Man Martin's Blog, page 98

Presidential Losers #52: John McCain

An historic election between the first major candidate of color and possibly the whitest man in America.  

For years John McCain was one of the most respected members the Republican party.  He wasn't respected quite so much after the election.  

In spite of being a two-term president, Bush the Younger had not left the GOP untarnished; the wars in the Middle East weren't as much fun as they started out, and McCain's opponent, Barack Obama, had been an early and vociferous opponent of the Iraq invasion.  But McCain supported the "troop surge," which indeed was a strategic success, and his poll numbers rose.  

Moreover, McCain had another ace up his sleeve: the strong Republican record of fiscal success.  He pointed out in an interview that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong," and except for the Wall Street crash, the near-collapse of the international banking system, soaring unemployment, and plummeting property values, he was right.  

McCain was also criticized for another interview in which he admitted he wasn't sure exactly how many houses he owned, but this was completely unfair.  A presidential candidate has enough to do without going around counting up his houses.  

Shrewdly McCain picked as his running mate, Sarah Palin whose impressive resume - two years as governor of Alaska, and before that, mayor of Wasilla - added luster to his campaign.  (She'd even been a city council member; the woman's, like, too good to be true, right?)  

Like Yogi Berra, a lot of things Palin said, she didn't really say.  Saturday Night Live put ridiculous words in her mouth like being able to see Russia from Alaska and other nonsense.  Palin did say "obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies," but this was no dumber really than Ford asserting there were no Communists in Eastern Europe.  

Challenged by that hard-hitting interviewer Katie Couric about which magazines she read, Palin responded, ""All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years."  (What more do you want, you Palin-naysayers?)  

Other campaign issues were whether Obama were secretly a Muslim or even a United States citizen.  (He was born in Hawaii, which you have to admit is pretty sketchy.  It's not like being from a real state, like Alaska.)  But none of these pertinent issues was enough to win the presidency for McCain.



Result
Barack Obama: 365John McCain: 173

Presidential Losers #51: John Kerry

Bush won his first go-round by the skin of the Supreme Court's teeth, but his re-election was a solid victory.  New Hampshire, which had gone Republican in '00, went to Kerry (Big Whoop.  New Hampshire.)  But Iowa and New Mexico, previously Democrat, went Republican.  Obviously, Iowans and New Mexicans were impressed by Bush's performance his first term in office.  

Nothing enhances a president's popularity like a nice war, and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 lifted Bush's approval ratings tremendously.  (It is an odd thing about human nature.  Bush hadn't done anything, but an unprovoked attack on the US made him look better.  If a burglar breaks into a neighbor's house and steals their china, you'll regard the neighbors more kindly than before.  I do not know why this is so, but it is.)  

In addition to Afghanistan which had been sheltering Bin Laden, we invaded Iraq which was implicated in the attacks.  

Well, they weren't really implicated in the attacks, but they would have been if they'd thought of it.  The real reason was because Saddam Hussein was stock-piling weapons of mass destruction and we had conclusive proof.  

Well, actually, there may not have been any weapons.  Coalition troops did find some munitions containing mustard gas and serin gas, but these were pretty corroded and evidently were left over from the first Gulf War.  

So the real reason was about Democracy.  That's right.  Hussein was a terrible dictator, and we had to depose him so his people could taste the fruits of liberty.  That's what the war had been about the whole time.  

Against this visionary leadership, Kerry never had a chance.  This is because Kerry was a flip-flopper.  

A side issue was Kerry's service in Vietnam and whether or not he'd exaggerated his valor.  He'd definitely gotten three Purple Hearts, but maybe he just got lucky.  Bush on the other hand served proudly with the Texas Air National Guard and it cannot be denied that no foreign power dared attack Texas during that time.

Result
George Bush: 286John Kerry: 251

Eulogy for Mama

Recently I had the honor of giving the eulogy for my mother-in-law's funeral.  I asked my wife and sister-in-law if I could post it here, and they said yes.
Whenever I think of Mama, I think of food.

