Bull Moose Inc.

By ticorules on November 17, 2012 • ( 0 )

If anyone has ever wondered what’s with the picture of Teddy Roosevelt on the banner at the top of the page, here’s why. Don’t let the glasses fool you, TR was an awesome and bad-ass politician. How much of a bad-ass? Well, I’m glad you asked. Besides killing stuff (big stuff) for fun, this is a man who laughs off assassination attempts. Once during a campaign speech Teddy was shot in the chest. When a commotion broke out after the attempt on his life, he yelled to the crowd “Quiet, I’ve been shot!” He dusted himself off, reportedly said “You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose.” Then he calmly finished his 50 page speech before going to the hospital. But besides being an all around bespectacled bad-ass, he was also quite the Progressive.

Nowadays, Republicans fall all over themselves to prove how much more conservative they are then the next guy. But this was a Republican President that fought to break up monopolies. He even ran against his successor on the Progressive ticket because he thought Taft (a guy he originally endorsed, but later opposed) was too conservative. Here are some elements of the Progressive/Bull Moose party: women’s suffrage, national health insurance, minimum wage, direct election of Senators, limits and disclosures of campaign contributions, and increased business regulation. Mind you this is party platform from 1912. They do not make Republicans like that anymore. Hell, they barely make Democrats like that anymore.

I can’t really say he’s under-appreciated because Teddy is on Mount Rushmore. But current politicians could learn a lot from TR. I also sort of want to change the title of this blog to Bull Moose Inc. or something.