Senator George S. McGovern, 1922-2012

   

     This morning, George S. McGovern, former Senator from South Dakota passed away at the age of 90 following a series of illnesses.  Sen. McGovern was my political standard to whom I looked in the process of forming and developing my personal political philosophy for most of my adult life.   From time to time, people have pushed me to describe my politics in a one or two word phrase, and in reply, I always say "I'm a McGovern Democrat."
     Mr. McGovern was born in South Dakota in 1922, to a Methodist minister father.  His mother was Canadian, and in fact, the family resided in Calgary for a brief time during McGovern's childhood.  Both of his parents were Republicans, although not politically active.  Perhaps because of the agricultural nature of his surroundings, young George developed an interest in the plight of the small farmer during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and began to form his populist views at that time.  He became a skilled debater in high school, and went on to Dakota Wesleyan University.

WORLD WAR II SERVICE

     Within days of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, McGovern, at the age of nineteen, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.   He went on to become a pilot flying a B-24 Liberator bomber in 35 missions over Nazi occupied Europe.   He was highly decorated, receiving, among other medals, the Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous landing and saving the lives of his crew.
     It was during this flight that he experienced the single most horrifying incident of the war from his perspective.  This flight took place December 20, 1944 (while my father was struggling in the snow during the Battle of the Bulge.)  McGovern's plane, named Dakota Queen for his wife Eleanor, lost one engine and the other was damaged by flak.  Because he was unable to return to his base in Italy, he flew to a British airfield on the small island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea.   This field had a short runway usually used by fighter planes, and many of the bombers that had tried to land there crashed and their crews were killed.  McGovern was able to get to the field, and landed his bomber safely, saving the lives of his men.  On the way, he saw the sight that haunted him for most of his life.
     It was necessary to jettison anything not necessary for the bomber to fly, in order to minimize the weight of the aircraft.   He ordered his crew to get rid of everything.  They were still carrying one bomb, which they had to drop.  They were flying at low altitude, and McGovern saw the bomb drop.  To his horror, he saw it fall straight toward a country farmhouse, far from any military presence.  He could see the farmer running, then saw the farmhouse explode, with the farmer in the midst of the explosion. 
     For decades, he carried that image with him.  He tried numerous times to learn the identity of the farmer and the exact location of the farm, but without success.   Finally, in the 1970s or early 1980s, Sen. McGovern was the subject of a live interview on Italian TV, during which he told the story of that horrible day.  During the broadcast, the station received a phone call from a man who identified himself as that farmer.   McGovern connected with the man later, and talked with him.  The man said that neither he nor any member of his family had been hurt in the incident, although it did destroy his farmhouse.  He told McGovern, "I would have given a hundred farms if I thought it would help rid the world of Hitler."
     This episode, perhaps more than any other helped to form Sen. McGovern's attitudes toward war in general, and particularly toward any war for which the necessity was questionable.

POLITICAL CAREER

     McGovern returned from the war and earned degrees from Dakota Wesleyan and Northwestern University, culminating in a Doctorate in History.  His doctoral dissertation was a study of the Ludlow Massacre coal mine incident, which further moved Mr. McGovern to the left politically.  He became active politically and served in the House of Representatives as Congressman for South Dakota's 1st District from 1957 to 1961.   He resigned from the House in order to run for the Senate, but in the interim, he was appointed by President Kennedy as Director of the Food For Peace program.  He was elected and served as a Senator from South Dakota from 1963 to 1981.
     During his Senate tenure, he strongly opposed U.S. involvement in Viet Nam.  He twice introduced legislation with Oregon Republican Senator Mark Hatfield in an attempt to end the war legislatively, but both attempts failed.   At one point, McGovern took out a second mortgage on his home in order to finance a half hour panel discussion on the bill on NBC.  Following the broadcast, over a half million dollars in donations came in, and polls showed that a majority of Americans agreed with the bill.    When Sen. McGovern learned of the defeat on the Senate floor, he gave a speech which contained the following statement:

Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land—young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us

     When confronted by a fellow Senator who said he was offended by the speech, McGovern said, "That's what I intended to do."   In a response to the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis' suggestion that U.S. troops might have to return to Cambodia, McGovern declared, 

"I'm tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight. If he wants to use American ground troops in Cambodia, let him lead the charge himself.