The first time I met her, I was dating Nancy, and I came for Sunday dinner.  Lord!  I'd never seen anything like it.  There was fried chicken, ham, a slicing roast, any number of vegetables, plus home-made biscuits and fried cornbread.

Parenthetically, I will say it came as sort of a minor tragedy in our family when Eelbeck went out of business; they were the company that made the particular cornmeal-mix Mama used for her fried cornbread.

I saw all this food and said to Nancy, "Do you always eat like this?"  I probably would have asked her to marry me anyway, but I will say that meal weighed heavily in my decision.

We told a friend of ours about those meals, a meal where three different animals were on the table, and she called them "multi-species meals."  She'd say, "I want someone to fix me a multi-species meal, too!"

Mama'd get up early Sunday and start cooking - some things, like the roast, had to cook a long time - and the house would be filled with these delicious smells.  Then she'd go to church, and when she came back, she cook all the stuff that cooked quickly, like the chicken and the cornbread.

But, lord, she would drive us crazy because she would never sit down.  We'd be there waiting, forks in our hands, and she'd hop up from the table.  "Let me get some pepper sauce."  Then she'd almost sit down and hop up again.  "Please, Mama, sit down."  "Let me just heat up some rice."  We'd all be sitting there, mouths watering at all this delicious food, and simple human decency meant we couldn't eat until everyone was at the table.  "Please, Mama, sit down.  Sit down so we can eat."  "Just a second, I'm fixing to chop some onions.  Do y'all want some Vidalia onions?"  Then finally, after getting up half a dozen times or more, she'd sit down for good, and she'd say, "Well, I just hope it's fit to eat."  Of course, it was wonderful.

She was also famous for her cornbread dressing, which she made for Thanksgiving.  Nancy got her to write down the recipe and she fixed it for us.  It was very good, but it wasn't the same.  Then Donna - I believe this was her procedure - stood at Mama's elbow as she made it one year and took careful step-by-step notes.  For many years past, Donna has made the Thanksgiving dressing, and it is sublime.

But it's not the same.

It'll never be the same.

I do know one story about Mama that has nothing to do with food.  If I get some of the details wrong it's because I don't know it of my own memory but was told it by Melinda Spencer who worked with Mama at the Georgia Kraft credit union.  Well, a long time ago, all the credit union records were kept on something called a ledger card, that you stuck into some sort of machine which would punch in whatever transaction had taken place, whether it was a deposit, withdrawal, loan payment or what-have-you.

By the time Mama had retired all the records were digital, but the really old accounts were still on those ledger cards.  And every once in a while, some old-timer would come in and need to close out his account, and Melinda would have to go searching in this claustrophobic filing room among those old cards.  The only catch was, the cards weren't filed by people's names but by their time-clock numbers, and even the employees themselves didn't know their own time-clock numbers.

So Melinda would call up Mama and say, "Bill Smith just came to close his account, can you give me any idea where to find his ledger card?"  And Mama would say, "Bill Smith was an electrician, and electricians had time-clock numbers that started with five, so check in the fives.  But you know, I think his number might have been five-one-oh-two-three-three-six.  Check there first."  And Melinda would check there, and sure enough, that would be Bill.

I don't want you to think this is a story about someone's amazing ability to remember numbers, because the story's not about that.  To Mama, that ledger-card was a person, someone who put in maybe thirty years at that paper mill, setting aside a little each month for the day he retired.  That ledger card held the story of the time he had to take out a loan for car or maybe just a color TV set, because a loan was the only way he'd be able to get it, and the months and years he had to work that job to pay it back.  To Mama, those ledger cards were people's lives, and they mattered.

Alzheimer's is a terrible, terrible illness.  I don't know of a worse.  What it does is pull away pieces of you until all that's left is one flickering little bit of your very center.  For Mama, when it got down to that last flicker, there was nothing left but sweetness.  She'd say, "How're you?" when someone came in the room, and "Thank you," when they told her how pretty she was.  She called everybody "sugar," and if you told her you loved her, she'd say, "I love you too," right back.  She might not know who you were, but she'd say she loved you.

