JOURNEY TO A FARAWAY BEATVILLE-- North Beach, SF 2012

 

---

08/13/2012/1024PDT

JOURNEY TO A FARAWAY BEATVILLE:

World-weariness may well mean tired of life and bored with living as a pure definition this is acceptable. As a mindset and possible marketable product, it may well serve to motivate even the most cynical and pessimistic person convinced that life has nothing else to offer; even as a teenager or washed-up war veteran.

So skipping beyond the everyday name tags placed on words, a thorough examination of "world-weariness" as the makings of a new cheap t-shirt logo campaign was replaced only by the logistics of where and when, and how, the campaign could be launched.

This came in the form of a wedding invitation to San Francisco, home of the original world-weary poets, professors, authors and in general, all the riff-raff, hangers-on and entourage that accompanied them. The epicenter of this movement was North Beach, where in the late Fifties, there was plenty of pessimism to go around for everybody.

Skipping all the background intros and noise necessary to paint the landscape for present day North Beach, and with a wedding invite in hand, I could now pay a visit, officially, to the faraway land known as Beatville, and decide for myself if launching a new cheap t-shirt logo campaign could indeed offset the "I Heart San Francisco" and "Alcatraz" t-shirts currently flooding the market in Chinatown. 

JAMES C. L'ANGELLE

https://plus.google.com/104696872148052829321 2012-08-13T10:24:52.756-07:00 

---

08/13/2012/1104PDT

ZERO DARK THIRTY Before the launch defenestration to Beatville, the logistics required would have to be suitable so that the only thing in mind wasn't getting there, it was getting out of there. The journey would begin from North Beach, Lake Tahoe and with the destination in mind of North Beach, San Francisco.

Certainly, the driving option would be the easiest to consider. Go down to the Truckee airport, rent a car from Hertz, drive over to the city...too easy, too expensive and ultimately having the car stolen, stripped or set on fire by Occupy Bay Area anarchists. The Hertz rental was ruled out. Not that multiple reservations, bookings and inquiries by phone weren't initially explored; to the point that it appeared the Hertz rental website may well have blocked my IP address from further accessing the page.

There was Greyhound, and there was AMTRAK, the latter proved to be the most practical. In the end, the schedule required getting on a Thruway bus at Truckee before 9AM on day of departure, to Sacramento, where a Capitol Corridor train would take me to Emeryville and from there, another Thruway bus to the Ferry Building.  However, in order to make the first bus at the Truckee train depot, it meant getting on the TART bus on the Tahoe north shore by 7AM in order to make the AMTRAK bus by 8:40AM. Still, the window of connection was very narrow so it meant getting on the 6AM TART bus into Truckee, which meant getting up at 5AM, or "zero dark thirty." 

JAMES C. L'ANGELLE

https://plus.google.com/104696872148052829321 2012-08-13T11:04:20.892-07:00 

---

08/13/2012/1218PDT

SOMETHING VERY ASIAN ABOUT CHINATOWN

SAN FRANCISCO--Following all the logistical arrangements, the bus-train connections proved  a cinch and arrival in San Francisco on Friday afternoon, August 10, at the Ferry Building, went according to schedule. The one thing I noticed was the reluctance of passengers to sit next to the gorgeous babes on the trains and buses, that didn't stop me.  From the way they responded, and the fact that there are far more of them taking public transportation, it is now an added incentive to travel by bus and train.

Checking into the Hotel North Beach went without a hitch as well, and after cleaning up in one of the shared bathrooms on the first floor, I was out the door and soon landed in Kerouac Alley. From there, a quick hike across Columbus to the Beat Museum where I paid the $8 cover and toured the museum. It is loaded with artifacts from the days of the Beat generation and I spent a great deal of time recording video on my computer, the files of which became very large so the process had to be shut down.

Next stop was the Cafe Trieste, which turned out to be a big tourist trap and a few hard corps old timers; didn't stay there long and the big redeeming value there is that it's not far from a Bank of the West branch, which was very convenient for funds withdrawal to continue the North Beach exploit.

Inevitably, the road led over to Chinatown via, and onto Grant Avenue, where the real action was. Hundreds upon hundreds shuffled up and down the crowded streets, the markets were jammed with people, the outdoor produce racks stuffed with vegetables, dead, skinned chickens hanging everywhere. And everywhere as well, the Chinese inhabitants, and the stone-faced Asian ladies, all of them inviting and seductive.

It was getting dark and I found myself without a viable link to wi-fi, or any form of internet connection outside the hotel, that is until I came across the Happy Donut next door to the hotel. The wi-fi signal from the hotel worked at the Happy Donut and I found myself drinking quarts of coffee, getting caught up on the details of the wedding coming up on Saturday; and watching in amazement as tourists and locals tried to figure out how I managed to access the web from the Happy Donut. It was simple, I was staying at the Hotel North Beach and I had the access key to the wi-fi.

JAMES C. L'ANGELLE

https://plus.google.com/104696872148052829321 2012-08-13T12:18:11.516-07:00

---

 08/13/2012/2157PDT

SF: NORTH BEACH--"THE HAPPY DONUT"

SAN FRANCISCO --Having paid visit to all the tourist trap North Beach coffee bistros; and looking for the web aficionado's ideal wifi spot, it turned out to be the Happy Donut, next door to the Hotel North Beach.

Hipsters crowding into the place, overrun by tourists? Negative, nobody but a few locals and asians, plenty of room and wifi from the hotel, which requires a key.

Excellent coffee and certainly lives up to its name as the "Happy Donut" with a long glass counter full of all kinds of treats, plus breakfast, on Kearny.

 JAMES C. L'ANGELLE

https://plus.google.com/104696872148052829321 2012-08-13T09:57:43.885-07:00 

---

THE SEARCH FOR A SHIPPER IN SF OBJECTIVE: (Exactly where this fit into the narrative is unclear, so it is included here)

To cut my travel load in half since, with a clean suit, some of the clothes, extra tapes and other items were no longer necessary. This was begun in Chinatown which was just around the corner from the Hotel North Beach on Kearny, even as the crowd began to pour out onto the streets on Saturday morning.

This was in concert with the ongoing effort to find a wedding present other than the usual gift-card, like Starbucks, which seemed a bit impersonal and I thought I could go one step beyond. The original plan, since the newlyweds planned to travel after the ceremony, was to find something useful, such as a compass. Little did I know that in a city famous for sailing and ships, a compass may be the last item found.

