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Bush Picks James Polk as a Favorite President

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After his father and his brother, Jeb Bush said his favorite president was James K. Polk (D), the Des Moines Register reports.

Said Bush: “One of the presidents that I really admire, and he’s not — I think people rank him pretty good, the historians who look at this — is James K. Polk… He said what he was going to do and he did what he said he was going to do, and then he left.”

“Although Bush didn’t mention it, Polk is perhaps best known for presiding over the Mexican-American War, in which U.S. forces battled all the way to Mexico City and won control of what is now New Mexico and California. The territorial expansion seen under Polk is now seen as fueling the fight over slavery of the mid-1800s. Polk himself was a slaveowner.”

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goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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