Breaking: House GOP seek rule change that could undermine Social Security for seniors & disabled.

[tclambert]

81. The guy on Fox who claimed Republicans initiated Medicare may have meant Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1912, he included an idea for health insurance as part of his campaign. That made it the first time a major presidential candidate had brought up such an idea.

However, you may recall, since everybody here is better at history than most Republican politicians, that Roosevelt ran as a member/founder of the Bull Moose Party, not as a Republican. In fine Republican tradition, Taft stole the Republican party nomination, though Roosevelt was clearly more popular. The Republican party bosses considered Roosevelt a "traitor to his class," not that they admitted to any class warfare, and cheated by stacking the convention with a lot of pro-Taft delegates. Roosevelt then posted this famous message on his Twitter account: "WTF, guys? Fairly seat delegates, or Ima gonna form my own gosh darn party!"

History often refers to Roosevelt as a "third-party candidate" in the election of 1912, yet he won more popular votes and more electoral votes than the Republican candidate, Taft. Taft suffered the worst defeat of any incumbent president seeking re-election.