I don't think it was just us that was surprised yesterday in what happened in New Hampshire. You know, it's amazing. I went back last night and I said to one of our researchers, I said, would you do me a favor: Go back and find as much as you can on the parallels of other elections. When was the last time we had an election like this? Well, the last time we had an election like this was 1928. 2008 is the first time since 1928 that there is no incumbent President or incumbent vice president running for either of the presidential nomination or not running in the presidential election. In 1928 the President was Calvin Coolidge. Calvin Coolidge opted not to seek reelection. His vice president at the time was Charles Dawes. He also did not run. So what happened, the Republicans nominated the eventual winner. It was Herbert Hoover. This, with some irony, is the secretary of congress. In 1928 the economy was going strong. There were some signs and people were saying, wait a minute, hang on, there are some problems here. But the roaring '20s were still roaring. Much of the credit was given to Hoover. He was the secretary of congress in Coolidge's administration. Voters weren't thinking about the debt. They weren't thinking about economic collapse. Those in Florida that had purchased all of the land in Florida by the water, Florida started to become a boom and everybody was saying, oh, look, here it comes. And what happened? Right around the corner the economy collapsed. By the way, today we are still in the official longest economic expansion where billions of dollars of wealth have been created. Housing prices, if you look at what happened in the 1920s in Florida alone and what's happening right now in 2008 in Florida alone for the housing market, it's damn near the same thing. 1920s, an era of innovation and technical advancement, Calvin Coolidge's inauguration was the first presidential inauguration to be broadcast on radio. Coolidge was the first President whose address to congress was broadcast on radio. Today we can clone sheep, we have men and women living in space and the candidates are posting their thoughts online and the candidates are asking questions from YouTube.
Religion in 1928 was also a major factor. Democratic nominee for president was Alfred Smith. His mistake, the reason why you don't know Alfred Smith, the reason why he didn't make it to be President is his mistake was to be Roman Catholic. He was the first Roman Catholic to run for the presidency. It turns out America wasn't ready for a Roman Catholic. Alfred Smith lost an election landslide against Hoover, 444-87. It was very public, very vicious and very okay to attack Smith for his religion, claiming that his allegiance would be to Rome and the Pope, not to the Constitution and his country. Today can we say Mitt Romney. And the best thing is because the roaring '20s, the rich got richer. Remember in 1929 the rich were about to throw themselves out of windows because the rich were also stupid. As the rich got richer in the 1920s, everybody was starting to say, wait a minute, hang on just a second; this socialism thing seems to be working over in Russia. This was before they really knew what was going on. In the 1920s all of these Fabian movement people, all these people, the Progressives, were going over to Russia and studying what was happening over there. They would come back and they would say, okay, sure, there's a lot of blood in the street, but this is a good system. And they started to sew the seeds of federal government needs to be bigger. Remember, fascism was on the rise. 1928, government should be bigger, government should help flood victims. The rich shouldn't be as rich. Remember they were about to become very, very broke. The rich shouldn't be rich.
You've probably heard Herbert Hoover's slogan but you've only heard half of it most likely. The half you heard is a chicken in every pot. Vote for Herbert Hoover and you'll have a chicken in every pot. But that was only half of it. It was a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. A car was starting to be a right. Only the rich could have a car. The roaring '20s were only happening for the rich. Why not a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot. That was 1928.
It's the closest that we could find to this election and I've got to tell you something. You better study 1928 because here it comes. I think this is exactly what happened in 1928 is about to happen to us as well.
