Faces 2009-11, 2013 — relief on the faces of the Doug Jones poll watchers.

by Jack Brummet

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Mario Cuomo quotes from the 1984 Democratic Convention

"It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. The strong, the strong they tell us will inherit the land."

"Maybe, maybe, Mr. President, if you visited some more places; maybe if you went to Appalachia where some people still live in sheds; maybe if you went to Lackawanna where thousands of unemployed steel workers wonder why we subsidized foreign steel. Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President, if you stopped in at a shelter in Chicago and spoke to the homeless there; maybe, Mr. President, if you asked a woman who had been denied the help she needed to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break for a millionaire or for a missile we couldn't afford to use."

"Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President. But I'm afraid not. Because the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. "Government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class."

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Bernie Sanders departs the Democratic Party

by Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed. 

We knew he was just using the Dems as a vehicle. Now he gets to go back to where he was and have the benefits of being a Dem (he's always caucused with them) And still be able to walk away when it suits him. I'm OK with that because, in fact, he's more Democrat than most Democrats.

Note from Politifact:  "By 1997, [Jack note: Bernie did not move from the House to the Senate until 2007] Sanders was still not a member of the House Democratic Caucus nor a Democrat. But he voted with the party more often than the average Democrat (95 percent of the time opposed to 80 percent)"

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Governor Moonbeam endorses HRC

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.

I was surprised Governor Jerry Brown endorsed Hillary Clinton, with his history of running hard against WJC and all the heavy fire he laid down on Bill. And Hillary too. And then, of course, he didn't endorse him, even the next time. OK, time Marches on and they are burying the hatchet. 

Jerry Brown was Bernie Sanders before Bernie Sanders was Bernie Sanders. I'm guessing this all about Donald Trump and the Guv placed his bet. The California race is tighter than a. . .well, you know.

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Things fall apart: The state of the Democratic Presidential Primary

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Desk

It could all fall apart, but the Trump-Ryan meeting fallout (and a lot of happy talk from both sides) today makes me nervous that the GOP-TEA PARTY is coalescing, while the Dems are embroiled in factionalism, mud-slinging, pointless churning, and back-biting.

The Dems, people seem to believe, were handed a gift horse candidate by the GOP-TP, and now they (we) are on the verge of blowing it by not capitalizing on our position. This needs to happen right here, right now...not 33 days from now when primary voting is over, and not on July 29th after the convention.

It's a very strange year where much of the conventional wisdom and laws of gravity have been swept out the door.  We need to act accordingly.

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Robert F. Kennedy catching a nap between stops during the 1968 Presidential contest

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David Brooks's unexpected pro-Obama editorial

By Mona Goldwater, Democratic Primary and Caucus Ed.

Coming from David Brooks, this is pretty fascinating. Brooks praises President Obama's humanity, integrity, and decision making.   Read his fascinating editorial here. 

As our friend and reader Francis pointed out, after a brief flirtation with BHO over some pointy-headed philosophy, Brooks pretty much hunkered down and gently/fiercely hectored President Obama for the last seven years. This piece makes me like Brooks even more. I don't read editorials often, but when I do, I have liked his pieces. He's almost always wrong, but wrong in a right way. And he's right about President Obama.

"No, Obama has not been temperamentally perfect. Too often he’s been disdainful, aloof, resentful and insular. But there is a tone of ugliness creeping across the world, as democracies retreat, as tribalism mounts, as suspiciousness and authoritarianism take center stage. Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him."

For all the sniping now, it will only be a few short years before he is remembered fondly and, maybe, even beloved. David Brooks new found love of BHO's character may very well be influenced by the treachery, whoppers, hot air, bluster, and sewage he's been forced to consume in the 2015/16 GOP-Tea Party television debates.

How far back do we have to go to find a previous President with real integrity? '76 and Jimmy Carter? Cal Coolidge? Or maybe all the way back to Grover Cleveland (who is universally considered to be the most honest, integrity-riddled U.S. politician ever). Maybe Bernie Sanders is up there too. I don't know. But working across the aisle/bipartisanship always moves me, and I like that Brooks put this out there for the GOP and pundits to see.

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Drawing: Faces #1317 - guests at the SOTU address Faces #1317 - guests at the SOTU address (3 Syrian refugees; 1 police chief; 1 victim of DV; 1 Rhodes Scholar; 2 high school award winners; 2 Medal of Honor Winners; 1 hero who rescued three people from a burning building; 2 political mega-donors; 2 entrepreneurs; 1 billionaire).

