BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Fillmore

Subject: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 May 04 - 04:00 PM

Awright Gang, let's have some fun! At another site I visit, the SPEED Boards, there are some fun folks around too. A couple of them are true Mudcat material if they just had any minor interest in folk or blues....not that it matters much around here anymore(:<))

My friend Scutwerker (gotta' love the handle huh?) likes Cletus and Paw and has a typically warped sense of humor. He has a few running gags over there that are funnier than hell. Bobertz, if you're reading this, you need to visit "Satan's Used Car Lot"....you and Scut would get along great! Anyway.........

That site allows you a "Signature" at the bottom where you can put sayings, pics, quotes, whatever. Scut has a picture of ol' Millard Filmore and daily he changes the captions which are generally something like, "If Millard Filmore, our 13th President, were alive today, he'd use the 50 cent coupons for Bush's Baked Beans."....or something equally stupid.

A toy company that makes presidential figurine things is taking a poll on what others to do so let's all help Scut get Millard immortalized. We haven't done anything this fuckin' stupid in a coon's age. Remember wwen we sent all those postcards for El Swanno? THIS is that dumb!! So go to THIS SITE and vote for Millard. You can actually cast three votes if you vote him once for first, once for second, and once for third. The other choices are up to you.

And here's Scut's thread at the SPEED boards... Dumbshit....Let's get on this and make Millard our man!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: SINSULL
Date: 04 May 04 - 04:04 PM

Millard Filmore was a native of Buffalo. His home in East Aurora is a stone's throw from my brother's home and a mandatory class trip for every true blue Buffalonian grade school student. I will see if I can recruit some more votes.
SINS

Millard! Millard! He's my man.
If he can't do it, he can't.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 May 04 - 04:09 PM

Ah Sins you beauty you!!! I knew I could count on you!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: SINSULL
Date: 04 May 04 - 04:09 PM

Why is Martin Van Buren beating out millard fillmore? And was Pierce really president? I missed that.

GB Jr. comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. Bet it's forged.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 04 May 04 - 05:17 PM

I have fulfilled my civic duty. I am so proud I think I'll be shittin' red, white & blue fer a week.

BTW, don't fergit to cast yer vote fer First Lady as well. I almost voted a split ticket and went fer Barbara Bush 'cause she looks so much like th' Quaker Oats guy an' my wife Susan really likes oatmeal, but then I remembered that she gave birth t' Dubya an' voted fer Mrs. Filmore instead.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Bill D
Date: 04 May 04 - 06:46 PM

you sure you don't want MALLARD Fillmore? He seems more politically aware....

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: SINSULL
Date: 04 May 04 - 08:43 PM

Have PM'd the Buffalo and East Aurora Chambers of Commerce as well as the EA JAycees. My nephew has been recruited to get his cronies from Johns Hopkins in the vote. Millard may win after all.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Amos
Date: 04 May 04 - 09:13 PM

I feel really dumb but, considering the much greater sacrifices you have made in that department, Pat, having made a flaming moron of yourself for Millard's sake, I have done my civic duty as a Catter. Three votes for Millard!! And pot in every Picking American! Or whatever...

A

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 May 04 - 11:23 PM

I matched him up with Dolly Madison; I hope they will be very happy together. She's the correct aqnswer any time Jeopardy has a First Lady question set in that century. Been's as she's so popular in Jeopardy, I figured she was the best bet to take on three Millards.

Did you want this submitted for prayer to the Prayer Chain then Spaw? :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 May 04 - 11:25 PM

PS: I DO think you ought to spell his name right, Pat!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: LadyJean
Date: 05 May 04 - 12:55 AM

Sadly Fillmore only has 99 votes. We catters are going to have to do a little more. I voted for Warren G. Harding too, because great grandfather won a dollar from him playin poker. I voted for Rachel Jackson. Her husband was the kind of man who gives rat bastards a bad name, but I've always been fond of her.
For some reason Mrs. Martin Van Buren is high on the list of first ladies. I wonder if they shouldn't have Rose Greenhow. She was James Buchanan's unofficial first lady. (Buchanan wasn't married. Mrs. Greenhow hosted parties at the White House. She was a Confederate spy. So it was very convenient.)

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: open mike
Date: 05 May 04 - 02:01 AM

oops we may have overwhelmed the system..
i got a message back to say they could only
record so many votes for one person,
and that i could only vote once for
any person. I chose Eleanor Roosevelt for 1st lady.
they said i have to try agian later..