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the 1968 campaign, McGovern stepped in briefly as a surrogate candidate to represent the positions Kennedy held.
     After the horrifying "police riots" of the 1968 Democratic Convention, McGovern served as co-chair of the McGovern-Frasier commission which made fundamental changes to the Democratic nominating process by increasing the number of primaries and caucuses and severely limiting the influence of party insiders and the so-called "smoke filled rooms."   In  January, 1971, Sen. McGovern announced his candidacy for President, which was a huge departure from the norm, in that candidates usually did not announce until much closer to the election.

1972 ELECTION

     In 1972, Richard Nixon was running for re-election, with his Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.   The election took place before the scandals that rocked the administration and caused sea changes in the way Americans viewed government.   Agnew, after being reelected was found to have taken large kickbacks and bribes while he was Governor of Maryland, and was forced to resign.  Gerald Ford, a congressman from Michigan, was appointed to take his place.  The Watergate scandal, which revealed corruption and felony criminal violations all the way up to the President himself, began with the break-in to the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C. by a group of burglars authorized by the President.
     Of course, we knew nothing of any of this prior to the election, although there were those of us who were far from surprised.
     During the primary season, Sydnee and I, living in Madera, California, were intrigued by McGovern's positions and speeches.  My childhood best friend was killed in Viet Nam in 1970, and for that and other reasons, I was strongly opposed to the Viet Nam war as being immoral and unjustified.   Although I was interested in McGovern, I'd read a statement in an interview that I questioned, so one day I phoned his campaign headquarters in Fresno.  The person I spoke with said he'd get back to me, and good as his word, returned my call in a few days with an answer that satisfied my reservations.   He invited me to stop by their office, which I did in just a few days.   They gave me a tour, and asked if I'd be interested in working on the primary campaign in Madera County.  He gave me the names of volunteers and the meeting address.
     At this time, spring of 1972, Sydnee was very pregnant with our second child Andy, who was born that year in August.   We went to the meeting and learned that they needed volunteers to go door to door, handing out pamphlets and answering questions.  Obviously, Syd couldn't do this, so she was given telephone sheets and basically did the same thing on the telephone, as well as doing "get out the vote" work.  I would come home from working all day, have a quick dinner, then meet my cohorts and spend several hours visiting people and campaigning.  On Saturdays, we'd go to small towns in the county and spend the day campaigning.  It was tiring and exhausting and exhilarating.
     The primary was held in June, 1972.   We voted, then that evening went to a small farm out in the county for a returns party.   It turned out the farm was run by a young hippie couple who grew marijuana among other crops.   All night long, people would go to the fields, harvest some bud, bring it back and dry it in the kitchen range oven.   I have a strong memory of the smell in the air that summer night.   All the while, a live band was set up in the living room, and they must have played "Sympathy for the Devil" twenty or thirty times.    We were thrilled when the little black and white TV showed that McGovern won the California primary.
     After that, his grassroots (no pun intended) campaign continued until he won the necessary delegates for nomination, and he was nominated.   He chose Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate.  We were prepared to go right to work as hard as we had to for the general election, but to our surprise and anger, the local Democratic party organization completely shut us out.   We felt the proverbial door slam in our faces.   After that, the story got very ugly.

