They blew it. The US Mint is dropping the $1 US Presidential coin. Well, not entirely. Those entities that sell them to collectors will receive some, but I can’t, in good conscience, BUY a $1 coin for $3 or more. Lost history, plus a chance to drop the dollar bill missed. Plus they ended the public run with an assassinated President, James Garfield, and dissed poor Chester A. Arthur, who would have been released this month. Hey, if you happen across any of them, post-Garfield, please let me know.
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I was looking at the 2012 Republican field for President and realized that I should be supporting Ron Paul!
I jest about that, but if Ron Paul were somehow elected, he would have a quality that no other U.S. President has had: he would be born in the 1930s; his birth was in 1935. We’ve never had ANY President born in the 1930s, OR the 1950s, for that matter. Barack Obama was born in 1961, both Bush II and Clinton in 1946, both GHW Bush and Carter in 1924, and Reagan, Ford, Nixon, and Kennedy all in the 1910s.
Looking at the potential field, some of which never got traction, and others who dropped out, we have, besides Paul:
Newt Gingrich, Buddy Rohmer 1943
Herman Cain 1945
Willard “Mitt” Romney 1947
Rick Perry 1950
Gary Johnson 1953
Michele Bachmann 1956
Rick Santorum 1958
Jon Huntsman 1960
We may have other opportunities to select a President born in the fifties, but Paul will certainly be our last chance to pick a Depression baby.
Lists of best and worst Presidents tend to engender partisan debates. Here, then, is Salon’s Who’s the worst president of them all? It’s really difficult not to have Buchanan in the bottom three, at least.
Richard Nixon’s Watergate grand jury testimony. Watergate was a pivotal moment in both my life and the country’s.
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A little off-topic: This year is the 100th anniversary of “Melody in A Major” by Chicago banker Charles G. Dawes, later Vice-President under Calvin Coolidge. You might recognize the song, with lyrics added decades later, as It’s All In The Game.