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 May 04 - 09:50 AM

By George! (No, not Little Hawk. And not Washington either. And damned sure not either one of those Bush assholes. We're talkin' whatever George it is that people usually mean when they say "By George!") She's right! The website seems to log voters IP numbers to keep them from voting twice! That's just not the American way! Just ask anyone from Chicago!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 05 May 04 - 12:09 PM

Millard was one of 5 Unitarians who wer president. Another reason to vote for him - he followed a different (and liberal) religious path.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 05 May 04 - 12:18 PM

CURRENT RESULTS

                         1st    2nd    3rd    total

George W. Bush         187         88         60         335
Millard Fillmore         100         106         114         320
John Quincy Adams         43         101         115         259

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 May 04 - 01:03 PM

I'm with Bill D.

Mallard Fillmore is the only thing on my local editorials page that makes sense much anymore. (Of course, they do publish quite a lot of quotes from "local intellectuals.")

Tough competition for Bush as it is though. Of course, most who vote won't actually look at the candidates' records.

John

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 05 May 04 - 01:05 PM

Have you noticed that the dolls pictured George W. seems to have a scowel, while all the rest are fairly pleasant?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 May 04 - 01:11 PM

Well - they're only showing Clinton from the waist up.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 05 May 04 - 01:14 PM

But he's smilin'!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:13 PM

LadyJean,

Buchanan's official first lady was his niece, Harriet Lane. When Buchanan was young, he was engaged to a woman named Anne Coleman--they had a quarrel of some sort, and broke up, and she went home to the folks, where she immediately died(it is generally believed that she committed suicide). Buchanan never got over it, and never married(though he dated a lot).

I like Buchanan, partly because he was from Pennsylvania, and partly because he is regarded as the one of worst presidents we ever had (right along with his predecessor, Franklin Pierce). When Lincoln was inaugurated, he is supposed to have told him, "If you are as happy about coming into this office as I am about leaving it, you area a happy man indeed."


Even still, as a favor to Pat, I voted for Fillmore. He was the only President ever who actually admitted to being a "Know-Nothing"--

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:38 PM

it wouldn't let me vote for fillmore in more then one location - and then when I tried using otherrs it told me I had already voted and couldn't vote again!

the noive!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 06 May 04 - 01:44 PM

I voted for Fillmore three times.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: okthen
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:20 PM

They said they were too busy and to try again later, do you think they know I'm from the UK? If Millard Fillmore were alive today he'd be just another American President that didn't have the faintest idea who I am.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 06 May 04 - 03:23 PM

Filmore it is...

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 May 04 - 10:49 PM

Okay, so these little overpriced pieces of plastic crap talk, right? So does George W. Bush say "nukular"? How about "mission accomplished"? Maybe "Uhmerkha"?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 07 May 04 - 01:48 AM

He's getting votes!


George W. Bush         187         88         60         335
Millard Fillmore         106         107         115         328
John Quincy Adams         43         103         116         262

Up 8 votes from last I looked. Just 8 more and he passes Bush! Come on people VOTE!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 07 May 04 - 02:20 AM

Did it one more time....

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: RangerSteve
Date: 07 May 04 - 06:33 AM

OK, I voted for Millard, followed by Rutherford B. Hayes, who along with F. Pierce is the other president no one remembers and also has the distinction of having the only first name that will never be shared by another president. You may ask "what about Grover Cleveland?", well, his full name was Stephen Grover Cleveland, and being both a Steve and from New Jersey, he got my third vote. Mrs. Van Buren gets my vote as first lady, since she got a raw deal - Martin, in his autobiography, never refers to her once. He claimed it was not something a gentleman does.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 07 May 04 - 08:28 AM

He's up to 332 vs Bush at 335 - but he's still 77 below bush for 'first choice'

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:19 PM

Hey Steve - I'd say it's unlikely that another president is going to have the name Rutherford, but you never to. Plus, theres a few other as well - I doubt that Abraham has much of a chance. And who would have thought that we have had 2 1/2 Georges? George isn't exactly the most common of names. Ronald, Gerald, Dwight and Franklin may come back as popular baby names some day, but how many boys get those names today? And those were presidents within the last 60 years.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: LadyJean
Date: 08 May 04 - 01:25 AM

I didn't know about Ms. Lane. I do remember the poem from Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet's "Book of Americans" "Poor James Buchanan fiddled his whole term through. The north was getting it's dander up the south was angry too." They're fun poems. I wish someone would bring it back into print, instead of the patriotic tripe they're pushing on kids now.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: flattop
Date: 08 May 04 - 01:39 AM

Both Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore were sheriffs of Erie Counrty, in the Buffalo area. H.L.Mencken wrote admiringly of Cleveland because he hung a lot of people when he was sheriff. Did Fillmore hang anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 08 May 04 - 08:17 PM

