ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 24, 2004
WASHINGTON - - Why is everybody so angry at Ralph Nader? He didn’t cost Al Gore the election in 2000. The goofs who voted for Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000.
And where is it written that only two parties have a right to run for the presidency? If that had been put in the Constitution, we would have the Federalists vs. the Democratic-Republicans today.
Also, how did Nader get those people to vote for him? He doesn’t exactly have a silver tongue. He does not cut a dashing figure. (“Ralph Nader's so serious about running this time,” Jay Leno said, “he's actually thinking about pressing his suit.”) He didn’t have millions to spend on commercials like the Democrats and Republicans, he didn’t have fancy consultants, pollsters and advisers, he didn’t even have a speechwriter. So what did he do? Cast a spell?
The answer is simple: Some people were so disgusted by the choice between the Democratic and Republican candidates that they “threw their vote away” on Nader.
So who is to blame for that? Nader or the Democratic and Republican candidates?
Truth be told, however, Nader did very poorly even for a third-party candidate.
Nader got only 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000, which is the third worst finish for a major third party candidate in our history. Only Strom Thurmond of the States’ Rights Party in 1948 and Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party that same year did worse: They each got 2.4 percent. The highest total was by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, who got 27.5 percent of the vote, followed by Millard Fillmore in 1856 with 21.5 percent, and Ross Perot in 1992 with 18.9 percent. When Perot ran four years later, his total plummeted to 8.4 percent. And Nader, who will have difficulty getting on the ballot in all 50 states, will almost certainly do worse this time than last.
So maybe we should just “relax and rejoice” like he says. Though as a theme that is pretty close to George H.W. Bush’s “don’t worry, be happy” campaign of 1992. Which Bush lost.
We have seen and heard presidential candidates do some pretty dumb things. We have seen candidates pick up sleeping babies (they tend to wake up and scream), we have seen candidates try to eat tamales with the cornhusks still on (Gerald Ford) and we once heard a candidate say, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” (Oh, come on, you know who.)
But we don’t think we have ever heard of a candidate doing what John Edwards reportedly did during a speech in Rochester, New York Monday when, according to the Center for Disability Rights, Edwards “patted the heads of people in wheelchairs."
According to the group, as reported by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, one member of the audience, Debbie Bonomo, said that just because she is a woman who is in a wheelchair "does not mean anyone should be patting me on the head."
Edwards spokesperson Colin Van Ostern said: "I'm sure his interaction with them was intended to be respectful"
He patted their heads? Is Edwards confused between disabled people and collies?
Edwards should watch old videotapes of Al Gore and learn a thing or two. Gore was a master of dropping to one knee to talk to people in wheelchairs. Didn’t matter if he was kneeling on a wet tarmac or on a muddy lawn, he would drop to one knee and talk at their level. I never saw him pat anybody on the head.
But that was not the biggest gaffe of the day Monday. That honor goes to Secretary of Education Rod Paige who called the NEA, America’s largest teachers’ union, a “terrorist organization.” Aside from being offensive, it is just dumb politics: Does anyone think teachers are grossly overpaid in this country?
John McCain, a Republican, always got big applause whenever he said during the 2000 campaign, “Good teachers deserve to be paid more. Why should a good teacher be paid less than a bad senator?”
The reaction to Paige’s comment was swift. NEA President Reg Weaver said: "I think it is absolutely pathetic.”
Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe said: "President Bush and the Republican Party should immediately renounce Secretary Paige's hate speech."
Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie said: “It was a poor attempt at making a joke"
John Kerry said: "These remarks are inappropriate.”
Paige later said: "It was an inappropriate choice of words.”
And John Edwards said he would like to pat Paige on the head.
Which, I admit, is not as momentous a topic as gay marriage.
But as long as I don’t have to buy a present, why should I care who gets married?
Besides, gay people have had it too easy for too long when it comes to marriage. Let them deal with the band canceling at the last minute, the photographer getting drunk and Uncle Lou still not speaking to Uncle Irving after 35 years and, of course, they get put at the same table.
My motto is: “Marriage for Everyone - - Share the Pain.”
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 23, 2004
SIMON SAYS:
The last episode of “Sex and the City” was a third-rate ending to a second-rate season to a first-rate series.
When New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was asked about Ralph Nader running for president, Richardson said: “It’s about him, it’s about his ego, it’s about his vanity.” Gimme a break. Being accused of too much vanity and ego by Bill Richardson is like being called ugly by a frog.
Besides, Ralph Nader did not sink Al Gore in 2000. The doofusses who voted for Ralph Nader sunk Al Gore in 2000.
