I’m feeling much less spry this week as I get prepared to play another game of soccer. I thought I’d share a nice anecdote I just found about the 1976 Republican convention:
In one of the convention’s boldest strokes, Reagan startled the party by announcing in advance that his running mate would be Sen. Richard Schweiker, a liberal Republican from Pennsylvania. (The state had more than 100 delegates, and almost all were uncommitted.) The move dismayed conservatives — but it showed Reagan’s willingness to do what he needed to do to win.
It wasn’t enough. On the first ballot on Wednesday, Aug. 18, the penultimate day of the convention, Ford got 1,187 votes to Reagan’s 1,070. The incumbent president won just 57 votes more than he needed.
By prior agreement between the campaigns, the winner would call upon the loser. So Ford went to the Alameda Hotel to meet in private with Reagan and start mending fences. Beforehand, Reagan sent word that Ford shouldn’t offer the vice-presidential nomination; the defeated candidate didn’t want it, but he also didn’t want to embarrass Ford by saying no. Weeks earlier, when the subject of a Ford-Reagan pairing came up, Ford told his chief of staff, Dick Cheney: “Absolutely not! I don’t want anything to do with that son of a bitch!” as Cheney recalled to me years later. For the first time that year, Ford and Reagan agreed on something.
So, I guess Ted Cruz should promise to make Pat Toomey his veep, right?
After all, the Pennsylvania delegates are still uncommitted all these years later.
I recall Ford had the reputation of being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. Not sure he deserved it, although he did come off as a bit of a dunce. But if he sized up St. Ronnie as reported, then I have to respect that….
Saltier in the original:
Ford was a lot smarter and savvier than he was given credit for.
Oh, and good luck with with soccer match. Perhaps some day I’ll figure out the rules. I’m too old to have caught the beginning of the youth soccer craze in this country, and my kid never had an interest in playing….
OT: THIS is voter suppression.
Once again, I will point out that our Elders are STILL being punished for Jim Crow.
……………………..
Obama’s dance partner is persona non grata in D.C. government
By Courtland Milloy
April 23 at 5:10 PM
Virginia McLaurin, who recently turned 107, was still basking in the glow of her dance with President Obama in February. A White House video of the meeting has been viewed nearly 66 million times. The attention has resulted in invitations to New York and Los Angeles for media interviews.
To board an airplane, however, McLaurin needs to replace a long-lost government-issued photo ID.
To get a D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles non-drivers’ photo ID, she needs a birth certificate from South Carolina, where she was born. To get the birth certificate, she needs the photo ID. A classic bureaucratic Catch-22.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get that face card,” McLaurin told me during a recent visit to her apartment in Northwest Washington. “I was birthed by a midwife and the birthday put in a Bible somewhere. I don’t know if they even had birth certificates back then.”
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But roughly 30 states have adopted an array of restrictive voter ID laws, and elderly citizens who live in those states seemed particularly at risk of having their rights denied.
“I’d pray long and hard to my God if they ever tried to do something like that to me,” McLaurin said, her voice rising in righteous indignation. So much for my notion of the bright side.
In Asheville, N.C., a state DMV office denied 86-year-old Reba Miller Bowser a photo ID in February even though she had a birth certificate, Social Security card, a Medicare card, cable bill and apartment lease.
The reason given: Bowser needed a document that showed she had legally changed her maiden name to her married name.
In the book Write it When I’m Gone – four years later, Ford said that the Reagan camp wanted him as Reagan’s VP in 1980 …. until Ford asked for too many powers. And thus, George H.W. Bush became the choice.
In fact, Ford said: he whenever they met one of his demands, he asked for more. He wanted nothing to do with Reagan.
One of his biggest demands had to do with a person with the name of Kissinger, and his return engagement as Sec of State.
Not somebody the Reagan camp was enthralled with, they hated detente, and wanted the foreign policy that Reagan/Bush pursued.
really?
seriously?
Ted Cruz and John Kasich team up in deal to stop Donald Trump
The Ohio governor will give the Texan senator a free run in Indiana in exchange for the same favor in Oregon and New Mexico
Ted Cruz and John Kasich have announced that their campaigns will cede certain states in an attempt to keep Donald Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the Republican nomination.
In a pair of coordinated statements released on Sunday night, the Cruz and Kasich campaigns said that the Texan senator would concentrate his resources in Indiana while the Ohio governor would put all his effort into Oregon and New Mexico.
Both have already stated that they expect there to be a contested convention in Cleveland in July and are already preparing for a second ballot.
However, for that scenario to come to pass, they first need to stop Trump. This apparent agreement seems to be an admission that only way to do so is for his opponents to finally cooperate against him. Under current rules, delegates are only bound by the results of their state’s primary or caucus for the first ballot. On any subsequent ballot, delegates are free to vote their conscience and, since delegate selection is often an entirely separate process from a primary, there is likely to be a significant shift in votes on a second ballot.