In Chinatown, however, amid all the hanging dead chickens and noodles in the food shops; the cheap t-shirts with "I heart San Francisco" and "Alcatraz" on them, along with thousands of uncategorized and uncatalogued trinkets, a compass was the last thing tourists needed. As one shopkeeper put it, "We have GPS." Right, I replied, until the satellite goes haywire.

No need to explain that while Marine officers were lost in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy and looking over a map; I walked by with a compass I'd bought on Catalina Island in Southern California and headed for the main bridge over the big canal without even saluting them as I passed. So much for the Chinaman's world travel experience, he was born and raised on Grant Ave.

Instead of a compass, I settled for a pair of field glasses in a camera shop, since time was running out and the wedding hour fast approaching. It was a small Vivitar that the clerk cut the price in half and then tried to get me to buy a bigger ticket item. I declined, bought the field glasses, (he didn't know what I was talkng about until I called them "binoculars").

Next, it was a matter of gift-wrapping the present. I did manage to locate a small compass on a keychain at the Chinese GPS guy's trinket shop and included that in the gifts for the newlyweds.

In another trinket joint, a Chinese gal found a small red box that had yellow silk lining and the presents fit into the box. She included a Chinese wedding card, so that task was complete and the exit from Chinatown was down some steep street past hundreds of tourists with cheap cameras and cheap t-shirts.

The search for the shipper was on in earnest and forget some Far East Trading Company with impressive credentials dare to lower themselves to packing up some extras and shipping them to Lake Tahoe. They were too busy running guns and drugs to be bothered.

Up and down the streets near the Financial District proved useless. Stopping a weekend UPS delivery man near an Oriental bank, he hadn't a clue where a shipper was. Finally, nearing giving up and deciding to toss the items into the trash, I headed back up Kearny toward the hotel. It was there I found a small shipper with all the right labels on his shop window; UPS, FedEx, etc. However, it was only ten thirty and his shop didn't open until eleven.  Forget that one.. Then across from the Rainbow Cleaners in little Vietnam, in the biggest building on the street, was the main downtown headquarters for FedEx, and the store was open.

Who knows how many times I'd walked past it without looking to see if it was open on the weekend, and it was.

---

MAX BODENHEIM--by Kermit Jaediker--WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, 26 APRIL 1954

 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS--April 26, 1954--By Kermit Jaediker

     (GREENWICH VILLAGE)-- THEY found him with a bullet hole in his chest, while near him lay his wife with four knife wounds in her back. They lay in the stiff and contorted attitudes of violent death in a dirty furnished room loud with the occasional thunder of a passing El train which, when it passes, drowns all sound, including poetry. The windows faced Third Avenue, near 13th street, a few blocks walk from Bohemia, a million miles from it.

He had written:

"I shall walk down the road. I shall turn and feel upon my feet the kisses of Death, like scented rain . . ."

His last road was a walkup, five floors. When he was young, gin was an exhilarant. When he was young, in Bohemia, he could down a pint of it and hike up to the sky. But here in February, when he was 61, with five flights confronting him, gin was a heavy chain around his knees.

"For Death is a black slave with little silver birds perched in a sleeping wreath upon his head. He will tell me, his voice like jewels dropped into a silver bag, how he has tiptoed after me down the road."

But Death, for Maxwell Bodenheim, poet, last of the Bohemians, last of the garret geniuses of Greenwich Village, was not what he had pictured. Death was a gibbering ex-convict, claiming incoherently that he had performed a public good.

     DETECTIVES learned the Bodenheims, down on their luck, had been living in the tiny, unheated room as guests of its occupant, former convict. Harold Weinberg, 26, vagabond dishwasher and expatient of a mental hospital. A widespread manhunt was launched for Weinberg. Detectives ranged through Greenwich Village and delve into Bodenheim's fantastic past. The investigators were told of "sadistic" friends of Bodenheim and of "weird" Village parties he had attended. They were told, too, of men who had detested him. Bodenheim had been a bitter man whose criticism of one young woman's poetry had driven her to suicide, and he had made many enemies as well as friends. But Weinberg emerged as the likeliest suspect of all.

     THE DISHWASHER, when captured, and after a full day of alternately confessing and denying the murders, finally signed a written statement admitting he was the killer. It was learned that Weinberg had given two explanations for the murders. In one he made love to Mrs. Bodenheim while the poet slept in a gin-soaked stupor. Bodenheim awakened and furiously protested. Weinberg shot him dead, then knifed Mrs. Bodenheim to get rid of the only witness.

In the other Version, Weinberg said he shot Bodenheim because he was a Commie. Bodenheim was capable of soaring verse and immense stupidities, and one-of his stupidities was a crackpot espousal of Communism. The grinning, wild - eyed killer was led into court, and shouted that he should be given credit, rather than jail, for ridding the world of  ''two Communist rats! " He sang a line from the Star-Spangled 'Banner while he saluted the flag behind the bench. Then he whirled and asked the packed courtroom, "Don't I look Sane?" He was ordered committed to Bellevue Hospital for mental observation.

     MEANTIME, the poet was buried. That night the men who frequent the San Remo bar in Greenwich Village drank a toast in gin to the passing of Bodenheim. They drank, not only to the end of a poet, but the-end of. an era. This was the brawling, creative era of the 1920's. when Greenwich Village was truly Bohemia, and not the pallid ghost it is today. Bodenheim was a hand- some man with blonde hair, no formal education but a fine gift for imagery and an incurable zest for rebellion. In Chicago, where such poets as Carl Sandburg and Ezra Pound were working, Bodenheim pitched into a literary revolt that was sweeping America. He teamed up with Ben Hecht and founded the Chicago Times. Perhaps to show his contempt for the conventional, he sported a red beard. His first volume of verse, "Minna and Myself," came out. Its inspiration was his first wife, Minna Schein, whom he married in 1918. They were divorced later.

     HE MOVED East, to the Village, where he was an instantaneous hit. He had all the requirements talent, an unwavering conviction that he was a genius, a good capacity for drink and a knack for producing money out of nowhere. The Village was famous for that. Finally, Bodenheim turned to novels. Sex always a sale- able topic, permeated his work. His "Replenishing Jessica," a study of the sex life of a young girl, was a sensation. John S. Sumner, then head of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, had Bodenheim and his publisher brought into court on the ground that the book was "filthy." However, they were acquitted. In all, Bodenheim wrote 13 novels, including "Naked on Roller Skates", and "Sixty Seconds." Some of them were best sellers. But he could never hold onto a buck. It just wouldn't become him, as a Bohemian.

