Category Archives: Working

Another funny from Robert

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared one of Robert Ariail’s cartoons with you (I’m mindful that you are free to check them out on robertariail.com, and I hate to be repetitive). But this one cracked me up, so here you go.

And as is often the case, I may disagree with Robert’s dismissal of the importance of the health care issue, but I don’t judge a cartoon by whether I agree with it. It’s just a good cartoon.

And I can laugh even though, as you know, Robert and I know all about needing a job. You have to be able to laugh. I’ve used unemployment for comic effect myself.

Thoughts on the inauguration?

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Maybe you, too, are behind on work. But with me, the suspension of activity at the start of this week, which has put everybody at ADCO behind, was piled on top of two full weeks out of action.

So it is that, since coming back to work Wednesday morning, I’ve not had time to stop and pay attention to anything going on that I might have blogged about. That includes the inaugural activities yesterday for governor, constitutional officers and other officials. LAST time around, I was all over it on the old blog (as in years past, I just mention last time because that was the first inaugural when I had a blog). Back then, I had this post and this one and this one and this one, and probably more. THIS time, I not only didn’t get out to any of the events, I haven’t even had time to read any of the coverage of it. I mean, I glanced at The State this morning during a hurried breakfast (and didn’t see much worth commenting on), but was then in solid, back-to-back meetings from 9 until 5:30 today.

So… do any of y’all have thoughts on yesterday’s events — what was said or what was done? If you need fodder, here’s a story that was in The State, and here’s the text of Nikki’s speech, and here’s some reaction to it.

Maybe something y’all will say will inspire me to say something.

I emphatically reject this vicious stereotyping aimed at people like me

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Over the weekend, Kathryn F. e-mailed me this link:

Why the “lazy jobless” myth persists – Unemployment – Salon.com

And I have to say, I was appalled at what I found there… I don’t mean this stuff:

During the recent fight over extending unemployment benefits, conservatives trotted out the shibboleth that says the program fosters sloth. Sen. Judd Gregg, for instance, said added unemployment benefits mean people are “encouraged not to go look for work.” Columnist Pat Buchanan said expanding these benefits means “more people will hold off going back looking for a job.” And Fox News’ Charles Payne applauded the effort to deny future unemployment checks because he said it would compel layabouts “to get off the sofa.”

The thesis undergirding all the rhetoric was summed up by conservative commentator Ben Stein, who insisted that “the people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.”

The idea is that unemployment has nothing to do with structural economic forces or rigged public policies and everything to do with individual motivation. Yes, we’re asked to believe that the 15 million jobless Americans are all George Costanzas — parasitic loafers occasionally pretending to seek work as latex salesmen, but really just aiming to decompress on a refrigerator-equipped recliner during a lifelong Summer of George…

I mean that gross, unfair, insensitive photograph. As a guy who spent close to a year unemployed, I deeply resent such a depiction. It’s totally unrealistic. My gut is nowhere near that big. In fact, mine is much better suited structurally to balancing the remote control on while snoozing in front of the Boob Tube. I can prove this. I have demonstrated this, time and again. And besides, I was just monitoring C-SPAN, waiting for Congress to extend my benefits…

John Parish, dean of Tennessee journalism

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That’s John in the foreground, preparing to take a picture at The Jackson Sun reunion of 2005.

Today, my friend Kevin Dietrich brought this obit to my attention:

Mr. John M. Parish, age 87, retired newsman and former press secretary to Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, died December 10, 2010….

I had not read it, but I must have received a telepathic message of some sort. Because one day this past week, for no reason, I thought of this unfinished blog post from June 28, 2007. I had started writing it after reading that David Broder piece that it mentions at the start. Then after typing away for awhile, I got sidetracked and never finished it.

But for some reason the other day, I got to thinking about John Parish. And I thought, one of these days I’ll finish it. I had no idea as I thought that that “the Bear” was already gone.

Here’s my belated remembrance of John Parish. Tennessee journalism is unlikely to see his like again…

David Broder’s column on today’s op-ed page begins with this thought:

Years ago, Lamar Alexander, the senator from Tennessee, told me of a lesson he had learned as a young man on the White House staff: It is always useful for the president to have at least one aide who has had a successful career already, who does not need the job, and therefore can offer candid advice. When he was governor of Tennessee, Alexander made sure he had such a man on his staff.

That brought back the memories, even more than seeing fellow Memphis State grad Fred Thompson yesterday.

The man on Gov. Lamar Alexander’s staff who best fits that description is John “The Bear” Parish, who became the new governor’s press secretary in January 1979, after having long established himself as the Dean of Tennessee political journalism. It was a very unusual appointment, since new governors seldom turn to such people. (Although Mark Sanford did in picking Fred Carter as his chief of staff. Mr. Carter left the office early in the Sanford administration to return to his job as president of Francis Marion University in Florence. Just as well, since as near as I could tell the governor wouldn’t listen to him anyway.)

Unlike Lee Bandy, John did not work for the state’s largest newspaper. He wrote for The Jackson Sun. The photograph above is from a 2005 reunion of folks who worked at that paper when I was there, from 1975-85. John is stepping forward to take a picture on his own camera. (That’s me in the striped shirt just over his shoulder. To my left is Richard Crowson, now editorial cartoonist with The Wichita Eagle. [But, since I wrote this, laid off like me.] On the other side of Richard is Mark Humphrey, the photographer who took the shot of me at the bottom of this post back when we were covering the Iowa Caucuses in 1980, and who is now with The Associated Press in Nashville. To my right is Bob Lewis, the former center for the Ole Miss football team who is now with the AP in Richmond. Of course, I could tell a story about each person in the picture, but what do you care, right? Well, it’s my blog, so I’ll wax nostalgic if I choose.)