Unless you own a horse, you should not own cowboy boots.
How come everybody is saying “Back in the day” all the sudden?
The question is not whether Iraq will become a quagmire. It already is a quagmire.
Admit it: You'd rather be Vince Vaughn than anybody in the world.
Call me crazy, but I think risotto is just a fancy name for rice.
Do they train waiters to interrupt you just as you’re getting to the punchline of a joke?
All radio commercials should ban sirens and ringing phones.
People who lick their fingers before turning the pages of magazines should be beaten with sticks.
I will take an inn over a bed and breakfast any day. What's the difference? At inns you don't have to talk to people at breakfast.
A frozen margarita with salt on the rim is as fancy as a drink should get.
Where do people who live in Phoenix go when they retire?
You have to have at least a small degree of skill to go skiing, which is why I go tubing instead.
Rhubarb sorbet? Somebody has to be kidding.
How come water doesn't come in cans? You can get soda in cans and juice in cans. You can even get potato chips in cans. But not water.
I don't think over-the-counter cough syrups have really worked ever since they took the alcohol out of them.
I'll bet you have many pairs of socks you haven't worn in years.
I'm avoiding carbohydrates only because it’s fashionable. I'm not sure what a carbohydrate is or does.
If you still think travel is fun, try flying anywhere on a Sunday. Go ahead, try.
I can't help it: I really like watching “Friends” re-runs. (Which are on just about every hour of every day somewhere in America.)
Instead of censoring all of television, why not just install “b-chips” in TVs so we never have to see Janet Jackson's breast again?
Does anyone still have fuzzy dice hanging from their rear-view mirrors?
No matter what group I am speaking to, somebody always asks me about Josiah Bartlett when I am done.
It seems like every restaurant in the world drags out a fancy chest full of exotic choices when you ask for tea. Personally, I prefer plain old Lipton.
Guaranteed prime-time speeches at the Democratic convention: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Howard Dean. Clinton will be upbeat, Dean will attack Bush and Hillary will do whatever she wants.
Next time you check out of a hotel take those small bottles of shampoo and moisturizer and unused bars of soap with you. Save them up and take them to your local homeless shelter.
People who motion with their food during meals should not be allowed out in public.
Airlines are complaining that too many people are bringing rolling suitcases aboard, overwhelming the overhead bin space. Memo to airlines: Stop losing so much luggage and more people will start checking their bags again.
One thing I really want to do in my lifetime and probably never will: Learn a foreign language.
The first time I saw “Lost in Translation” I hated it, but the second time I saw it was on a plane and I liked it a lot. I guess some movies are just meant to be seen at 35,000 feet.
You read it here first: Neither Secreteary of State Colin Powell nor National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will stick around if George Bush has a second term. And six months after Powell leaves, so will Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 11, 2004
WASHINGTON - - As that political sage Jesse Jackson once said, “My cat had her kittens in the oven, but that didn’t make them biscuits.”
Which may be why Wesley Clark of Arkansas and John Edwards of North Carolina didn’t do better in the South this year.
Both men were born in the South, but were they really of the South?
Clark certainly didn’t seem to be. After years of traveling from Army base to Army base, he has lost any kind of regional identification.
And even though Edwards often speaks with an accent thick enough to pour over grits, you don’t think “Down Home Guy” when you think of him. You think: “Super Lawyer.”
Which is not to say Edwards is a bad campaigner. He isn’t. And his most successful campaign has been with the media: He actually has gotten the media to like him.
Consider: Edwards and Clark each have won one contest out of 14. But who got drummed out of the race? Clark, not Edwards.
Consider: Edwards and Clark each made one critical tactical mistake. Clark did not campaign in Iowa, where he might have done well and Edwards barely campaigned in Oklahoma, which he might have won had he spent more time there.
Polls showed Edwards way ahead in South Carolina, which voted the same day, and slightly behind in Oklahoma. Had Edwards made the bold move and gone to Oklahoma, he could have really set himself up as the alternative to John Kerry with two wins on the same day. But Edwards played it safe and won only South Carolina.
Today, however, Clark is considered a loser who ran a lousy campaign while Edwards’ only major sin, as far as most media see it, is that he is not willing to attack Kerry because he wants to be Kerry’s vice president.
Howard Dean has won not a single primary, but he still gets a certain amount of status, because we all thought he was going to win this thing. After all, he raised the most money, he used the Internet in a revolutionary way, he got big-deal endorsements, and he spent a ton on TV commercials.
Which means in 2008 the media are going to be extremely wary of all four of these indicators.
