By Michael P. Riccards The terrible pandemic waves of 2020 have led to a marked decline in the popularity of President Donald J. Trump. Although the virus is overwhelmingly worse in the United States than anywhere else on the globe,… Read More ›
Michael Riccards
Some lessons from the 1988 presidential campaign
By Michael P. Riccards In 1988, I was the president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a rather strange choice for an Italian American from Jersey who was an easterner in his fingertips. But such is destiny…. Read More ›
How important is a VP candidate?
By Michael P. Riccards John Nance Garner, FDR’s vice president for his first two terms, once said that the office was not worth a pitcher of warm spit. Yet if he had curtailed his anti-New Deal sentiments, he might have… Read More ›
Are political conventions valuable?
Even before the pandemic, the national political conventions had become more spectacle than news. We asked presidential scholar Michael Riccards if there is a value of bringing parties’ leaders and delegates together to officially nominate their candidates for president and… Read More ›
Do we know him?
By Michael P. Riccards He was a media personality, but not a professional politician. When he was called to the highest office in the land, he had no experience at top level politics. He was a notorious womanizer, married but… Read More ›
An open letter to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church
By Michael P. Riccards The most recent pandemic has caused chaos for the major institutions of the United States, including the Catholic Church. Ingenious pastors have tried to incorporate the new protocols with the ancient ritual to keep some of… Read More ›
The Future of Faith
By Michael P. Riccards It has become standard rhetoric to say that the old normal is gone with the pandemic and that we must rethink our institutions. That is undoubtedly true, although most of us will try to resurrect the… Read More ›
A proposal for heroes
By Michael P. Riccards In 1944, Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, commonly known as the GI Bill. Originated by the American Legion, the act provided a series of benefits for returning veterans. Only about… Read More ›
Is baseball hypocritcal about technology?
By Michael P. Riccards  With the nation knee-deep in the pandemic and the loss of the spring, it appears very likely that at best we will have a truncated baseball season if any at all. Some of us believe that… Read More ›
The demise of Kamala Harris
By Michael P. Riccards Another of the many Democrats for president has bit the ugly dust. Senator Kamala Harris of California has said she just cannot raise enough money to continue her quest. What she should say is that people… Read More ›
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