     HE WAS amiable and sometimes brutal. Two women committed suicide because of him. and a third at- tempted suicide. Virginia Drew, a 22-year-old beauty who wanted to be a poet and author, showed him some of her work, for he had become and arbiter in such matters. He told her callously that she was "wasting a lot of time on "sentimental slush" and advised her to give up writing. She said she "didn't want to live if I can't write." She was telling the truth. Next morning her body was fished out of the river. Gladys Loeb, 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, also aspired to become a poet. Bodenheim, her idol, told her she was writing trash. She sought death by the gas route, but police broke into her Village apartment and saved her. Clutched in her hand was a photograph of Bodenheim. Aimee Cortez, an artist's model known as the "Mayoress of Greenwich Village" was reportedly madly infatuated with Bodenheim. One day she was found dead in her gas-filled flat. Another girl. Dorothy Dear, was killed in a subway wreck while on her way to meet the poet. Among her effects were half a dozen love letters he had written her. Here is an excerpt:

"Did you ever walk on a cobweb stretched between the horns of a crescent moon? Or wrap yourself in flowered silence and deride the presence of lust?

"Or use a fantastic indifference to make horizons stand still. Or shield yourself with a smile from furtively vulgar men?"

If she could pass such tests, he said she should write him at once "and we may grow to like each other."

     IN THE 1930's, Bodenheim began hitting the skids. His weakness for strong drink increased and he was finally diagnosed as alcoholic. Two years ago, seven men were arrested in a roundup of common vagrants sleeping on the subways. One of them was Maxwell Bodenheim. The tragedy was almost spun out. But there was still a greater depth for him to fall to. Only the day he died, detectives searching the murder room found a sign and a tin cup. "I am blind," the sign said, but Bodenheim was not blind, not until the bullet brought him darkness, the darkness of Death of whom he had written-

"He will graze me with his hands, and I shall be one of the sleeping, silver birds between the cold waves of his hair, as he tiptoes on."

CHARLESTON GAZETTE--April 8, 1954

     NEW YORK (INS)--Harold Weinberg, who killed Greenwich Village poet Maxwell Bodenheim and his wife in a shabby Bowery rooming house, was declared legally insane today. Two Bellevue Hospital psychiatrists reported that the 26-year-old vagrant was suffering schizophrenia (withdrawal from reality) with delusions of persecution.

     He was ordered committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, at Beacon, N.Y. Weinberg shot Bodenheim and stabbed the poet's third wife, Ruth, to death last Sept. 7 in what apparently was a frenzied quarrel over the woman's attentions.

He had invited Ruth and Bodenheim--literary idol of Greenwich Village's "Little Bohemia" in the 1920s--to his furnished room, just off the Bowery, after he found them wandering homeless and destitute. Captured nearly a month later in a lower East Side basement, Weinberg ranted wildly that he deserved a medal for killing "two Communist rats" and denounced the judge at a preliminary hearing as a Red.

The confessed killer was admitted to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric treatment when he was six years old. Later he entered a state mental hospital, and after his release compiled a police record in various parts of the country. 

(Images) 

The Bodenheims: Buffalo Evening News, 08 February 1954, page 8.

Harold Weinberg: New York Daily News, 09 February 1954, page 3.

---

CHARLIE CHAN, BEATNIKS & SAMOANS

04 February 2018

ANTHROPOLOGY 281/1005--Week Three Assignment--CHARLIE CHAN, BEATNIKS & SAMOANS  

ANTH 281-1005

Dr. J Ferguson
University of Nevada, Reno
Spring 2018

Politeness--Involvement/Restraint

 

    Heard all too often today is the expression “Thank you so much”, and in many cases the fine line of ambiguity between polite and sarcastic (restrained)  is often blurred. Suffice it to say that the expression may not have originated in the English language at all and can be attributed cross-culturally to Sidney Toler’s role as “Charlie Chan” in his many portrayals as the Chinese detective in the late 30’s and early 40’s

  

     Three Different Contextual Representations of the Same Thing:

 

    Although the following doesn’t necessarily represent a plea, apology or excuse, it is nonetheless and example of a bona-fide contextual interpretation of a given expression:

   Whether it was Kerouac, Kaufman, Ginsburg or Caen who came up with the phrase,  “The Beat Generation” (and its  derivative “beatnik”)  meant many things to different people. To Post-Korean War veterans, the term meant “beaten”, weary, over-it-all. The jazz musicians of the 50’s era indirectly considered it a reference to their particular unique style of music. Still others considered it an envied lifestyle, replete with its own brand of dress, poetry, culture and language.

     

 

Samoan vs. American Greetings Comparisons:

 

     It is clear there is a more formal hierarchy of greetings in Samoan culture as exemplified by the lack of consideration for children in the community. What wasn’t made clear in the Duranti article was another of his works, “Linguistic Anthropology, A Reader” (Blackwell Publishing, 2009). Here, Duranti editorializes the Benjamin Bailey article on “interethnic” communication in a Culver City Korean store. The encounters were between the Korean store owner, other Koreans and African-Americans and referred to the above involvement-restraint politeness service encounters between them. In the Samoan observations, the encounters were not cross-cultural and therefore lacked a genuine base of comparison except within the circle of the community.

IOWA CAUCUS 2020

 

---

IMMEDIATE RELEASE//ATTN CD@TACNET//VIAJXC//AMBUSHPATROL//UNCLASSIFIED

---

IOWACAUCUS--Bernie Sanders & Vietnam----

BAD BLOOD WITH DES MOINES REGISTER

26 January 2020

"...The Des Moines Register's problem with Bernie is a problem with his deterrent strategy..." 

     (The Den @ UNR)--In late December of 1971, just weeks before the US Senate special election in Vermont, Sanders composed a message to the 16 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) who occupied the Statue of Liberty;
      " Young men of this country have shed enough blood for the corporation heads and the politicians. Bring the troops home now. Let's return to the ideals symbolized by the Statue of Liberty." (Rutland Daily Herald)
    At the time, Sanders was a candidate for the Liberty Union Party, left wing, socialist, anti-war. The VVAW occupation lasted two days.