I'm not saying she was always happy, because she wasn't.  She hated it when they had to turn her in the bed or when they bathed her.  It frightened her and she'd tell them to stop.

And sometimes she'd get agitated because she thought there was something she needed to do.  She had two wonderful caregivers, Tara and Carol, but the hardest words she ever had to hear was there wasn't anything she needed to do, that everything had been taken care of, and she was fine and just needed to rest.  Towards the end, she would pull up on her sheets and try to fold them over or gather them in a bundle or something.  I don't know what she was trying to do, and she didn't know either.  If you'd asked her, she wouldn't have been able to tell you, or it would have just come out gobbledygook.  It was like something you have to do in a dream, and when you wake up, it doesn't even make sense.  But whatever it was she was trying to do with those sheets, if you know Mama, she was trying to do it for somebody else, she was trying to do it for the sake of somebody else.

I think Mama may have set some sort of record.  When she first went into hospice, they said three days to a week.  Two weeks later, she was still hanging in there, and they said the crisis was near at hand and we could expect the end in two or three days.  Seven days later, and she was still going strong.  Sometimes she'd say she wanted to go home and see her mother.  And finally she went.

The thing that kept amazing the doctors and nurses was how strong her heart was.  They'd listen to her chest, and it was just going strong and steady, and they'd put the stethoscope to her shoulder, and it was beating there just the same.  I swear, I once saw someone put the stethoscope to her foot, and the beat was just as strong as anywhere.  Do you get what I'm saying?  It was her heart that was so strong.  It was her heart.

Recently I've been toying with the idea the maybe God is Love.  I know it says that in the Bible, First John.  I'm not illiterate.  But I have a notion sometimes, that that's the whole deal.  That all the theology and doctrine is all well and good, but it just comes down to God is Love, and if you know that, you'll be fine.  When you turn away from Love, you're turning away from God, and when you turn towards Love, you're turning toward God.

And if it really is just that simple, God is Love, then I think Mama might be the godliest person I've ever known.

I don't what happens to us when we die, but I know what heaven would be for Mama.  There's be a big table.  It has to be big because there's so much food on it.  There's fried chicken, a slicing roast, and ham.  There's all manner of vegetables.  There's biscuits and fried cornbread.  Because you know they got Eelbeck in heaven.  And the air is filled with delicious smells because Mama's been cooking all morning.  

And Unlce EJ will say, "Sit down, Catherine."  And she'll say, "Just a second, let me get some pepper sauce," and Uncle Palmer will say, "Please, Catherine, please have a seat," and she'll say, "I will, but let me heat up this bowl of rice," and Grandma Courson will say, "Have a seat, Catherine.  We're hungry."  And she'll say, "I've just got to chop some onion.  Y'all want some Vidalia onion?"  And my own mother will say, "Sit down, C Q" - that's what she called her - "so the rest of us can eat."  And she'll sit, and she'll say, "I just hope it's fit to eat."

We love you Mama, and we miss you.

Presidential Losers #50: Al Gore

After Richard Nixon's televised debate against photogenic John Kennedy, conventional wisdom held that thenceforth, all presidential candidates would be on-screen charmers, charismatic and glib. This election proved that untrue.  

With George W Bush, who once said, "Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times in our economy," you never knew what would come out of his mouth, and that was half the fun.  

Unlike Bush, Al Gore probably talked sense, but you couldn't stay awake long enough to know for sure.  After his nomination, in order to counter his reputation as "wooden," Gore put his arms around his wife Tipper and gave her a big old smooch on the lips.  This was about as convincing as Matthew Broderick playing Tarzan.  

The real fun, though, came on election night.  Around 7:00 PM, some networks began declaring Gore had carried Florida's electoral votes, then at 10:00 PM, they moved Florida back to the  "undecided" column, then around 2:30 they declared Bush the winner.  Then, Bush's lead dwindled to less than 2,000 votes and Gore, who'd already called Bush to concede, un-conceded.  

