Barack Obama's Election: Presidential Winners, 1900-2008

Barack Obama's Election:
Most Popular President-elects?




Not Really:
Obama Ranks in Bottom Half of Last 28 Election Winners
In Both Popular Vote Percentage, Electoral College

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The CNN story "Belief that country heading in right direction is at all-time low", prompted a response by Amanda Terkel, who said that the "Least popular president meets one of the most popular president-elect."

Terkel refers to a Gallup poll taken after the November 4 election showing that Barack Obama has a 70% favorability rating.

Of course, the most reliable poll is the one voters participated in two days before the Gallup Poll--which was one of the most unreliable prior to Election Day--when they cast votes for their choice. By that most reliable of polls, Obama's favorability is nothing special, history-wise.

In the 28 U.S. elections held since 1900, Obama finishes in the bottom half in both popular vote percentage and electoral vote totals.

Obama's 65+ million votes is the most in terms of absolute votes cast. But, by that standard of popularity, George Washington is the least popular president ever. It's likely that the number of votes the winning candidate receives will continue to go up with each election, as the U.S. population increases.

Several presidential winners who ranked below Obama were involved in three-way races, which lowered their totals. Among the winners of these multi-candidate races were: Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996; Ronald Reagan in 1980; and Richard Nixon in 1968.

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Popular Vote Percentage
U.S. Presidential Elections, 1900-2008

1. 61.1% - Lyndon Johnson 1964
   
2. 60.8% - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1936
   
3. 60.7% - Richard M. Nixon 1972
   
4. 58.8% - Ronald Reagan 1984
   
5. 60.3% - Warren G. Harding 1920
   
6. 58.2% - Herbert Hoover 1928
   
7. 57.4% - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1956
   
8. 57.4% - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1932
   
9. 56.4% - Theodore Roosevelt 1904
   
10. 55.2% - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1952
    
11. 54.7% - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1940
    
12. 54.0% - Calvin Coolidge 1924
    
13. 53.4% - George H. Bush 1988
    
14. 53.4% - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944
    
15. 52.6% - Barack Obama 2008
    
16. 51.6% - William H. Taft 1908
    
17. 51.6% - William B. McKinley 1900
    
18. 50.7% - Ronald Reagan 1980
    
19. 50.7% - George H.W. Bush 2004
    
20. 50.1% - Jimmy Carter 1976
    
21. 49.7% - John F. Kennedy 1960
    
22. 49.6% - Harry Truman 1948
    
23. 49.24%- Bill Clinton 1996
    
24. 49.2% - Woodrow Wilson 1916
    
25. 47.9% - George H.W. Bush 2000
    
26. 43.4% - Richard M. Nixon 1968
    
27. 43.0% - Bill Clinton 1992
    
28. 41.8% - Woodrow Wilson 1912
    

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Electoral Vote Total,
U.S. Presidential Elections 1900-2008

1. 525 - Ronald Reagan 1984
   
2. 523 - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1936
   
3. 520 - Richard Nixon 1972
   
4. 489 - Ronald Reagan 1980
   
5. 486 - Lyndon Johnson 1964
   
6. 472 - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1932
   
7. 457 - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1956
   
8. 449 - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1940
   
9. 444 - Herbert Hoover 1928
   
10. 442 - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1952
    
11. 435 - Woodrow Wilson 1912
    
12. 432 - Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944
    
13. 426 - George H. Bush 1988
    
14. 404 - Warren G. Harding 1920
    
15. 382 - Calvin Coolidge 1924
    
16. 379 - Bill Clinton 1992
    
17. 370 - Bill Clinton 1992
    
18. 364 - Barack Obama 2008
    
19. 336 - Theodore Roosevelt 1904
    
20. 321 - William H. Taft 1908
    
21. 303 - Harry Truman 1948
    
22. 303 - John F. Kennedy 1960
    
23. 301 - Richard Nixon 1968
    
24. 297 - Jimmy Carter 1976
    
25. 292 - William McKinley 1900
    
26. 286 - George H.W. Bush 2004
    
27. 277 - Woodrow Wilson 1916
    
28. 271 - George H.W. Bush 2000
    

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There was one yardstick by which Barack Obama could be called "the most popular president-elect"--number of times he's appeared on the cover of TIME before he was elected. [Obama’s Constant Time Cover Status: TIME Hearts Obama] Obama appeared on 10 TIME covers in the 42 weeks before the 2008 election.

