Paul Simon (politician)

Paul Martin Simon (November 29, 1928 ? December 9, 2003) was an American politician from Illinois. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1974 to 1985 and United States Senate from 1985 to 1997. He was a member of the Democratic Party. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988. During the campaign, he briefly captured the national attention and was considered a major candidate. This lead to an appearance on the popular television show Saturday Night Live, co-hosting with celebrated singer Paul Simon.

Public Policy Institute

Simon lived for many years in the small town of Makanda, south of Carbondale, where he was a professor and director of the SIU Public Policy Institute. While there, he tried to foster the Institute into becoming a think tank that could advance the lives of all people. Activities included going to Liberia and Croatia to oversee their elections, bringing major speakers to campus, denouncing the death penalty, trying to end trade restrictions with communist Cuba, fostering political courage among his students, and promoting amendments to the Constitution to end the Electoral College and to limit the president to a single six-year term of office. Concerning the Electoral College during the controversial Election 2000 fiasco, Simon said, "I think if somebody gets the majority vote, they should be president. But, I don't think the system is going to be changed."

Related Topics:
Makanda - Liberia - Croatia - Death penalty - Cuba - Constitution - Electoral College - Election 2000

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Simon believed modern presidents practice "followship," rather than leadership, saying, "We have been more and more leaning on polls to decide what we're going to do, and you don't get leadership from polls... and not just at the presidential level. It's happening with senators, House members and even state legislators sometimes conduct polls to find out where people stand on something."

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