Bush's lead was somewhere between 300 to 900 votes depending on how many absentee ballots you wanted to count.  But in four heavily Democratic counties there were 70,000 ballots that had been rejected by the voting machines.  

A recount began, but Florida statue mandated the count had to be completed by November 14.  The State Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 26.  After Miami Dade County resubmitted its ballots, Bush was still ahead by over 500 votes, but Palm Beach County did not even meet the extended deadline.  

Bush was certified the winner of this crucial state, and Al challenged the result.  In the end, George won the presidency by a mere five votes - the 7-2 decision by the Supreme Court.


Result
George Bush: 271
Al Gore: 266

Presidential Losers #49: Bob Dole and Ross Perot

Bob Dole
Ross Perot In spite of scandals swirling around the Clinton White House involving financial dealings back in Little Rock and allegations of a hibbidy-bibbidy nature regarding Bill himself, the Clinton presidency was very popular.  The economy was improving, and Roseanne had finally been cancelled, so people were feeling upbeat.  

In his re-election, Clinton's margin of victory widened, and Republican challenger Bob Dole earned even fewer electoral votes than George Bush.  Only Ross Perot remained steady, with a solid zero electoral votes.  

Ross was as goofy and paranoid as ever, but even these presidential qualities failed to energize voters.  As Bob, it seemed almost miraculous he could energize himself.  He was no older than Reagan had been - who was? - but he lacked the vim and vigor to make using Grecian Formula convincing.  One pundit said every time he saw Bob Dole, he realized there was an empty coffin somewhere in Transylvania.  


Result
Bill Clinton: 379Bob Dole: 159Ross Perot: 0

Presidential Losers #48: George Bush and Ross Perot

George Bush
Ross Perot1 At one time, with approval ratings in the 90's, Bush must've thought he was unstoppable.  Shows what he knew.  

His campaign pledge, thoughtfully delivered for the benefit of hearing-impaired voters in 1988, had been, "Read my lips, no new taxes."  Unfortunately, what Bush did in office was to raise all the old taxes.  Besides which, the Iron Curtain had come down, and we'd kicked Sadam's butt - or at least the butt of his Republican Guard - so it felt like we no longer needed the virile hawkishness of a Republican president, someone like Reagan who'd unwittingly quipped into a live mike, "We've outlawed the Soviet Union.  Bombing starts in five minutes."  

Now with the country in a recession and the deficit sky-rocketing, Americans were ready for a change.  One person who thought he could provide that change was Ross Perot, who ran a "I'm-mad-as-hell-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore" campaign.  

The Texas billionaire first appeared on the political scene claiming that hundreds of POWs had been left behind after the Vietnam War.  Ross engaged in illegal back-door negotiations with Vietnam on the issue.  He failed to secure the release of a single POW, or verify there were any, but he did wrangle an agreement to be Vietnam's business agent once relations with the US were normalized.  So something good did come of it.  

Perot dropped from the race before the election, later claiming some dang Republican operatives were trying to sabotage his daughter's wedding.  One factor might have the performance by his running mate James Stockdale during the vice-presidential debate.  Admiral Stockdale, a Vietnam war hero and former POW opened his remarks with "Who am I?  Why am I here?" a rhetorical question that just gave fodder to Saturday Night Live parodies.   He also neglected to have on his hearing aid, which meant he had to have a question repeated.  

Clinton rolled into the White House, ending the streak of three consecutive Republican victories.

Result
Bill Clinton: 370
George Bush: 168Ross Perot: 0

Declaration of Independence, the Work-Shopped Version

Presidential Losers #47: Michael Dukakis

Former vice-president George Bush had been dealt a good hand: a strong economy and stable international relations, virtually ensuring him a presidential victory.  Then the Democrats helped out by nominating Mike Dukakis.  

Mario Cuomo was favored  by many Democratic operatives for his intelligence, but then Mario showed it by refusing to run.  

