Posted on 04/11/2004 12:21:27 PM PDT by weegee
The country may be going broke, but in just nine months President Bush has amassed more than $175 million to spend on his re-election, the most any candidate has collected in a presidential election.
The reason Bush has been so successful is that he has a good gimmick. He has assembled 151 individuals he calls "Rangers," who have raised more than $200,000 each, and 241 he calls "Pioneers," who have raised at least $100,000 each. Now, he's added a third group of fund-raisers -- individuals under 40 who have raised at least $50,000. There are 52 people in that category, which he calls "Mavericks."
I have no quarrel with Bush naming big-hitters after his former baseball team, the Texas Rangers. It's fine as well that he designates his medium-size hitters "Pioneers," even though a pioneer, by definition, is someone who settles new territory. He has been raising campaign money since he ran for Congress in 1978.
I must draw the line at Bush's use of the word "Maverick" to describe his rookies. This is a linguistic crime, the equivalent of John Kerry raising money under the banner of Dick Nixon.
I can't stop picturing my old friend and mentor Maury Maverick Jr. -- a crusading liberal who fought every single day of his 83 years on behalf of civil liberties and world peace -- rolling angrily in his grave. Maury died in January 2003. Over the 29 years that he wrote a newspaper column, Maverick would occasionally conduct channeled interviews from the grave.
I never much liked it when Maury would conjure up conversations with people like Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. It seemed like such an old-fogey thing to do. Now I understand why he did it. Extreme times require extreme measures, so I conjured up Maury's spirit and this is part of the exchange we had:
"Maury, how's it going up there?"
"Well, kiddo, there are more liberals in heaven these days than on Earth, that's for sure. Just the other day, I had breakfast with Franklin Roosevelt, tea with Eleanor and dinner with my old man, the last of the New Deal Democrats. By the way, my father's as tempestuous as ever. He can't open the ice box up here without getting into a fight with a milk bottle."
"Maury, I need to ask you a serious question. What do you think of these young Republicans using `Mavericks' to raise money for Bush?"
"We Democrats must have Bush on the run if he's so desperate that he's using my name to raise money. You will recall, I made about $13,000 a year when I was a civil rights lawyer.
"But seriously, don't they know that the name `Maverick' stands for free-thinkers and iconoclasts? I'm sorry I'm not there for this election. What fun, what joy it would be to wade into this fight with you, kiddo. Hit 'em in the kisser for me."
"I'll try, Maury. Can you tell us how the word `maverick' came to be part of the English language?"
"I'd much rather talk about purple martin houses, but sure I'll tell you the story. In the 1840s, my great-grandfather, Samuel Augustus Maverick, arrived in Texas when it was still under Mexican rule. He had a ranch, but paid so little attention to it that he didn't brand his cattle. He let 'em run wild. In time, the word `maverick' became synonymous with unbranded Longhorns, who are stubborn, independent animals that follow their own heads. This became the definition of a maverick.
"People use the word for all sorts of things, but I hate to think it's being used by a bunch of swells to raise money for that boy Bush. For the most part, we Mavericks have been progressives. My father was run out of politics because he refused to deny free speech to a small group of communists.
"The most satisfying work I did as a lawyer was representing conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War. We were wrong in Vietnam, and we're wrong in Iraq. I was a Marine myself, but when I see all those Marines getting blown up, it tears me up.
"Semper fidelis, Jan ... I've got to go now."
"Semper fidelis to you, too, Maury. I'll tell the Republicans they need to find a new name for the rookies. Maybe they should be called `Ambassadors.' After all, Bush named 24 of the top fund-raisers in 2000 as U.S. ambassadors."
Russell is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.
She needs to go back to History class. The Battle Of San Jacinto (which shortly followed the fall of the Alamo) occurred on April 21, 1836.
Mexico was not running Texas in the 1840s.
Also to clarify, Samuel Maverick came to this area in 1835 (so yes he was in Texas under Mexican rule but briefly).
You'd think someone living in San Antonio, writing about family history in Texas the weekend "The Alamo" opens would know better. At least if she's going to whine about others using the word.
Here's Leon Hale's take from earlier this year.
Probably the version nearest fact is in the New Handbook of Texas. This is a husky six-volume reference published by the Texas State Historical Association, an organization that does its best to cull the fiction out of our state's history. Not an easy job, especially when we've got folklorists making daily contributions of legends and myths.The handbook tells us that in the 1840s Samuel Maverick moved for two or three years from San Antonio to the Texas coast. Lived at Decros Point in Matagorda County.
While there, a fellow who owed him $1,200 paid off the debt with 400 head of cattle. Apparently Maverick wasn't enthusiastic about ranching on the Gulf Coast. When he moved back to San Antonio he left those cattle in the care of a family that didn't take care of them well. A lot of the calves were not branded and of course were running free.
So, when local folks saw an unbranded calf they referred to it as "one of Maverick's," and eventually called it simply a maverick.
Writers of cowboy fiction have long been fascinated by this story and versions keep popping up.
Recently I ran across an offshoot of the story in Wolfville Days, a book written in 1902 by Alfred Henry Lewis. An old cattleman in this book tells tales about life in Arizona when it was a territory. One day he used the word "maverick," and a greenhorn asked what it meant.
Long ago, says the old cowman, before fences came to the range, all the ranchers in Texas got together about branding cattle. (Getting all the ranchers in Texas together even long ago would have been a fancy trick.) Each rancher described how he would brand his cattle, and these brands were recorded in a great book.
"A old longhorn named Maverick," says the storyteller, announced at the meeting that since everybody but he had declared a brand, without objection he wouldn't do any branding at all, so any unbranded animal on the range would be recognized as belonging to him.
Nobody objected (if you can imagine that), and within 10 years Maverick had gathered thousands of unbranded calves that were missed on roundups or strayed from their mamas, and so he became in this way a major Texas rancher.
Furthermore, according to Lewis' storyteller, it came out that this fellow had bamboozled everybody in the cow business, because in the beginning the only livestock he owned were a few scrawny steers, and not one mother cow that might have an honest calf.
Which is a story you might still tell for the truth in Arizona, but not in Texas.
Well there is his first lie.
Freepmail An Amused Spectator to get on/off this list.
Is Pat Buchanan writing for liberal papers under the name "Jan Jarboe Russell " now?
Another useful idiot working in the service of Joseph Stalin.
Is Pat Buchanan writing for liberal papers under the name "Jan Jarboe Russell " now?
Her editors should be sure to look over her works more closely if she is going to make such obvious historical blunders as to when Mexico rule what became the Republic of Texas and then the state that is now Texas.
Perhaps they should ALL be emailed.
Take two, they're small...
Proud to admit....I helped!!!
And, I will continue to help even if it means I need to find a part-time job.
Bush/Cheney '04!! ---the best choice for America's Future
The reason President Bush is so successful at fundraising is that there are people willing to part with their hard earned cash in order to make sure he STAYS in the White House and our country isn't thrown into chaos by the DIMS!
How about we post more things that tell the truth of the battle for the hearts and minds of the American public and less hit pieces that are meant to fuel their fires and not ours.
We are angry enough at this and I fail to see what goo it does for lurkers to see this on a basically conservative site.
OR when Hillary! was raising funds among terrorist groups (and swapping kisses with Arafat's "wife.").
Actually was supposed to be good.
As always, a FReep mail will get you on or off this Houston and Texas topics ping list.
p.s. - I am getting out of the ping list business. This list is available to anyone on this list that wishes to take it over. I will still ping for activities of the HAT Chapter.
| The Strange Case of Riverfront Media and John Kerry: Media Company Threatens Lawsuit Against Kerry |
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| Posted by nwrep On 03/27/2004 11:52:00 AM CST with 101 comments Riverfront Media ^ | March 27, 2004 | nwrep John Kerry's Presidential campaign expense statements list "Riverfront Media, LLC" of Chicago, Illinois as the recipient of millions of dollars of media fees related to campaign activities. This is shown below: JOHN KERRY (D) Expenditures2003-2004 Cycle Total Records: 27017 Cycle: Sort by: Recipient Amount Date Description Subtotal: $11,400,414 2/29/2004 Total itemized above: $11,391,723 2/29/2004 To adjust for fundraising expenses initially repor $1,075,335 9/30/2003 Riverfront Media, LLC, Chicago, IL |
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We dont take too kindly to your kind 'round these parts.
Get the Top 10 Most Popular Sites for "maverick"
4 entries found for maverick.
|
When someone's name becomes a part of the language, I don't think that descendent's are given the option of bitching about it. Do the McCarthy's get to deride every communist that impugns the family name?
She doesn't even carry the name "Maverick" these days.
If this had remained in San Antonio I might have let it slide but Houston's only daily paper saw fit to print such trash (as well as other examples I posted today). Since I know that "letters to the editor" will wind up filed in File 13 (the round file that sits on the floor), I take my response elsewhere.
Great. Now someone in Hollywood will sue the Bush Campaign for copyright violation.
I understand where you were comming from.
Ditto-Bump. But dont'cha know, these people think everything revolves around THEM and their narcisstic ideas?
FMCDH
And just what do they think is going to happen to this money? Do they think that Bush is going to pocket it?
This money goes back to the media in the form of ad buys on radio, television, and newspapers.
In my opinion, that is why we will never see real campaign finance reform -- because the campaigns are financing "Big Media" every two years for hot Senate seats, and every four years for presidential elections.
-PJ
President Bush does not have a gimmick. He is plainly successful. When you are tthat good, it must be hard to be humble.
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