Rejoice ...and be glad!!!

"If you are tired, keep going; if you are scared, keep going; if you are hungry; keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going."


Harriet Tubman

Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Cher che la Femme

As we approach the final days of this endless campaign season, a new, but predictable narrative is emerging: Why John McCain is losing. It offers a meagre multiple choice. In the weeks following the Republican Convention in Minnesota, the McCain campaign ramped up its attacks on Barack Obama in ugly, unseemly ways, sneering at his educational achievements, distorting his public record, linking him with domestic terrorism, and questioning his patriotism. McCain's campaign operatives announced that this was not going to be about policy, but about personality. A deliberate, strategic decision was taken, to attack everything and propose nothing. While this is hardly surprising to many of us, it seems to have done permanent injury to the fragile egos of America's pundit class and, remarkably, to the professional politicians who regularly clutter the national stage.

"This is not John McCain," laments one talking head. "This is not the man I've known and worked with in the Senate," mourns a Democratic colleague. What's remarkable about these comments is their frequency. It's as if John McCain has been taken over by some virus. Matt Taibbi, of Rolling Stone writes an excellent and scathing piece about Karl Rove's takeover of McCain's campaign. Chris Matthews looks both wistful and demoralized even as he surrenders to the rapture and the romance of an Obama victory, and William Kristol of the NYT urges McCain to "fire his whole campaign."

But unfortunately, this IS John McCain. He hasn't changed. He's just "come out." John McCain chose the people who run his campaign. John McCain picked the advisers who develop and direct his policy positions, so he alone, is responsible. The chief of his transition team was a lobbyist whose client list included Saddam Hussein. His chief campaign operatives were instrumental in lobbying for the deregulation that directly resulted in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac unraveling, Phil Gramm wrote the legislation that resulted in the sub prime credit default swaps that collapsed our financial house of cards, and Charles Black, his campaign Chair, has been a lobbyist for years for big oil and the banking industry. John McCain chose these people because he wanted them. He's comfortable with them. They are his friends. He shares their views.

The vicious attacks on Obama are John McCain's. He owns them. He does very little to distance himself from them. He chastises a supporter at a rally for calling Barack Obama "an Arab" as he betrays his own prejudices, by saying he is not an Arab but, "a good, decent man." His own campaign operatives are using mass e-mails to McCain supporters linking Obama to domestic terrorists, yet he expresses outrage at Congressman John Lewis for comparing him and his campaign to the bad old days of George Wallace and some real domestic terrorists. McCain goes with what is expedient. This is the real John McCain. This is the man who makes fringe people feel so comfortable at his campaign events, that the calls to "kill him!" directed at Barack Obama, are becoming a regular feature at McCain rallies.

Interesting isn't it. As our country teeters on the verge of financial bankruptcy, in some grand, Shakespearean way, it's a metaphor for the bankruptcy of the Republican Party, especially as it is articulated by the conduct of the McCain campaign. Total moral bankruptcy is the only explanation for McCain's behavior and his choices.

Part II: Cher Che La Femme

It's always hard for politicians and pundits to say, "I was wrong." They rarely ever do. Especially the media's talking heads. So if they're forced to blame John McCain for the conduct of his own presidential campaign, they have to do it in a way that exonerates him. They accomplish this by blaming everyone around him. Which brings me to their second choice for why McCain is losing. Sarah Palin.

Credible conservative columnists are frothing at the mouth about Palin, especially as her favorable poll numbers drop. She's no longer a "breath of fresh air." She no longer "energizes the base." She is a disaster. She is, in the words of Conservative columnist David Brooks, "a fatal cancer on the Republican Party." "What was McCain thinking?" they ask. Well, he picked her. This was his decision, so he has to own it. John McCain deliberately chose Sarah Palin.

It was no accident. It wasn't that she didn't get "vetted properly." It wasn't the result of a compromise between Rove and McCain because of Leiberman, the guy John "really" wanted. Many are now saying that it was McCain's reckless and irresponsible decision to go with someone like Palin that will cost him the election. Losing, in effect, becomes Palin's fault. But it's not nearly that simple. Not even when coupled with the current unpopularity of the Republican Party and George Bush.

