011 Norway attacks

In the wake of the 2011 Norway attacks, Beck received condemnation for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth: "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, leading senior political commentator Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9-12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children. Beck condemned the attack in spite of his statements about its victims.

See also

Beck University

Conservative talk

List of most-listened-to radio programs

References

External links

Glenn Beck's Radio Program

Glenn Beck – The 912 Project

Official Site at Fox News

Multimedia

A Day in the Life of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Time magazine''

Katie Couric Interview of Glenn Beck - video by ''CBS News''

"Brand it like Beck" - video interview by ''Forbes magazine''

John Stossel: "Glenn Beck, Conservative Narcissist?" - video by ''ABC News''

Glenn Beck Discusses his Mormonism - video testimonial at ''The Week''

In the Words of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1964 births Category:American anti-communists Category:American Latter Day Saints Category:American magazine editors Category:American magazine founders Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:American people of German descent Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Fox News Channel people Category:Living people Category:People from Bellingham, Washington Category:People from Everett, Washington Category:People from Fairfield County, Connecticut Category:People from Mount Vernon, Washington Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Tea Party movement Category:Writers from Washington (state) Category:Writers from Connecticut

ar:غلين بيك cs:Glenn Beck da:Glenn Beck de:Glenn Beck et:Glenn Beck es:Glenn Beck fa:گلن بک fr:Glenn Beck is:Glenn Beck he:גלן בק la:Glenn Beck nl:Glenn Beck no:Glenn Beck ru:Гленн Бек simple:Glenn Beck sk:Glenn Beck sh:Glenn Beck fi:Glenn Beck sv:Glenn Beck uk:Гленн Бек yi:גלען בעק

Coordinates	45°47′45″N24°09′08″N
name	Lee Atwater
image name	George h w bush lee atwater jam.JPG
Order	54th Chairman of the RNC
Term start	1989
Term end	1991
Predecessor	Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr.
Successor	Clayton Keith Yeutter
birth date	February 27, 1951
birth place	Atlanta, Georgia
death date	March 29, 1991 (aged 40)
death place	Washington, D.C.
profession	Political Consultant
party	Republican
alma mater	Newberry College University of South Carolina
spouse	Sally Dunbar Atwater
children	Sarah Lee Ashley Page Sally Theodosia }}

Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican Party. He was an advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Childhood and early life

Atwater was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Harvey Dillard, an insurance adjustor, and Alma "Toddy" Page Atwater. He had two siblings, Ann, and Joe. He grew up in Aiken, South Carolina where his childhood was marred with tragedy when his three-year-old brother, Joe, was scalded to death when he pulled a deep fryer full of hot oil on himself.

In 1970, Atwater graduated from Newberry College, a small private Lutheran institution in Newberry, South Carolina where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While attending Newberry, Atwater served as Governor of the South Carolina Student Legislature. Atwater earned a Master of Arts in communications from the University of South Carolina in 1977. Atwater married his wife, Sally Dunbar, in 1978 and together they had three children, Sara Lee, Ashley Page, and Sally Theodosia.

Political career

Atwater rose during the 1970s and the 1980 election in the South Carolina Republican party, working on the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and Senator Strom Thurmond. During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for running hard-edged campaigns based on emotional wedge issues.

1980 election

Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by "independent pollsters" to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP. He also sent out last-minute letters from Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm America and turn it over to liberals and communists. At a press briefing, Atwater planted a "reporter" who rose and said, "We understand Turnipseed has had psychotic treatment." Atwater later told the reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables"– a reference to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager.

"Lee seemed to delight in making fun of a suicidal 16-year-old who was treated for depression with electroshock treatments", Turnipseed recalled. "In fact, my struggle with depression as a student was no secret. I had talked about it in a widely covered news conference as early as 1977, when I was in the South Carolina State Senate. Since then I have often shared with appropriate groups the full story of my recovery to responsible adulthood as a professional, political and civic leader, husband and father. Teenage depression and suicide are major problems in America, and I believe my life offers hope to young people who are suffering with a constant fear of the future."

After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins. In 1984, Rollins managed Reagan's re-election campaign, and Atwater became the campaign's deputy director and political director. Rollins tells several Atwater stories in his 1996 book, ''Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms''. He states that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted of numbers running in the 1940s. Rollins also described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake".

During his years in Washington, Atwater became aligned with Vice President George H.W. Bush, who chose Atwater to run his 1988 presidential campaign.