By Jack Brummet

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Photo: JFK on the campaign trail (1960)

By Jack Brummet

There have been some pathetic turnouts for Republican rallies and speeches recently, especially among the second tier candidates. Rick Santorum gave a speech recently at which one person showed up. Here is a shot of the 1960 Presidential election winner, early in the primary season.

[Provenance and photographer unknown]  

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Republicans versus Democrats

[Author/originator unknown]

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

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Hillary Clinton about to announce candidacy for President

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed. (illustration by Jack Brummet)

The Big Announcement will probably happen next week. She has two weeks to go official, since it appears she has rented a campaign headquarters in Brooklyn. /Pablo F (illustration by Jack B)

Farewell Governor Mario Cuomo

By Jack Brummet, Democratic Party Ed. & Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed.

I am so sad to hear of the passing of one of my political heroes, Mario Cuomo. He knew how to play hardball and he had a heart of gold. In the link below, you can hear him give one of the greatest political speeches of all time at the Democratic Convention in 1984. Adios, Governor.  /jack

What Jack said x3.  /Pablo F

_________________________

From ATIT, 2012:

By Jack Brummet, Democratic Party Editor


I am always happy when the Democratic National Convention rolls around.  Call me naive, but I still believe.  I am still a Yellow Dog Democrat,  And when the dem convention rolls around, I always think back on the best speech I've ever heard in my life--(in a close heat with Bobby Kennedy's speech the night MLK was assassinated)--Mario Cuomo's thrilling speech to the 1984 Democratic Convention.

I was living in San Francisco in 1984 when Mario delivered this barnburner speech to the Democratic Convention. It was thrilling  to be a block away from the action; by my proximity to this great and man. I had never been so thrilled by a speech in my life. In my New York City years, I had the enormous pleasure of listening to both Mario Cuomo and Jean Shepherd's local radio shows.

When I was younger, I was extremely moved by some of the speeches Bobby Kennedy made in the last few months of his life. But Mario Cuomo pulled it off in a different way--he did not have that fragility Bobby had, but he had something almost as good. Bobby loved poets and poetry. Mario could make poetry on the podium. Kevin Curran and I have had several exchanges here about "What if. . .?" Kev and I are among Mario's biggest fans. What it Mario had become King? Where would we be now? I don't know for sure, but I do know that that parts of this speech are among the greatest ever given. In fact, Great Speeches, the three CD collection of American speeches (well, it also includes a bit of DeGaulle and Churchill) includes a long excerpt from the speech. What if?!

The American Rhetoric web site has both the audio of this speech, and a video as well.



Mario Cuomo's
1984 Democratic National Convention
Keynote Address

Thank you very much.

On behalf of the great Empire State and the whole family of New York, let me thank you for the great privilege of being able to address this convention. Please allow me to skip the stories and the poetry and the temptation to deal in nice but vague rhetoric. Let me instead use this valuable opportunity to deal immediately with the questions that should determine this election and that we all know are vital to the American people.


click Mario to enlarge

Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The President said that he didn't understand that fear. He said, "Why, this country is a shining city on a hill." And the President is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.

But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.

In fact, Mr. President, this is a nation -- Mr. President you ought to know that this nation is more a "Tale of Two Cities" than it is just a "Shining City on a Hill."

Maybe, maybe, Mr. President, if you visited some more places; maybe if you went to Appalachia where some people still live in sheds; maybe if you went to Lackawanna where thousands of unemployed steel workers wonder why we subsidized foreign steel. Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President, if you stopped in at a shelter in Chicago and spoke to the homeless there; maybe, Mr. President, if you asked a woman who had been denied the help she needed to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break for a millionaire or for a missile we couldn't afford to use.

Maybe -- Maybe, Mr. President. But I'm afraid not. Because the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. "Government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class.

You know, the Republicans called it "trickle-down" when Hoover tried it. Now they call it "supply side." But it's the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. But for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers.

It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans -- The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. "The strong" -- "The strong," they tell us, "will inherit the land."

We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees -- wagon train after wagon train -- to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native Americans -- all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of America. For nearly 50 years we carried them all to new levels of comfort, and security, and dignity, even affluence. And remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. And it would be wrong to forget that.