When the pundits point to the fact Palin's not qualified, and McCain has put the country at risk, they are only talking about the Vice Presidency. They haven't bothered to consider the broader implications of the toxic breeding ground for hate and vitriol that she and John McCain both foster and encourage on the campaign trail. While these tactics are often described as "Rovian," Karl Rove didn't invent them, and they only work because we let them. Rove may be evil, but it is John McCain's embrace of this evil that is defining him. There are consequences for these campaign excesses, too, even as we are now facing the consequences of the excesses on Wall Street. The McCain/Palin campaign has sown seeds of fear and division, of intolerance and hatred, like time bombs. If it is their intention to scare people, they've succeeded. But not in the way they intended. As McCain's poll numbers continue to plummet, it's pretty clear that a lot of average Joe's out here are terrified of the possibility of a McCain victory. Vote.

Idiot Savant?

Representative Dennis Kucinich, (D) Cleveland, Ohio on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday, September 28, 2008 as it appeared in The Nation online:

"The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren't we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers' money? Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess? Why aren't we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren't we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?

Why aren't we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren't we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street? Isn't it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls..."

Theatre of the Absurd: A Big Campaign About Small Things

The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's vice presidential running mate tells us a lot about the Republican Party that we already know: They don't care about governing, they only care about winning. Secondly, John McCain and his "handlers" have their own notions about the "right kind" of woman to be our first female Vice President. Someone who will be colorful and entertaining and baldly appeal to the fundamentalists' base.

The "Feisty Reformer" is just as illusory as "Maverick." While the Republicans are busy packaging their figureheads with the goal of closing the sale, the Democrats are busy looking for people who "understand the issues," or who have the necessary "credentials." They cite the Harvard Law Review, while John McCain cites a Miss Alaska runner - up. The complicit media breathlessly describe McCain's choice as a "game-changer." They're right. But not in the way they mean it.

Too many people have serious, urgent concerns about the economy. Many of them are even Republicans. Some have expressed concern about McCain's penchant, in this campaign, to do nothing but attack his opponent, while proposing little in the way of relief, callously ignoring what the people in this country, including loyal Republicans, many of them small business owners, are facing. Some Republicans expressed hope that once McCain picked a running mate, and the convention began, things would change. We would hear some concrete proposals. McCain's pick demonstrates to them that things are trending in a different, albeit more familiar direction.

John McCain just threw a "Hail Mary " pass. The only function Sarah Palin has is to shore up the right wing, religious extremists' support for McCain. McCain's strategists also cling to the thin hope that she will attract disgruntled Hillary supporters. But to suggest such a thing is insulting. So her usefulness is limited. Secondly, there are undecided, economically distressed Republicans, and some Democrats, who have been sitting on the fence. Many of them just jumped off that fence and onto the Obama bandwagon. Finally, there were serious, moderate, practical people on the Republican side, who were hoping for Romney, Ridge, Pawlenty, or Leiberman. Their disappointment is palpable. What McCain is saying to them and to the American voters is that he will bluster his way thru the presidency, the way he's crashed thru every other important passage in his public life. There has never been a Vice Presidential nominee so singularly unqualified for this position since Dan Quayle.

Instead of demonstrating leadership and sound judgement, a steady hand in perilous times, McCain is playing to the cheap seats. He is less a maverick, then he is just an erratic, egotistical narcissist. Some people are suggesting the Democrats have to "be careful "not to attack Governor Palin. Hopefully those people won't regard a robust discussion of the issues as "attacks." This is a woman who's slender record and public pronouncements has shown that she promotes her religious beliefs as public policy. The question is whether the corporate shills in the mainstream media will do the vetting the American people need and that John McCain's campaign clearly has not done.

Sarah Palin has been governor for less then two years.This candidate who aspires to be "one heartbeat away from the presidency" of a 72 year old cancer survivor, admitted recently she didn't keep up with or know much about the war in Iraq. This woman is now the running mate of the man who admitted a few weeks ago, he didn't know much about the economy. At a time when most Americans are concerned about larger issues, I'm afraid all the Republicans are serving up is "...a big campaign about small things."

