The Harlem Globetrotters w/ Ben Green
The Road to Now
Ben and Bob are heading to Tallahassee on April 27 for a live recording at Word of South Festival and the show is free! The Harlem Globetrotters are one of those great parts of American culture that almost everyone knows and loves. For most of us today, the Globetrotters are outstanding entertainers. But did you know that in the mid-20th century the Globetrotters were probably the single best basketball team on the planet? Did you know that they did travel the globe as agents of the US Department of State during the Cold War, but that they are not, in fact, from Harlem? If you want to know...
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#303 The Election of 2016 (and Ever After) w/ John Heilemann (Third Party Series #8)
The Road to Now
The election of 2016 was a lot of things. It was a showdown between two candidates who had been household names for decades. It was the second time in five elections where the winning candidate lost the popular vote. And, most relevant here, it was eight years ago and one of the candidates in that election is running again in 2024, so we’ve still got a long time before we can see the full impact it had on US history. For now though, we can say that the narrow margin by which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton has already cast third parties- both candidates and outside actors- as central...
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#302 The Election of 2000 w/ Doug Heye (Third Party Series #7)
The Road to Now
Hear the extended version of this episode by supporting The Road to Now on Patreon! On December 13, 2000, Democratic Candidate Al Gore conceded that year’s Presidential Election to Republican George W. Bush. Gore’s concession speech marked a dramatic conclusion to an election that had been contested for more than a month, with partisans from both major parties flocking to Florida to recount ballots in hopes that the few hundred votes that separated the candidates would fall in their favor. Ultimately, however, the final decision on the election came from the Supreme Court, which...
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#301 The Election of 1992 w/ Julian Zelizer (Third Party Series #6)
The Road to Now
In 1992, President George Bush’s bid for a second term did not go well. Despite taking 79% of the electoral vote in 1988, holding office during the collapse of communism in Europe, and serving as commander-in-chief during the US victory in the first Iraq War, Bush found himself flanked by a smooth talking former Arkansas governor and a Texas businessman armed with a personal fortune and a lot of charts. When it was all over, Bush had garnered about ten million fewer votes than he had four years earlier and a 12-year run of Republican Presidents was over. How did Bill Clinton manage to...
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#300 The Election of 1980 w/ Rick Perlstein (Third Party Series #5)
The Road to Now
On November 4, 1980, California Republican Ronald Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter at the polls, beating the incumbent by almost 10 percentage points in the popular election and winning 489 of 538 electors. That type of victory combined with Reagan’s larger than life place in modern political history might lead you to believe the 1980 campaign was never in doubt. But it was. And in early 1980, both men faced viable challengers within their own party, as well as a third party candidate whose 5.7 million popular votes could have changed the outcome of a closer election. The Presidential election...
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#299 The Election of 1948 w/ Jefferson Cowie (Third Party Series #4)
The Road to Now
The famous image of a victorious Harry Truman holding up a newspaper headlined “Dewey defeats Truman” is clear evidence that the 1948 Presidential election did not turn out the way many people had expected. That April, Truman’s approval rating had sunk to 37%, causing even many in his party to consider dumping him from the ballot. That summer, a rebellion by southern Democrats led by South Carolina segregationist Strom Thurmond promised to deny Truman electoral votes that his Democratic predecessors could have counted on for a century. Yet, despite all this, Truman didn’t just win, he...
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#298 The Election of 1912 w/ Michael Patrick Cullinane (Third Party Series #3)
The Road to Now
The Presidential election of 1912 was an unusual moment in American history. It featured an embattled incumbent President facing criticism from his former allies. It offered voters a choice between the sitting President and his predecessor. And when it was all done, the two men who had previously won the Presidency found themselves bested by a college professor with just a few years of experience in politics. So why did the predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, become so critical of the incumbent, William Howard Taft, that he decided to break away from the Republican party to run against him?...
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#297 The Election of 1860 w/ Michael Green (Third Party Series #2)
The Road to Now
The Presidential election of 1860 is one we Americans know well. That election sent Abraham Lincoln to the White House, southern enslavers to the exit door, and the United States into a bloody Civil War. Lincoln’s leadership in those years and his tragic assassination in the last days of the war propelled the railsplitter into the pantheon of American Presidents. But sometimes we forget that just a few months before the election, Lincoln looked like a long shot. His experience at the federal level amounted to one term in the House of Representatives. His Republican Party, founded in...
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#296 The Election of 1824 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky (Third Party Series #1)
The Road to Now
The Election of 1824 was a turning point in American history. Long before the fall of 1824, Americans understood that the winner would be the first in America’s second generation to hold the Presidency. When the election began, all four viable candidates were technically from the same party. By the time it was over, the election had generated the rivalries and passions that formed the groundwork for a new national party system. How did Andrew Jackson win the most votes in the electoral college and still lose the election? How did John Quincy Adams win the Presidency but ultimately...
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The Electoral College w/ Edward Foley
The Road to Now
The Constitution empowers the electoral college to select the President, but the process for counting electors’ votes remains in the hands of Congress. In this episode, explains the origins of the electoral college, how and why the 12th Amendment changed the process for electing Presidents, and the concerns that led Congress to codify the procedure for counting electors’ votes in 1887. Edward also offers some specific ways that updating the Electoral Count Act of 1887 might help us avoid some of the potential problems that might arise in upcoming elections. Edward Foley...
info_outlineWhen the city of Apex, NC was founded in 1873, it was little more than a railroad stop with a tiny rural population. In the last half-century, however, the development of the Research Triangle Park has thrust the town into the 21st century with tremendous force, with the population increasing more than tenfold in the last three decades. In spite of all this change, Apex has retained its historic beauty and continues to be a highly-desirable place to live. In this episode, Bob talks about his research on Apex, which he conducted as part of his graduate coursework at Arizona State University.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.