So was Cleveland the most hung president?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 08 May 04 - 09:55 PM

Enough of this bullshit. I feel like I'm carrying the load here. I have voted for Millard SIX friggin' times. I have cast 5% of the votes for him. Where is the team spirit? I even left a note saying that I voted for his wife because I thought she had nice kazoos. I have never even seen his wife! Get with the program, PLEASE!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,Ron Davies
Date: 08 May 04 - 10:36 PM

Happen to be reading (because I like history) a 1200-page tome called The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party. Fillmore, against all expectations, turns out to be not another cipher like some other 19th century (and 20th?)--perhaps somebody even closer? US presidents, but actually an interesting guy. (I suspect the others may be also if you find enough info on them)

As you know, he took over from Zachary Taylor when Taylor died in 1850. In fact he took over at a particularly tense time in US history. There was a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico which had heated up so much it could easily have started the Civil War in 1850, especially since slavery was an issue between the 2. New Mexico was not yet a state, but had declared its intention to come into the Union as a free state; Texas of course was a slave state. Texas had sent troops to the Santa Fe area to claim all the territory up to Santa Fe. Taylor, despite being a slaveholder himself, had sent US Army troops to the area (just before his death, as it turned out) to prevent the land grab by Texas.


Fillmore followed in Taylor's path by telling the Texans that if they invaded US territory by marching on Santa Fe, he would have no choice but to call out the militia and the regular army. The border question was settled as part of the Compromise of 1850. Each side thought it had been cheated (what's new?) but, as Fillmore pointed out, Congress and no other body had the power to determine the border between Texas and the terrritory of New Mexico (and to do it fast enough--neither a boundary commission nor the Supreme Court could be quick enough.) Texas thought it should have all of New Mexico east of of the Rio Grande; New Mexico and many northerners thought 1/3 of New Mexico had been surrendered (to get the present day border).

Fillmore pushed for passage of the entire package of the Compromise (including the Fugitive Slave Act). You could make the case that the Compromise was in fact necessary, since it prevented the clash of Texan and US arms (and southern states had promised to back Texas-Southerners were ready to fight. In the decade of the 1850's the North expanded considerably both in industrial power and population. As it was, the Civil War was a near thing-- a la Vietnam and the American Revolution, all the South had to do was persuade enough Northerners that it was not   worth the blood and treasure to keep prosecuting the war. In 1850, the South might well have won (if generalship had been similar to what it was 11 years later)---- (I know, pure speculation, but intriguing, at least I think so.)


Anyway, by 1855 it was obvious to Fillmore, who was a Whig, that the Know-Nothings were making big inroads into the Whigs--by saying what Whig leaders didn't, but quite a few rank-and-file believed--the Irish were undercutting wage scales, Catholics were a danger to the Protestant republic, and the Irish and Germans together were bringing down the morals of "good Americans" by drinking and running taverns. It was a delicate situation for Fillmore, who knew that lots of Whigs reviled nativism (and the secrecy of the Know-Nothings), but Fillmore wanted election in 1856.


In 1852, the Whigs ran Winfield Scott ("Old Fuss and Feathers") (a far cry from "Old Rough and Ready" (Taylor), though both had been prominent in the Mexican War, which the Whigs opposed. The Whigs lost in 1852, against a political pigmy, Franklin Pierce, "the hero of many a well-fought bottle". ---(who else could this describe?) This author seems to believe the Whigs lost, ironically, because of their extremely clumsy attempt to win the immigrant vote. Scott, in a speech in Cleveland in the rain to a shouted response from the crowd: "I love to hear the Irish brogue, I have heard it before on many battlefields and I wish to hear it many times more" But the Irish and German Catholics knew there were lots of bigots in the Whig party, and so Scott did not get their vote and lost the bigot vote also (turnout was also way down).


Sorry to ramble--I just thought it's an interesting story---OK--by 1855 Fillmore was trying to co-opt the Know-Nothings into the Whig party. He sent out feelers to them. He hoped he would not have to lower himself by actually joining the Know-Nothings, but eventually it became obvious he would have to, and he did. This book says he did it because of genuine concern that the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the agitation caused by it was endangering the Union, and he was the best hope for a nationwide Union party. (No ambition on his part--well--OK-- if you say so) In the end Fillmore was never elected President.