Media Darling

By Jim Rutenberg for the New York Times

WASHINGTON - The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.
Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year — one widely panned as misleading — to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

Definitions

Arrogance - an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions ;

Arrogant - 1. making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud; 2. characterized by, or proceeding from arrogance: arrogant claims.

The Speech

"... that wasn't a campaign speech. That was a presidential speech. It is headed not straight to cable news networks, but to high school classrooms, to rhetoric and composition syllabuses, and to the history books. It is the first successful attempt by a twenty-first century politician to define the inequalities that still fracture American society and to link racial injustice to the other forms of psychic and material oppression experienced by the vast majority of Americans--because of the consolidation of economic, political, and cultural power in the hands of 5% of the population, because of this morally insane and economically ruinous war, because of the spinelessness of lobbyist-owned politicians who think it's more important to keep the health care industry happy than to keep their constitutents healthy, because the manufacturing economy that sustained the working class has disappeared and because the middle class is severely threatened. It is the kind of thing that most presidential candidates either cannot do or will not do because they consider it too dangerous to ask Americans to listen to anything they haven't already heard, or--heaven forbid--to think about what they're hearing...."


This quote, from a blogger called The Plaid Adder, who posted in on the democraticunderground blog, is probably the best description of Senator Obama's speech to address Race. I wouldn't even try to improve on it.

How Geraldine Ferraro Got Important. Or: The "Other" Democratic Party.

In the Democratic Party's imaginary "big tent" there's lots of room for fractious constituencies who are permanently at odds with one another. Those who support civil rights, women's rights, organized labor, gay rights, anti-war activists, and a collection of ethnic groups and interest groups, are often portrayed as willing to overcoming differences to stand united as one party, imagining itself a very forward thinking organization. But during the 1984 primary campaign season, Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democratic presidential candidate, was threatening this myth of party unity.

Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's vice president, won the nomination in 1984, while Jesse Jackson won 5 primaries, drawing 21% of the popular vote, but only 8% of the delegates. Most Democratic Party leaders felt that, while his showing might earn him a place at the table, it did not indicate he was a serious contender. Nevertheless, no one was prepared to ignore Jackson and risk alienating the Black vote, still viewed by many as a monolith, and rightly regarded as one of the most loyal constituencies in Democratic Party politics. Jesse was in no way prepared to quietly acknowledge defeat and fall in line behind the party leadership. He charged that the selection/nominating process was flawwed, he publicly criticized Walter Mondale, and he called attention to himself, insisting he be acknowledged as a formidable political leader, in as many ways as he could.

Mondale, who'd been a progressive senator from Minnesota before becoming Carter's vice president, was comfortable with both Democratic labor and civil rights leadership, and wanted to demonstrate thru his actions, that he was all about unifying the party. Mondale was determined to do everything possible to hold his fragile coalition of labor and civil rights leaders together, believing, as in the old days, that they could deliver their constituencies.

In reality, the so-called Reagan Democrats comprised largely of blue collar, non-college educated, "hard-working, white Americans" was not a phenomenon unique to the election of Ronald Reagan, but a wing of the Democratic Party that was largely ignored in public discourse. It visibly asserted itself by voting against it's own interests, due to a strong strain of what is politely referred to as "social conservatism." Both Goldwater and Nixon tapped into this "vast, silent majority of Americans" in 1964 and 1968, respectively. Reagan was just more effective in using it both in 1980, and in 1984.

Jesse Jackson was determined to use his popularity and political influence as leverage during the 1984 general election. But no one was quite sure what Jesse wanted in concrete terms, and to what purpose, besides his own personal advancement, he would use his leverage. There was genuine concern that Jesse would upend the "unity" applecart the Democratic Party had been busily constructing, and adversely affect the outcome of the general election.