So, here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from and to claim the future for ourselves and for our children. Today our great Democratic Party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again -- this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust.

That's not going to be easy. Mo Udall is exactly right -- it won't be easy. And in order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality.

We must win this case on the merits. We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. We must make -- We must make the American people hear our "Tale of Two Cities." We must convince them that we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people.

Now, we will have no chance to do that if what comes out of this convention is a babel of arguing voices. If that's what's heard throughout the campaign, dissident sounds from all sides, we will have no chance to tell our message. To succeed we will have to surrender some small parts of our individual interests, to build a platform that we can all stand on, at once, and comfortably -- proudly singing out. We need -- We need a platform we can all agree to so that we can sing out the truth for the nation to hear, in chorus, its logic so clear and commanding that no slick Madison Avenue commercial, no amount of geniality, no martial music will be able to muffle the sound of the truth.

And we Democrats must unite. We Democrats must unite so that the entire nation can unite, because surely the Republicans won't bring this country together. Their policies divide the nation into the lucky and the left-out, into the royalty and the rabble. The Republicans are willing to treat that division as victory. They would cut this nation in half, into those temporarily better off and those worse off than before, and they would call that division recovery.

Now, we should not -- we should not be embarrassed or dismayed or chagrined if the process of unifying is difficult, even wrenching at times. Remember that, unlike any other Party, we embrace men and women of every color, every creed, every orientation, every economic class. In our family are gathered everyone from the abject poor of Essex County in New York, to the enlightened affluent of the gold coasts at both ends of the nation. And in between is the heart of our constituency -- the middle class, the people not rich enough to be worry-free, but not poor enough to be on welfare; the middle class -- those people who work for a living because they have to, not because some psychiatrist told them it was a convenient way to fill the interval between birth and eternity. White collar and blue collar. Young professionals. Men and women in small business desperate for the capital and contracts that they need to prove their worth.

We speak for the minorities who have not yet entered the mainstream. We speak for ethnics who want to add their culture to the magnificent mosaic that is America. We speak -- We speak for women who are indignant that this nation refuses to etch into its governmental commandments the simple rule "thou shalt not sin against equality," a rule so simple --

I was going to say, and I perhaps dare not but I will. It's a commandment so simple it can be spelled in three letters: E.R.A.

We speak -- We speak for young people demanding an education and a future. We speak for senior citizens. We speak for senior citizens who are terrorized by the idea that their only security, their Social Security, is being threatened. We speak for millions of reasoning people fighting to preserve our environment from greed and from stupidity. And we speak for reasonable people who are fighting to preserve our very existence from a macho intransigence that refuses to make intelligent attempts to discuss the possibility of nuclear holocaust with our enemy. They refuse. They refuse, because they believe we can pile missiles so high that they will pierce the clouds and the sight of them will frighten our enemies into submission.

Now we're proud of this diversity as Democrats. We're grateful for it. We don't have to manufacture it the way the Republicans will next month in Dallas, by propping up mannequin delegates on the convention floor. But we, while we're proud of this diversity, we pay a price for it. The different people that we represent have different points of view. And sometimes they compete and even debate, and even argue. That's what our primaries were all about. But now the primaries are over and it is time, when we pick our candidates and our platform here, to lock arms and move into this campaign together.

If you need any more inspiration to put some small part of your own difference aside to create this consensus, then all you need to do is to reflect on what the Republican policy of divide and cajole has done to this land since 1980. Now the President has asked the American people to judge him on whether or not he's fulfilled the promises he made four years ago. I believe, as Democrats, we ought to accept that challenge. And just for a moment let us consider what he has said and what he's done.

Inflation -- Inflation is down since 1980, but not because of the supply-side miracle promised to us by the President. Inflation was reduced the old-fashioned way: with a recession, the worst since 1932. Now how did we -- We could have brought inflation down that way. How did he do it? 55,000 bankruptcies; two years of massive unemployment; 200,000 farmers and ranchers forced off the land; more homeless -- more homeless than at any time since the Great Depression in 1932; more hungry, in this world of enormous affluence, the United States of America, more hungry; more poor, most of them women. And -- And he paid one other thing, a nearly 200 billion dollar deficit threatening our future.