AMNESTY, ABORTION, AND ACID

     Sen. McGovern's most prominent position was to end the war in Viet Nam immediately.  He promised to put into action the necessary mechanics to remove our troops at the earliest possible date, while withdrawing as safely as possible.  He also favored amnesty for draft protestors, but with certain parameters.   McGovern was personally opposed to abortion, but favored giving the decision to the individual states.  Remember, this was at least a year before Roe v. Wade, and abortion was being contemplated as legislation, not as a Supreme Court case.    McGovern never advocated legalizing drugs.
     Despite this, during the run up to the election in 1972, an unnamed Democratic Senator told journalist Robert Novak that McGovern was secretly in favor of amnesty, abortion and legalized drugs, and that his plan was to move to enact all these should he be elected.  Novak, a conservative, wrote the story, and McGovern was branded with the three word label.
     Worse, after Thomas Eagleton was nominated as VP running mate, it was disclosed that he had suffered from depression and underwent electroshock treatments while hospitalized at a mental health facility.  At first McGovern tried to defend Eagleton, but within a short time, Eagleton had to resign the ticket, to be replaced by Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver.   This was widely perceived as a lapse in judgment by McGovern, worse even perhaps, than McCain's selection of Sarah Palin.    What was less widely published was the fact that Eagleton assured the selection committee and McGovern personally, on his oath, that his background was "clean" and that no medical or other problems would be revealed.
     Robert Novak protected his source until 2007.   In that year, Thomas Eagleton died, and Novak announced that his death allowed him to reveal that the "Democratic Senator" who told him the lies about McGovern's "Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid" policy was Eagleton himself.   It is probably the worst example in modern American history of political sabotage of a member of one's own party.
     McGovern would almost certainly not been elected anyway.  He was a firmly liberal candidate in Cold War America, plus he was hampered by the secret lies and manipulations of the Machiavellian Nixon.   It was hard for an honest mid-West politician to compete with such chicanery.  Also, behind closed doors, McGovern was also sabotaged by other prominent Democrats such as Hubert Humphrey.
     Ultimately, McGovern lost in a landslide, with Nixon getting 60.7% of the popular vote.   He carried the electoral votes of only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.   After the election, when the Watergate scandal rocked the nation, a popular button said, "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts."
    As a student of these things, my theory is this:  If not for all the dirty tricks and lies and manipulations, I believe McGovern would have performed better, perhaps winning 12 or 14 states electoral votes.   That kind of showing would have allowed him to retain a fair amount of respect and power within the party.  After the Watergate scandal broke, Nixon resigned, and Ford (never having been elected to national office) became president, I think McGovern would have been renominated in 1976, instead of Jimmy Carter, and I think he would have won.  By that time, many of the issues of 1972 were more or less resolved.  Of course, I believe that McGovern would have governed well, and that he would have been reelected, which would make it unlikely that Reagan, due to his age, would ever have been president.  Without Reagan, we would not have had either Bush.   The implications of the differences between that scenario and what actually happened are mind boggling, and would likely have created the America I've yearned for all my life.

                                         Whistle stop in Madera, CA, May, 1972.  Actress Shirley Maclaine stands to McGovern's left, Decathlon great Rafer Johnson is to McGovern's right in the back.

I'm campaigning for George.   Note the ultra cool and hip Kent 100 cigarette stuck to my lip.

POST ELECTION

Sen. McGovern served in the Senate until his defeat in 1980. During his Senate career, he continued to work for the principles he held, and with Republican Senator Bob Dole, sponsored legislation to completely revamp the food stamp program, expand the school lunch program, and establish the WIC program for expectant mothers and infant children.  During Bill Clinton's presidency, President Clinton appointed him ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.  During the Clinton administration, he and Bob Dole proposed a commission to work on the problems of global hunger by providing meals at schools to children in third world countries.  President Clinton authorized a two year pilot program which was later made permanent during George W. Bush's administration.  Sen. McGovern and Sen. Dole jointly received the World Food Prize in 2008.

2002

     In September, 2002, the annual convention of the Montana Bar Association was held in Kalispell.  I was practicing there then, and looked forward to attending, particularly when I learned that George McGovern would be the keynote speaker.   Sydnee and I were excited to go, and the night of the main banquet, we wore our old McGovern campaign buttons on our suit coats.   We went in to the lounge at the Outlaw Inn for a pre-banquet cocktail party.  We'd barely gotten there when Sen. McGovern saw our buttons from across the room and made a beeline for us.   Because of the nature of the gathering, we were only able to talk for a very brief time, but he was obviously very pleased.
     The Senator gave a moving speech that night, and barely talked politics at all.  He told the story of dropping the bomb on the farmhouse, and could not fight back the tears.  He talked of his work since leaving the Senate working on world hunger relief with former Senator Bob Dole.   He did have harsh words for the invasion of Afghanistan and the impending Iraq War.  His speech had the audience transfixed.
     After his speech as the dining room began to clear, we approached him to thank him for his speech and tell him how pleased we were to meet him.  He was obviously happy to get the opportunity to talk with us some more.   We talked about the 72 campaign, about what might have been.   He asked me about my father's WWII service and had a lot of questions about it.  He was also interested in our family and our work.  He kept us there talking until it was clear we all had to leave, our conversation lasted most of a half hour.   It was obvious that he was interested in learning about us, as individuals, and equally obvious that he was far more interested in learning about our lives, our work, and our families than in talking about himself.  As we shook hands and said our goodbyes, he bent down and kissed Sydnee.   As we left the hotel, and for a long time after that, she said in an amazed tone, "George McGovern kissed me!  On the lips!"

