On Sunday, April 29, the Miller Center partnered with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on the second of six special episodes examining some of the key issues heading into the 2012 Election.  On Sunday, six distinguished panelists discussed and debated whether or not America’s economic recovery is “built to last.” Today’s guest post is from historian Brian Domitrovic offering his assessment of the arguments presented in the debate.

Paul Krugman said some misleading things in this debate. “This is not especially worse than the recovery from the 2001 recession,” for example. And, “If you actually just look at the job gains, or lack thereof, they’re more or less on track.”

Today Robert A. Caro, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, releases his fourth book in The Years of Lyndon Johnson series. The book, The Passage of Power, chronicles Johnson’s career from 1958 until 1964, and his journey from Senate majority leader to vice president to president of the United States.

In the Smithsonian.com, Ron Rosenbaum describes a major theme in Caro’s book:

This mortal struggle [between Johnson and Robert Kennedy] explodes into view over RFK’s attempt to deny Johnson the vice presidential nomination. Caro captures the pathos of LBJ’s sudden loss of power as VP, “neutered” and baited by the Kennedy echelon, powerless after so long wielding power. And the sudden reversal of fortune that makes him once again master on November 22, 1963—and suddenly makes Bobby Kennedy the embittered outsider.

The book covers the assassination of JFK and Johnson’s ascent to the presidency. In a fascinating piece in the New Yorker, Caro documented Johnson’s reactions in the moments after the assassination to his taking the oath of office on Air Force One.

The Miller Center has put together an exhibit of some of the highlights of the Presidential Recordings that took place on November 22, 1963, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The JFK Assassination Tapes include a selection of calls from Air Force One enroute from Dallas to Washington. The plane was carrying a newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson along with the slain president's body.

The 98th annual Correspondents' Dinner will be hosted at the White House this Saturday, featuring Jimmy Kimmel as headline entertainment.  

Not all Presidents have enjoyed Correspondents' Dinners—listen to this clip of Richard Nixon, talking to chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, wherein Nixon relays his feelings about the 1971 dinner which had taken place two days earlier. 

In 1927, President Coolidge took a three-week vacation to the Black Hills in South Dakota. He reportedly enjoyed the fresh air and mountain streams so much that he stayed for a total of three months, and his presence helped to kick start the carving of Mount Rushmore.

By the end of summer 1927, work was beginning on the famous Rushmore carving. Coolidge's full address from the opening can be read in our speech archive, but he remarks that "The fundamental principles which [these four presidents] represented have been wrought into the very being of our Country. They are steadfast as these ancient hills." 

Stay tuned! Every Friday we'll highlight a whimsical item from presidential history.

Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Arizona’s S.B. 1070 law, which allows local police to inquire about the immigration status of people—stopped for any reason—whom they suspect are in the country illegally. One of the core issues at the heart of the Supreme Court decision is which level of government should address immigration policy. In a post for Riding the Tiger earlier this week, Anna O. Law provided historical context to the debate over who should control immigration policy.

S.B. 1070 and other state laws also raise important questions regarding the link between the economy and immigration. Historically, debates over national immigration policy have included two arguments. The first is the claim that immigrants do work that Americans do not want to do. On the other hand is the concern that illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans.

As the Supreme Court gears up to hear the Arizona immigration case, take a trip back to 1964 as President Lyndon Johnson discusses the Bracero Agreement, a controversial work program for Mexican farm laborers.

In this clip, President Johnson calls James Farmer, a vocal opponent of the program, to relay his conversation with President Adolfo Lopez Mateos of Mexico about ending the Bracero Agreement. Farmer had long been concerned that the program was taking jobs from American workers, and in this recording LBJ notes that Lopez Mateos did not object to ending the program. As hinted by LBJ in this recording, the labor arrangement did not last much longer into 1964.

One of the most established findings in political science is that an incumbent’s record is central to the public’s judgment in a campaign for reelection. But what about challengers? A challenger’s campaign is more about the promises the candidate makes and their personality. Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, journalists, scholars, pundits and citizens alike are seeking to delve even deeper into his seemingly impenetrable background and qualifications in order to evaluate his ability to be president. Last month, the Miller Center hosted a Forum with Boston Globe investigative reporter Michael Kranish, who recently co-authored a new biography on Mitt called The Real Romney. For those of you who weren’t able to attend the Forum, we’ve put together some highlights.

Today is the IRS tax filing deadline for 2011. Be sure to get your taxes submitted today. 