Atwater on the Southern Strategy

As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis. Part of this interview was printed in Lamis' book ''The Two-Party South'', then reprinted in ''Southern Politics in the 1990s'' with Atwater's name revealed. Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the 6 October 2005 edition of the ''New York Times''. Atwater talked about the GOP's Southern Strategy and Ronald Reagan's version of it:

''Atwater'': As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

''Questioner'': But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

''Atwater'': You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

1988 election

Atwater's most noteworthy campaign was the 1988 presidential election, where he served as campaign manager for Republican nominee George H.W. Bush. A particularly aggressive media program included a television advertisement produced by Floyd Brown comparing Bush and Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis on crime. Bush supported the death penalty for first-degree murderers, while Dukakis opposed the death penalty. Dukakis also supported a felon furlough program originally begun under Republican Governor Francis Sargent in 1972. Prison furlough programs had been long established in California during the governorship of Republican Ronald Reagan, prior to 1980, but never allowed furlough for convicted murderers sentenced to life in prison.

In 1976, Massachusetts passed a law to similarly ban furloughs for first-degree murderers and Dukakis vetoed the bill. Willie Horton was serving a life sentence for first degree murder for stabbing a boy to death during a robbery. Horton while on weekend furlough kidnapped a young couple, tortured the young man and repeatedly raped his girlfriend. This issue of furlough for first degree murderers was originally brought up by Democratic candidate Al Gore during a presidential primary debate. Dukakis had tried to portray himself as a moderate politician from the liberal state of Massachusetts. The Horton ad campaign only re-enforced the public's general opinion that Dukakis was too liberal, which helped Bush overcome Dukakis's 17-percent lead in early public opinion polls and win both the electoral and popular vote by landslide margins.

Although Atwater clearly approved of the use of the Willie Horton issue, the Bush campaign never ran any commercial with Horton's picture, instead running a similar but generic ad. The original commercial was produced by Americans for Bush, an independent group managed by Larry McCarthy, and the Republicans benefited from the coverage it attracted in the national news. In reference to Dukakis, Atwater declared that he would "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate." Atwater's challenge was to counter the "where was George" campaign slogan Democrats were using as a rallying cry in an effort to create an impression that Bush was a relatively inexperienced and unaccomplished candidate. Furthermore, Bush had critics in the Republican base who remembered his pro-choice positions in the 1980 primary, and the harder the campaign pursued Dukakis' liberal positions, the bigger his base turnout would be.

During the election, a number of allegations were made in the media about Dukakis' personal life, including the unsubstantiated claim that his wife Kitty had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War and that Dukakis had been treated for a mental illness. In the film ''Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story'', Robert Novak reveals for the first time that Atwater personally tried to get him to spread these mental health rumors.

The 1988 Bush campaign overcame a 17-point deficit in midsummer polls to win 40 states. Atwater's skills in the 1988 election led one biographer to term him "the best campaign manager who ever lived."

During that campaign, future president George W. Bush, son of Vice President George H.W. Bush, took an office across the hall from Atwater's office, where his job was to serve as "the eyes and ears for my dad," monitoring the activities of Atwater and other campaign staff. In her memoir, Barbara Bush said that the younger Bush and Atwater became friends.

RNC Chairman

After the election, Atwater was named chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Shortly after Atwater took over the RNC, Jim Wright was forced to resign as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and was succeeded by Tom Foley. On the day Foley officially became speaker, the RNC began circulating a memo to Republican Congressmen and state party chairmen called "Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet." The memo compared Foley's voting record with that of openly gay Congressman Barney Frank, with a subtle implication that Foley was himself gay. It had been crafted by RNC communications director Mark Goodin and House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. In fact, Gingrich had been trying to get several reporters to print it. The memo was harshly condemned on both sides of the aisle. Republican Senate leader Bob Dole, for instance, said in a speech on the Senate floor, "This is not politics. This is garbage."

Atwater initially defended the memo, calling it "no big deal" and "factually accurate". However, a few days later, he claimed he hadn't approved the memo. Under pressure from Bush, Atwater fired Goodin, replacing him with B. Jay Cooper.

Following Bush's victory, Atwater focused on organizing a smear campaign against Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Atwater viewed Clinton as a serious potential threat to Bush in the 1992 Presidential election.