John was a legend, a uniquely gifted, hard-working journalist who made a big impression on me at an early point in my own career. Frankly, I have never seen his like since. A few points from the rich mine of Parish lore:

He got his nickname, “The Bear,” from his days as The Sun‘s city editor, which predates me by a year or two. Office scuttlebutt was that John had been a bit too gruff to all the newbies hired right out of the University of Missouri’s excellent journalism program shortly after the Des Moines Register Co. bought the paper in the early ’70s. By the time I was there, he had definitely found his niche as the associate editor at the newspaper, and the paper was making the most of his exhaustive knowledge of state politics.
He wrote four or five news stories in the course of a typical day, plus — and this is the amazing thing — a daily political column on the editorial page.
Despite that volume of copy, he never made mistakes. I’m not talking about not having to run a correction in the paper. His copy was the cleanest I’ve ever seen. And in those days, nobody had clean copy. We’re talking IBM Selectric typewriters, not word processors. Not one strikeout or correction. After the first couple of times I read (I had joined the paper as a copy editor) raw copy from John, I asked someone whether he wrote rough drafts first. No. And there was no way he could have, producing a volume like that.
He couldn’t type, at least not in the way it’s taught at school. He produced all of that copy hunting and pecking, at blinding speed. It sounded like a machine gun coming from his office (John was the only person in the newsroom who had an office other than the executive editor and managing editor).
Sen. Thompson made a passing reference Wednesday to the case that launched his screen career — he represented a whistle-blower who helped bring down the fabulously corrupt Gov. Ray Blanton. But before, during and after that incident, the bane of the Blanton administration was John Parish. Day after day, outrage after outrage, John documented the governor’s gross abuse of power.
John’s wife worked for a state agency. The governor went after her to get even with John. He didn’t fire her; he transferred her job to the other end of the state. Her new commute would have been a little less than Tennessee’s full 450-mile length, but not by all that much. So she had to resign. But that didn’t stop John. Nothing stopped John.
In 1978, I was working in The Sun‘s Gibson County Bureau — quite a responsibility for a kid three years out of school. I covered everything that happened in several counties, including the one where The Sun had its second-highest circulation, by myself. (Well, actually, I had a secretary, which was my first taste of management.) But what I really wanted to do was cover state politics. That year I got my first chance to do that. Because of John and the high standard he set, the paper — small as it was — covered politics in a big way. The last month of the general election, we had a reporter full-time with each of the gubernatorial (and if I’m remembering correctly, U.S. senatorial) candidates. John no doubt would have preferred to be in four places at once, but since he couldn’t, that meant a big opportunity for me and a couple of other junior people. “Full-time” coverage, by the way, means traveling with them on the plane, in the car, eating meals with them — a kind of up-close-and-personal man-to-man coverage that is unimaginable today (papers don’t spend the money, and candidates don’t let the press that close). 20 hour days, because after the candidates were done, we had to write. Calling in stories and updates to stories from the road (in those days before laptops, we dictated). I spent a week each with Alexander and Jake Butcher, and I learned a great deal. The height of the experience came when John praised one of the stories I wrote from that time (and it WAS a good one).
Another point that year, I finagled the chance to help John cover the Democratic Mid-Term National Convention in Memphis. A conversation we had during that has stuck with me. I mentioned that some of our colleagues were in Nashville that weekend to pick up their awards at the annual state press association convention. I may have expressed my disappointment that I couldn’t be there (although I definitely preferred being at the Memphis event, working). John harrumphed. I asked what was wrong. He said he had no use for such awards, or the approval of other journalists. He only cared about the approval of the readers, and the best award they could give him was to buy the paper and read what he wrote with interest. It amuses me now to think how shocked I was at the time at this attitude. Readers? What did readers know? They weren’t professional journalists! They didn’t know what made a story good! (Mind you, I was not long out of journalism school, which fosters such silly, insular notions.) This was the first time I ever distrusted John’s judgment. But of course, he was completely and absolutely right.
Of course, Lamar Alexander won that gubernatorial election we had been covering. At Christmastime of that year, I brought my family to South Carolina for the holidays. When I got back, I got a call from my editor, who told me the stunning news — John Parish was leaving journalism to be Alexander’s press secretary. It was a really unusual move for someone of his advanced skill, experience and stature. I don’t remember ever hearing John explaining in my hearing why he made this move. But I guess he wanted to make a difference, and actually help run government instead of just writing about it. Whatever the reason, I immediately spoke up — I wanted the job covering Nashville for the paper. My editor said, “I sort of thought you would.” So I took my shot, went through the interviews. But… I didn’t get it. It went to Jeff Wilson instead (who was about the only person at the paper who maybe wanted it more than I did). Fortunately, my stock was high enough with our executive editor that he did an extraordinary thing, rather than lose me: He created a special position for me. He brought me in from the bureau and basically told me to go out and write about whatever I wanted to. I was my own assigning editor, and went covered every special assignment that interested me, from Tennessee to the Iowa Caucuses at the end of 1979. That was during the week. On Saturdays I became the editor in charge of the paper. This led to my giving up reporting for good and becoming the paper’s news editor (what most papers would call a metro editor, the editor supervising all the news reporters) the following year.

That editor gig worked out well, there and at two other papers, until The State decided it didn’t need me any more last year. In the last years, especially after Lee Bandy retired, I got to thinking that I was finally getting there, I was finally on the verge of becoming that gray eminence that would make me to SC politics what John Parish was to Tennessee’s. But that was wishful thinking. I never came close to being John Parish. No one could.

Another shot from the reunion. John, at right, is chatting with Kevin Barnard of The Tampa Tribune and Mark Humphrey. Mary Reed and Joel Wood are in the background.

Bobby Hitt at Commerce

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Pretty much everyone who follows such things has said Nikki Haley’s first big test would be choosing her Commerce Secretary. And now we see how she has chosen. And it is very… interesting.

For the last couple of hours, since I heard that she had picked Bobby Hitt, I’ve been thinking back over my long association with him and wondering what I can legitimately say that is relevant to the situation.

You see, I know Bobby Hitt. I’ve known him for years. I served with Bobby Hitt. And you, senator, are no…

Wait, wrong tape loop…

Here’s the thing: Bobby Hitt used to be my boss, back when he was managing editor of The State and I was the gummint affairs editor. We worked together in a tumultuous time, as newsroom management was in transition from the old, family-owned regime to a new breed that, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the Knight Ridder editors. Bobby was a leading light of the first category, I was the vanguard of the second (I was the first editor in the newsroom from a KR paper — in fact, I think, the first who had ever been an editor outside South Carolina — after KR bought The State). I didn’t feel like an interloper or a spy — as a native South Carolinian, I just felt like a guy who had come home — but a lot of people regarded me as such. And Bobby was the new generation of the old guard. Some sparks were inevitable.

When I came to work at The State in 1987, Bobby was away doing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, which sorta told me he was no dummy. When he came back in ’88, he was elevated to managing editor of The State (he had headed The Columbia Record before that). In 1990, Gil Thelen replaced my good friend and Bobby’s mentor, Tom McLean, as executive editor. About a year later, Bobby left the paper. What happened in between is a bit of a whirl in my memory, as it was the year of the Lost Trust scandal, the departure of Jim Holderman from USC, and about a dozen other scandals that had my staff running like crazy to stay ahead of them. (A time Cindi Scoppe alluded to in her column about me when I left the paper.)

Working with Bobby was … interesting. Bobby is a character and a half. He’s intense, and has a manner that works well with folks who think, “This guy will flat get some things done,” and very much rubs others the wrong way.