Take the last one: Many candidates believe the more they spend on advertising, the better they will do. (That’s what their media consultants tell them, anyway.)
But Clark spent more money on TV ads than anybody else in Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. He lost them all. Overall, Clark spent $10 million on ads, more than anybody. Dean was second with $9.7 million and Kerry was third with $7.2 million.
(So maybe the trick is to be the third highest-spending campaign when it comes to ads.)
But for all Clark’s advantages - - money, a supposed base among Southern voters and veterans, some big-name endorsements and an experienced staff - - Clark could never get over his true problem: He never learned how to campaign for president. He never could come up with a compelling reason for his presidency or even for why was even running (except for personal ambition.)
He now bows out, leaving Edwards and Dean to slog on in the hopes that Kerry will be derailed by scandal or a mistake. (Which is the weakest strategy one can have.) Each is convinced that if he can only get head-to-head with Kerry, he will beat him.
But what is the evidence for this? Not their performances so far.
Many believe Edwards is hanging on because he wants to be Kerry’s running mate and a good showing in the primaries will demonstrate his vote-getting ability with Southern whites and African-Americans. But exit polls in Tennessee and Virginia this week showed the opposite: Kerry beat Edwards among both groups.
This doesn’t exactly argue for Edwards being a strong running mate. Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief of The Hotline, is correct when he argues Edwards would be a bad choice. “Edwards doesn't help in the South,” Todd writes. “Could Edwards carry North Carolina as the No. 1 on the ticket? Probably. But as the No. 2, Edwards most likely helps Kerry by a couple of points at best. Gore lost North Carolina by 13 points, so Edwards as the vice presidential candidate maybe cuts that margin to single digits.”
Yet Edwards is hailed as the great “find” of this election cycle and people are already talking about his chances in 2008, while Wesley Clark became the fifth candidate to drop out. Can you name the others? Wait, I’ve got a tougher one: Can you name the five that are still in?
I am not one of those, however, urging everybody to get out and leave Kerry with a clear field. I say let them stay in and burn up other people’s money.
It sure beats working for a living.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 9, 2004
WASHINGTON - - With his long, deeply-lined face, his slow, measured, almost solemn tones, his seriousness and emphasis on duty and discipline, John Kerry appears to be the man who put the “grave” in gravitas. You can spend all day with him and never see him smile.
John Edwards is bright and sunny and his face splits in two when he grins. His teeth are capable of lighting a room.
The two men, both running for the Democratic nomination for president, do not offer greatly different visions for the nation. Their main differences are in style and background, which is not to say those differences are trivial. Those differences can determine who wins and who loses.
Ever since his surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses, Kerry has been on a huge roll. He has reduced Howard Dean, once considered to be a prohibitive front-runner, to a virtual also-ran. Kerry has not run the table - - he has not won every primary and caucus as Al Gore did in 2000 - - but he has clearly become the man to beat and now, as Dean once did, he draws unfriendly fire from his fellow Democrats.
Not surprisingly, that criticism focuses on his Kerry’s “Washington insider” status - - he was first elected as the junior senator from Massachusetts in 1984 - - his upper-crust background and his demeanor, which the New Yorker recently referred to as “sepulchral.”
Often the criticism is couched in none-too-subtle code as when Edwards brings up his own working-class background to contrast it with Kerry’s. “John Kerry and I have different backgrounds and different policies,” Edwards says. “I come from a family where my father worked in a mill all his life. I understand what it’s like to sit around a kitchen table and have to figure out how you’re going to pay for college.”
(One might think from that last sentence that Edwards, himself, once sat around a kitchen table figuring out how he was going to pay for college for his children. But Edwards, a former trial-attorney, has been a multi-millionaire for years. As an Edwards campaign aide admitted in an interview, Edwards was actually talking about his father sitting at a kitchen table wondering how to pay for college for John.)
Kerry, who has a temper that is often seen by his staff but rarely surfaces in public, bristles at this line of attack. “Whatever ways John’s background contributes to his life, more power to him,” Kerry told me. “I believe that my life experience has prepared me to relate to anybody. When I was in Vietnam, serving beside me weren’t kids out of Yale, they were kids from working America and poor America and even though we came from different backgrounds, we grew to love each other and respect each other.”
Kerry grows genuinely emotional when talking about Vietnam or when he is around Vietnam veterans, and he plays the Vietnam card often. Edwards, who was only 12 when Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February, 1966, never served in the military, and George Bush has recently faced renewed questioning about his own National Guard service during the Vietnam War.