When the United States Conference of Mayors gathered in Philadelphia, for it's annual meeting in June, 1984, a core group of African American leaders decided to convene a private gathering of their own. Among those present were Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Charles Rangel, a few other members of Congress, and a number of Black mayors who were attending the USCM meeting. They sat at a u-shaped table in a conference room in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, to discuss their role in the 1984 presidential campaign, and in particular, what they should do about Jesse Jackson. They wanted Jesse, who did not attend the meeting, to stand with them. Everyone believed 1984 would be one of the most important elections in their lives. It was critical that he be included, that they unite, get behind someone who could win, and go all out to support the ticket.

Black mayors of decaying urban centers were pragmatists, who wanted a president who recognized the challenges they faced: problems attracting and financing economic development, aging infrastructures, poverty, crime, unemployment, and unequal educational opportunities. They saw the progress they'd made when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, quickly evaporating during four years of Ronald Reagan. They wanted the Carter years back again. After they met, they were joined by top advisors to Walter Mondale, in order to forge a workable agreement. This coalition of African American leaders finally agreed to unite behind Mondale as the party's presidential nominee. It was not perfect, and it was far from smooth, but it was a workable coalition, and as much as he ever would, Jesse eventually cooperated in his own way.

Walter Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. While women made up more then 51.3% of the population, she was the first woman chosen for the national ticket of a major party. Ferraro is Italian-American, as is her husband. By October, 1984, the vice presidential nominee was embroiled in scandal. Geraldine and her husband were battling rumors and allegations, gleefully reported by the media, portraying her husband as a corrupt, shady businessman.

Since they were Italian, in the popular imagination, it was pretty easy to promote the notion they were corrupt. I mean, weren't all Italians in the mafia? And they were from New York. By then, since so many people associated New York with The Godfather, the only mystery was which one of the "five families" did Geraldine Ferraro belong to?

These attempts to smear Ferraro resonated with ordinary, working class Americans who responded to fear of "others." The so-called quintessential "immigrant experience" so vitally important to many Americans on the Eastern seaboard, (including Michael Dukakis, four years later,) was not necessarily a shared experience across the American heartland, where "foreigners" were often viewed with suspicion.

Just days before the election, the Mondale/ Ferraro ticket held a national Get Out The Vote rally. They set up huge screens in convention centers and arenas in major cities across the country, to teleconference the events. I attended one such gathering, held downtown in a major city. A prominent Black leader was our main speaker that night. He talked about how important this election was, how important it was to get out the vote. But the thing I remembered most, is that he took that opportunity to defend Geraldine Ferraro. He drew a parallel between the bigotry directed at Ferraro, and the discrimination and racism African Americans often experienced. He felt she was being smeared because she was Italian.

I thought of it today, when I witnessed a rare, unscripted moment this morning on CNN. A young, soft-spoken African American man, an Obama supporter, was part of a panel discussing Geraldine Ferraro's recent racist remarks against Barack Obama. The young man said it had disappointed him particularly, because he remembered as a young child, passing out literature, and campaigning for the Mondale/Ferraro ticket.

Ferraro is a member of Clinton's advisory team and one of her fundraisers. The worst thing Hillary Clinton can do, is continue to play the race card. And yes, she is entirely responsible for this. It comes to the fore with strategic regularity. Doesn't matter if it's a hired gun, or her husband, a supporter, like the governor of Pennsylvania, or a Finance Committee member, like Geraldine Ferraro. This is part of a deliberate, planned strategy. There are divisions in this country. Divisions between Black and White, between Latinos and Blacks, between gays and straights, between rich and poor. Hillary is an internationally recognized public figure, on a first name basis with the entire world. She is also a United States Senator, and a former First Lady. She has, in those respects, some weight and some authority.

To the degree Hillary feels like she must achieve her goals by being destructive and negative, by using divisive tactics, fear mongering and race-baiting, she is showing the worst part of who we are. I could not support her and feel very good about myself, because I would be sanctioning the behavior of someone who has the capacity, but lacks the will, to function at a higher level. As far as I'm concerned, Hillary Clinton has already lost a lot more then a mere election.

Copyright, 2008

Ironies II: Keep the Faith!

After Senators Clinton and Obama broke even in the Nevada Caucus, Obama headed to Atlanta, while Hillary spent some time campaigning in NYC. On the eve of the holiday commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, Senator Clinton reminisced about seeing Dr. King in Chicago, when she attended a rally with her church's youth group. She described it as a "transforming moment" in her life.

The Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Senator Clinton was speaking, is one of the most historically important churches in Harlem. It was home to Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who Doris Kearns Goodwin describes as "arguably the most powerful African American politician of the 20th Century..." Powell, who succeeded his father as pastor, was a member of the New York City Council and won his first election to the United States Congress in 1944. In order to do it, he had to outmaneuver the legendary forces of Tammany Hall.

Wil Haygood points out in his seminal biography, King of the Cats, "...Adam Clayton Powell... emerged ahead of the other Harlem figures - the ones with law degrees, the ones with political reputations, the ones who considered him too radical...Harlem, so celebrated for its cultural renaissance, was now on the cusp of a political renaissance..."

At that time, Harlem had no lack of Black leadership. The era when Adam Clayton Powell emerged as a political force, coincided with the the times of A. Philip Randolph and W.E.B. Dubois. Fred Morton, an African American, was the "go to" guy at Tammany Hall for Harlemites, and Roy Wilkins and Benjamin J. Davis were also growing in prominence. Herbert Bruce fancied himself a Black political kingmaker. In fact, Wil Haygood tells us, Bruce had forged a connection of sorts between many of the more progressive reformers in Harlem and the politicians at Tammany Hall. But when Tammany finally endorsed Powell for Congress, Bruce was so angry, he told the New York Times that he "...could not endorse Powell, because he feared that Powell would bring about "bloodshed" between the races."

Powell's true power base, his main leveraging tool, aside from his own brilliance and a stunning audacity, was the love and the support of the people of Harlem. He'd earned their trust and their loyalty with old fashioned, grassroots community organizing. He'd supported their rent strikes, and set up emergency food and shelter for them during the darkest days of the Great Depression. He energized and encouraged them. The basement of his church was a hub of activity in service to the community. In Washington, he continued his fight for racial equality and for fair employment practices. As Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, he spearheaded the blizzard of legislation through Congress that would become LBJ's War On Poverty. School lunch programs and breakfast programs, but in particular, Project Head Start, owe their existence, largely, to Adam Clayton Powell.

In 1966, Powell's mostly self-inflicted legal problems exposed him to censure by his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was stripped of his committee assignments, denied his seat, and expelled from Congress. In 1969, he was re-instated, but without his seniority. In 1970, an embittered Adam Clayton Powell lost his seat to Charles Rangel, who won the primary by 150 votes. Powell had appealed Congress's actions against him to the United States Supreme Court. The Court eventually ruled in his favor, it would be Chief Justice Earl Warren's last decision, saying that Congress had overreached and had no authority to deny Powell his seat or his seniority. Adam Clayton Powell died April 4, 1972. He was sixty-four.

He'd served as a member of Congress for nearly thirty years, and he left a very big footprint. One that Charles Rangel has never been able to fill. Through the years since Powell has been consigned to the judgements of history, a great many presumptive political leaders, wanting something from Harlem, have made the pilgrimage to the Abyssinian Baptist Church. So it is no surprise that, in her quest for support in the African American community, Senator Clinton chose this Civil Rights citadel for her Harlem appearance, along with Congressman Rangel, who has endorsed her.

Powell would have thundered in outrage at the convoluted logic that permitted the current pastor, Calvin Butts, to present his labored rationale for denying Obama his support, in favor of Hillary Clinton. A vote is a tangible, quantifiable means to measure a candidate's value to you. Support has to be earned. Usually, the candidate will have DONE SOMETHING to EARN your support.

Posing for a photo opportunity at an historic church while saying some polite things about Martin Luther King, Jr. isn't enough. Being on a first name basis with the world, and being a former First Lady isn't enough. (Even Betty Ford founded a clinic!) Having served as senator from New York for eight years, with an undistinguished record, is definitely not enough. Tell me what you stand for, Adam would thunder! Tell me why I should support you. Tell me what you have done on my behalf. Adam Clayton Powell, certainly understood stewardship, and he understood leadership, and he understood power. And at this point, he would have wrapped his arms around Barack Obama, and given the congregation his signature admonition: "Keep the faith, baby!"

