SoYouThinkYOUCanBePresident

  It was 1992, the beginning of the Bill Clinton Presidential campaign. The Clinton campaign was going to tell the public why they should vote for Clinton. Our operation was to send a message about why they should not vote for Bush. With that in mind, It’s time to tell the truth and take credit for one of the great political campaign contributions. Not money -   ingenuity. Was it done by one person? Hardly. It was my idea but to carry it out took a team effort. The beauty of the idea was that no one really knew where it came from, and where it went. We wanted to send a message ( by my definition a message need not have any audience participation, whereas a protest requires active participation, and can be messy.)     Ron Brown, then the amazing DNC Chairman (there hasn’t been another since, and probably will not ever be) was responsible for the funding, but no one knew even that.   President Bush41 had said he wouldn't debate Governor Clinton in the General, and we ran with that.  

When we moved to Newburgh NY about 8 years ago I expected it to become our home. We mistakenly left Virginia, we still don’t know why, put all our furniture in my cousins empty handbag factory and didn’t know what to do. But I loved having family around so this seemed like a plausible place to live. We bought a house in the town of Newburgh, as opposed to the city because the taxes were more reasonable. Our first week in the Town my cousin Stevie called me and told me (not asked) to go to a meeting for Judy Kennedy who was running for mayor. There already was a democrat on the ballot so she was forced to be the independent democrat. No one had ever won as an independent Democrat but hey, it was a local election and how hard could it be to beat the guy who was clearly on the spectrum and probably a pervert. If it hadn’t been for two very special talented political people Karen Mejia and her husband Jerry it would have been impossible. But they knew everything about the city and the po

Last night I awakened at 3 am to watch the debate. It was not until I saw Trump on Hannity after he left the spin room getting kudos did I think anything but Kamala beat the crap out of him. When his pal asked him if he would debate again, he said “I won that debate no need to do anymore”. It was breathtaking to hear him say and believe that. While I watched the debate there was something that she did that I thought she might have done better. But in rethinking it I was wrong. When Trump went on and on about the millions of people, the millions of supporters, the billions of people who were coming into our country to eat our pets, I wished she had asked him for sources for that information. Well of course he doesn’t have any but I just wanted her to rattle him a little more. But his face reflected the contempt he had for her. Like a four year old whose been caught in a lie. What he doesn’t get is that you can’t be a rich kid bragging about your billions and billions of financial ass

There is something I've been meaning to write for days and I keep forgetting what it was. I forget it still. Maybe tomorrow it will come back to me or while I'm writing.  Every time I come to Italy I try to find a market with a chicken truck. Success! It took us hours to find the market because when you ask an Italian for directions they either make them up or if there are with another Italian they start to argue. So you never know where you're going. But eventually we happened upon it.  I've taken pictures so I hope David will post. There were two things I wanted to say so I don't forget.  The TWA hotel was good and it was a step into the past. But when we were ready to leave there was no one to help us with our massive amount of luggage... so if you're going visit, they can't help.  Anyway, Walz was speaking about the opposition and he said it took Trump eleven times to insist that he was not weird.  Speaking of the opposition, last night Maryann and I sha

Liz Cheney is going to support Kamala, how fabulous is that. Makes me so happy. She is courageous and has a moral core. She, my kind of republican, actually, she unlike all those cowards who are MAGATTS, is a real republican, the kind with whom you can disagree in a civil conversation. Yesterday we were supposed to be in Rome. The captain tried and tried but the weather conditions were too awful so we had to skip that port and pasta a da gino. Boo hoo. The good news (as opposed to we couldn’t go to Rome) is that we arrived in Naples and were able to find our way to the cafe and Pizza place we were instructed to find. It wasn’t the reservoir tavern but it was pretty good. Talk about being big as a house, oh we weren’t, well I am. And I’m not going on a diet anytime soon. This is too much fun. The meals, the sweets, (including high tea) I’m even eating fruit that’s not frozen in heavy syrup. I was reading my Facebook messages and I saw that David Fisher commented on the political chicken

“I can’t control what other people do.” That’s what McCain said today when asked if he would admonish people who said despicable things about Obama.  (These are not direct quotes but I put them in quotes because it’s what I would do if I was writing fiction and someone said something worth quoting.)  What does “I can’t control or I can’t stop them” mean?  It means the general election will be very ugly. David has been with McCain for a day and a half and he says “this guy will be very hard to beat.”  That’s actually a direct quote. Every four years a few elected officials decide they want to be President of the United States. And every four years political junkies, sign on to a campaign and try to try to get them elected. Sometimes the people surrounding the candidate have high ideals and a centered moral core. Sometimes the campaign staff and consultants are a little too Machiavellian for my taste. The end cannot justify the means when the end means the we are left with a lie.   I am

You probably want to know why things are running so late at the convention. When you schedule too many speakers all of want to be heard because they have important things to say. It’s hard to give them the hook, so they’re not going to keep them on time.  On one occasion we had to turn off the mikes but today that would be rude.  With that I think I’ll try to remind you a little about most of the conventions.  Yesterday I got a call from my cousin Adam, who reminded me about the convention in Denver. Although it was the first time local police were seriously armed with funds received from some federal fund. They weren’t trained but no one got killed who shouldn’t have. Anyway, whatever there is convention, if I’m there I get credentials and first on my list is to give them to family.  At my convention my cousins worked security. You know no one got up on podium who was not so to be. One cousin stood at the base of the steps to sooth the savage beasts, or VIP’s,  it is always chaos beha