Kerry shows a masterful use of the political stiletto when talking about Bush’s military service. “I would defend the president’s choice with respect to going into the Guard,” Kerry says. “I’ve never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard. Those are choices people make.”
Many surveys show that voters believe Kerry is the most electable candidate, based on his appearance and manner, which audience members repeatedly describe as “presidential” as well as his experience.
“Experience should not be underestimated as an important credential with voters” says Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist. “Kerry also has a compelling personal background of public service, including his service in Vietnam. And there is also his ability to appeal to the mainstream establishment of the Democratic party.”
As to whether Kerry is an emotional enough campaigner, Dunn says it may not make much difference. “Never underestimate how winning can make somebody seem a heck of a lot better than they are,” she says.
Kerry says, “I think making an emotional connection is important. I hope over the next few months to energize the passions in people. I think there are candidates out there who are working hard to put the word ‘aloof’ back in play when describing me. It’s fictional; it’s nonsense. Aloof is not who I am or what I am.”
So how, in the end, does Kerry intend to win?
“Well,” he says, showing a decided lack of New England reserve, “I am just going to work my butt off.”
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 4, 2004
WASHINGTON - - Just when I was going to write that you could not count Howard Dean out, that he could still rekindle the fires of his support, that he could still be a potent campaigner, he convinces me that he is a replicant after all.
In the Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and the movie “Blade Runner,” which was based on it, replicants are synthetic beings indistinguishable from humans except for their inability to feel normal emotions.
Take The Scream. The scream did not, of course, do in Howard Dean. The scream had a context: Dean had just come in third in Iowa, having won only two counties out of 99.
Had Dean won Iowa by 10 points and given the same speech, even adding the state capitals and major exports, he could have given the same scream and it would have been viewed as no worse than mildly amusing by the news media.
But the scream came not only in the context of defeat, but in the context of a candidate whose emotions were suspect. To me, Dean looked not just like a candidate looking for a strategy, but a human being looking for a personality.
It was not entirely his fault. The intense scrutiny of a presidential campaign - - and first-time candidates never believe this - - makes you profoundly question yourself.
When everything you do gets criticized, you begin to question everything you do. When you are winning, you don't care. You trust your instincts because your instincts seem so wise and good.
But when things go badly, you get lost quickly. Howard Dean's campaign strategy was based on spending huge sums in Iowa and New Hampshire and using victories in those two states to roll over his opponents elsewhere. (John Kerry had the same strategy; the only difference is that Kerry succeeded.)
But having squandered millions in Iowa, Dean was rocked to his core on caucus night. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have been so bad? And what was he going to say to salvage his campaign?
Personally, I think he should have gone with a quotation. Quotations are usually safe. He could have gone with the famous one by Adlai Stevenson (who was quoting Abraham Lincoln) when he said that “he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”
Or he could have gone with a joke: “I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight - - I'm going to wake up and cry every 15 minutes.”
Dean could have gone with anything that made him seem human.
Instead he went with a totally phony, manufactured emotion: wild enthusiasm. It was a disaster. It was exactly what a replicant would have wrongly guessed was appropriate.
Which brings me to the second piece of videotape that has been shown over and over again this year: Janet Jackson's exposed (though pixelized in the replays) right breast.
Howard Dean was asked about it. The old Howard Dean would not have answered. But the new Howard-in-Defeat Dean, who must show he is one us, had to.
Naturally, he muffed it.
He replied: "I'm probably affected in some ways by the fact that I'm a doctor, so it's not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me.”
Is that a regular guy or what?
In poll after poll, voters say that what really makes them vote for a candidate is “that they are a regular person just like me.”
But is that the quote of a regular person? Or is that the quote of a person without normal human emotions?
And are we really to believe that doctors don't respond to sexual stimuli outside of work? Are we really to believe that doctors don't have normal human emotions even while relaxing and watching a football game?
Some people think the movie “Blade Runner” ends with the last replicant still at large.
I think they ought to check out Vermont.
(This column was written entirely on a BlackBerry, but no fruits or vegetables were harmed in its production.)
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 2, 2004
COLUMBIA, S.C. - - Primary campaigns are like love affairs: They can be long; they can be messy, but in the end everybody kisses and hates each other for the rest of their lives.
Take Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt. Please. Used to be buds. Dean worked in Gephardt’s 1988 presidential campaign and there was even talk of a Dean-Gephardt ticket, when people still entertained the thought that Dean might be forming a ticket. (Seems like an awful long time ago, doesn’t it?)