(Copyright, January 20, 2008)

Ironies

On April 4, 2008, we will celebrate the 80th birthday of an extraordinary woman. Her childhood was spent shuttling back and forth from her grandma's dry goods store in Stamps, Arkansas, to her mother in St. Louis, Missouri.

Anyone who's read, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" will surely gain a deeper appreciation of the experiences which formed Maya Angelou as a woman, and as one of the Mothers in Struggle of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States. She has been a visiting lecturer at UCLA, an actor, a director, a Broadway producer, but most notably a writer. A writer of stories and songs and most of all, most sublimely, a writer of poetry. She taught at the University of Ghana at Accra in the 1960's and spent considerable time in that country, where, she once said, she felt more American, than she'd ever felt up until that point, in America.

She once wrote a beautiful poem, called "On the Pulse of Morning." And because of her Arkansas roots, she was invited to recite it in 1993, at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Her participation brought her to national prominence and to a whole new audience. There was a demand for copies of the poem which was rushed to print in a slim, attractive, hard-cover volume. Today, when many people think of Maya Angelou, they often think of Bill Clinton, and that wonderful moment in January, 1993, when she recited a poem at his inaugural.
So right now, with my mind at the boiling point with too many things to say, and a righteous sense of anger welling up in me, I realized I needed help to say what I felt needed saying.


I thought of Langston, and his Dream Deferred...I thought of Sterling Brown and his "Strong men just keep coming..." but then I remembered Maya. And another poem she'd written.
And I thought it suited the occasion very well:

And Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?'
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear,

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

A Guest Column: The History of Iowa as Told By My Great Aunt Fanny

Once upon a time long ago in another century, not too many states even had primaries. And they were non-binding anyway. Just popularity contests, because the party bosses got together and picked the delegates to go to the convention. They could assure the delegates stayed "bound" to a particular candidate, because they still had to come home and face the music if they didn't.


It was a time of smoke-filled rooms and deal-making. Politics was fun and corrupt and juicy! Then party reform reared it's ugly head. More primaries were added in various states and they were binding. Binding means that's how the delegates were picked. To make it palatable to the state chairs and party bosses, they made a category of "super-delegates" that could be selected by the bosses, and also included elected officials.


Primaries grew into an industry. They created jobs for "organizers" and out of work advertising executives. They gave people opportunities to raise money and plan events for things outside their monthly block club meetings and church suppers. They created opportunities for a lot of people in each state to get close to a candidate. If the candidate wins, they now have a new BFF who is President of the United States, POTUS, to insiders. They also get to be BFF with people right there in their state who would never give them the time of day were it not for these political events. It spread the notion that people were important. Even if it was only in their own minds. Local media loved it, bcz it generated lots of advertising dollars for radio and TV.



Some states held on to their closed caucuses, but many began opting for primary elections at which delegates would be selected. A closed primary meant you had to declare your party affiliation before you could vote. An open primary meant you could say anything or nothing and vote. Much mischief occurs in these scenarios. But, oh well.


Back to Iowa. So there was this guy who decided he wanted to run for president. He'd been governor of a southern state for a while, he was a proud, born-again Christian who taught Sunday School, and he ran a farm. And he had big teeth and strange looking children. His eccentric mother joined the Peace Corps, his sister was an evangelist who drove a motorcycle and his brother was...well... he was a "good ol' boy."




Anyway, when other candidates started getting excited about New Hampshire, which was STILL the first primary election, scheduled in early February, this guy, because he had no money to speak of, and because he was scared of New Hampshire and they were scared of him, (neither liked someone who "talked funny.") this guy heard about the state party caucuses in Iowa. He knew Iowa had lots of farms.


He thought of himself as a farmer, so he went to Iowa. And he brought a few faithful staff people along, and they organized the hell out of Iowa. He spent a lot of time visiting with the farmers, sipping coffee with them in their living rooms, and attending their church services. Sometimes, he even spent the night at their houses, because motels cost money he didn't have, and everywhere he went, he said, "Hi. I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president." And he won the Iowa Caucus. And that's how Iowa got important.

copyright, 2008