     I've supported other candidates in all the following elections, some more enthusiastically than others, but I've never been moved to work on a campaign since our experience in 1972.  Sydnee ran for city council in 1997, but was defeated by an entrenched incumbent.   Other than our interest (my almost pathological interest) in politics, we've had no more direct involvement than that.  I cherish my memories of fighting the good fight all those years ago, and I'm filled with emotion today:  nostalgia, regret, a feeling of "what might have been."

"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life                                                

Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

Wm Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" Act IV, Scene 3  
   

Conventional Wisdom

     By now, everyone who knows me, and even the few bored souls who've read this blog, should know that presidential politics is my sport.   Others follow football or basketball or hockey, root for their favorite teams, look forward all year to the Super Bowl or March Madness or the Gray Cup or the Stanley Cup.   I follow baseball, but just barely.  I love the punching and jabbing of presidential politics and have since I was a little kid.  I follow all politics and current events, and generally like to stay somewhat informed on many subjects, because I'm generally curious and because I believe in the Dormouse's advice to feed my head.
     I started following politics as a child, believe it or not.   Harry Truman was president when I was born, and I have a faint memory of him in office.  I understand my parents took me to see him when he visited Hungry Horse Dam near our  home in Kalispell, Montana in October, 1952 when I was about six years old.  I don't remember it, although I do remember visiting the dam back then, and the observation stations they had set up, and watching the huge machinery working on the project.   I was aware of "Ike and Dick" being elected and have a memory of a huge banner hung on the building at the corner of Second Street and Main Street in Kalispell with pictures of the two emblazoned with their nicknames.
     My first real experience with following the election was in 1956.  I turned ten years old two days after the election.   Despite my young age, I was fascinated not only by the "horserace" but by the process.  The nominating conventions were my first exposure.
     The purpose of each party's convention, held every four years, is to select the party's candidate for president and vice-president, and to decide on a list of positions on various issues, called a "platform."  Both the Democrats and the Republicans hold conventions, as well as the minor parties.   There is no mention of these conventions in the Constitution, nor is there mention of parties, however in the earliest days of the republic, politicians divided in to two main camps, with others coming and going over the years.
     The first parties were the Federalists (led generally by Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republican Party (led by Thomas Jefferson.)  Put simply, the Federalists favored a strong central government   and a more active government role, while the Democratic-Republicans vigorously opposed them, wanting instead a minimal role for government.   This division lasted until the Monroe administration, when partisan politics pretty much fell by the wayside for a brief time, although the parties remained intact.
     In 1828, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats (led by Andrew Jackson) and the Whigs.  The Democrats favored a strong presidency and opposed a central bank and government investment in much of anything, particularly infrastructure.  The Whigs favored a stronger Congress and advocated government investment in such things as railroads and other modernizing development.  By the 1850s, the Whigs started to fade away, largely because of deaths of former leaders, but most significantly, over the issue of slavery.
     The 1850s saw the emergence of the Republican Party, which was anti-slavery and favored such federal government involvement as a central bank, homesteads, railroad investment, high tariffs, and land grant colleges.   The two parties were polarized (the Civil War was about as polarized as you can get) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.  After that time, the two parties became the type of parties we have today, that is "big tent" coalitions of people from all walks of life, but who come together on a set of more-or-less agreed positions on various issues.  Interestingly, the two parties at that time held pretty much exactly the opposite views of the same two parties today.  It was the Republicans (the party of Lincoln) who believed in big government activism and involvement, and the Democrats who wanted small government and free markets and federalism.
     During the next period of history, the positions of the parties remained substantially the same.  It was during this period that Theodore Roosevelt was president, and I find it interesting that if you read his position papers and speeches, you would swear he was one of today's Democrats, although he was a Republican.  It was during this period that things began to change though, as after Teddy R. left office he was so disappointed in the turn taken by the Republicans that he ran as a third party candidate (the Progressive Party) in 1912, resulting in the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.  The parties coalesced into the parties we know today (again more or less) after 1932, and the start of the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt.
     All during this time, the parties selected their candidates by getting together in their conventions and making deals.  Who went to those conventions, you ask?   Leaders of the parties of one kind or another, some office holders, but also many behind the scenes kingmakers.  This was the kind of politics where the famous "smoke filled rooms" were where most of the big decisions were made.
     In the earliest years of the nation, members of Congress would meet with their party caucuses to select a candidate.  By 1832 though, national conventions began.  There were few primary elections until after 1968, which I'll explain in a minute.   At the national conventions, fierce negotiations led to floor votes, and often it took a good many floor votes (called ballots) to select a candidate.  Most of the time, a certain number of votes was necessary to be nominated (like 2/3 of the total) and in 1924, the Democrats took a record 103 ballots to nominate.
     By 1956, when I watched my first conventions, there was little of the drama of years past.  There were more primaries being held by then.  The Republicans nominated Dwight Eisenhower for a second term, and the first ballot was unanimous.  Prior to the convention, there was some doubt, as Ike had a major heart attack, but he recovered well and decided to run again.  There was talk of a new VP candidate, as Ike was not fond of Nixon's expansion of the role of VP, but Nixon was popular in the party and stayed on the ticket.
