CAMPAIGN "OH ATE"

Yes, it has been a while since I logged and blogged. You can blame a lot of things. I'm most comfortable pointing an accusing finger at sleep deprivation and the lure of television. The mix of the two is deadly for creative people.

Regardless, when you write, you have to have something to say, and these last three months I haven't had much to offer. I've been easily distracted by the need to get a new gig, and the temptation of watching Jackie Johnson do the weather on L.A.'s K-CAL 9. I never remember a single forecast this curvy sensation utters, but udders are what dominate my thoughts once her segment is done!

It's time for me to offer some cogent thoughts about Campaign '08. These have been, without question, the most curious, compelling six months of presidential politics in my adult life. Emphasis on adult life. It is true that I was an 8-year-old about to turn 9 in during the '68 race. Because my parents were active in Democratic politics, I can remember a lot of the details. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy's appearance at the elementary school I attended stands out. The kids were so badly behaved around TV cameras, McCarthy was photographed only from the neck up--lest the networks have to settle for the distracting picture of a rather aloof politician surrounded by a leaping, bounding, gaggle of bobble-headed grade school children. If only the other memories were that amusing. On June 4, 1968, I went to bed listening to Vin Scully describe Don Drysdale's shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was on his way to a then-record 58 and 2/3 scoreless innings pitched. I woke up the next morning to the image of Roger Mudd filling the TV screen in my brother Thomas' room.

"Is the election still going on?" I asked?

"No. Kennedy got shot." I was horrified. I went to the dining room, and there was the headline spread across the front page of the Los Angeles Times. When JFK had been assassinated, I understood only that there would be no cartoons on TV that weekend. This time, I felt surprise and shock for the first time. If you are at all given to prayer, or rubbing a rabbit's foot, do what you must in hopes that we should never have to suffer the agony of that type of violence again.

I mentioned Roger Mudd. At long last, he has written of his time with CBS in Washington. "The Place To Be," is the name of his tome, and it's a great read for political and news junkies, alike. One of his revelations made me shake my head and laugh. At the 1970 Washington Press Corps Dinner, he was seated next to President Richard Nixon as Diana Ross performed. According to Mudd, Nixon turned to him during her performance and said, " They really do have a sense of rhythm, don't they?"

What is missing in 2008 is the analysis of Roger Mudd...and Mike Wallace, and yes, Dan Rather. Even at their respective ages (Mudd is 80, Wallace is in his 90's, and Rather is well over 70), they'd have a field day with the fruit that's been born of Campaign '08.

With three cable channels providing all politics just about all the time, every word by every candidate has been analyzed, squeezed, wrung-out, and dissected; then roasted on a spit by every ex-consultant, pol and pundit who can elbow his or her way before a camera. Once on the air, the bantering, predicting and pontificating begins. The most innocuous item is blown up to the size of the fat guy on "Lost," then it's off the table by the end of the week. This campaign has been an exhausting process because following it means a daily dose of constant haranguing. I, for one, am tired of it.

This is all part and parcel to the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, of course. Everything, as they say, is grist for that mill. It's a monster that must be fed.

It's also the gritty residue of dirty, maintain-power-at-all-cost, negative politics. Consider what the Presidential campaign of 1988 was like. That summer, I was working 7 to Midnight at Q-105. I set a then-new Zenith VCR to record the nightly three hours of the Democratic National Convention. By '88, the networks had reduced convention coverage to three hours a night. As late as '72, the conventions had been just about an all day, all week, saturation, gavel-to-gavel telecast. Then the parties became painfully aware that the more fractious the convention, the more distant their chances for victory in the fall.

I ran across one of those old convention tapes this week and watched some of it. What first greets you is the difference in the graphics used by CBS...the number of politicians who've passed away in 20 years, and the dark heads of hair on Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer.

What truly got me was the commentary. In July of 1988, there were Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid, offering opinion and fielding questions from Dan Rather. Between the two, they'd done 17 conventions on TV, but never once in their observations, not a single time in their ruminations did the idea of dirty politics come up. Nor was it discussed by any of the floor reporters or Bruce Morton, another CBS political correspondent of the time. At that convention, the only problem they could see in the distance for nominee Michael Dukakis was whether Jesse Jackson (who dominated the convention with what author Joe Klein would call, "hot, sweaty rhetoric.") would prove to be a loose cannon in the fall campaign. No one, at least on CBS in July of 1988, had an inkling that dirty politics and wedge issues devised and executed by Lee Atwater and the George H.W. Bush campaign would destroy Dukakis. This was the same Vice President Bush who was so freely ridiculed by the Democrats during the convention (and ridiculed for good reason).