Now, we must make the American people understand this deficit because they don't. The President's deficit is a direct and dramatic repudiation of his promise in 1980 to balance the budget by 1983. How large is it? The deficit is the largest in the history of the universe. It -- President Carter's last budget had a deficit less than one-third of this deficit. It is a deficit that, according to the President's own fiscal adviser, may grow to as much 300 billion dollars a year for "as far as the eye can see." And, ladies and gentlemen, it is a debt so large -- that is almost one-half of the money we collect from the personal income tax each year goes just to pay the interest. It is a mortgage on our children's future that can be paid only in pain and that could bring this nation to its knees.

Now don't take my word for it -- I'm a Democrat. Ask the Republican investment bankers on Wall Street what they think the chances of this recovery being permanent are. You see, if they're not too embarrassed to tell you the truth, they'll say that they're appalled and frightened by the President's deficit. Ask them what they think of our economy, now that it's been driven by the distorted value of the dollar back to its colonial condition. Now we're exporting agricultural products and importing manufactured ones. Ask those Republican investment bankers what they expect the rate of interest to be a year from now. And ask them -- if they dare tell you the truth -- you'll learn from them, what they predict for the inflation rate a year from now, because of the deficit.

Now, how important is this question of the deficit. Think about it practically: What chance would the Republican candidate have had in 1980 if he had told the American people that he intended to pay for his so-called economic recovery with bankruptcies, unemployment, more homeless, more hungry, and the largest government debt known to humankind? If he had told the voters in 1980 that truth, would American voters have signed the loan certificate for him on Election Day? Of course not! That was an election won under false pretenses. It was won with smoke and mirrors and illusions. And that's the kind of recovery we have now as well.

But what about foreign policy? They said that they would make us and the whole world safer. They say they have. By creating the largest defense budget in history, one that even they now admit is excessive -- by escalating to a frenzy the nuclear arms race; by incendiary rhetoric; by refusing to discuss peace with our enemies; by the loss of 279 young Americans in Lebanon in pursuit of a plan and a policy that no one can find or describe.

We give money to Latin American governments that murder nuns, and then we lie about it. We have been less than zealous in support of our only real friend -- it seems to me, in the Middle East -- the one democracy there, our flesh and blood ally, the state of Israel. Our -- Our policy -- Our foreign policy drifts with no real direction, other than an hysterical commitment to an arms race that leads nowhere -- if we're lucky. And if we're not, it could lead us into bankruptcy or war.

Of course we must have a strong defense! Of course Democrats are for a strong defense. Of course Democrats believe that there are times that we must stand and fight. And we have. Thousands of us have paid for freedom with our lives. But always -- when this country has been at its best -- our purposes were clear. Now they're not. Now our allies are as confused as our enemies. Now we have no real commitment to our friends or to our ideals -- not to human rights, not to the refuseniks, not to Sakharov, not to Bishop Tutu and the others struggling for freedom in South Africa.

We -- We have in the last few years spent more than we can afford. We have pounded our chests and made bold speeches. But we lost 279 young Americans in Lebanon and we live behind sand bags in Washington. How can anyone say that we are safer, stronger, or better?

That -- That is the Republican record. That its disastrous quality is not more fully understood by the American people I can only attribute to the President's amiability and the failure by some to separate the salesman from the product.

And, now -- now -- now it's up to us. Now it's up to you and to me to make the case to America. And to remind Americans that if they are not happy with all that the President has done so far, they should consider how much worse it will be if he is left to his radical proclivities for another four years unrestrained. Unrestrained.

Now, if -- if July -- if July brings back Ann Gorsuch Burford -- what can we expect of December? Where would -- Where would another four years take us? Where would four years more take us? How much larger will the deficit be? How much deeper the cuts in programs for the struggling middle class and the poor to limit that deficit? How high will the interest rates be? How much more acid rain killing our forests and fouling our lakes?

And, ladies and gentlemen, please think of this -- the nation must think of this: What kind of Supreme Court will we have?

Please. [beckons audience to settle down]

We -- We must ask ourselves what kind of court and country will be fashioned by the man who believes in having government mandate people's religion and morality; the man who believes that trees pollute the environment; the man that believes that -- that the laws against discrimination against people go too far; a man who threatens Social Security and Medicaid and help for the disabled. How high will we pile the missiles? How much deeper will the gulf be between us and our enemies? And, ladies and gentlemen, will four years more make meaner the spirit of the American people? This election will measure the record of the past four years. But more than that, it will answer the question of what kind of people we want to be.

We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation's future. And this is our answer to the question. This is our credo:

We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.

