in the spotlight tonight, putin s political machine. on rueters.com, this group of burly motorcyclists who see themselves as road warriors, fighting for the greater glory of mother russia. they re known as the night wolves and putin himself has ridden with them on that icon of american wanderlust, a harley davidson, even as russia was preparing to send troops to crimea to claim the peninsula from ukraine s new government. the night wolves announced that they would ride to the troubled region to whip up support for their powerful brother and harley devotee. joining me now is the author of machine made tammany hall and the making of modern politics. i love this book. somewhere, i think, we have the
but when you claim to be above that, you re not going to be very effective. one of the characters in my book, ed flynn, who was very close to franklin roosevelt and was sort of raised by tammany. he had a word for people and it was the worst word you could possibly use amateur. it would have been an amateur that would have walked into tammany hall that said hey, i have a plan to get back at this mayor. it involves hurting the voters and leaving them stuck in traffic for hours and end. there s no one at tammany hall that wouldn t have said you re absolutely crazy. if you re going to create a scandal, make sure it s a scandal people don t understand. and people understand traffic jams. the important book is called machine made tammany hall and the creation of modern politics. it takes us all the way to the presidency of fdr. you will not understand fdr. you don t know where the minimum
any other word that s associated with it in the modern mind. tammany hall was corruption. it was thuggery. it was all sorts of stuff. what else was it that people should know about it that they forget? it was about social reform. tammany was about minimum wage, making live easier for immigrants. tammany hall was a voice for the voiceless. it was a friend for the friendless. and that part of tammany s history which was so important in understanding how immigrants became americans, how the working poor took a step up the ladder, that s tammany s story. tammany hall wanted power, they wanted power and they believed in a democracy, the way for them to hold that power is to serve that population that is providing the majority of votes. and that was an underclass that was providing those votes. that s right. tammany represented the butcher, the bark, the candlestick maker. the lee et, the republicans, the
of mother russia. they re known as the night wolves and putin himself has ridden with them on that icon of american wanderlust, a harley davidson, even as russia was preparing to send troops to crimea to claim the peninsula from ukraine s new government. the night wolves announced that they would ride to the troubled region to whip up support for their powerful brother and harley devotee. joining me now is the author of machine made tammany hall and the making of modern politics. i love this book. somewhere, i think, we have the picture of putin on the harleys with the guys who are riding the harleys into ukraine as we speak. we have seen in our own history,
wage came from without understanding tammany hall. thank you very much for writing this book and joining us to night. thank you. coming up in the rewrite some european leaders are very worried about vladimir putin. they think he s in his own world. madeleine albright thinks he s delusional. i actually think it s something else.