Obama still has quite a way to go to pass the man with the most TIME covers, Richard Nixon. Nixon appeared on TIME's cover 55 times over 4 decades.

Obama has passed the women featured on TIME's cover: Princess Diana and The Virgin Mary, each with eight.

We'll leave the Messiah jokes for the comments.

by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp file
Sources:
* Presidential Elections, 1789–2008
* Wikipedia
* Guiness World Records

Oregon Health Care: Suicide is Painless--and Cheaper

The Oregon Health Plan:
When the Government Runs Health Care

"Elect me and your health care problems will all be over." The people of Oregon fell for that line almost 20 years ago. Expecting Utopia, what they got was a reality check: a lottery to pick who's covered and suicide coverage--instead of cancer drugs.

In 1989. Oregon became the second State, after Hawaii, to attempt complete medical coverage of it's citizens.

It has not gone as planned.

In fact, it seems to be approaching disaster. Within a few year:

In early 2003, the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) implemented cost saving strategies, reducing benefits and increasing cost-sharing for a substantial portion of its members

Cost-sharing meant that people were being charged premium for the previously funded care. So we have a reduction in Medical care and services, and increased cost. But the degeneration of the plan did not end there. In March of this year, wire services carried the following:

Tens of thousands of Oregonians queued up quickly for a chance at the state’s latest lottery, but this one is no game.

Officials began drawing names last week for a chance at some rare openings in the state’s healthcare plan.

Announced in February, the lottery drew 91,675 hopefuls in 30 days. The winners will receive a postcard notifying them that they can apply for the Oregon Health Plan.

"Budget limitations capped the Oregon Health Plan standard benefit package in mid-2004. Now the plan has room for a few thousand people. The lottery winners will be the first new applicants since the cap was imposed.

When it was fully funded, it was considered a trailblazing program.

In 1996, the benefit package enrolled five times as many people as are enrolled today, and only 10.7% of Oregon’s population lacked insurance, compared with about 16% today.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only are the numbers of uninsured increasing dramatically, with only 24,000 insured, but to get on the 'Universal" plan, you must participate in a lottery.

In June of 2008, it got far worse.

The "Universal" plan does not, apparently include medical care for seriously potentially terminal disease.As The Catholic News Agency reported:

Oregon health plan covers assisted suicide, not drugs, for cancer patient"

Eugene, Jun 6, 2008 / 01:09 am ( CNA).- An Oregon woman suffering from lung cancer was notified by the state-run Oregon Health Plan that their policy would not cover her life-extending cancer drug, telling her the health plan would cover doctor-assisted suicide instead.

That was not a misprint.

On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.

In 2008, as a cost control measure, Oregon apparently incorporated the act into it's failing health care plan--because it is far easier to kill patients than to save them. The publicity of the story ultimately saved the patient. The manufacturer of the life preserving drug stepped up and offered it to the patient.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

Dignity?

Anything but. Oregon now has half the physicians it needs. It rations health care like no other State. It has become a bizarre replication of the Soviet health care system of old;socialism run amok.

The cure? You guessed it?

"We don't know, and the American public doesn't know, what is going to happen in the next two to three to four years nationally," Speight said. "There are things we can do at a state level that can work with a national model."

Yeah. They want you to pay for their failure and participate in this irrational death factory.

images:
* onthefencefilms
*

sources

* http://www.commonwealthfund.org/newsroom/newsroom_show.htm?doc_id=288798

* http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004255443_webinsurancelottery03.html

* http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67565

* http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12857

* http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/