Mike Purdy's Presidential History Blog
Scorched Earth: Making Sense of the 2016 Political Storm
The 2016 presidential campaign and election was unlike any in our nation's history. In so many ways, it broke all the rules and expectations. It was unprecedented. In a lecture on November 14, 2016 at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, Dr. Michael...
Time Traveling With John Quincy Adams
I wrote the Foreword to a newly published biography of our 6th president, John Quincy Adams. The book explores his life 250 years after his birth and how he changed the course of history. "The Story of John Quincy Adams" by Edward Cody Huddleston, was published by...
Are Negative Campaign Ads Helpful to Voters?
On November 2, 2016, an op-ed article I wrote was published online at TheHill.com. The topic they assigned to me (with less less than a day to prepare!) was "Are Negative Campaign Ads Helpful to Voters?" The 2016 presidential campaign has been the most negative and...
Podcast: Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Campaign
Listen to Dr. Michael Artime and me in this 20 minute podcast from the University of Puget Sound, the first in a series of podcasts entitled "What We Do." In this October 24, 2016 podcast we discuss the following: What factors have contributed to making this year's...
The Most Popular Presidential Candidate in History
The presidential campaign of 2016 is certainly a world apart from the nation's first presidential election that propelled the very popular George Washington into the presidency. First Presidential Election: In the first presidential election, there was only voting by...
Has a Presidential or Vice-Presidential Candidate Ever Been Replaced?
Since George Washington was elected our nation's first president in 1789, there have been a total of 57 presidential elections. While there has never been a presidential candidate that has been replaced after their nomination, there has been one vice-presidential...
Listen to me on WCGO Radio
On September 27, 2016, I had a free-ranging 30 minute interview on Chicago-based WCGO radio (1590) on the presidents and vice-presidents, with comments about the tone of the current 2016 presidential campaign, including what president I thought would beat either...
George Washington as America’s First Spymaster
In today's world, we hear a lot about espionage, with computer hacking being a daily occurrence, electronic surveillance, eavesdropping, and human ground intelligence in our increasingly complex and dangerous world. Spying is big business and governments use it to...
Who Was the First Woman to Run for President?
We’ve heard a lot in the media lately about Hillary Clinton being the first woman nominated to run for president on a major party ticket. It’s important to remember that her accomplishment relates to being the first for a major party.
3 Reasons Why the Vice-Presidency Matters
“My country," a frustrated John Adams once wrote about the vice presidency, "has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” He has not been alone throughout our nation's history...
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About Mike
Mike Purdy is a presidential historian and author living in Seattle, Washington. As an expert in presidential history, Mike runs PresidentialHistory.com as a public resource.