A Day for Republicans

I watched Tim Pawlenty, the former two-term Republican governor of Minnesota on The Daily Show Wednesday night. Talking with Jon Stewart increasingly has become a de rigueur baptism under fire for politicians. Pawlenty’s performance impressed me enough to suggest he might well grasp the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. He’s articulate. Youngish-looking (he’s 50). Pleasing to look at. He’s tall (he towered over Stewart). Not incendiary, like Sarah Palin, et al. Seemingly willing to not be locked into conservative dogma (though that might hurt his chances in the primaries).

As a foil to Barack Obama, Pawlenty would be a formidable opponent. Dare I say it?—the Great White Hope. Unlike Palin, or for that matter Newt Gringrich, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, Pawlenty is not a divisive national force. He doesn’t start the campaign with sizable portions of the population questioning his intellect, his mean-spiritness, his religion or his capacity to project an image of service—unlike the rest of the current field, he doesn’t look like he’d do anything to secure the nomination. He doesn’t look desperate.

Nobody gets to be a governor without having sharp fangs or teeth. Pawlenty, to be sure, has them. But keeping them out of sight, for now, has made him attractive, as far as the Republican competition goes, to Independents and disenchanted Democrats. As the campaign progresses, it will be interesting to observe how he changes, if at all.

I noted with amusement last night Pawlenty tucked the tail of his suit jacket under his tush so the collar wouldn’t ride up as he was sitting, a homage to William Hurt in Broadcast News. Hurt, you might remember, played the fatuous though telegenically pleasing news anchorman in the movie, while the more erudite Albert Brooks had to content himself being an off-camera presence. One on-air trick Hurt tried to teach Brooks was the jacket-tail-tuck. It didn’t work for Brooks, but Pawlenty’s jacket collar was a model of comportment. By the way, so was Stewart’s, and he didn’t do the tail-tuck (for a full view of the extended 20 minute interview, here’s a link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/).

Native son politics might also play a part in Pawlenty’s possibilities. Electoral map arithmetic favors choosing him as the GOP standard bearer. To unseat Obama, Republicans need to shift just one or two states from Blue to Red status. Minnesota has not given its electoral votes a red tinge since 1972. Pawlenty might provide added incentive Gopher State voters need to send one of their own to the White House. Of course, had Al Gore secured his home state of Tennessee’s support in 2000, he, not George W. Bush, would have won that election. So, let’s not count any electoral votes just yet.


It’s impossible to ignore Sarah Palin. Try as I might, she’s an immovable force from my keyboard. Yes, I was offended she used the term “blood libel” when criticizing those who criticized her for incendiary remarks they (and I) say created a climate conducive to physical attacks on elected officials that culminated in the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the deaths of six and the wounding of 13 others last Saturday in Tucson.

In her seven-plus minute video released Wednesday (http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin), she shows no apparent regret or shame. She lacks the intellect to understand the nuance of her actions. Perhaps she should read Goebbels. Then she might come to understand how repeatedly attacking, dehumanizing, a foe with suggestive images and language, eventually leads to a society that permits despicable acts. Palin ignores—or just doesn’t get—how her own actions impact others. Instead, she wraps her political dissent in patriotic imagery.

Equally galling is that it took Palin four days!!! to condemn the shooting.


Candor. It’s a trait we don’t often get from our politicos. One of the the more refreshing remarks of the last few years was the way Obama categorized the November election results. He called it a “shellacking.” Few would argue with his wording, yet fewer elected, and non-elected, officials would dare utter such a realistic appraisal. I don’t mean to suggest we should vote for someone because they express themselves coherently and accurately. But I am sensitive to the hypocrisies that sometimes surface.

Consider that for many years conservatives have lambasted the entertainment media for being too permissive, for extolling violence and sex. Yet conservatives time and again refuse to place limits on the sale of assault weapons. They remonstrated against the fictitious Murphy Brown when she had a baby out of wedlock, yet issued nary a word of condemnation when Bristol Palin became an unwed teenage mom. They rallied behind her grit and advanced her as a paragon of virtue, endorsing her role as an apostle of abstinence.

Not So Very Good Morning News

Harry Smith is one of my favorite newscasters. I don’t go out of my way to watch him—I rarely have tuned in as he anchored CBS’ Early Show for 17 of the last 23 years. Yet, when I see him substitute host on the CBS Evening News or CBS Sunday Morning, I feel quiet comfort that the news will be delivered professionally, with appropriate gravitas, for Harry Smith is a good reporter. There’s something about his demeanor, his calm, cadenced Midwestern voice, his comfort with his skin—he’s bald, you know, not one of those newscasters who gels up his hair, like Chris Wragge does on the local WCBS-2 New York station.

Oh, did I mention it was reported this morning that Harry will be replaced by Wragge? Reality is mimicking fiction. It’s like the William Hurd character edging out Albert Brooks’ in Broadcast News. Looks over substance. If Wragge’s earpiece ever falls out...well, you get the picture.

Smith’s demotion could not have been too much of a shock. After all, The Early Show is a distant third in the ratings, behind NBC and ABC in the morning time slot. And it wasn’t just Smith who got the heave-ho. CBS replaced the full cast. Even weatherman Dave Price had it rain on his parade.

People lose their jobs every day. So far, CBS has not fired any of the replaced anchors. I’m not faulting CBS for making the changes. Rather, I was taken by a paragraph in the NY Times article:

“Mr. Smith said in an interview that the reshuffling ‘had been on the horizon for a while.’ He braced himself for it by taking a ‘long walk on a cold golf course’ last Sunday, he said, pausing to reflect on how fortunate he had been to report from places like Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake there last winter, and from New Orleans after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring. He sounded philosophical, not disappointed. Mostly, he sounded content.

“’I’ve been at this a long time,’ he said, ‘and I’ve literally given it every possible thing I can give it.’”

I can identify with that “long walk.” Mine wasn’t on a golf course. Mine took place in November 1987 along the blocks surrounding my office on Park Avenue and E. 55th Street. I had just been told that Chain Store Age General Merchandise Trends would cease publication in January 1988. I was the publisher and editor, a nine-year veteran of the magazine. Almost all of my staff would be absorbed by other publications within our company. I would wind up heading up a nascent newsletter division for our company for 10 months, before joining a different edition of Chain Store Age as its editor and associate publisher (then publisher) for the next 20 years.

I remember that long walk. Not the details of what I saw or heard. Rather, the emptiness I felt. I couldn’t focus on anything. I wasn’t angry. Like Smith, I knew the staff and I had done everything we could to keep the executioner’s song on hold. We had succeeded in forestalling the corporate decree by a year. But living under the threat, under the sword of Damocles, for nearly two years took its toll. Still, it was not a feeling of closure, of finality, when the news came. It was a feeling of emptiness. Deflation. Futility. And though I know better, it was a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling I had not done enough.

I’m long over those feelings. If he has them, I hope they soon pass for Harry, as well.