Gary Hart was attractive to many voters, one in particular.  Regarding allegations of adultery, he told The New York Times that if they followed him around, they'd "get bored."  It was not The Times that followed him, but The Miami Herald who got pictures of Hart with sexy Donna Rice on his lap.  This would have been bad enough, but Hart was wearing a shirt that said, "Monkey Business Crew."  Thus ended Gary Hart.

Dukakis was left.  Dukakis was an old-school New-Deal Democrat from Massachusetts, a self-proclaimed "proud liberal," ie, a sacrificial lamb.  At the convention, Dukakis' name was placed in nomination by a rising star in the party named Bill Clinton.  Bill's speech went on so long, delegates began booing him to finish.  

During the campaign, Bush derided Dukakis for his "Harvard Yard" political views.  When it was pointed out Bush himself had gone to Yale, Bush said that was a different thing entirely.

Dukakis' most memorable gaff was a photo op in which he drove a tank outside a General Dynamics plant to prove his support for the military.  Dukakis had an impressive resume in many respects, but he looked ridiculous with his head sticking out the hatch in a helmet.  This, the voters could never forgive.

Result
George Bush: 426Michael Dukakis: 111

Presidential Losers #46: Walter Mondale

In his novel, George Orwell predicted by 1984 we would ruled by ruthless power structure having succeeded in brainwashing the masses.  Instead we got Ronald Reagan.  

Carter had been a banana to the Reagan steamroller in 1980, and Mondale was Carter's second banana.  You could predict the outcome.  Mondale briefly energized his campaign by selecting Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the first woman ever to appear on a major party's presidential ticket. Unfortunately, Ferraro's husbands had some itty-bitty ethics problems, involving some tiny bank fraud and minor bribery.  

Mondale and Ferraro stood for bizarre, unpalatable ideas: equal rights for women, reproductive rights, that sort of nonsense, and in the charisma department, compared to Walter Mondull, as his friends called him, a man so colorless, even color photographs of him come out black and white, Reagan was like a movie star.  (Come to think of it, Reagan was a movie star.)  

At 73, Reagan became the oldest candidate ever elected president, but he refused to let age be an issue in the election, saying in a debate, "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."  Mondale himself laughed, but later said he was crying on the inside (we really dodged a bullet not having him as president).  He told his wife, that "that was the end of the campaign.  It was over."  Mondale, however, was mistaken.  The campaign was over on July 16 when he received the Democratic nomination.

Result
Ronald Reagan: 525Walter Mondale: 13

Presidential Losers #45: Jimmy Carter and John Anderson

Usually a president will be strong in foreign policy and weak on economic policy, or else weak in fiscal policy and strong in international affairs.  Jimmy Carter was the rare president who proved equally effective in both.  

In a tiny insignificant country called Iran, students had taken Americans hostage.  Carter's rescue attempt, "Eagle Claw," accomplished little more than the deaths of eight servicemen.  

At home, energy prices were spiraling, making filling up the car and heating the house into major expenses, but with the interest rate topping out around 18%, Americans could console themselves that they probably couldn't afford a home or car anyway.  

Carter's response was a televised "fireside chat" in which he addressed the American people in a sweater.  The implied message seemed to be: if you want to stay warm, better get a sweater and build a fire.  Somehow this failed to reassure the voters.  Carter also put in solar panels, which President Reagan subsequently removed.1

The other candidate was a moderate Republican, John Anderson.  Like Carter, Anderson was a man of principle, willing to champion unpopular causes.  As with Carter this spelled inevitable defeat.  Anderson was not afraid of bipartisanship, going so far as to tell an audience he supported Carter's grain embargo to the Soviet Union.  Unfortunately, he was speaking in Iowa, where the only thing folks hated worse than the Ruskies was the chance not to sell them grain.  Anderson got a measly 6.6% of the popular vote.  

Jimmy fared better, but not enough better, and Reagan won the biggest landslide by a non-incumbent candidate.


Result
Ronald Reagan: 489Jimmy Carter: 49John Anderson: 0
1. When Nixon was in the White House, he kept the air conditioner going so he could have a fire in the fireplace.  Now that was presidential!