We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn't distort or promise to do things that we know we can't do.

We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities.

We believe in encouraging the talented, but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a good working description of the process of evolution, a government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order.

We -- Our -- Our government -- Our government should be able to rise to the level where it can fill the gaps that are left by chance or by a wisdom we don't fully understand. We would rather have laws written by the patron of this great city, the man called the "world's most sincere Democrat," St. Francis of Assisi, than laws written by Darwin.

We believe -- We believe as Democrats, that a society as blessed as ours, the most affluent democracy in the world's history, one that can spend trillions on instruments of destruction, ought to be able to help the middle class in its struggle, ought to be able to find work for all who can do it, room at the table, shelter for the homeless, care for the elderly and infirm, and hope for the destitute. And we proclaim as loudly as we can the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze, if only to affirm the simple truth that peace is better than war because life is better than death.



We believe in firm -- We believe in firm but fair law and order.

We believe proudly in the union movement.

We believe in a -- We believe -- We believe in privacy for people, openness by government.

We believe in civil rights, and we believe in human rights.

We believe in a single -- We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings -- reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation.

We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child -- that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.

Now for 50 years -- for 50 years we Democrats created a better future for our children, using traditional Democratic principles as a fixed beacon, giving us direction and purpose, but constantly innovating, adapting to new realities: Roosevelt's alphabet programs; Truman's NATO and the GI Bill of Rights; Kennedy's intelligent tax incentives and the Alliance for Progress; Johnson's civil rights; Carter's human rights and the nearly miraculous Camp David Peace Accord.

Democrats did it -- Democrats did it and Democrats can do it again. We can build a future that deals with our deficit. Remember this, that 50 years of progress under our principles never cost us what the last four years of stagnation have. And we can deal with the deficit intelligently, by shared sacrifice, with all parts of the nation's family contributing, building partnerships with the private sector, providing a sound defense without depriving ourselves of what we need to feed our children and care for our people. We can have a future that provides for all the young of the present, by marrying common sense and compassion.

We know we can, because we did it for nearly 50 years before 1980. And we can do it again, if we do not forget -- if we do not forget that this entire nation has profited by these progressive principles; that they helped lift up generations to the middle class and higher; that they gave us a chance to work, to go to college, to raise a family, to own a house, to be secure in our old age and, before that, to reach heights that our own parents would not have dared dream of.

That struggle to live with dignity is the real story of the shining city. And it's a story, ladies and gentlemen, that I didn't read in a book, or learn in a classroom. I saw it and lived it, like many of you. I watched a small man with thick calluses on both his hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example. I learned about our kind of democracy from my father. And I learned about our obligation to each other from him and from my mother. They asked only for a chance to work and to make the world better for their children, and they -- they asked to be protected in those moments when they would not be able to protect themselves. This nation and this nation's government did that for them.

And that they were able to build a family and live in dignity and see one of their children go from behind their little grocery store in South Jamaica on the other side of the tracks where he was born, to occupy the highest seat, in the greatest State, in the greatest nation, in the only world we would know, is an ineffably beautiful tribute to the democratic process.

And -- And ladies and gentlemen, on January 20, 1985, it will happen again -- only on a much, much grander scale. We will have a new President of the United States, a Democrat born not to the blood of kings but to the blood of pioneers and immigrants. And we will have America's first woman Vice President, the child of immigrants, and she -- she -- she will open with one magnificent stroke, a whole new frontier for the United States.

Now, it will happen. It will happen if we make it happen; if you and I make it happen. And I ask you now, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, for the good of all of us, for the love of this great nation, for the family of America, for the love of God: Please, make this nation remember how futures are built.

Thank you and God bless you.

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Remembering Dick Tuck on the Democratic loss of control of Congress

One of my heroes, the famous Democratic prankster/master of dirty tricks, Dick Tuck, ran for office in 1966 and got whupped. His concession speech was short but sweet.

"The people have spoken. . .the bastards."

To see our previous post on Dick Tuck jump here.

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The best Ted Kennedy quote ever

 [image: Andy Warhol Polaroid of Kennedy]

"I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is." - Teddy Kennedy, 1986

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Hillary Clinton 2016, or, why Joe Biden is so effed

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

There is no question in my mind anymore that Hillary Clinton is running for President.  She's running, which doesn't necessarily mean she will remain running.  But for the moment, she's in.  She is making the rounds of all the appropriate conclaves, has worked to solidify her position with the black community after majorly offending many of them (in particular some of the things Bill Clinton said on the campaign trail caused a lot of hurt), and is checking in with all her old friends and supporters.  The strategy seems to be working.