The coverage that current candidates endure would not have saved Dukakis from himself, for he found fighting back not to be in his character. But it certainly would have exposed the tactics employed by the Republicans. Near death in 1990, Lee Atwater apologized to Dukakis. His soul was cleansed when he died, but the damage was done. Dirty politics is the Karl Rovian-way of the political world. Before November 4, 2008 gets here, we're in for a filthy, bitter ride.

*

Before I summarize the candidates, another word about Eric Severeid. He was the last of the scholar correspondents. Hired by Edward R. Murrow during World War II, he was the great sage of CBS for 40 years, then retired in 1978. Until his death, he'd be resurrected at convention time to add words of wisdom to CBS coverage. His face was placed on a commemorative postage stamp earlier this year. That's when I heard an attractive morning anchor on KTLA-TV 5 in Los Angeles announce that "...in addition, Eric SeverEED is also on a new stamp." Eric SeverEED? How could a working journalist not know the correct pronunciation of Eric Severeid's name? Then it dawned on me that the anchor, a lovely Filipina named Cher Colvin, was probably just born when Severeid retired. She must have been a ten-year-old, more interested in Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam plus Full Force than politics, when Eric last appeared at a convention. It made me feel old and less impressed with TV news. The very idea that an electronic journalist could not know his name is disappointing.

Now--the candidates: If John McCain wore coveralls, he might be Walter Brennan in an ancient episode of 'The Real McCoys." Forget for one moment all the political hype, positioning and manipulation. He puts me in mind of the perpetually wisecracking-but-pissed-off homeroom teacher, the one who might verbally lacerate you at the drop of a hat. I get the strong impression that this is one Senator who has used the M.F. word with skill and knife-like precision.

*

Charlton Heston is gone. You won't have to pry a rifle from his cold dead hands, but you'll need a hydraulic-trip hammer to loosen Senator Hillary Clinton's grip on the campaign. The mantra here is "Do anything, say anything " to win. This is not an observation born out of sexism. Any man or woman who so doggedly continues in the face of math that doesn't add up favorably is seeking power without regard for reality.

That leaves Senator Obama, a man who has lit a flame under part of the electorate. In recent times, only Mario Cuomo and Bill Clinton himself could offer such oratory. But those two never drew 75 thousand to an appearance, as Obama did by the Willamette River in Oregon. Watching the faces of those in the throngs that gather to see him, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see JFK or RFK. Surely no Democratic politician has caused such a stir, since. If the math is correct, and there's no reason to expect it won't, the son of Stanley Ann and Barack Obama, Sr., literally an African and American, will be the Presidential nominee of a major party in the United States. He'll have his work cut out for him. There will be hate in his face, for a myriad of reasons. Those to the right will hate his politics. There are some who will hate his erudition (why do we, as a nation, not seem to want an intelligent person in the most powerful office in the world? Have we not seen what stupidity can do?). And, in a segment of our land where there has been no growth, regardless of his late, Kansas-born mother Stanley Ann, and yes, regardless of the progress the country has made in 40 years, they will hate him for the color of his skin.


AND FINALLY, HERE'S DAVE WITH SPORTS...

Just a few notes. In this, the 2nd full month of the 2008 season, it appears the Dodgers have traded their bats him for soggy, wet socks. Tommy Lasorda said it best 25 years ago: "They'd need an OAR to hit the f--king ball!" All the kids are there--Loney at first, Kemp and Ethier in the outfield, Martin behind the plate. When a mysterious malady of the calf made Nomar no MORE, a Double-A 3rd Baseman named Blake Dewitt made such a name for himself, a radio station in his Missouri hometown now carries Dodger games live.

Yet, at this writing, they've scored 7 runs in 4 games, and lost every single one. At 26-27 on May 30th, it's safe to say they stink.

I yearn for the day when the Dodgers could captivate Los Angeles the way the Lakers do. The Lakes are third on my list of favorite sports teams. I don't follow them with the tenacity I do the Dodgers and S.C. football...but when the prospect of playing Boston for the NBA Championship arises, look out! Should Boston prevail over Detroit, ABC-TV will be doing the dance of the infidels, because a Celtics-Lakers Championship Series means big ratings. And anybody who's followed the Lakers for a DAY...hates the Celtics. This could be fun...