     Much fuss has been raised about candidate for President, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and his historical "anti-war" posture. Yesterday's endorsement of  Senator Elizabeth Warren ( D-MA) for President by the Des Moines Register didn't just happen overnight. Note the actual "Reservation(s)" filed by the editorial board over Bernie's anything but hawkish sentiment for armed conflict;
     "His rhetoric is so anti-interventionist that one wonders whether he would recognize times when military action is justified as a deterrent." (Deterrent, DM Register)
     This isn't the first time Bernie's patriotism has been brought into question by the DM Register. In August, 2015, Steve Wikert published an opinion piece in the Iowa newspaper questioning Bernie's ability to be CINC if he registered as a conscientious objector during Viet Nam;
     "...he refused to do military service because he was a conscientious objector. He did so to avoid having to serve his country in the Vietnam War. Soon after he turned 26, too old to be drafted, and no longer needed ways to avoid the draft." (Wikert, DM Register)
     Wikert draws an inference that being a conscientious objector is just an excuse to get out of being drafted, including a formal definition in his article. When asked way back in 1971 about his decision to not go to the war, Bernie, while a member of the Liberty Union Party, had a completely different response to Greg Gum. It was during his campaign for US Senate and published in the Bennington Banner;
   
     "Obviously you haven't been listening to me. Do you know what the movement is? Have you read the books? Are you against the war in Vietnam?"
     "But what do you think?" was the reply from myself. "You're an individual, not a movement."
     "You don't understand. It's the movement that's important. Are you for it? If you're not, I don't want your vote." (Bennington Banner)
     Bernie never really came out and stated he was anti-war, a conscientious objector or a draft dodger in the interview, deflecting the question to emphasis on the "movement."  In the January, 1972 special election, he placed third with 2% of the vote. (Wikipedia)

     In yet another view during his campaign for US Senate in '71, Sanders again makes no mention of his individual status but refers to an idealistic proposal on Vietnam;
   
"Q. Do you favor President Nixon's wind-down of U.S participation in the Vietnam war? What different action would you favor taking, if any, and how would you do it?

A.  My position on Vietnam is to bring the troops home tomorrow, to institute a commission of national inquiry to find out who the people were who got us into the war, and why. The Vietnam war decision was made by less than 2,000 people, the average man or student had noting to say about it."
(Vietnam, Burlington Free Press)
     Again, there is no apparent reference to his personal status, just his political viewpoint, which is rather naïve and by military standards, not practical. It also might be noted that there doesn't appear to be any reference to Sanders before 1971 in archived newspapers with respect to Vietnam or his personal status.
     Sanders challenged his opponent in the special election, Robert Stafford, a Republican, to use his influence on the renewed bombing of the North;

     "If Robert Stafford is opposed to this war, he should use his influence in the Republican party to having the bombing halted immediately.: (Bombing, Bennington Banner)
     Again, the idealistic, unrealistic Sanders voiced an opinion that showed little or no understanding of military strategy at all; also with no reference to his personal feelings as a conscientious objector. The pattern is repetitive whereby the candidate deflected his status, involvement as a would-be soldier, to issues concerning defense that have little practical input. How would the Pentagon go about an "immediate" halt to the bombing; what about leverage at the Paris Peace talks? The naivete, genuine or otherwise, might be acceptable for a stoned Haight-Ashbury hippie but certainly not from a candidate for US Senate during the extremely polarized Vietnam Era politics. In fact, all the candidates for the special election opposed the bombing, including Stafford. (Candidates, Battleboro Reformer)

     Stafford polled 45K plus votes, Major close to 24K and Bernie at third in just under 1600 votes. "Less than thirty percent of the registered voters cast ballots."  (The Lowell Sun)
     The Des Moines Register's problem with Bernie is a problem with his deterrent strategy, which by definition can be found anywhere across the internet to be as nebulous as conventional strategy. For the DM Register, like Bernie deflecting his early career responses on his war objection status, to issue a blanket statement on it as a reason for non-endorsement, does not qualify it as an editorial opinion and should not be considered as a reason to vote for the opponent.

Further Reading

Des Moines Register Cancels Release of Final Iowa Poll

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The results of the highly anticipated Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll will not be released as expected Saturday night. According to a statement by Des Moines Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter, "A respondent raised an issue with the way the survey was administered, which could have compromised the results of the poll."

Sources
VVAW & Statue of Liberty, Rutland Daily Journal, 28 Dec, 1971, Page 16  (newspapers.com)
Deterrent, DM Register,
VVAW logo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War#/media/File:VVAW-logo.jpg
Endorsements, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2020/01/26/assessments-other-democrats-president-register-editorial-board-endorsement/4562162002/
Wikert, DM Register, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/caucus/2015/08/26/sanders-commander-chief-vietnam-war-veteran/32404645/
Bennington Banner,  Saturday, 11 Dec 1971, Page 4. (newspapers.com)
1972 Special Election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Union_Party#cite_note-9
Vietnam, Burlington Free Press, 24 Nov 1971, Page 7 (newspapers.com)
Bombing, Bennington Banner, Wednesday, 29 Dec 1979, Page 16 (newspapers.com)
Bombing, Battleboro Reformer, 30 Dec 1971, Page 1 (newspapers.com)
Votes, The Lowell (MA) Sun, 08 Jan 1972, Page 8, (newspapers.com)

---

IMMEDIATE RELEASE///@CD/TACNET VIA JC//AMBUSH//EOC//UNCLASSIFIED

---

IOWACAUCUS---The Des Moines Register Endorsement---

AFTERBATH & SHELL SHOCK

26 January 2020

This Just In--

#IOWACAUCUS--Bernie Sanders & Vietnam----BAD BLOOD WITH DES MOINES REGISTER

IMMEDIATE RELEASE//ATTN CD@TACNET//VIAJXC//AMBUSHPATROL//UNCLASSIFIED "...The Des Moines Register's problem with Bernie is a problem with his deterrent strategy..." (The Den @ UNR)--In late December of 1971, just weeks before the US Senate special election in Vermont, Sanders composed a message to the 16 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) who occupied the Statue of Liberty; " Young men of this country have shed enough blood for the corporation heads and the politicians.

"...now an entirely different story about shell-shocked WIAs is hitting the wire..."    