As much as she and BHO tilted during the 2008 campaign, she was a loyal and hard working Secretary of State, and they seemed to have emerged from it all with at least a deep mutual respect.  So much so that President Obama has done literally nothing to help grease the skids in case Joe Biden decides to throw his hat in the ring.  In fact, in 2012, the White House took their sweet time to deny persistent rumors that BHO would dump Joe Biden and replace him on the ticket with HRC.  A President would normally give a serious boost to their VPOTUS at this point in the game.  But BHO is sitting on his hands.  And Smilin' Joe is understandably frustrated.  But, judging from his visits to various Democratic rallies and numerous visits to the early caucus state, Iowa, he too is running for President.  For now. 

In numerous appearances in the last year, former SoS/Senator/First Lady Clinton has differentiated herself from VP Biden, often by reiterating her support for the raid that captured and killed Osama bin Laden (which the Veep strongly opposed).    

In a September appearance in Iowa, Vice President Biden said that John Kerry, Clinton’s successor as secretary of State, was “one of the best secretaries of State in the nation’s history." Clinton was not even mentioned.

Joe Trippi, the veteran Democratic operative who ran Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, told Real Clear Politics that he did not believe Biden would take on Clinton but that it was possible that something unforeseeable might make her decide not to run (or leave her seriously weakened or wounded).

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Bill: President Clinton's barnburner speech for BHO

Mona Goldwater, Democratic Party Editor
illustration by Jack Brummet

One of my political heroes, and a master retail politician, Bill Clinton, gains even more stature after his masterpiece speech on Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention.  He becomes an even greater man, in the aftermath of his impassioned speech, and I don't mean that facetiously.  The Man on Horseback that so many of us love--warts and all--gives maybe the speech of his life, systematically demolishing *every* single GOP/Tea-Party charge against BHO with facts, figures, and love. For 48 minutes. And he got into some fairly wonky and granular details on some of the issues--he never explained what the doughnut hole was, although he referenced it several times. I'm guessing that maybe ten percent of the viewers would understand the reference. But this is nitpicking. This is the best speech by an Ex-Pres at a convention ever.

And he did all this for a guy he doesn't particularly like. I bow down to Bill tonight for setting it all aside and stepping up, not for the Democrats, not for the Bill Clinton legacy, but for the--I know it sounds corny--99%., and for our party.

Wednesday night, POTUS 42 took apart the lies, and the insinuations the GOP/Tea Party promulgates. With facts. He handed BHO a road map to victory; a blueprint to saving The White House.

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Ronald Reagan talks about the Democrats (Pre-politics of destruction in U.S.)

By Jack Brummet, Two-party system editor

This video clip of a good natured speech by President Ronald Reagan reminds me of the days before the politics of destruction took over.  It reminds me of Adlai Stevenson's famous quote about Republicans:  "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”

[Thanks to Guy Brummet for sending this along].

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George Clooney affirms he is not and will not be running for President

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

George Clooney said today that he will not be running for the office of President of the United States, now or in the future. 

This is no surprise to us. The actor, in February, told Newsweek that he "did too many drugs" to ever seek office.  "I f***ed too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that’s the truth."

He may play a dirty presidential candidate in the upcoming drama "The Ides of March," but in real life the actor would never dream of running for office.  "I didn't live my life in the right way for politics," he said when he was approached by the California Democratic Party. 

A savvy politician, Clooney said, "would start from the beginning by saying, 'I did it all. I drank the bong water. Now let's talk about issues,'" said Clooney. "That’s gonna be my campaign slogan: 'I drank the bong water'?"

Clooney's new political thriller--Ides of March--comes out next month, with George playing a Presidential candidate who doesn't hesitate to get into the gutter.  Working on that movie did not infect him with the necessary lust, ambition, and madness to run for national office. 

"As for running for president, look, there's a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who's nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he's having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?," Clooney told reporters at the Venice Film Festival, according to the Associated Press.

As you probably know, George Clooney has spent some time over the years with President Obama, and was friends with him during his years in the Senate.  He met The President last year to talk about what he saw on a trip to the Sudan.