Throughout history, presidents have been involved in setting tax policy and then trying to sell their plan to the public. Recently President Obama has been touting the benefits of the Buffett Rule, which would raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million a year. As CNN acknowledged, the Buffett Rule has little chance of moving forward in the U.S. Senate, but Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green argues that it might be more powerful as a political message than as actual legislation. 

Presidents and Tax Policy: The Politics of Persuasion is a Miller Center exhibit that looks at various snapshots of presidential tax policy drawing on a wide array of its resources, including presidential speeches, forums, presidential recordings, and oral histories.

With Rick Santorum’s announcement that he will halt his campaign, leaving Mitt Romney the presumed Republican presidential nominee, it’s time to start playing one of everyone’s favorite election season parlor games – the VEEPstakes.

As we mentioned this morning, on this day in 1981, President Reagan was shot.

John Hinckley Jr. shot at President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, wounding the president, press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a police officer. Since the incident, few have realized how near to death Ronald Reagan actually came, and no one has ever written in detail about the tragic day…until now. In his New York Times best-selling book Rawhide Down, Del Quentin Wilber reveals an

electrifying story of a moment when the nation faced a terrifying crisis that it had experienced less than twenty years before, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

I had the chance to talk with Wilber about what he uncovered while writing Rawhide Down.

To learn more, be sure to tune in for Wilber’s Forum on Monday, April 2 at 11AM. If you can’t make the trip to Charlottesville, you can watch the webcast live at www.millercenter.org and ask questions on the Miller Center’s Facebook page and via Twitter using hashtag #MCForum.

Today, on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot coming out of a hotel. Thanks to the quick thinking of a Secret Service agent, President Reagan was rushed to George Washington Hospital and underwent surgery to remove a bullet that was just lodged just an inch away from his heart. As part of the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History program, members of the Reagan administration recounted what it was like to be part of that moment in history and how it changed (or did not change) Reagan and his presidency.

Today, on March 29, 1973, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam. As the country debates the war in Afghanistan and a new poll indicates that two-thirds of Americans are against U.S. involvement in the war, it is interesting to listen to this secret White House recording from 1972 between President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, as they discuss a time frame for pulling American troops out of Vietnam.

Today at the Miller Center at 11:00AM, author Michael Kranish will speak about his book The Real Romney. A Boston Globe investigative reporter, Kranish was able to get the the "real" backstory on the former Massachusetts governor.  From the amazon description:

The book explores Romney’s personal life, his bond with his wife and how they handled her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, and his difficult years as a Mormon missionary in France, where a fatal car crash had a profound effect on his path. It also illuminates Romney’s privileged upbringing in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; his rejection of the 1960s protest culture; and his close but complicated relationship with his father.

I had the chance to sit down with Kranish to chat about what he learned of Romney through the process of writing the book. Check out the clip to hear what he had to say.

To hear much more, be sure to tune in to Kranish's forum at 11AM. You can watch live at http://www.millercenter.org and submit your own questions for Kranish via Facebook and on Twitter using hashtag #MCForum.

On this day in 1983, President Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" program to protect the U.S. from enemy nuclear missiles.

Yesterday NPR featured a story from the Associated Press about Russia’s concern over a missile defense plan that NATO has proposed, designed to deflect potential nuclear attacks from Iran. Russia’s president argued that plan broke existing nuclear parity between the United States and Russia.

NATO has said it wants to cooperate with Russia on the missile shield, but has rejected Moscow's proposal to run it jointly. Without a NATO-Russia cooperation deal, the Kremlin has sought guarantees from the U.S. that any future missile defense is not aimed at Russia and threatened to retaliate if no such deal is negotiated.

"I will say honestly that no matter how warm relations between me and my colleagues are, no matter how advanced relations between Russia and NATO member states are, we will have to take that into account and, under certain circumstances, respond," [President Dmitry] Medvedev said.

The idea of a missile defense system, and Russia's role in U.S. National Security, was a hotly debated topic in the 1984 presidential election between President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Party nominee, Walter Mondale. In this excerpt from a presidential debate in 1984, President Reagan advocates sharing the technology of the so-called Star Wars plan with the Soviet Union, while Mondale strongly disagrees.

Click to watch the whole debate. 

In recent months, many state legislatures have tried to implement voter identification laws, in some cases requiring photo identification for people coming to vote. However, many of these efforts have been thwarted. Last week, the Wisconsin State Journal reported:

"A Dane County judge on Tuesday barred the enforcement of the state photo ID law at polling places during the general election on April 3, calling it an 'extremely broad and largely needless' impairment of the right to vote."

To supporters of these efforts, they are designed to prevent voter fraud. To some observers, however, these efforts harken back to the 1960s, when civil rights activists and everyday citizens protested voting restrictions, especially on African Americans.