Tag: Politics

Democrat Wyche Fowler worries about fake news.

“One of the serious questions is where any person gets their information and how they verify, when anyone and everybody through their Facebook page, through their blogs, can put any kind of conspiracy theory out there,” Fowler said in the sixth in our video series, “Across the Aisle.”

“The media would respond ‘We are doing our best,’ but like most things in a democracy, the burden is on the citizen. If he or she is not interested in correct information and making their own informed judgment, there’s no one else to do it.”

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies

When Democrat Ted Kennedy compromised with Republican Saxby Chambliss on immigration, both found themselves under siege.

“‘The left wing of my party is beating me up something awful,’” Chambliss remembers Kennedy saying. “He kind of laughed and said, ‘I’m up for re-election this year – you may have to come to Massachusetts and campaign for me.’ We got a chuckle out of that.”

“About a week later, my right-wing folks started giving me the devil. Don’t worry, I don’t need you to come to Georgia and campaign for me,” Chambliss joked.

“We were successful getting some good things done.”

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies

Former US Senators Saxby Chambliss and Wyche Fowler agree there’s too much money in politics in Across the Aisle, part of a series.

“State legislatures that draw the districts tend to draw them for incumbents … and sometimes those state legislators are able to … for their own personal benefit because they want to run for Congress,” Chambliss said.

“If you’re in the House, you never stop raising money … and that’s not the way it ought to be. You have these outside groups that exert lots of influence simply because they have money. Money has gotten way too important in political campaigns.”

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies

Former US Senator Wyche Fowler offers three solutions to the partisanship strangling America in the second of our eight-episode video conversation with him and former US Senator Saxby Chambliss.

• “Reverse the partisan gerrymandering.”

• “Limit in some way the effect of all this money coming from non-voters which floods the system and gives an unequal voice to our ordinary working good citizens.”

• Make the “presidential race a national referendum” as opposed to “only 8, 10, 15 or 18 states where the candidates from the two major parties have to campaign.”

Both the Democrat and Republican agreed on these suggestions!

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies