Posted on 02/18/2019 10:21:04 AM PST by jazusamo
Michael Walsh has this excellent piece on the passing of Pat Caddell. I cannot add much more to Walshs spot-on comparison of Pat to an Old Testament Jeremiah, but Ill try. Pat deserves as much applause as he can get.
Pat and I spoke at many of the same events. I had the pleasure of dining with his daughters family at one back in 2011, and from there, Pat and I struck up an intermittent conversation over the years about election issues and projects. When I was in Charleston, we found a steakhouse somewhere to conspire.
The last time I saw Pat was last November, beside the ocean, outside of the Florida hotel where the event was occurring. Both of us wanted to stare at the ocean away from the event, and we literally ran into each other.
Im not coming back, he roared. This was how he greeted me. I need more time to talk than that, referring to his allocation on the events program. Pat was always urgent -- more on that shortly. So his gravelly gripe about time was, well, just Pat.
The passage of time can grant insight from the sublime, or the coincidental, depending on your point of view.
I quoted a portion of a Pat Caddell in my book Injustice (Regnery, 2011). Pat found in one of his polls that only fifteen percent of Americans believe that the government in the United States has the consent of the governed. Fifteen percent. Pat characterized this as pre-revolutionary. I dont think the political class, the elites, or the federal bureaucrats appreciate this. Its easy for them to tut-tut at terms like pre-revolutionary, but Pat put real data behind American moods.
In fact, he lived in a world of data and moods. And that is what fueled his urgency. He saw something coming. What it was I dont know, but it wasnt good.
I dined with Pat, spoke with him on the phone, and spent time huddled with him talking elections, election process, and various other trends afflicting our electoral system. He had no off switch.
He was Andrew Breitbart without the overarching sense of irony, sense of humor, and the backing track of Echo and the Bunnymen . Pat was intense and always urgent, and most of all, aware.
I never knew precisely what made Pat so urgent, and maybe he didnt either. But I think it could all be put into the broad file of Signs We Are Losing America. Pat saw the Democratic Party of his youth become lost, then corrosive. He was watching the erosion of the American architecture accelerate in real time, and the options for the country seemed to be narrowing.
At its core, to Pat, the erosion was the alienation between elite institutions that had been taken over by political elites, and the mass of regular hardworking Americans who were schooled in American values and felt their country was being lost. The divide was growing, and years ago -- years before Trump was even threatening a run -- Pat described to me how a wave was coming that reflected this divide.
Pat saw 2016 in 2012.
Pat was still gazing over the horizon when I last saw him, and there was something out there that scared him. America is worse off that Pat wont be around to help us navigate as we approach it.
If the elites do not obey the law and Constitution, why should the plebians do so
He could see over the horizon yet he was still a democrat? Sorry, those two thing contradict each other. Not that he should have been a republican, but if he was so forward looking, I would have expected he’d have left the democrat party.
There are plenty of people hanging onto the democrat party (i.e. Older people) who think it is still the party of the 1950s. It is not. Just go read their party platform.
JoMa
He had only seemingly moved rightward from the time of his service to Jimmy Carter as his pollster and adviser, to his embrace of Trump. But Pat had not moved; rather the world had moved around him. Pat remained devoted to the Constitution, to moral goodness, and to the absolute necessity of doing what was right, even at great personal cost. He was the last honorable Democrat, and he knew it.
That’s very good. He was one of the last decent, honorable Democrats.
Thank you.
He could see over the horizon yet he was still a democrat?
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He did a great amount of good by staying a Democrat. He criticized and scrutinized the Dems to greater effect than had he left the party. As a democrat he woke up a lot of people.
Zel Miller was another one who did more good as a Dem than he would have done had he left.
Was thinking about Zell when reading the article.
Can you imagine Sam Ervine in today's political spectrum?
Or Harry Truman, or JFK, etc. Hell, even Hubert Humphrey would have issues.
Excellent point. We don’t have to obey the law. The “elite”, who by the way are not the brightest bulbs in the box, don’t obey the law. Illegals don’t obey the law. Antifa and the far left don’t obey the law. Why should be the only ones obeying the law?
Today, everyone break a rule, no matter how small. Speed but don’t get caught. Be politically incorrect. Don’t use titles when speaking with elected officials. Be creative.
You’re exactly right. And that OAC loon of a woman might seem too far left to some Dems right now but she will be a moderate in the Rat party in a few years.
Something has to give. We can’t exist along side these people. They are a threat to our safety, security, prosperity and freedom, among other things. They want to destroy us.
Ayn Rand ‘When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you you know your nation is doomed.’
“He had only seemingly moved rightward from the time of his service to Jimmy Carter as his pollster and adviser, to his embrace of Trump. But Pat had not moved; rather the world had moved around him. Pat remained devoted to the Constitution, to moral goodness, and to the absolute necessity of doing what was right, even at great personal cost. He was the last honorable Democrat, and he knew it.”
He will be missed by people of similar mindset.
Sort of reminiscent of 1855-1859. Sparks are smoldering but the fire hasnt erupted just yet.
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