     1956 was the last of the presidential replays.  The Democrats ran Adlai Stevenson, former governor of Illinois and a brilliant intellectual in both 1952 and 1956.  His competition for the nomination was led by Senator Estes Kefauver, but after Stevenson won the California primary handily, Kefauver's support waned. The big surprise was that Stevenson announced that he would let the convention nominate his running mate, rather than selecting him himself.  John F. Kennedy, who was a newly elected first term senator, made a stab at it, but the convention nominated Kefauver.  Of course, JFK's entry into the fray moved him into position to make his successful run for the nomination four years later.
     1956 was the first year that the TV networks broadcast "gavel to gavel" coverage of the conventions.  NBC had newsmen Chet Huntley and David Brinkley work together on the convention and the team proved so popular that they became co-anchors of the evening news until 1970.  I watched both conventions all the way through, fascinated by what drama there was, but also by the pomp and ceremony.
     As the years went by, I continued to watch the conventions.  I was energized by JFK's campaign and was thrilled to hear him nominated, and later his acceptance speech.  I self-identified as a Democrat, mostly because of my family's political beliefs, but also because of my own developing opinions and knowledge of history and government.  I suffered a setback during the 60s after JFK's assassination.
     Lyndon Johnson did a powerful masterful job of getting the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, as well as Medicare passed in the early months of his administration.  I strongly supported all of these.  However, LBJ escalated the Viet Nam war into a major conflict, and I absolutely opposed that.   I was of draft age, or was approaching it quickly, as were all my friends.  I could see no reason why we were in Viet Nam at all.  I never bought the "domino" theory that if one country in a region fell to communism, they all would.  I had a high school teacher who posited the idea that communism is a self-defeating system.  It has appeal only when the majority is in an underclass, but as the fortunes of the society improve and those people move into a middle class, communism loses its appeal.  That made sense to me, so I was never fearful of "godless communism" as were others.  I felt that we were killing our good young people, wasting our blood and fortune, for no reason at all and that it was an immoral policy.
     The Republican convention in 1968 was held in Miami, and Richard Nixon easily won the nomination.  After being defeated by Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, LBJ announced his withdrawal from the race.  Bobby Kennedy entered the race, as well as LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey.  Martin Luther King was assassinated in March, resulting in race riots all around the country.  Viet Nam war protestors were marching and rioting.  In June, just after his  California primary win, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.  It was a dark, dark time in America.
     At the Chicago Democratic convention, all hell broke loose.  The city was overwhelmed by protestors.  Inside the convention, many were unhappy with the apparent fact that Humphrey would win, largely because most of us believed he would continue the same Viet Nam policy of LBJ.  George McGovern stepped in as a last minute alternative candidate because Bobby Kennedy had been killed.   Delegates on the floor were unhappy, and Mayor Richard Daley took rather thuggish steps to quell the unrest, resulting in reporter Dan Rather getting punched out on the floor by police.   In the streets, the protests turned into riots, and what was later, after an investigation, described as a "police riot" with hundreds, maybe thousands of protestors being injured by batons, tear gas, and riot guns.  We were living in Idaho at the time, and I remember my friend Dave was visiting and the three of us watched that convention in horror.
     After the debacle of 1968, the Democratic party convened several times over the next four years and fashioned a set of rules to be adopted at the next convention.  The new rules set up a system by which delegates committed to a particular candidate would be selected in individual states by either primary elections or caucuses, and those delegates would be committed to their candidate for at least one ballot.   The 1972 Democratic convention was marked by the arguments and maneuvering to get the rules decided and passed, which resulted in part with George McGovern not getting to give his acceptance speech until so late at night that the east coast watched it at 2 AM.
     Since that time, the selection of a candidate has been anti-climactic.  The candidate who wins enough delegates for nomination in the primaries and caucuses is known by about three months before the convention.  He (or hopefully soon She) selects the VP running mate some weeks before the convention.  As a result, the conventions have become huge multi-day commercials for the candidates, with all sorts of pomp and ceremony and dozens of speeches.  The fun nowadays is in seeing which party is most skillful at producing their convention and in seeing which speeches stand out and are remembered.
     I recall the Democratic convention of 1988, when Teddy Kennedy gave his "where was George?" speech and Ann Richards' line that George Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth.  Despite these great lines, Bush won.  In 1992, Bill Clinton told us about coming from "a place called Hope."  In 2000, George W. Bush appealed to people with his folksy demeanor, but also with his criticism of Clinton for " a lack of dignity and respect to the presidency" and his promise of "compassionate conservatism."  In 2004, the standout moment was newcomer Barack Obama's keynote speech.
     This year, we were treated to Clint Eastwood's empty chair and the more or less pitiful attempt of the Republican party to produce an effective convention spectacle.  We also got to see a very well produced convention on the Democratic side, which featured a good number of effective speeches, but none so effective as Bill Clinton's explanation of all the difficult issues in clear and understandable terms.  After the convention, President Obama said that he received a "Tweet" suggesting that he appoint Bill Clinton "Secretary of Explaining S---."
     So every four years, you can find me glued to my TV during both conventions, cheering on my side, and looking for weaknesses in the other side.   You go ahead and watch your ballgames.  I'll stick with my sport.