      (The Den @ UNR)--The results are in, the news is out, and the editorial board has decided, here are the highlights of who didn't get the call--

     Joe Biden lacks "specific expertise" on income inequality issues and doesn't have a bold enough vision.  Mayor Buttigieg doesn't have enough experience having headed a city the "size of Davenport," the Davenport people must love that one. Amy Klobuchar stereotyped as "Midwest" pragmatist.  Steyer  is just "another billionaire businessman with no prior experience" while Yang has no experience at all. The board mentions Harris and Booker as dropouts but doesn't mention Bloomberg, he may not be running in Iowa. It could at least have given him a sentence as to being another one of those bored billionaires with nothing to do but buy the government. What about Bernie, the poll favorite?
     He failed to impress the board over at least two issues, his party-jumping out of convenience (in order to stay in the running) and military intervention. Declaring himself a Democrat after having been an Independent for so long seemed out of character and certainly out of favor. But the other one is an issue and one that no one, not even the Des Moines Register editorial board can foresee, how to stay out of foreign entanglements. It might be noted that Warren switched parties in 1996 (Wikipedia)

Endorsement: What intrigued us and what gave us pause about the other Democrats

CLOSE Because of the many well-qualified candidates, the editorial board is sharing its thoughts about other candidates in the hope that it might prove useful as Iowans weigh their choices. Editor's note: Register endorsement editorials generally focus on the candidates the editorial board endorses, rather than those it does not.

     How does the endorsement favor Warren? Having it  released before the caucus will undoubtedly give her a boost as only recently, she's tanked in the polls. None of that was brought to light and the why needs to be addressed, not just because another candidate rose. How does the non-endorsement favor Bernie, currently the leader in the most recent Iowa DM Register poll? If anything, his stand on keeping the troops out of quagmires might well play in his favor, by mere mention that "military action is justified as a deterrent" is certainly bordering on a hawkish stance for the Register. There is little proof that engaging in deterrent strategy will prevent war and it may well become a major issue in light of recent bungling in the Middle East.
      Note for instance not just the tragic shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner over Tehran, but now we are discovering that there were indeed serious injuries in the retaliatory missile attack on US bases in Iraq;

US says 34 troops suffered traumatic brain injury in Iran strikes on Iraqi base

The Pentagon disclosed Friday that 34 US service members had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury following Iran's missile strikes on an Iraqi base earlier this month, a number higher than the military had previously announced. The revelation belies US President Donald Trump's initial claim that no Americans were harmed in the attack.

     Initial bragging out of the White House was the troops at the base had plenty of time to hit the bunkers and now an entirely different story about shell-shocked WIAs is hitting the wire. Senator Warren, it is also noted, was a co-sponsor of the bill to halt adventurism in the Middle East, the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2019, (S-1039) .

     It was initially created by Tom Udall (D-NM) and had 29 others sign on. Bernie was in early on March 4, 2019. Senator Warren didn't sign on until May 05, after at least half of the other co-sponsors had already given the OK. (S-1039, congress.gov)  Does this give a lean to the "hawkish" slant referred to in the deterrent strategy nuance of the editorial board? Possibly. In other words, Senator Warren had to be nudged into the non-intervention bill even as Sanders came in fifth behind Paul, Durbin, Leahy and Feinstein, all seasoned vets who had been "there" before.
     Whether the DM Register endorsement will have any effect on those who have already made up their mind, only Punxsutawney Phil knows; but one thing is for certain, you give up first place it's hard to get it back, even with newspaper cheerleaders.

Further Reading

Veterans of Foreign Wars demands apology from Trump for downplaying brain injuries from Iranian attack

CNN 6 hrs ago By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN The Veterans of Foreign Wars is demanding that President Donald Trump apologize for downplaying traumatic brain injuries sustained by US service members in Iraq after Iranian missile strikes on American troops earlier this month.

More than 1,000 anti-war demonstrators march in downtown San Francisco

A crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered in front of tourists on cable cars at Market and Powell streets Saturday for an anti-war march and march to Union Square.

Sources

DM Register,  https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2020/01/26/assessments-other-democrats-president-register-editorial-board-endorsement/4562162002/
Warren Party-Jump, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Elizabeth_Warren
S-1039, https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1039/cosponsors?q={%22search%22:[%22s+1039%22]}&r=1&s=2&searchResultViewType=expanded&KWICView=false
Trench photo from "1917," https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/
..

---

IMMEDIATE RELEASE///ATTN@CDR VIA-TACNET///W/RF2JCL//AMBUSH//UNCLASSIFIED--

---

GROUNDHOGDAY & #IOWACAUCUS--

Punxsutawney Phil's Campaign Predictions--EXCLUSIVE LEAKED REPORT    23 January 2020

This Just In ( 01.25.20/1630PST):   DM Register Endorses Warren:

#IOWACAUCUS---The Des Moines Register Endorsement---AFTERBATH & SHELL SHOCK

IMMEDIATE RELEASE///@CD/TACNET VIA JC//AMBUSH//EOC//UNCLASSIFIED "...now an entirely different story about shell-shocked WIAs is hitting the wire..." (The Den @ UNR)--The results are in, the news is out, and the editorial board has decided, here are the highlights of who didn't get the call-- Joe Biden lacks "specific expertise" on income inequality issues and doesn't have a bold enough vision.

     (The Den@UNR)--Countdown has already begun for two important events the first week of February and EOC has just been given the inside scoop on who's not going to see their shadow in Des Moines.  Punxsutawney Phil is expected to announce the official winner(s) of the Iowa Caucus the day before but word has already leaked out from sources close to the event, remaining anonymous for security purposes. The source has also explained the methodology used to arrive at the conclusion.

     Beginning with the most recent poll of the Democratic candidates, the graph at The Des Moines Register places Senator Sanders in the pole position, making a dramatic comeback following a crash and burn back in March of last year, and didn't begin a recovery until September. What precipitated this dramatic fall, as seen in the graph, was probably related to news stories circulating at the time.

     The first week of March, Sanders filed to run as a Democrat and an Independent, as reported by Domenico Montanaro  at NPR;
     "The new DNC rules state that a candidate must 'be a bona fide Democrat whose record of public service, accomplishment, public writings, and/or public statements affirmatively demonstrates that the candidate is faithful to the interests, welfare, and success of the Democratic Party of the United States'." (NPR)