Bobby went to work for Nelson Mullins when he left the paper, and when BMW came into the state and hired that law firm to represent it, Bobby was delegated to help the Germans negotiate the complexities and peculiarities of public and governmental relations. They were so impressed by the job he did that they hired him away from Nelson Mullins, and he’s been up in Greer ever since, playing a key role at the operation that still stands as the big ecodevo success of the last two or three decades.

His intimate knowledge of the workings of such a business and what they’re looking for in a home should stand him in good stead, and no doubt was a huge factor in Nikki Haley picking him for this job. (An anecdote Bobby told me a few years ago about why BMW picked SC… Two reasons: First, our storied tech school system, which they relied upon to train their workers. Second — a BMW exec went on a driving tour of residential neighborhoods in the Greenville-Spartanburg area. He approvingly noted the neat houses and well-kept yards, and decided that people who took care of their property and community like that were people they could work with. The first is an ecodevo asset we understand and are happy to exploit. The second was intriguingly intangible.) The BMW name is political magic, and she’s no doubt hoping some of that magic will rub off on Commerce.

Oh, one other thing of interest: I can’t really tell you for sure what Bobby’s politics might be. News people didn’t speak to each other about such things. But I know he’s Rob Miller’s uncle. Assuming Nikki knew that, kudos to her for not letting that get in the way.

I’m going to be listening with interest the next few days to what business leaders say about this pick. Not what they’re quoted as saying in the paper, but what they say more informally. They’ve mostly been VERY anxious for a new approach to ecodevo in both the governor’s office and Commerce, which is why a lot of them supported Vincent Sheheen against the Sanfordista candidate. Nikki knows that, and knowing it, she has made a rather bold and unconventional pick.

Bobby is a unique individual, from his thick Charleston accent to that slightly mad, conspiratorial, insinuating grin that explodes out of his scruffy red beard at the least provocation. He’s certainly not the standard-issue CEO type that one expects in the Commerce job. No man in the gray flannel suit is he. I feel confident he’ll grab ‘hold of Commerce with both hands, and make something happen or bust a gut in the attempt. His uniqueness will either blow up in Gov.-to-be Haley’s face, or pay off big time. I hope, for South Carolina’s sake, that the latter is the case. I’ll be rooting for Bobby (and Nikki for that matter — she’s the only governor we’ve got), and if I can ever help him get the job done, I’ll be glad to do what I can. We need a win. We need a bunch of ’em.

A pre-session legislative discussion

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CRBR Publisher Bob Bouyea, Chamber President Otis Rawl, Rep. James Smith, Sen. Joel Lourie, Rep. Nathan Ballentine. In the foreground is former Rep. Elsie Rast Stuart, now chairwoman of the the Richland-Lexington Airport Commission. / grainy phone photo by Brad Warthen

I meant to post about this yesterday, when it happened, but better late than never.

ADCO had a table at the Columbia Regional Business Report‘s (that’s the outfit Mike Fitts is with) “Legislative Lowdown” breakfast at Embassy Suites. It was a good table. Lanier and I were joined by Alan Kahn, Jay Moskowitz, Bob Coble, Butch Bowers, Cameron Runyan and Grant Jackson.

We were there to hear a discussion by a panel featuring Otis Rawl from the state Chamber, Rep. James Smith, Sen. Joel Lourie, Rep. Nathan Ballentine and Rep. Chip Huggins. Joel was a few minutes late, and Chip had to leave just as Joel arrived, but it was still a good discussion.

Here’s Mike’s description of the event, in part (I’d quote the whole thing, but I don’t know how Mike’s cohorts feel about that Fair Use thing):

By Mike Fitts
mfitts@scbiznews.com
Published Dec. 2, 2010

Lawmakers speaking at the Business Report’s Power Breakfast this morning said they see major difficulties ahead in the new budget year, but they also said there are new opportunities for bipartisanship.

The event, hosted at the Embassy Suites, featured Reps. Nathan Ballentine, R-Chapin, Chip Huggins, R-Columbia, and James Smith, D-Columbia; Sen. Joel Laurie, D-Columbia; and Otis Rawl, president and CEO of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce.

With a new Legislature and new governor coming to Columbia in January, much of the discussion focused on the budget crisis that will greet them.

Ballentine, a member of Gov.-elect Nikki Haley’s fiscal crisis task force, drew a stark picture of the challenges facing lawmakers. Ballentine compared the situation to a lifeboat with a limited number of seats. There won’t be enough dollars to take care of students, the elderly, the disabled and law enforcement, Ballentine said.

“Somebody’s going to get left out, and that’s going to hurt,” he said…

To Mike’s focused report I will add the following random observations:

I don’t know if this would have been the case if Chip Huggins had stayed, but the general consensus, or at least lack of overt conflict, between James, Joel and Nathan on issue after issue was quite noticeable. Nathan alluded to it, saying he was sure that the business people in the room were probably wondering why a pair of Democrats and a close ally of Nikki Haley were agreeing about issue after issue. (And some of the agreements were remarkable, going beyond mere civility, such as when Nathan volunteered his acknowledgement of the problems with Act 388.) Nathan further speculated that the audience might reasonably wonder why, in light of what they were hearing, the General Assembly had so much trouble getting anything done. He explained that the reason was that there were these 167 other people in the Legislature… And he was completely right. If we filled the Assembly with Jameses, Joels and Nathans, South Carolina would see a Golden Age of enlightened governance. These are reasonable young men who, despite their disagreements on some points are reasonable, deal with others in good faith, and truly want what’s best for South Carolina, and want it more than their own advancement or the good or their respective parties. If only their attitude were catching.
I’ll add to that point the observation that if all discourse about issues were on the intellectual level of this one, we’d see a very different, and much better, South Carolina. The conversation was wonderfully devoid of partisan, ideological, bumper-sticker cliches. For instance, I never heard anyone mention “growing government” or “taking back our state.” Observations were relevant, practical, and free of cant. I used to hear discussions like that regularly when I sat on the editorial board, because intelligent politicians did us the courtesy of leaving the meaningless catch-phrases behind. It was good to hear that kind of talk again. (It occurs to me that the fact that over the years I’ve been privileged to hear politicians at their best, trying to sound as smart as possible, may help to explain why I don’t have as jaded a view of officeholders as Doug and others do.) I’d be inclined to say that the discussion was on this level because the lawmakers were paying this assembly the same compliment of respect — but these particular lawmakers pay everyone that sort of respect. Which is why we need more like them.
Otis Rawl, incidentally, was slightly more confrontational — something you don’t usually see in a Chamber leader. He exuded the air at times of being impatient with the air of civil agreement in the room. When Nathan said that he had not realized when he voted for it the harm that Act 388 would cause — Otie challenged him directly, saying he knew good and well that his group had informed lawmakers ahead of time, and there was no excuse for anyone to claim innocence (I think he’s right in the aggregate — the body as a whole knew better, but ignored what they knew it order to scratch a political itch — but if Nathan says he didn’t understand, I believe him; he was a relatively inexperienced lawmaker at the time; and I appreciate greatly that he’s learned from experience). Awhile back, I chided Otie for not being more frank about what he thought on an issue. The Otis Rawl I saw Thursday morning could not be chided for the same thing. I suspect this reflects a growing dissatisfaction with Sanford-era fecklessness in the State House, which helped lead to the Chamber’s endorsement of Vincent over Nikki.
Speaking of Vincent, Nikki, Otie, James, Nathan and Joel … It struck me as interesting, just because language and civility interest me, that everyone speaking of Nikki Haley referred to her carefully as “Governor-Elect Haley.” It was notable partly because it was stilted coming from people who know her quite well as “Nikki,” but also because (and this might have been my imagination) there was a slight change of tone when the speakers said it, a shift to a formality mode. It seemed natural enough that the Democrats present would use that highly formal construction — it’s important to them (particularly since the two Democrats in question are Vincent Sheheen’s two best friends in the General Assembly) to sound scrupulously neutral and respectful in this post-election period. It’s a way of papering over their feelings about her election, and perfectly proper. It was also perfectly appropriate for Nathan to refer to her that way; it just sounded odder coming from him. They were seatmates, and allies in her fights with the leadership. But being a gentleman, he wasn’t going to top it the nob in a public setting by assuming excessive familiarity. Bottom line, just over a month ago ALL of them would have called her “Nikki.” But now they are the very pictures of proper Southern gentleman. Which I like. But then I’d like to see a return of the sort of manners I read about in Patrick O’Brian and Jane Austen. We just don’t see that very often nowadays.
As civil and intelligent as this discussion was (in fact, probably because it was so intelligent), it offered little hope for the General Assembly effectively dealing with any of the important issues facing our state in the foreseeable future. Everyone spoke with (cautious, on the part of the Democrats) optimism about Nikki — excuse me, Gov.-elect Haley — being able to work better with the Legislature than Mark Sanford has (a pitifully low bar). But I heard little hope offered that this, or anything else, would likely lead to the reforms that are needed. The institutional and ideological resistance to, say, comprehensive tax reform is just too powerful. The most hope Joel Lourie would offer is that steady pressure over a long period of time might yield some small progress. He cited as an example his and James’ long (eight-year) battle to get a sadly inadequate cigarette tax increase. The terrible truth, though, is that the cigarette tax was such a no-brainer — it shouldn’t have taken two days, much less eight years — that if IT took that long, much less simple and obvious reform seems unlikely in our lifetimes. But perhaps I’m not being as optimistic as I should be. It’s just that I’ve been fighting these battles, and hearing these same issues discussed, for so very long…

Big Lindsey is watching you…

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Today I was cleaning pictures from the last couple of months off my Blackberry, and ran across this one, which appealed to me — the colors, the looming image of Sen. Graham, the worship attitudes of Steve Benjamin and the other much-smaller dignitaries on the dais at right, some other undefinable qualities that perhaps an art major could better describe. There are certain tensions, or something.

It seemed like a good one for my much-neglected “Write Your Own Caption” category.

Anyway, I shot this at EngenuitySC’s IGNITE! program in the Innovista on the evening of Nov. 17 — which was a great event, by the way. The emphasis was on entrepreneurship, and the keep the energy going, there were 9 speakers, each of whom was kept to six minutes and 40 seconds, so it never got dull. And there was free beer, and there were these tasty sausage things.

To learn more about it, you can check out this Powerpoint presentation that Neil McLean gave at the conference:

Ignite 2010 on Prezi

Why can’t I sell my truly AWESOME ad ideas?

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This is me (or rather, a reasonable facsimile) making a pitch to an unappreciative client.

You know, I’ve been trying hard to learn to be an ad man. I watch the TV show religiously. I try to dress sharp (even if my sartorial style is a bit more Bert Cooper than Don Draper). I don’t get home until late because I stop at any gathering where free highballs are served. I’ve thought of changing my name to Dick Whitman.

So why is it I have so much trouble pitching my truly awesome ad ideas? Here are some of my recent rejects:

I’m particularly proud of the sensitive way I addressed a delicate public health problem in that last one…

OK, seriously, folks — Kathryn Fenner shared with me this post — “TOP 48 ADS THAT WOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TODAY” — knowing I’d be interested. Some of the examples were pretty cringe-inducing, such as this one. Others… well, others weren’t bad at all. In fact, I don’t think this one below should have been on the list at all: I don’t know about you, but my most memorable Christmas present ever was the Daisy 1894-model air rifle, which I found tucked into my new sleeping bag spread out in front of the tree…

Play ADCO’s “save-the-turkey” game

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Sorry I haven’t posted much this week, but I’ve been REALLY busy doing high-level, important stuff… such as sending out copies of the ADCO virtual Thanksgiving card to various folks from my contact list.

In case you didn’t get one, here’s a post about it on the ADCO blog, and I quote:

You think YOU’VE got it tough this Thanksgiving – what about the poor turkey? With the president too busy fielding questions about official airport groping this holiday season (and we are not making this up), the noble bird might not get the traditional pardon. Only you can save him! Help him collect enough balloons to get off the ground. Then you can gorge on Thursday with a clear conscience!

If you could get through the first level of Super Mario Brothers, you can save the turkey! Click here to play the game.

And yes! This is what we’ve been doing while you were working, you poor sap. You can thank us later…

Obviously, we decided against the usual static pieties and had a little fun. The game is the work of Giovianni Difeterici of ADCO Interactive.

And don’t be afraid to try it. It’s really easy. Your kids and grandkids will probably turn their noses up at it, as being far easier than, say, Super Mario Brothers circa 1980 something (but they would probably only make that comparison if they are into antique games). But I figure it’s just about y’all’s speed, if I’m right about my demographics. And if I’m not, get back to playing Black Ops and stop sneering at the rest of us…

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all…

When it comes to propaganda, give me humor every time (if it’s done well)

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A few days ago I had an e-mail exchange with Kathryn about that anti-bullying video that Cindy McCain did, which caused Kathryn to think Cindy was GREAT.

But I just found it stilted and stiff and painful to watch. Which I guess was the intent. But that painfully earnest message couched in politically correct clichés really made me not want to hear any more about the subject, however serious it is.

But then, a couple of days later, a colleague — Lora Prill at ADCO — brought to my attention the companion videos above and below.

