Many Things Considered
In “Many Things Considered” one-time journalist and full-time political analyst Marc Johnson applies his passion for context to connect current politics with political history. What are the links between the debacle of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign and the Tea Party movement? Did Alexander Hamilton foresee the partisanship that now surrounds judicial appointments? Why haven’t third parties had political success in America? Johnson weaves interviews, archival sound, humor and authoritative narration to connect political history to today’s political stories.
Many Things Considered
Episode 4: The Leader
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Marc Johnson
Why has the U.S. Senate gone from the world’s greatest deliberative body to the country’s most dysfunctional political institution? The answer is complicated – perpetual campaigns, vast money, excess partisanship – but Senate history points a way to a more productive Senate. Historians of the Senate Richard Baker and Ira Shapiro consider the Senate of the 1960s and 1970s when things worked much better, former leader Trent Lott offers advice to the Senate leadership and former Montana Congressman Pat Williams remembers the Senate’s greatest majority leader – Mike Mansfield.