Harry Taylor is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, noted for his controversial question posed to President Bush in a North Carolina town hall meeting at Central Piedmont Community College on April 6, 2006. Taylor criticized Bush's warrantless wiretapping program and treatment of enemy combatants, among other actions, and asked that the president express some manner of shame for his actions. President Bush refused to do so.
Taylor's confrontation has since been praised in independent liberal publications, and noted for its surprising rarity given the prevalence of such opinions among Americans.
On October 30, 2007, Harry Taylor sent an email to signers of the ThankYouHarryTaylor.net Archived 2008-10-08 at the Wayback Machine site announcing that he was running for Congress in the 2008 election. He, unsuccessfully, kicked off a challenge to the Republican incumbent in North Carolina's 9th congressional district, Sue Myrick, on November 13, 2007.
Taylor was born and raised in northern New Jersey, earned a B.A. from Colgate University, served in the U.S. Air Force, lived and worked in real estate and development in Colorado for many years and relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1987. He owns a commercial real estate brokerage and is an old-time banjo player.
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election.
Johnny Reid Edwards is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina from 1999 to 2005. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He also was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. A member of the Bush political family, he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of the United States in the 2016 Republican primaries.
The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency, as well as being only the third sitting United States senator elected president, joining Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, this was only the second successful all-senator ticket since the 1960 election and is the only election where both major party nominees were sitting senators. This was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, as well as the first election since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination.
Christopher Taylor Buckley is an American author and political satirist. He also served as chief speechwriter to Vice President George H. W. Bush. He is known for writing God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, and The Judge Hunter.
George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, has elicited a variety of public perceptions regarding his policies, personality and performance as a head of state. In the United States and elsewhere, journalists, polling organizations and others have documented the expression of an evolving array of opinions of President Bush. Time magazine named George W. Bush as its Person of the Year for 2000 and 2004, citing him as the most influential person during these two years.
From January 3 to June 3, 2008, voters of the Republican Party chose their nominee for president in the 2008 United States presidential election. Senator John McCain of Arizona was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2008 Republican National Convention held from Monday, September 1, through Thursday, September 4, 2008, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. President George W. Bush was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.
Joe Lieberman was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. He was an Independent prior to his death.
The Mitt Romney presidential campaign of 2008 began on January 3, 2007, two days before Mitt Romney left office as governor of Massachusetts, when he filed to form an exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission to run for President of the United States as a Republican in the 2008 election. Subsequently, on February 13, 2007, he formally announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. He did so at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, as an emblem of American ingenuity.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Mike Gravel, former Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives and United States Senator from Alaska, began on April 17, 2006, when he declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, in a speech to the National Press Club.
The 2008 presidential campaign of John Edwards, former United States Senator from North Carolina and Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004 began on December 28, 2006 when he announced his entry into the 2008 presidential election in the city of New Orleans near sites devastated by Hurricane Katrina. On January 30, 2008, Edwards returned to New Orleans to announce that he was suspending his campaign for the Presidency. On May 14, 2008, he endorsed Barack Obama at a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
There are many published theories about the politics of the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling, which range from them containing criticism of racism to anti-government sentiment. The books have been argued to contain both liberal and conservative themes and viewpoints. According to Inside Higher Ed, doctoral theses have been devoted to the Harry Potter books. There are also several university courses centred on analysis of the Potter series, including an upper division political science course.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Fred Thompson, lawyer, lobbyist, character actor and former Senator from Tennessee began on September 5, 2007 after six months of speculation. He was a Republican Party primary candidate seeking to represent his party in the 2008 United States presidential election.
On October 16, 2007, satirist Stephen Colbert officially announced that he would run for President of the United States. This came after weeks of being pressured to do so by the public and stating that he would need a sign, which came from Aragorn giving him the sword Anduril. Although the legitimacy of his campaign was questioned, he maintained that he was serious. Colbert had originally planned to run for both the Republican and the Democratic nomination in his home state of South Carolina. After learning that the fee to file for the Republican primary was $35,000, he abandoned plans to run as a Republican. Although he paid the $2,500 fee to be included in the South Carolina Democratic ballot, he was denied a place on the ballot by the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council. On November 5, 2007, Colbert officially dropped his presidential bid.
Betsy Duke is an American bank executive who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2008 to 2013. Duke was confirmed by the Senate to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2012. She was the seventh woman to be appointed to the board. In July 2013, she announced her resignation from the board.
Senator John McCain, the Republican Party nominee, was endorsed or supported by some members of the Democratic Party and by some political figures holding liberal views in the 2008 United States presidential election. McCain Democrat and McCainocrat are terms applied to Democrats who supported McCain.
Timeline of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration, or in its colloquial portmanteau form "Obamanomics", was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans designed to fund health care reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. President Obama's first term (2009–2013) included measures designed to address the Great Recession and subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term (2013–2017), the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester (cap) was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. The number of persons without health insurance was reduced by 20 million, reaching a record low level as a percent of the population. By the end of his second term, the number of persons with jobs, real median household income, stock market, and real household net worth were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below historical average.