Now — without getting into the merits of the issue either way — to me, THIS is the way to make the point. Whether I go away agreeing or disagreeing with the political point, at least I go away with a smile. And I’m therefore more predisposed to listen to these folks in the future.

Way to communicate there, guys.

It’s later than you think — 2012 is upon us

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Doug Ross observed today, back here:

Let’s not forget that the actual campaigning for 2012 will begin in approximately 10-12 months. The election may be two years away but the jockeying for position will begin much sooner…

To which I responded:

Actually, Doug, it’s a lot worse than you say. The SC primary itself is only 14 months away. The campaigning has begun already, but it will become fairly obvious and public starting early in the New Year.

Almost immediately after the 2002 election (when Mark Sanford was elected) — I mean, like a week or two later — Howard Dean contacted us wanting to come in and talk about his candidacy in the 2004 Democratic primary. I was like “Howard Who?” and “He wants to talk to us about WHAT?” But I agreed to the meeting. (I used to say yes to a lot of meetings I would have said no to later, as our staff shrank.)

If you go back on my old blog, you’ll see that we started getting into full swing on the 2008 presidential election in late spring of 2007, about the time of the GOP debate here on May 15.

My first interview with Barack Obama was conducted via cell phone in June 2007 (we didn’t get far, as we had connection trouble). As the summer wore on, I wrotemore and more about the campaign. The John Edwards column that everyone remembers appeared in early August 2007 — and it really only appeared that late because I had put off writing it for months. It had started with something I hadwritten on the blog on Feb. 8, 2007.

Bottom line, we’re about to get full-tilt into the 2012 election here in SC…

Sorry to break the news to y’all. But as I told Rotary today 2012 is upon us…

It’s not always all about me, as things turn out…

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We had a little early Thanksgiving dinner/birthday celebration today at ADCO, and as we were eating I kept hearing some of my coworkers saying:

Brad paisley… Brad, paisley… Brad… paisley

Which made me a little self-conscious, I’ve gotta tell you.

But you know what? This is going to be a real shock to you, I’m sure, but they weren’t talking about the tie I chose to wear today. Go figure.

What I didn’t say to Rotary today

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The agenda got overcrowded at today’s Columbia Rotary Club meeting, and Health and Happiness got squeezed out — which was kind of a relief to me, because I hadn’t come up with anything funny. Instead, this is what I had prepared:

Health and Happiness

November 1, 2010

I initially asked President Robin to make room for me on the program today so that I could do Health & Happiness on the day before the election, because I thought I’d have all sorts of political humor in my pocket.

But as the day approached, I realized this was no time to joke around. The stakes in tomorrow’s election are too great for that.

I’m not going to make any endorsements here today. If you want those, go to my blog, bradwarthen.com. But I thought I’d share some general observations about voting responsibly that I’ve picked up in 36 years of watching politics very closely.

Recently, someone on my blog commented on how young the candidates for governor are. Well, they seem REALLY young to me: Vincent Sheheen is about 3 years older than my oldest child. Nikki Haley is about the same age.

Once, governors were OLDER people. The first time I interviewed a serious candidate for governor who was younger than I was was in 1994 – it was David Beasley. That was a shock. But I’ve had to grow accustomed to it.

The youth of the candidates reminds me just how long I’ve been writing about this stuff. My first experience with covering a gubernatorial campaign was in Tennessee in 1978, and I came home to South Carolina, initially as the editor supervising the political writers, in 1987.

Let me share some of the things I’ve observed, and learned, and figured out over that time. Some of them may seem a little counterintuitive; they may run against conventional wisdom (as if there’s anything conventional about wisdom). Others are just common sense, but please bear with me while I share them anyway.

All of my career, particularly my time as an editorialist, there was one noncontroversial position that newspapers across the country embraced without fear of contradiction: Urging people to vote. You’ve all heard the pious pronouncements: No matter how you vote, go vote; it is your duty!

Well, I have over time developed a heretical notion: Not everyone should vote. And if you are so disengaged, so uninterested, that you need ME to urge you, coax you, twist your arm to get you to vote – well, you shouldn’t be voting. Yes, turnout is low in this country, and that’s a shame. But we don’t need MORE voting so much as we need better, more thoughtful, voting. If you doubt me, I point you to the nomination of Alvin Greene in the recent primary.

Fortunately, the members of this club tend to be the kind of people who SHOULD vote – you are engaged and involved in your communities. You keep yourselves informed.

But as you DO vote, please consider the following:

First, don’t vote on the basis of campaign promises. Not because the candidates won’t KEEP the promises, but because they almost certainly WILL. And there is no way that a candidate can predict what sort of situations he will encounter in office, much less predict what the wise course will be in advance. Wise leadership should never be bound and shackled by the kinds of promises people make in an effort to get a majority of people to vote for them.

So, if not promises, what SHOULD be the guide? CHARACTER. Listen to the candidate’s words. See if they are consistent with his or her actions. Note the way his or her mind works. Take heed of how candidates interact with other people, including their opponents.

Next: Study what the candidates have actually done in the past, more than what they’ve said about the future. Examine their personal and professional records, certainly. But especially scrutinize their records in public service. This is going to be the most controversial thing I say today, given the current anti-incumbent fever, but you shouldn’t vote for anyone for HIGH office whom you haven’t had the chance to observe dealing with the pressures of lower office. Because there’s no human endeavor quite like service in a political position, and until you’ve seen someone perform in that arena, you have no idea how they will perform in the job for which they are currently running.

Don’t, under any circumstances, base your judgment upon the candidate’s political party. I would say NEVER vote for anyone who belongs to a political party, but that would sort of limit your choices. So I ask you to consider a candidate’s suitability in SPITE of his or her affiliation. You have an obligation as a voter to THINK FOR YOURSELF; do NOT surrender that to a party. Parties are enormously destructive things that inject all sorts of evils into our politics, not the least of which is intellectual dishonesty. Parties demand, REQUIRE, that their adherents agree with the stupidest ideas put forth by members of their party, and reject out of hand the very best ideas put forth by members of the other party. They are, as a result, strangling the deliberative process that is the heart of our system of representative democracy.

Since you can’t really avoid candidates who belong to parties, look for the ones who seem uncomfortable in that role, who sometimes actually agree and work with folks in the other party. Those are the ones who have not been ruined by the affiliation.

That’s as far as I’m going to go. For more, please check out bradwarthen.com.

And thank you for listening. I know it’s rather presumptuous of me to stand here and give advice, and you’re all very kind to listen. Good day.

After the meeting, the head of the H&H committee came up to me and said he was going to redo the schedule so I can be on later this month. I said OK, but that will be way late to use what I had prepared for today, and right now I’m not anticipating seeing much of anything funny in the election results. I mean, if Nikki wins I’m going to be depressed about politics altogether, and disgusted with the electorate for having done something extraordinarily foolish. And if Vincent pulls it out and wins, I’m going to be very happy for South Carolina and proud of the electorate for having paid attention finally… but I don’t think I’ll see anything funny in that.