“I have a really good job,” he said, "I have no interest."

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Glenn Beck, Anthony Weiner, John Boehner and remembering back to when Edmund Muskie's crying speech ended his Presidential campaign

By Jack Brummet, Social Mores Editor


This is the year of the weeper, isn't it?  Thinking about Congressman Anthony Weiner's tear-filled confession/press conference today, it reminded me of a couple of other public weepers on the other side of the aisle--Glenn Beck and Speaker of the House John Boehner.

When did it become OK for politicians to cry? It wasn't so long ago (it happened in the first election in which I could vote) when public boo-hooing ended Edmund Muskie's candidacy for President. 

I guess Senator Muskie was just ahead of his time. 

The "Canuck letter" was a bogus letter to the editor (the notorious William Loeb) of the Manchester Union Leader, published just two weeks before the 1972 New Hampshire primary.  The letter implied that candidate Senator Muskie was prejudiced against French-Canadian Americans (an important constituency in Maine).  The letter writer claimed to have met Muskie and his staff in Florida and asked The Senator how he could understand the problems of African Americans, given Maine's almost non-existent black population. According to the letter, a staffer responded, "Not blacks, but we have Canucks." Muskie laughed at the remark.

After the letter appeared, Muskie gave a speech in front of the Union Leader's office that came to be known in political circles as "the crying speech."   In The Crying Speech, Muskie called publisher William Loeb a liar and took him to task for slurring the character of his wife Jane (the paper had also written that she was a heavy drinker and had a foul mouth).  Network news and the newspapers reported that Muskie wept openly during the speech.  David Broder, in The Washington Post, wrote that Muskie "broke down three times in as many minutes"; The CBS Evening News showed unflattering photos of Muskie's face at, or near, weeping.  No doubt helping unhinge Muskie was the fact that William Loeb had previously baited Muskie, calling him "Moscow Muskie," and a flip-flopper.

According to the Wikipedia (and I remember him saying this at the time), "Muskie later stated that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned."

When The Senator was outed as a weeper, he was, natch, thought to be emotionally and dangerously unstable ("is this who you want negotiating the fate of the world with Leonid Brezhnev?"     New Hampshire Democrats began to defect to George McGovern. Although Muskie beat McGovern  46% to 37%, the margin was far smaller than his campaign had predicted. McGovern now had momentum, and by the time of the Florida primary, Ed Muskie, the one-time front-runner, was Dead Man Walking.

Marilyn Berger, a Washington Post staff writer, wrote that White House staffer Ken Clawson once bragged to her about authoring the letter, which Clawson immediately denied.   In October 1972, FBI investigators said that the Canuck Letter was part of a dirty tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP).  Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, always said that the letter was not a fabrication (but he later had some doubts about its veracity).  The alleged letter writer, one Paul Morrison of Deerfield Beach, FLA was never tracked down, if he ever existed at all.

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Bobby Kennedy's shining speech the night Martin Luther King was assassinated: video and transcript

By Jack Brummet,  
(research by Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor)

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, months before he, too, was assassinated

One of the great moments in American political history (see video, below) occurred the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. 

Bobby Kennedy arrived in Indianapolis to speak at an RFK for President campaign rally, three weeks after jumping into the race (and only a few days after President Johnson saw which way the wind was blowing and dropped out).  When RFK stepped off the airplane, he was told about King's death.

Instead of giving his usual inspiring stemwinder speech, he had to break the news of MLK's death to a large and potentially angry African-American audience.  The Indianapolis cops pressured Kennedy to ditch an appearance in what they considered to be a dangerous ghetto about to erupt. But Kennedy, God bless him, insisted on going on.  The crowd was pumped to see the rising firebrand political star, and a brother of a President they all loved.  They were enthusiastically waving RFK campaign signs.  Just before Kennedy stepped up on stage, he asked his hosts if the crowd knew of the assassination.  They did not. 

RFK made what has to be one of the greatest extemporaneous/impromptu speeches in American history.  Below is a good video clip of the speech (with Italian subtitles... of course) and a transcript.    According to a Wikipedia article on RFK's campaign: "Riots broke out in 60 cities in the wake of King's death, but not in Indianapolis, a fact many attribute to the effect of this speech."



Ladies and Gentlemen,


I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.


Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.


We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.


For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.


But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.


My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:


Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.


What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.


So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King -- yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.


We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.


But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.


And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.


Thank you very much.

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