     Bernie found himself in trouble over that very issue during his most recent re-election to Congress for Vermont. In 2018, for the US Senate, he took 94 percent of the vote against Folasade Adeluola, who claimed Bernie party-jumped to retain his seat, Jack Thurston reported for NBC Boston;
     "NBC 10 Boston and necn (sp?) obtained the formal complaint Adeluola filed this week with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office, in which she alleges Sanders is trying to 'game' the system—claiming his 'pattern of infidelity' to the Vermont Democratic Party has corrupted the process." (NBC)
    A month later, an article published in Forbes  by reporter Chase Peterson-Withorn reflected the so-called "Socialist Senator's" finances, certainly not one as to what would be expected;
     "Sanders, 77, has, in fact, amassed an estimated $2.5 million fortune from real estate, investments, government pensions—and earnings from three books, including the 2016 hit Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. 'I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.' " (Forbes)
     Marx would be furious to hear how the Senator exploited the capitalist system while professing himself a champion of the underdog (or is that underhog?). Either way, such nuances in his character certainly could not have helped his campaign a great deal and throughout the summer, it struggled with Iowans.
     Politico had all but given Bernie up for the man in the shadows by September but he did something nobody expected, he did what George McGovern did in '72, he made Iowa a priority;
     "(WEST LIBERTY, Iowa) — Bernie Sanders was on the final leg of a barnstorming tour through Iowa last week that he hoped would persuade voters he’s the best candidate to take on President Donald Trump. He had crisscrossed the state at typical breakneck speed, visiting, in two days, five counties that had thrown their lot in with Trump after helping put Barack Obama in the White House." (Politico)
      It worked, his graph went north while everyone else's went south. He currently leads in Iowa and as the Groundhog would predict, he will win the caucus. Although Liz Warren spiked about the time Bernie had his heart attack, it became hers to lose and she did. The senior citizens in the race have vowed to release their medical records to show they are fit to be President, but that was back in September and there is no indication it has happened. As age became an issue, so did gender with criticism falling on whether a woman could make the grade as CEO of the USA. Most of that is already old news. Kit Norton reported in VT Digger of some other seemingly inconsequential news events regarding the Sanders effort that went unnoticed, at least until he became the frontrunner in Iowa. (VT Digger)

    But Bernie's real boost came, according to Punxsutawney Phil, when the White House announced that Senator Sanders was the front runner in Iowa, as reported by Kristen Fisher and Alex Pappas in Fox News;
     "President Trump’s re-election campaign is deeming Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders the indisputable frontrunner in the Democratic primary, as polling shows the Democratic socialist rising in Iowa just weeks before the caucuses kick off the nominating season.
'There is no mistaking that Bernie Sanders has to be considered the frontrunner now,' a senior Trump campaign official told Fox News on Monday." (Fox News)
     Although it is unclear just who the official was that made the statement, the spectre of defeat in the minds of the other candidates cannot be hidden in the shadow of Phil as the clock ticks down to Groundhog Day. The polls are bearing it out, the opposition has sanctioned it and now it is up to Punxsutawney Phil to formally announce it.
     What's in store for the losers? Nothing more than to be endlessly living the same day over and over again until they finally get it right.

Further Reading

AOC and Michael Moore urge Iowa voters not to 'play it safe' as they stand in for Sanders

Two of Bernie Sanders's highest-profile allies, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, filled in for him on the campaign trail Friday night, speaking to a rally here at the University of Iowa, as the Vermont senator participated in the impeachment trial

#IOWACAUCUS---NY Times Endorsements-- AGE-GENDER DOUBLE STANDARD

IMMEDIATE RELEASE///ATTN CD@TACNET FWD//CMD//BVIA JCL//UNCLASSIFIED Suddenly, it's all for a woman to be Commander-in-Chieftess, and Ms. POTUS. (The Den)--Only one time since the turn of the last century and its endorsement of William McKinley in 1900 has The New York Times endorsed a woman for president, and that was Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Sources
Wiki Phil, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil
Des Moines Poll, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2020/01/12/election-2020-iowa-caucuses-how-candidates-have-performed-iowa-poll/4433074002/
Loyalty Oath, https://www.npr.org/2019/03/04/700121429/bernie-sanders-files-to-run-as-a-democrat-and-an-independent
Party-jumping, https://eyelessoncampus.blogspot.com/2020/01/iowacaucus-ny-times-endorsements-age.html
Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2019/04/12/how-bernie-sanders-the-socialist-senator-amassed-a-25-million-fortune/#2b5697cc36bf
Barnstorming, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/30/bernie-sanders-2020-election-decline-228755
Other Events, https://vtdigger.org/2019/09/19/bernies-bid-2020-sanders-shakes-up-staff-and-schedule/
Front Runner, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-campaign-dubs-bernie-sanders-the-new-dem-frontrunner
Phil Photo, https://visitpago.com/bucket-list-experience-groundhog-day-in-punxsutawney/
Bill Murray Photo, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/groundhog-day-at-25-bill-murray-1202691391/

---

IMMEDIATE RELEASE///ATTN CD@TACNET FWD//CMD//BVIA JCL//UNCLASSIFIED

---

IOWACAUCUS---NY Times Endorsements-- AGE-GENDER DOUBLE STANDARD--

20 January 2020

     Suddenly, it's all for a woman to be Commander-in-Chieftess, and Ms. POTUS. 

     (The Den)--Only one time since the turn of the last century and its endorsement of William McKinley in 1900  has The New York Times endorsed a woman for president, and that was Hillary Clinton in 2016. She lost to President Trump. Some of the more predominant endorsements are listed below. Note also that all of them came in late, just a few weeks prior to the general election with Senator Clinton's being the earliest, in September as opposed to the late October endorsements for the others.
      Clearly exploiting the recent flap between candidates Warren and Sanders over the electability of a woman to the Oval Office, the Times editorial board also came under recent criticism from front runner Joe Biden over his age, as reported by Naomi Lim in The Washington Examiner last week;
     "Joe Biden playfully accused The New York Times of pedaling ageism when its editorial board pressed him on whether there was a need for an upper age limit on the presidency.
     'I think you guys are engaging in ageism here,' Biden, 77, told the outlet. 'Now, look: All kidding aside, I don’t think they’re — the voters — will be able to make a judgment. You’ll make a judgment whether or not you think I have all my cognitive capability, I’m physically capable, and I have the energy to do the job. ' " (Washington Examiner)

     With respect to the Times Board of Directors, of the twelve, only three are women, most if not all are younger than VP Biden. Overlooked in the age-gender flap is timing of the endorsements. Not just for the sake of taking a stand on the gender issue in the race is one of early caucuses and primaries, the Times hoping to influence them sooner, rather than later. The endorsements of Warren and Klobuchar are designed to influence votes even before the conventions that usually come in late summer. The first, the Iowa caucus, is just around the corner where polls show the oddball Bernie Sanders in the lead and a recent announcement by Team Trump that Bernie is the man to beat in Des Moines. Emily Larsen reports for The Washington Examiner as to the decision by the Times editorial board;
     "...the New York Times editorial board announced that it could not decide between two choices for Democratic presidential nominee, one on the left, the other a centrist." (Examiner)