But you never know. Comedy has a way of rearing it’s silly head when you least expect it.

The State decides it, too, is 55 percent for the sales tax referendum

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A couple of days ago, I was talking with a good friend — a very conservative Republican leader, a longtime close ally of Mark Sanford — about politics and mentioned the proposed penny sales tax increase for transportation in Richland County. He said, derisively (but in a friendly way), something along the lines of, “And you just think that would be GREAT, don’t you?”

Well, no. As I explained to him, I’m probably about 45 percent against it. But I’m more than 50 percent for it, when all is weighed and measured. So I’ve gone out of my way to help support the effort to pass it — now that I’m not a newspaper editor any more, and am in more of a position to stand up for things I believe in instead of just writing about them.

But I know that I SEEM like a pro-tax guy to someone who is strongly anti-tax and has powerful feelings on the subject. The thing is, I’m about as neutral as a guy can get on taxes. I look at a particular tax in a particular situation, and I look for logical reasons to take a particular position on it — raise it, lower it, eliminate it, place or remove restrictions on it, whatever.

At no point does any sort of personal FEELING about taxes enter into it. I guess because I never really feel personally put-upon, but look at it from 30,000 feet in terms of whether it makes sense as policy. (In fact, one reason I like this tax is that I, as a Lexington Countian who doesn’t pay Richland County property taxes but spends most of my waking ours in Columbia, taking advantage of the amenities here, would have to pay my share of it. That’s fair.) Sometimes I decide a tax proposal doesn’t make good policy sense. Sometimes I decide it does. The penny sales tax on Tuesday’s ballot in Richland County is one case that, when you balance all the pros and cons, makes sense under the circumstances.

My primary concern here is making sure we have a transportation system for folks who can’t afford to own a car (which is sort of the definition of poverty in this country). I don’t like that the mechanism is a sales tax (except for the part about people like me, from outside the county, paying it), but until someone waves a magic wand or does a brain transplant on the Legislature (just don’t use the one from that “Abby Normal” guy!), we are going to have an overburdened sales tax.

You know why that is? It’s because of some of the ANTI-tax people. In this state, anti-tax sentiment has tended to center on property taxes and to some extent the income tax. So basically we’ve pushed down on those (especially the property tax, and most especially the tax on owner-occupied homes), creating upward pressure on sales taxes.

Which is just fine with certain elements of the anti-tax movement in SC, because there’s a line of thought followed by a lot (although certainly not all) of its adherents: “Government is a thing that is hostile to people like me (white, middle-class people). Government exists to do one thing: take money away from people like me, and give it to undeserving people (usually black, poor people), either through direct payments (welfare as we knew it) or services for THEM and not for ME. A property tax is unfair because it penalizes me for working hard and sacrificing to buy a home. A sales tax is fair because THOSE PEOPLE have to pay it, too (never mind that the taxes on rental property are higher and are passed on as part of rent).”

So you end up with essential services, from school operations to transportation infrastructure, being paid for by the overburdened and unstable sales tax.

That’s not good, for a host of reasons. But that’s the way things are, and that is the reality that Richland County has to deal with. This is the option it has.

As you know, I continue to advocate strongly for comprehensive tax reform. This state badly needs to get on a sounder, fairer, better-balanced fiscal footing. (One of the great ironies of politics in SC is that we’ve now gotten to where EVERYBODY, including Vincent Sheheen and Nikki Haley, are for comprehensive tax reform — but we still haven’t gotten it.) But I understand that Richland County does not have the power to make that happen, and has to deal with the situation before it.

And this sales tax is a sound, practical way to get the job done.

But I know all the arguments against it. And BECAUSE I know all those arguments, and I know my former colleagues at The State, I did not expect the paper to endorse the referendum.

It was looking like the paper wouldn’t endorse either way — with only Cindi and Warren left writing for the page, the number of endorsements overall have been curtailed dramatically — but it if did, it might be against. I had read Warren’s columns setting out the arguments for AND against, and figured that would be that. And I knew Cindi — her inclinations would set her against it. (She, even more than I, has had a “no tax increases until comprehensive tax reform” attitude that colors such decisions.)

But Friday, I was pleased to see the paper DID take the plunge on an issue it was truly torn over. And it ended up where I did — not crazy about it, but ultimately for it.

Here’s an excerpt from the endorsement, “Say ‘yes’ to transportation sales tax:”

We have multiple concerns about the plan on Tuesday’s ballot: The volatile sales tax already is being relied on too heavily — in our community and across the state. It’s already 9 cents on some items in Richland County. It’s difficult to swallow raising it even more in this down economy. Moreover, most of the billion-plus dollars the tax would raise won’t be used to fund our primary need — the bus system; two-thirds would be spent on road improvements and building sidewalks, bike paths and greenways.

Despite these concerns, we have reluctantly concluded that on balance it is in the best interest of this community, its quality of life and its economy. We believe voters should approve the sales tax, and also allow the county to borrow $200 million, which would be repaid using the tax, in order to get work started as soon as possible.

One appealing aspect of this plan is that people from outside the county would pay a projected 40 percent of the tax. But two things in particular tipped the balance for us. The first is the overriding need for a vibrant bus system to serve those whose lives and livelihoods depend on it, support the economy and provide a transportation option that helps reduce congestion, pollution and gas use.

The second is the broad support the plan has received. Thirty-nine well-respected citizens, including Columbia College President Caroline Whitson and Columbia Urban League President J.T. McLawhorn, sat on the commission whose study formed the basis of this proposal; many have been vocal in their support of the increase. In addition, a number of influential business people have galvanized behind this effort. These include some of this community’s more conservative leaders…

By the way, I had accompanied a delegation of referendum supporters — J.T. McLawhorn, Ted Speth and several others — when they went and made their pitch to the editorial board. That was a personal milestone, the very first time I’ve been in that room since leaving the paper, and my first time ever on that side of the equation. The full board was there (Cindi, Warren, Mark Lett and Henry Haitz). One of my fellow guests asked me, “Was Obama in this room?” I said yes, in the seat being occupied by Lee Bussell (another member of our delegation). John McCain had sat there, too, more than once. And Joe Biden, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman. George W. Bush. Ted Sorensen. Plenty of others had been in the room, but not in that particular chair like those. Lots of memories.

I didn’t say much. And the board didn’t ask many questions. I really didn’t feel it had gone that well, since I had reason to believe the odds were against us, and the meeting just didn’t feel (based on my long experience) like a game-changer. But then, I had never been in that position.

