The Democrats are indeed truly in trouble.
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/25/2003 4:04:21 PM PST by MadIvan
HANGING over the Democratic presidential campaign are Senator Bob Graham’s red shorts. To the chagrin of party officials who are hoping to oust President George W Bush, the shorts are threatening to become a distraction in a volatile primary race.
Graham is one of an improbable trio of would-be candidates who were last week considering adding their names to the Democratic list of three senators, a state governor, a congressman and an African-American firebrand who have declared themselves contenders for the party’s 2004 nomination.
As a former Florida governor who until recently was chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham, 66, boasts impressive credentials that compare favourably with those of heavyweight Democratic challengers such as Senator Joe Lieberman, the former vice-presidential candidate, and Congressman Dick Gephardt, the party’s leader in the lower house until last year’s elections.
But now Graham has found himself lumped with Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator, and Carol Moseley-Braun, the first black woman elected to the US Senate, as would-be challengers in danger of becoming party embarrassments.
While Hart and Moseley-Braun faced doubts over their past conduct, the question about Graham, as one irreverent analyst put it, was: “Is he nuttier than the cheeks of an obese squirrel?”
Lurking ominously in Graham’s past is not a sex scandal (Hart) or a dodgy friend (Moseley-Braun) but a heap of handwritten notebooks. Graham may be doomed by his diary. For the past 25 years he has noted the minutest details of every waking moment of his domestic and professional life, from the time he changed into red shorts at his Miami home in September 1994 to the moment, one hour and 10 minutes later, that he rewound a video of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Graham has filled more than 4,000 pocket-sized spiral-ringed notebooks with entries such as: “8.45am — Eat breakfast, branola cereal with peach” or: “11.40am – Discuss Nicaragua”. He uses a different coloured notebook for each of the four seasons. He never describes his feelings or attempts any literary flourish; he merely records actions.
Florida voters have long been used to seeing their governor, later senator, at functions with notebook in hand. One Palm Beach newspaper described the obsessive record-keeping as a “quirky, endearing trait”. Others see it differently. “There is definitely something strange and a little bit disturbing about Bob Graham’s fetish for writing (down) the most mundane and trivial details of his day,” said Jim DeFede, a columnist on The Miami Herald.
Graham was being considered as Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 campaign when Time magazine published extracts from one of the diaries. The story turned Graham into a national joke as late-night comedians mocked him. Gore chose Lieberman instead.
With his intelligence background and hawkish views on Iraq, Graham is one of the few Democrats with the stature to challenge Bush’s handling of the war on terror. Yet questions about his notebooks resurfaced when he announced last month that he was considering a White House bid, as did claims that he only wears ties with silhouettes of Florida and is prone to singing to himself.
Despite these potentially damaging reports, Graham was on the verge of declaring that he intended to run when his doctor urged him last week to undergo minor heart surgery first.
The uncertainty over Graham’s candidature was not the only concern for Democrats. Moseley-Braun’s interest spelt trouble for the Rev Al Sharpton, the black New York preacher hoping to corner the African-American vote. It also exhumed ghosts of scandal that most in the party hoped had been buried with Bill Clinton.
Moseley-Braun was elected to the Senate from Illinois in 1992. Widely condemned for her contacts with General Sani Abacha, the murderous former dictator of Nigeria, she was also plagued by controversy over campaign finance irregularities and allegations that she had helped her mother to cheat a medical welfare programme. She denied any wrongdoing.
Turfed out of office after one term, she became ambassador to New Zealand. She returned to her Alabama home two years ago to run a pecan farm.
As for Hart, the former Colorado senator is still trying to live down the affair that ended his presidential hopes in 1987. While he appears to believe that the public is ready to ignore his dalliance with Donna Rice on a yacht called Monkey Business, Democrat officials are shuddering at the potential effect on the polls of an ageing lothario, a careless black icon and a heart patient whose diary has been likened to Bridget Jones’s, but without the jokes.
What the party really wants is a candidate who has more of a future than a past.
The Democrats are indeed truly in trouble.
Regards, Ivan
--Boris
We must have a psychiatrist or two on Free Republic - I'd be very interested to see what their ideas on Graham are, on the basis of this behaviour.
Regards, Ivan
The essential role of the Federal Government is foreign affairs, what with all those limeys to deal with and all. :)
Indeed the position of Secretary of State figures prominently in the resumes of early presidents.But it has to be said that people who were elected president of the United States without executive experience in their public resumes are thin on the ground. Senators and even vice presidents do not acquire a reputation as executives. Exceptional generals do, and governors do.
It follows that a former governor of a populous state who is also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a good resume for a presidential nominee. Not exactly as good as being a popular sitting president, but on face value a substantial candidate.
Some forty years ago, my grandmother required me to keep a journal of my experiences on a wonderful vacation I took with her and my grandfather. Every couple years I'll dig it out and my thirteen year old self on that trip comes back to me.
It was the usual teen-aged stuff: who I met, where I went, and boy, was I p***ed at Grandma for embarrassing me in front of someone really cool, etc..
Odd, it didn't occur to me to write about which pair of underwear I'd put on that day. Graham's bright and capable -- but a little scary.
"Bob Graham Goes Fishing"
. . . in which case, Bush is doomed--unless he can manage to see an honest count in Philadelphia . . .
Of course, since it is Bob Grayham DEMOCRAT, precious little is mentioned.
Neil Cavuto of Fox had a woman on his show the other day, a "body language" expert who said President Bush was behaving in an infantile way because he ROCKED IN HIS CHAIR. Idiots.
No claims of any wrong-doing. But, "hey, this guy keeps a diary, and it's really accurate, like what he ate for breakfast. What's wrong with him?"
I wouldn't vote for him, because of the "D" next to his name on the ballot, but this is really reaching if you're looking for a scandal. And, I might point out, I just finished re-reading "The Caine Mutiny," so if I was going to be paranoid about this kind of thing, now would be the time.
Regards, Ivan
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