NEXT:  My take on the debates.

   

Romney's Roses

It's been a very long time since I posted on this blog, but it doesn't matter much, since no one reads it anyway.   Apparently.   This just gives me an opportunity to vent.  The internet is a wonderful thing.  I get to be an inveterate smartass on facebook.  I get to blog about music on my website www.terryhillmusic.com  and I can vent at length about other things on this blog.

I've been, as usual, watching the political news.   I've written elsewhere before that my interest in politics came early.  When I was only nine or ten years old, my Grandpa Ryker would bait me and cajole me into arguing with him about some article in the newspaper.  I loved to visit with my Grandpa, so I took to this (reluctantly at first) with eventual enthusiasm.  In Junior High, I devoured the course in Civics and  found it fascinating, largely because it explained many things I'd read about in those newspaper articles, but didn't understand.   All of this morphed into an intense interest in politics and current events.  I'm a news junky.

I'm a devout liberal, always have been.  Grandpa believed that Herbert Hoover was evil, and that FDR was akin to the Second Coming.   My Uncle Loris said, "Vote straight Democrat and you'll never go wrong."  My Mother said, "All my life, when the Democrats are in power, the little guy does well.  When the Republicans are in power, the little guy suffers."  My Dad was a local union leader, at least part of the time.  When I got old enough to understand the issues and make up my own mind, I gravitated to the left.   Sydnee and I worked on the McGovern campaign in 1972.

I sort of reluctantly supported Obama in 2008.  I actually liked Hillary Clinton best, but my big issue was health care.  I strongly believe in a single payer system.  Hillary didn't support single payer.  Obama thought we needed to get there in stages, but said he believed single payer was best.   That tipped my support to him.

While in many ways, Obama's first term has been a disappointment to me, I have to say this:  with the exception of gasoline prices (which is not in the control of the president) every single problem we had as a nation is better today.   Not good enough.  We haven't improved things as quickly or as much as we need, but they are improved.   Maybe it's "slow but sure wins the race."  I disagree with Obama on Afghanistan:  we need to get out now, not in a year or two.   We should be out by Halloween.   I think Obama did the right thing with regard to Bin Laden.  And there are other things:

The stimulus plan was not just a good idea, it was a necessity.  However, Obama, like FDR, failed to go far enough.  The stimulus should have been much bigger.  FDR was faced with the same problem, it was politically impossible for him to do as much as he needed -- Congress just wouldn't go along with it.  So he settled.   As a result, the Great Depression started to recover, then faltered, and by the end of the 1930s, the country was back in depression.   It took World War II to get us out, which was what?   A huge stimulus, but accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths.   Obama didn't have as bad an economy to deal with, but it was a similar outcome.  Had the stimulus been bigger, we'd be seeing less unemployment, and more recovery.