Afterward, Cindi and Warren gave me a tour of their new digs. They’ve moved out of our top-floor suite of offices (editorial is no longer a separate division reporting to the publisher, but under news chief Mark Lett) and are now in the part of the newsroom that used to be the morgue — library, I suppose I should say (“morgue” is a term that dates to the old days in newspapers, before that building was built). They’ve turned the area into offices, plus a little conference room, by making walls out of tall bookcases and cabinets. It’s nicer than I thought it would be.

Anyway, they didn’t say anything to indicate how they thought the meeting had gone. Until Friday, I had thought they had decided not to take a stand on it either way. (And in fact, I worried that the board meeting might have pushed them to take a stand, and the stand would be against. It was that much of a near thing.) So the Friday endorsement was a nice, welcome surprise.

Like me, my former colleagues don’t consider the plan one to jump for joy over. But all things considered, the right answer is “yes.”

Where you can see and hear me in coming days

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This morning, I taped a segment for ETV Radio with Mark Quinn, and while I was doing it, I thought that for once, I’d give y’all a heads-up ahead of time about where you can see and hear me over the next few days. So here goes:

The ETV Radio segment will air on Friday at 1 p.m. Mark and I talked for 15 minutes, mostly about the gubernatorial election. I worried a bit that I did an uncharacteristic thing: Rather than speak as the detached observer the way I usually do on radio, I spoke as the blogger who very much hopes Vincent overcomes the odds. I apologized to Mark for that after, but he said it was OK, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought…
Speaking of ETV, a program called “How We Choose” will air on the TV version at 9:30 p.m. Friday, and again on Monday, election eve, at 7 p.m. There are some clips from the program up on the ETV election blog. I was one of a bunch of people interviewed for this, and it was so long ago I don’t know what I said, but it was very Civics 101 stuff about democracy and voting and the like. You know — educational.
Remember that “party politics” primer I did on the city election for the Shop Tart, specially crafted for her particular audience? That was well received, and she wants me to do another, and I have promised her I would. So repeating the promise in writing to y’all is my way of making myself write it and get it to her sometime this week. If I fail, I fail in the world’s eyes, not just the Tart’s…
I’ve manipulated the Health & Happiness schedule so that it will be my turn to do it at the Columbia Rotary Club on Monday, election eve. If I can’t come up with decent political material for that day, I never will. That’s at 1 p.m. at Seawell’s. You have to get a member to host you if you want to be there. (So now, I’ve just put EXTRA pressure on myself to come up with something good. Sheesh. Comedy is hard.)
Nov. 2 — On Election Night, I’ll be on WIS. Judi Gatson has asked me to appear along with Sid Bedingfield (Political analyst from USC) and Douglas Wilson (a blogger at politicsispower.com) to talk election results. I said OK, so guess I won’t be doing my usual roaming that night, but will be in a fixed location. I THINK I’ll be able to blog during that, but if I don’t, and you wonder where I am, turn on the tube.
On Nov. 4th, I’ll be speaking to the SC Telecommunications Association’s Fall Conference at the Radisson, about election results.
On Saturday, Nov. 6, I’m the featured entertainment for the Lower Richland Dem Breakfast out on Garners Ferry Road. They, too, want me to talk about election results.

So, I’m busy doing a lot of stuff besides earning a living and blogging. But you might say that I’m blogging by other means — and of course wherever I go, I give ADCO a plug…

Just the facts, Jack: Dept. of Ed. employment

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So we’ve heard Vincent Sheheen say there are only about 800 something state Department of Education employees, and Nikki comes back that no, there are eleven hundred and something (going by memory, since I can’t see my DVR from here).

And you think, “Whoa! Surely she wouldn’t give an actual NUMBER if it’s not true!” That is, you think that if you’re one of those simple folk who think numbers represent a special kind of truth.

And if you don’t know our Nikki, who is completely unbothered by actual facts.

Happily, self-styled “Crafty ol’ TV reporter” Jack Kuenzie bothered to check:

Debate issue: # of employees @ SC DOE? Dept. says 1,179 FTEs authorized, many slots vacant. Filled: 449 in bus shops, 434 administrative.

Those of you inclined to be overly kind will say, “Then they were both right!”

No.

The context in which this keeps coming up has to do with Nikki repeating the canard that our wicked, evil public education system never lays off “bureacrats,” but always lays off teachers first, because… well, just because it’s mean and evil.

Which, like most of what she says, is not true. The Department of Education — you know, the place where you find people actually enforce all those accountability rules and regulations that people who don’t trust public education have instituted over the years — actually employs far fewer than it’s authorized to employ.

And half of them (actually, more than half) keep the buses running. Just as Vincent keeps explaining.

Is that really Andre behind those souvenir photos?

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Since I watch my football on HDTV and don’t actually rub elbows with the fans, I haven’t seen what Andy Shain, business editor at The State, wrote of on Twitter the other day:

Spotted Lt Gov Andre Bauer hawking framed photos after USC game. Hid himself behind one of his photos when I tried to shoot a pix. #sctweets

@Erinish3 @paigecoop they were gamecock-related photos. The one he held up was the USC flag atop the statehouse. Will post photo soon.

@TheBigPicture it was a surreal sight after the surreal sight of watching the gamecock football team beat no. 1

Look who’s hawking: Lt gov Andre Bauer shields himself while selling photos after USC game. #sctweets http://twitpic.com/2w76h9

Above you see the image to which he was referring.

If that is Andre, then, as a guy who was unemployed for nearly a year, I’m all for what he’s doing. To quote Don Corleone, “I want to congratulate you on your new business and I’m sure you’ll do very well and good luck to you. Especially since your interests don’t conflict with mine.”

Actually, I don’t know if it’s a new business. I seem to recall that Andre started a business when he was in college having something to do with Gamecock memorabilia, but I had idea he was still doing it.

And the thing is, if there’s a fortune to be made in souvenir photos, Andre will make it. He styles himself the hardest-working man in SC politics, and the hustle he’s always shown on the hustings backs it up. I’ll bet if HE were trying to sell blog ads, he’d do better than I have…

I just hope he’s a better accountant than Nikki

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Catching up with my e-mail, I see this came in this morning:

Truth In Politics Announces Forensic Accounting Expert

COLUMBIA, SC- Conservatives for Truth in Politics announced today that Charleston CPA, Ellie Thomas, has joined the group as its CPA. He will join Ms. Cyndi Mosteller, former 1^st Vice Chair of the SC Republican Party and Dr. David Woodard, Political Science professor at Clemson University, Co-Chairs and Liana Orr, Executive Director and Secretary/ Treasurer as the officers of the 501 (c)(4) advocacy association.