     The Times also makes a grandstand statement about "may the best woman win," if that is the case, why did the newspaper endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008? (Wikipedia) Two theories could account for this, one is genderism versus ethnicity, the other is expediency, neither offers a quality explanation. In fact, the 2008 race had but just one female contender, Senator Clinton. President Obama went unopposed in the next election. The 2020 campaign is in reality the first major test of the opportunity for a woman to become president, whether Bernie agrees with it or not. One ironic twist to all of this was that Sarah Palin ran on the McCain ticket in '08, when the Times editorial board had an opportunity to cheer a woman for the executive branch, but passed. Suddenly, it's all for a woman to be Commander-in-Chieftess, and Ms. POTUS.
     If the local paper is any indication of just how insignificant the NY Times endorsement is, The Des Moines Register on its page related to candidate backing, makes no mention of it. However, Senator Warren did get the go ahead from the Storm Lake Times on December 11th. (DM Register)

     In the ever shifting world of presidential candidate politics, just how far the runners can play the age-gender cards has yet to be seen. Is Joe Biden correct, that at his age, he can still do more pushups than the overweight heckler at a recent rally? Is Bernie spot on when he says Warren is just not qualified because she's the wrong sex? Joan Summers on Jezebel thinks Joe is good for at least 25 pushups. (Jezebel) Bernie has had female opponents in the past in his home state of Vermont, in his bids for mayor, governor and the senate.
     In 1986, according to his electoral history at Wikipedia, Bernie was crushed by Madeleine M. Kunin when he ran on the Independent ticket; he did win in '83 and '85 for the Burlington mayor's job against women. In 2018, for the US Senate, he took 94 percent of the vote against Folasade Adeluola, who claimed Bernie party-jumped to retain his seat, Jack Thurston reported for NBC Boston;
     "NBC 10 Boston and necn (sp?) obtained the formal complaint Adeluola filed this week with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office, in which she alleges Sanders is trying to 'game' the system—claiming his 'pattern of infidelity' to the Vermont Democratic Party has corrupted the process." (NBC)
     Obviously confident after crushing his most recent female opponent, Bernie might have certainly extrapolated the conclusion that women simply do not belong in the White House, especially running in the same campaign against him, but that isn't the issue.
     It's OK for the media to decide what is age-worthy and gender-worthy for a candidate, but not for the candidate to decide. Combine that with the Times' early, more like still-born, thumbs up votes for two women candidates, prior to the first signs of Bernie pulling ahead in Des Moines, motive enters and appears to be:
    The Times has that same uneasy feeling about Bernie that Team Trump has; he's a threat, shades of McGovern, using Nixonesque strategy to undermine his campaign even before it starts. But as in the anti-endorsement last week when Team Trump acknowledged Bernie as the front runner in Iowa, the Times now finds it has only made his position stronger by placing legitimacy on the enemy before the first battle has even been fought.

Further Reading:

Register editorial board to announce caucus endorsement at 6 p.m. Saturday

Before the announcement, here's a quick explanation of who's doing the endorsing and why it's being done. The Des Moines Register's editorial board will announce its endorsement for Iowa's Democratic Party presidential caucuses at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25. The caucuses, the first presidential nominating contest in the nation ahead of November's general election, are Feb.

Amid sexism spat, Sanders says his age and Warren's gender are both problems

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire - Bernie Sanders made a comparison Sunday between the challenges women face in politics today and his running for president at the age of 78 as the Democratic presidential candidate continues to face questions over his recent feud with Elizabeth Warren on sexism in politics.

NY Times Endorsements in recent campaigns,

George McGovern, Oct 22, 1972
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/mcgovern-1972.pdf
Walter Mondale, Oct 28, 1984
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/1984-mondale.pdf
Michael Dukakis (D-  )   Oct 30, 1988
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/dukakis-1988.pdf
Bill Clinton,  Oct 25, 1992
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/1992-clinton.pdf
Al Gore,   Oct 29, 2000
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/2000-gore.pdf
John Kerry,   Oct 17, 2004
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/kerry-2004.pdf
Barack Obama,  Oct 23, 2008
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24fri1.html
Hillary Clinton,  Sept 24, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html
Complete List
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/23/opinion/presidential-endorsement-timeline.html


Sources
Ageism, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-chides-new-york-times-for-coverage-of-older-candidates-i-bike-treadmill-and-i-lift
NYT Directors, https://www.nytco.com/board-of-directors/
Examiner, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-times-endorses-warren-and-klobuchar-in-democratic-primary
2008 campaign, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election
DM Register, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/search/warren%20endorsement/
Jezebel, https://theslot.jezebel.com/how-many-push-ups-do-we-think-joe-biden-can-do-1840249718
Pushups, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/12xwqq/joe_biden_doing_pushups_with_little_girls/
Party jump, https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/defeated-opponent-folasade-adeluola-claims-bernie-sanders-games-vt-primaries/137581/
Iowa caucus image, https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Iowa-Democrats-deploying-early-check-in-option-for-2020-caucus-566284311.html

---

EXCLUSIVE TO @EOC///ATTN//JCL//UNR//14J2020//RUSH DELIVERY..

---

IOWACAUCUSES--Bernie and the McGovern Parallel--AN OPERATIONAL POTENTIAL PARADIGM  13 January 2020


"..Well, there are caucuses in Iowa, but nobody pays attention to them....."  Gary Hart for Team McGovern, 1972

      (The Den)---Closely resembling a pattern from the 1972 election, candidate Bernie Sanders rises to the occasion, similar to that followed by George McGovern. Issue driven with war and palace intrigue on the debate platform, the opposition, Team Trump, just announced Bernie as the newly designated Twitter target, reported by Kristin Fisher and Alex Pappas at Fox news;
     "President Trump’s re-election campaign is deeming Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders the indisputable frontrunner in the Democratic primary, as polling shows the Democratic socialist rising in Iowa just weeks before the caucuses kick off the nominating season." (Fox)

Trump campaign dubs Bernie Sanders the new Dem 'frontrunner'

President Trump's re-election campaign is deeming Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders the indisputable frontrunner in the Democratic primary, as polling shows the Democratic socialist rising in Iowa just weeks before the caucuses kick off the nominating season. "There is no mistaking that Bernie Sanders has to be considered the frontrunner now," a senior Trump campaign official told Fox News on Monday.