In 1989, Atwater was appointed as a new member of the historically black Howard University Board of Trustees. The university gained national attention when students rose up in protest against Atwater's appointment. Student activists disrupted Howard's 122nd anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Howard's President, James E. Cheek, resigned.

Personal life

R&B; music

Atwater was also a musician. He briefly played backup guitar for Percy Sledge during the 1960s and frequently played with bluesmen such as B.B. King. Atwater recorded an album with King and others on Curb Records in 1990 entitled ''Red Hot & Blue''. He once sat in with Paul Shaffer and his band on ''Late Night with David Letterman''.

As a teenager in Columbia, South Carolina, Atwater played guitar in a rock band, The Upsetters Revue. Even at the height of his political power he would often play concerts in clubs and church basements, solo or with B.B. King, in the Washington, D.C. area. He released an album called ''Red, Hot And Blue'' on Curb Records, featuring Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Chuck Jackson, and B.B. King, who got co-billing with Atwater. Robert Hilburn wrote about the album in the April 5, 1990 issue of the ''Los Angeles Times'': "The most entertaining thing about this ensemble salute to spicy Memphis-style '50s and '60s R&B; is the way it lets you surprise your friends. Play a selection such as 'Knock on Wood' or 'Bad Boy' for someone without identifying the singer, then watch their eyes bulge when you reveal that it's the controversial national chairman of the Republican Party… Lee Atwater."

Illness

On 5 March 1990, Atwater collapsed during a fundraising breakfast on behalf of Senator Phil Gramm. Doctors searching for an explanation to what was initially thought to be a mere fainting episode discovered a grade 3 astrocytoma, an unusually aggressive form of brain cancer, in his right parietal lobe. Atwater underwent interstitial implant radiation, a then-new form of treatment, at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, and received conventional radiation therapy at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. The treatment for the brain tumor left him paralyzed on his left side, robbed him of his tone discrimination, and swelled his face and body (from steroids). He spent the remainder of his life in a wheelchair.

In the months after the severity of his illness became apparent, Atwater said he had converted to Catholicism, through the help of Fr. John Hardon and, in an act of repentance, Atwater issued a number of public and written letters to individuals to whom he had been opposed during his political career. In a letter to Tom Turnipseed dated June 28, 1990, he stated, "It is very important to me that I let you know that out of everything that has happened in my career, one of the low points remains the so-called 'jumper cable' episode," adding, "my illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything."

In a February 1991 article for ''Life'' magazine, Atwater wrote:

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

This article was notable for an apology to Michael Dukakis for the 'naked cruelty' of the 1988 presidential election campaign.

Ed Rollins, however, told in the documentary ''Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story'', that "[Atwater] was telling this story about how a Living Bible was what was giving him faith and I said to Mary, ‘I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.’ She said, ‘Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package,’ which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."

Death

Atwater died on 29 March 1991 of his brain tumor. Funeral services were held at the Trinity Cathedral Church in Atwater's (adopted) hometown of Columbia. A memorial service was held at the Washington National Cathedral.

Legacy

Sidney Blumenthal has speculated that, had Atwater lived, he would have run a stronger re-election campaign for Bush than the President's unsuccessful 1992 effort against Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

Atwater's political career is the subject of the feature-length documentary film ''Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story''.

See also

Starve the beast (Policy)

List of brain tumor patients

Red Hot & Blue (restaurant)

Further reading

Lee Atwater and T. Brewster, "Lee Atwater's Last Campaign," ''Life Magazine'', February 1991, p. 67.

John Joseph Brady, ''Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater'' (1997), ISBN 0-201-62733-7.

Alexander P. Lamis (editor), ''Southern Politics in the 1990s'' (1999), ISBN 0-8071-2374-9.

Alexander P. Lamis, ''The Two-Party South'' (1990), ISBN 0-19-506579-4.

"American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 18–19. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

"The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 3, 1991–1993, pp. 37–38. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001.

References

External links

I'm Still Lee Atwater, ''Washington Post''

Atwater's Star Still Shines Brightly, ''www.robbaustin.com''

PBS Documentary on Lee Atwater

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story discussed on MSNBC'S Morning Joe

Lee Atwater at Find A grave

Category:Republican National Committee chairmen Category:United States presidential advisors Category:American campaign managers Category:American political consultants Category:College Republicans Category:Deaths from brain cancer Category:1951 births Category:1991 deaths Category:Newberry College alumni Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism Category:American Roman Catholics Category:University of South Carolina alumni

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