Thomas is recognized as an expert in Accounting and Tax Matters by the Circuit Court of South Carolina and recognized as an expert in Forensic Accounting by the Circuit Court of South Carolina. He served on the Patriot’s Pointe Development Authority from 2001-2004, serving as the Finance Committee Chairman from 2003-2004. He also served as a volunteer accountant for the SC GOP from 1987-1989.

In addition to adding a CPA, TIP is pleased to announce they have over 100 official members of the organization and almost 500 followers on Facebook in less than 2 weeks since its formation. The organization is also receiving contributions to help get the word out that true transparency and answers to serious questions concerning Republican Candidate Nikki Haley are in the public’s best interest.

“We are very pleased to have Ellie Thomas join us. One of the main issues that has raised numerous questions is Nikki’s numerous violations on both her personal and business taxes. Thomas, a forensic CPA that specializes in these matters, will be a tremendous resource to TIP as we educate the public about her numerous tax problems,” said Mosteller.

In addition to Ms. Haley failing to come clean on her personal and business tax matters, TIP is also asking Ms. Haley to explain or clarify many questions that are still lingering:

“To our knowledge, there is no ‘”small business tax” that she keeps referring to in her campaign rhetoric. We feel very strongly that if Ms. Haley doesn’t come clean on that issue, we will be forced to let the public know it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors,” said Thomas.

“We do know that she wants to eliminate the corporate income tax which significantly benefit large out-of-state corporations and does absolutely nothing for the majority of small business. She may try to pull the wool over your eyes by making up things like the “small business tax,” but I can assure you as a forensic CPA that has spent my entire professional career knowing the tax code that this organization will not allow these statements to go on any further unchecked,” said Thomas.

It does appear that Nikki Haley will pay for this big business tax break on the backs of the working families of SC by increasing their taxes on groceries. A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that this will hit families making less than $45,000 a year the hardest, especially in a bad economy when more people are buying groceries to avoid eating out. “I can tell you that most of my clients are not making more money but trying to save. Eating out less and buying groceries to feed the family is the trend these days. I never thought I would see a Republican Nominee advocate a tax in this economy. Interestingly, I saw comments made by Iris Campbell. I doubt Gov. Campbell would have been advocating a tax on groceries when the unemployment rate was at double digits and the economy was so bad,” said Mosteller.

TIP has also asked for Nikki Haley to make copies of her tax returns, her State House computer hard drive and emails available to the press in the same transparent manner as Sheheen. TIP has also asked for sworn affidavits from her, Will Folks and Larry Marchant concerning the charges of infidelity. “We have heard from Folks and Marchant who indicated that they will provide the affidavits. We have yet to hear from Ms. Haley,” said Mosteller.

For more information on Conservatives for Truth in Politics, please go to www.sctruth.com

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Bill Day lets the C.A. know what it’s missing

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I’m posting this especially for my cartoonist friends, especially Robert Ariail and Richard Crowson — both laid off from their newspapers. Like me. And like Bill Day.

As you know, since being laid off, Robert Ariail has been judged (again) the best cartoonist in the world. Several years after winning the Overseas Press Club award, this year he became the first American ever to win the Ranan Lurie United Nations Political Cartoon Award.

Meanwhile, Bill Day — who was laid off from the Memphis Commercial Appeal within a few days of when Robert and I were canned — has also picked up honors, such as the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and SPJ’s Green Eyeshade Award, as well as the National Press Association’s Award of Special Merit.

Bill, wanting to make sure that the folks at my first newspaper (I was a copy boy at the C.A. back in 1974, while a student at Memphis State) didn’t miss the point, set up a table out in front of the Commercial Appeal‘s offices and posed with his awards.

The unfortunate truth, of course, is that increasingly newspapers care little for such indications of excellence. In fact, the people who were good enough to win awards also tended to be the people whose salaries rose the highest back before newspaper revenues took a nosedive — making them among the first, rather than the last, to get laid off. Such is life in the brave new world, what we have come to term the New Normal.

But at least they know what they’re missing out on. Bill made sure of that.

The real Don Draper (Draper Daniels, who called himself “Dan”)

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Draper "Dan" Daniels and Myra Janco in 1965.

As the fourth season of “Mad Men” unfolds, fans wonder:

Will Don Draper get it together, or continue to unravel?
Will Peggy or Joan just get fed up to the point that she slaps every man on the show upside the head in a vain attempt to inject some sense into them?
Will Betty and her new husband just be written out of the show? Please?
Now that it’s 1964, will the show work with a post-Beatles sound track, or will the whole martinis-and-skinny ties mystique evaporate? (Hearing “Satisfaction” in the background the other night really made ol’ Don seem more anachronistic than usual, which I suppose was the point. Although I suppose the “can’t be a man cause he doesn’t smoke/the same cigarettes as me” part was apropos.)
Is Don Draper actually modeled on real-life Mad Man Brad Warthen?

On that last one, to end your suspense, the answer is no: The uncanny physical resemblance is merely coincidental.

In fact, we have learned who the real-life model was: Draper Daniels, who called himself Dan (… were in the next room at the hoedown… Sorry; I can’t resist a good song cue). His widow wrote a fascinating piece about him, and about their relationship, in Chicago magazine. You should read the whole thing, headlined “I Married a Mad Man” — as my wife said, it’s an “awesome” story — but here’s an excerpt:

In the 1960s, Draper Daniels was something of a legendary character in American advertising. As the creative head of Leo Burnett in Chicago in the 1950s, he had fathered the Marlboro Man campaign, among others, and become known as one of the top idea men in the business. He was also a bit of a maverick.

Matthew Weiner, the producer of the television show Mad Men (and previously producer and writer for The Sopranos), acknowledged that he based his protagonist Don Draper in part on Draper Daniels, whom he called “one of the great copy guys.” Weiner’s show, which takes place at the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency on Madison Avenue, draws from the golden age of American advertising. Some of its depictions are quite accurate—yes, there was a lot of drinking and smoking back then, and a lot of chauvinism; some aren’t so accurate. I know this, because I worked with Draper Daniels in the ad biz for many years. We did several mergers together, the longest of which lasted from 1967 until his death in 1983. That merger is my favorite Draper Daniels story.

Reading that article, I wondered: If Don is Dan, who on the show is Myra?

As I read, I got a sense that it could be… Peggy. A woman who was a professional colleague of the main characters, a woman who had risen to an unprecedented role for her gender at the agency? Sounds kinda like Peggy to me — aside from the age difference. After all, Peggy and Don got awfully cozy that night of the Clay-Liston fight…

We’ll see…

Peggy and Don on the night of the Clay-Liston fight (Feb. 24, 1964).