Re: Fillmore as a Unitarian--not sure --have no info on this. But, if I were Unitarian, I wouldn't necessarily be so enthusiastic to claim Unitarian forbears. Unitarians didn't always wear white hats. (Fillmore--Fugitive Slave Act). Also, another book I'm reading, The Age of Jackson--Arthur Schlesinger Jr. ( won the Pulitzer for this one) quotes an extremely prominent Unitarian preacher, William Ellery Channing, as claiming that the rich had worse problems than the poor: The poor may be sometimes be overworked but "how many of our daughters are victims of ennui, a misery unknown to the poor and more intolerable than the weariness of excessive toil!"

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: flattop
Date: 09 May 04 - 12:22 AM

Say Ron, I believe for Millard Fillimore and Grover Cleveland were back-to-back peresidents, both former sheriffs of Erie County. From what you wrote, Cleveland must have followed Fillmore. Do you know how Buffalo was able to send two boys in a row to the Whitehouse? Or am I wrong on the back-to-back?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 09 May 04 - 12:59 AM

Great story!

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,Ron Davies
Date: 09 May 04 - 01:28 PM

Thanks for your interest, Jim. I have to say I'm not even tempted to read fiction---history is just too fascinating

Flattop--Buchanan (said by some, including a Smithsonian article I read, to a be a strong candidate for the all-time worst US president), followed Pierce, who was the political pygmy elected in 1852. So it was Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan. (I don't know why I put that in--just wanted to mention Buchanan, I suppose.)

   
Cleveland was elected in 1884--- "Ma, Ma, Where's my pa? Gone to the White House, Ha Ha Ha.". Cleveland also has the distinction of being the only president to ever have been elected to two terms separated by somebody else's presidency; in this case Benjamin Harrison. This is all asssuming my memory is accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 04 - 07:14 PM

Voted for him NINE times so far.

Thanks for the history, Ron. Great reading.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 09 May 04 - 07:42 PM

Doing well:

                        1st    2nd    3rd    total
Calvin Coolidge         81         126         211         418
Lyndon Johnson                130         103         163         396
Millard Fillmore         118         109         115         342
George W. Bush                187         88         60         335
John Quincy Adams         44         105         118         267


Passed the Bush We're on our way to grabbing the Johnson!

Still a bit away for being the #1 in first votes, however.

Keep voting and tell people in other threads about this - imagine that Filmore ends up being #1!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Fillmore
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 04 - 08:10 PM

In true Canadian tradition, I vote for Filmore for first choice, second choice and third choice. I have done so NINE times so far. I shall do so again tomorrow until I can no longer vote. Such is my promise to my fellow 'catters. Now, with the kindest of tone and the mellowest of feeling: GET YER FRIGGIN' REARS IN GEAR VOTE, OFTEN. Thank you.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 09 May 04 - 08:22 PM

Brucie - if you're given the chance, please vote for Kerry, come November.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 04 - 09:40 PM

I hear thet, Blackcatter. The world needs to be rid of Bush and his gang. Soon. I hope and pray that Kerry is voted in.

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 May 04 - 11:44 PM

BC....brucie....flattop......etal..........Thanks for taking on this worthwhile project and supporting Millard in his hours of need. Keep up the good work!

Ya' know. I've been around here over 5 years and I'm still amazed to watch how even the most trivial crappola can become a history lesson or a really great discussion. Once again, the 'Cat transcends music.........simply amazing.

Let's keep passing the word and put Millard out there..........er......well, you know what I mean.............

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 May 04 - 11:58 PM

Thanks SPAW

But NO TAHNX!!!

What-cha-tryin-ta-due????????

Think back....is this the "best-side-of Spaw"....or perhaps is this a thread the originator,with their vested resources, would like to bury????????

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Hrothgar
Date: 10 May 04 - 06:33 AM

Harding was, IM(not very)HO, the worst. Then again, you Yanks seem to have strange bases of assessment. How come John Quincy Adams is so far down the list?

Please also explain to me how there are two Mrs Wilsons on the list. Woodrow wasn't widowed while President, was he?

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 10 May 04 - 12:27 PM

Twelve times.

I have it on good advice that Fillmore will buy copious amounts of beer--truckloads--for people who vote for him. Think about that, fellow and fellowette 'catters. British beer. The good stuff. Why aren't British people voting? Back to y'all tomorrow when I have cast my fifteenth vote for Millard and his lovely wife's kazoos.

Brucie

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 May 04 - 01:57 PM

Wow! I learn something new everyday - Woodrow Wilson lost 12 wives while he was president. ANyone know how many he lost before and after? And he looked like such a dour old creep...

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Peace
Date: 10 May 04 - 11:37 PM

Fifteen times. Fillmore kicks ass!

Subject: RE: BS: NEED HELP--Vote for Millard Filmore
From: Blackcatter
Date: 11 May 04 - 12:55 AM

bruce - are you sure you're not from Chicago?