McCain Campaign and the Financial Crisis

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If Niccolò Machiavelli were to envision an economic crisis that would cripple the Republicans prior to Election Day, he couldn't do much better than one precipitated by the banking industry.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as one consequence of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. That measure divided the Whig Party into sectional factions and so destroyed it for good. The GOP was formed mostly from the remnants of the northern Whigs - and, unsurprisingly, the party picked up many Whig principles, which it has retained even after 150 years. The Whig Party stood for expanding American industry (hence its support of protective tariffs, burdensome to American business in 2008 but quite helpful in 1854), individual enterprise, the social utility of wage labor, the "man on the make," and infrastructure... (Read Full Article)

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