Bottom line, I think Obama's done a fairly good job.  His most bitter and angry critics pretty much just make stuff up, and their nasty criticisms are a thin veil for their real objection to him:  the color of his skin, and maybe the sound of his name.  Obama's story IS the American dream.  While he didn't come from poverty, his father did.   And Obama came from basic middle class Mid-western family roots (you can't count his father's family, because Barack didn't know that side of his family growing up.)  Through scholarship and student loans, he managed to go to the best schools and took himself from his Hawaii home where his grandparents worked in a furniture store and a bank, to Harvard Law School.  He worked as a community organizer, which is kind of a combination of social work, law, and politics.  From there, he went on to state politics, and eventually the United States Senate, from where he launched his presidential bid.   If that ain't the quintessential American Dream, I don't know what is.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney.

I was around and paying attention to politics when George Romney, Mitt's dad, was on the scene.  While they share the same last name,  the difference between George and Mitt was day and night.  George was a solid Republican, but he was considered "moderate" then, which would probably be a "blue dog"  or conservative Democrat now.   He ran as a moderate opponent against Goldwater in the runup to the nomination in 1964.

George was born to American Mormon parents in Mexico who were poor, but hardworking.  His parents' fortunes went up and down, with his father working in construction and farming.  George did not grow up the child of wealth -- not your "fortunate son."  He was a savvy businessman of the old school:  he built businesses that built things.  He pretty much saved American Motors by betting on smaller, more efficient cars (the Rambler.)   He was governor of Michigan, and ran for President, famously sharing 12 years of his tax returns.

Mitt, on the other had, was born to wealth.  He's about four months younger than me.   As a comparison, if Mitt and I were running a 100 yard dash against each other, it would be as if Mitt's starting line was about ten yards from the finish, while I had to run the whole 100 yards.  Ann Romney talked about how she and Mitt lived in a basement apartment with borrowed furniture, and about how Mitt paid for his own graduate school "by selling some of his stock."   Kind of brings a tear to your eyes, doesn't it?

Well, my wife and I lived in crummy apartments and houses with hand-me-down furniture, but I didn't have any stock, and my wife, in the first year or so we were married, had to wash diapers in the bathtub with a washboard, because we couldn't afford either a washing machine or a laundromat.  Mitt's "humble" beginnings seemed to me like what it was:  privileged wealth that he did not earn.

From there, Mitt went on to become a successful businessman on his own, ultimately becoming far more wealthy than his father.  But he didn't do it by building a company that build and sold things like George did.  Instead, he did it by building a company that raided other companies, loaded them down with debt, then sold them (off?  out?) at a huge profit.  In the process, most of the companies were forced to lay off hundreds, probably thousands of their employees.   That's where Mitt's wealth came from, and that's what Mitt supports.

Two things resonated with me in Romney's acceptance speech.  First, his sort of appeal to nostalgia, with his repeated references to "return to . . ." and his line about coming from Middle of American in the middle of the century.   Romney seems to be saying "we're in a period of hard times, so I want to take us back in time to. . "  what?   Mayberry?   Bedford Falls?   You can't go back in time, nor should we even want to.  It's fun to watch old movies on TCM and reflect on "the good old days."  But there was always something bad about the good old days.  We can only go forward, and try to progress to something better.   That's what this country has always done.  We progressed from an agrarian society to an industrial society.  We moved from wage slavery to worker's rights, from a 12 hour a day six day week to the 40 hour week.  From women being second class citizens to women voting and holding office.  From slavery and slaves being counted as a fraction of a person to an African American in the White House.   Going backward is not the answer.

The other thing that resonated with me was Romney's story about his father giving his mother a daily rose.  That was sweet, but what it reminded me was that my father couldn't afford to give my mother a rose every day.  My Dad fell trees in the woods as a gyppo logger.  He worked in 90 degree heat in the summer, having to take salt tablets to keep his sodium level up, and in freezing cold in the winter, sometimes having to dig six feet of snow from a tree to be able to fall it.  Dad would bring my Mom wild flowers --  fairy slippers -- home in his lunch box each evening.  They were free.   All Romney's "rose" story did was remind me of the difference between living in wealth and privilege and working hard for a middle class living.  Mitt just doesn't have a clue.