But today the relationship is in ruins, as both sides blame each other for their twin disasters in Iowa, which drove Gephardt from the race and reduced Dean from the front-runner to just another member of the scrambling pack.
“It was a murder-suicide in Iowa,” a Gephardt aide said.
“It was a murder-suicide in Iowa,” a Dean aide said.
Translation: the negative ads of one side killed the other side but then also killed the first side. Get it? Doesn’t matter. Blood over the dam. But the John Kerry-Wesley Clark feud, now that has real possibilities.
Same dynamic: Some think a Kerry-Clark ticket could go places wedding the vote-getting potential of the Massachusetts liberal with the strong-on-defense appeal of the Arkansas general. It would be the All Warrior ticket with two Democratic Vietnam vets opposing Republicans Bush and Cheney, who managed to avoid active military service.
But in New Hampshire, Clark pointed out that he had risen to four-star general while Kerry had been only a lowly lieutenant in Vietnam. "He's a lieutenant, and I'm a general,” Clark sniffed. (And please note his use of the present tense.)
To which Kerry later replied, "That's the first time I have heard a general be so dismissive of lieutenants, who bleed a lot in wars.”
At which point Clark pointed out that he had bled in Vietnam, too.
Reportedly the joke in the Kerry campaign was that when Captain Kangaroo died, Clark told everyone that he outranked him.
Kerry has yet to lock up the nomination, of course (a small detail) and one of the people working hard to stop him has been John Edwards. After a debate in Greenville, S.C. last week, Edwards’ aides predicted that the race would get down to Kerry and Edwards and it would not be decided until March 2, when the “Super Tuesday” states including New York and California hold their primaries.
But as Edwards plans for the future, he can’t stop thinking about the past. Especially one day last May when he stiffed a powerful figure in South Carolina politics, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. Clyburn’s endorsement was much sought-after by all the presidential contenders. Clyburn originally endorsed Gephardt, which was no surprise considering Clyburn and Gephardt had worked together for many years in the House. But when Gephardt tanked after Iowa, the big question became who Clyburn would endorse before the South Carolina primary this week. John Edwards was the logical choice.
After all, Edwards was born in South Carolina and is the senator from North Carolina. But - - surprise, surprise - - Clyburn endorsed Yankee John Kerry, instead. Why? Joe Erwin, South Carolina Democratic Party chairman thinks he knows why. “The Edwards people thought they were going to get Clyburn,” Erwin said in an interview. “But there was that Fish Fry. Jim Clyburn does not forget. People still talk about it here. It was a real slap in the face.”
Back in May of 2003, Clyburn staged his annual Fish Fry in a parking garage in downtown Columbia (you had to be there) following a Democratic debate. All the candidates were there to press the flesh of the nearly one thousand people in attendance. People ate deep-fried whiting on white bread with mustard and hot sauce as the deejay spun the Charleston Shuffle and the crowd got down.
It was one of those all-too-rare, feel-good evenings in politics. The other presidential candidates in attendance worked the crowd and then took the stage with Clyburn to say a few words to the voters. But Edwards - - the only candidate who really had to win South Carolina - - ducked out of the Fish Fry. And Clyburn was left to call plaintively from the stage: "Sen. John Edwards? Sen. John Edwards? We need you here. We need you here."
Edwards was not to be found, however. And when Clyburn said, “The next president of the United States is on this stage tonight!” some thought there was an ominous edge to his voice.
An Edwards spokesperson said the next day that it "diminishes" Edwards to be on the same stage with the other candidates and that is why he took a powder.
But eight months later, when Edwards tried to get Clyburn’s endorsement, Clyburn found another fish to fry.
Although the press made a big deal over the South Carolina primary, largely because it was the first state where African-American voters played a significant role in the outcome, the state has not gone Democratic in a presidential election in nearly three decades (Jimmy Carter 1976) and the Democrats have no serious hope to win it this year.
Picking up Southern states is going to be difficult for the Democrats and because Al Gore demonstrated in 2000 that a Democrat could become president without winning in the South - - if Gore had won New Hampshire or West Virginia, two winnable states, he would have become president - - some in the party now say the South will simply drain resources to no benefit and that time and money should be poured into the battleground states of the Midwest instead.
Needless to say, South Carolina party chair Erwin disagrees. “I don’t think it’s a realistic strategy to write off the South,” he says. “Yes, we’re a red (i.e. Republican) state, but this primary has so energized us, that it is rebuilding the party.”
OK, we said, so where does the Democratic nominee win in the South this November?
There was a long pause. “Florida,” Erwin said. “If you call that a Southern state.”