     What better endorsement can a candidate get than being promoted in the field by the enemy without having even fought a battle?  It also tells a great deal about Team Trump and its intel reports, it appears the President is determined to stay in office in spite of all of his current troubles. The inside report comes over Bernie's Iran posture;
     "It just so happened that for a long time Joe Biden was a gaffe a minute and we focused a lot on him. But this whole episode with Iran revealed just how dangerous [Sanders] would be if he were somehow to become president.”
     That process of "somehow" becoming president is known as a free election. Why the comparison to the 1972 affair with George McGovern?  It has to do with the Iowa Caucuses and how it became the launchpad  Joshua Mound has it right in the New Republic;
     "For the past 40 years, whenever a Democratic presidential hopeful has given off the slightest whiff of leftish anti-establishmentarianism, party leaders and mainstream pundits have invoked McGovern’s name. In 2004, Howard Dean was the new McGovern. In 2008, Barack Obama became the new McGovern. This year, it’s Bernie Sanders’s turn." (New Republic)

What Democrats Still Don't Get About McGovern

Anthony Korody/Getty Images The party took all the wrong lessons from his landslide loss to Richard Nixon in '72. A specter is haunting the Democratic Party-"McGovernism." In 1972, President Richard Nixon shellacked his Democratic opponent, George McGovern, by a 23-point margin in the popular vote.

     Mound appears to attribute the Goldwater loss to Goldwater himself and forgetting he ran against LBJ, but the comparison was made with reference to the Nixon-McGovern landslide for the Republicans. That was because, as Mound correctly suggests, the Nixon camp astutely recognized the operational potential of the McGovern camp;
     "To the surprise of nearly everyone outside of the McGovern campaign itself, the strategy worked. In confidential memos, the Nixon reelection campaign called the George Wallace and McGovern efforts 'the only two smart campaigns.' McGovern, in particular, worried Nixon’s advisers because his 'class appeal' was 'pinning the adjective ‘rich’ to Republicans.' McGovern had been 'badly underestimated' and was 'potentially very dangerous to the President,' the Nixon analysis concluded."
     That strategy was, of course, appealing to the Average Joe in America. So it wasn't necessarily that McGovern had this great charisma, like JFK, but that his machine was well oiled, experienced, and veterans of prior failed campaigns. Then George did what Bernie said he isn't going to do, make a "white guy" his running mate, and certainly not an old one at that;
     "Sanders called choosing someone to round out his hypothetical ticket 'a little bit premature,' but he did say the person 'will not be an old white guy.' The 78-year-old Sanders said he believes in diversity and promised his cabinet 'will look like what America looks like,' adding that 'the country is long overdue for the kind of diversity that we're going to bring to the White House.' " (The Week)
     It doesn't matter that McGovern placed second in the '72 Iowa caucus, it mattered that he placed second. Pundits will argue that it was Carter in '76 that "revolutionized" the caucus, but as Robert Sam Anson reflects in Vanity Fair, it was the McGovern team that set the standard;
     “ 'How ’bout asking for money in this thing?'  He said, 'Well, I don’t know about that.' Long story short, I convinced him to let me put some requests for money in, and with a New York ad man named Tom Collins, I came up with the kind of letter I knew would sell anything. It was seven pages, probably the longest letter in direct-mail history." (Vanity Fair)

     That was Morris Dees who became part of the McGovern machine along with Gary Hart and Rick Stearns. The mailer raised $300K in 10 days. It was Hart who suggested Iowa and the team moved there to take on Ed Muskie. Point man was Doug Coulter, a Special Forces recon man out of the war;
     "We didn’t take donations, took stamps for mailings, lived out of petty cash, and slept on people’s floors."
     Although Andrew Busch skips ove the Iowa caucus in his book Outsiders and Openness in the Presidential Nominating System, he does make one important point about the method to the McGovern madness;
     "In students, in housewives, so much of their time is their own, the Movement seemed to have developed the manpower equivalent of the old patronage rolls of machine politics. The new political leisure class could man telephones or hit the doorsteps with bodies and skills that overwhelmed bot the numbers and the quality of their competitors within the old party" (Outsiders)
     Forty-eight years later, another long-shot with Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder's odds probably in line with that of McGovern's, is set to engage the big-money candidates in Des Moines.  The similarities are striking even if the Democrats themselves are clueless.
     (Article in continuous development)

Further Reading:

What's on Iowans' minds as Democratic presidential candidates head into Tuesday's debate?

CLOSE Iowans, with unmatched access to presidential candidates, have a few things on their minds. Caucusgoers in the first-in-the-nation state have been thinking about presidential candidates' stances on three key issues: Health care, climate change and education, according to extensive Des Moines Register reporting and data from Iowa Polls of likely Democratic caucusgoers.

What's missing here" Possibly the immense pressure Iowa farmers faced only last year when the administration slapped tariffs on China, all but destroying the markets for agricultural crops throughout the state.  That was before the weather hit. Health care, climate change? Des Moines Register)_

Sources
Fox, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-campaign-dubs-bernie-sanders-the-new-dem-frontrunner
New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/130737/democrats-still-dont-get-george-mcgovern
The Week, https://theweek.com/speedreads/889087/bernie-sanders-says-potential-running-mate-not-old-white-guy
Vanity Fair, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/11/george-mcgovern-richard-nixon-election
McGovern Button,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern_1972_presidential_campaign#/media/File:McGovern_'72_button_(1).jpg
Iowa Poster, http://ourgrinnell.com/?p=13273
Busch., A., Outsiders and Openness, Pittsburgh Press, 1997, Page 87 (footnote 29)
Issues, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2019/05/10/us-china-trade-war-iowa-farmers-take-hit-tariffs-increase/1143730001/

---

EXCLUSIVE TO @EOC///ATTN//JCL//UNR//14J2020//RUSH DELIVERY..

---

BROWNSHIRT BERNIE BACK FROM THE DEAD  19 February 2019

His MAGA hat will be brown not red

Brownshirt Bernie back from the dead..

You would think that old man has better things to do,
Than squeeze a vote out of me and you.
Another candidate who is older than dirt
On the campaign trail in his Brownshirt.

Bottom line of the Brownshirt pitch
Is take all the money away from the rich.
Turn the country into a welfare state
That's how he plans to Make America Great.

Bernie Sanders, the dinosaur,
Throwback hero of the poor.
The old fogie has big plans for us
The beady-eyed old Lazarus.

Just another old man down the road
With a campaign that's sure to implode.
Bernie's the real national emergency
An embarrassment to the DNC.

Who knows, he might get the nomination,
Elected as a fossilized crustacean.
His MAGA hat will be brown not red
Brownshirt Bernie back from the dead..

Brownshirt Bernie Back From the Dead
by James C. L'Angelle
(C) 2019 Eyeless on Campus







..