How to lose the US presidency in 21 ways

There are many ways to lose the presidency whether you’re fighting a primary or battling for the ultimate prize itself in the November general election. These are just some of them…

Cry (Ed Muskie, 1972)

Public crying has played well for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama more recently but when Muskie appeared to weep over allegations about his wife’s drinking, he soon lost his status as the Democratic front-runner. Ultimately, the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by the Nixon camp, Muskie denied crying, saying reporters had mistaken snow melting on his face for tears.

Lose your temper (Bob Dole, 1988)

Dole snarled that his opponent George HW Bush should “quit lying about my record” after losing a Republican primary. Dole looked like a sore loser and his campaign never recovered. He later won the nomination in 1996, losing comfortably to President Bill Clinton.

Scream (Howard Dean, 2004)

Although he was probably on his way out anyway, Dean’s hysterical “I had a scream” speech which ended with a Kermit the frog-style note of hysteria ended his prospects of getting the Democratic nomination. John Kerry got it instead and subsequently lost to George W. Bush in November.

Fail to answer a simple question (Gary Hart, 1984)

Democrat Hart (of later sex scandal fame) proved unable to explain why he had changed his surname from Gary Hartpence. In 1980, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy floundered desperately when he was asked the most basic question, during a TV interview: why do you want to be president?

Be inadvertently racist (H. Ross Perot, 1992)

The Texan billionaire independent offended a largely black audience by referring to them repeatedly as “you people” throughout a campaign speech.

Terrify everyone (Barry Goldwater, 1964)

The Republican nominee’s open extremism and apparent enthusiasm for nuclear weapons led him to lose by a record margin. “In your heart, you know he’s right” his campaign claimed. “In your guts, you know he’s nuts” countered his opponents.

Have an affair (Gary Hart, 1988)

Recovering from his 1984 failure, Hart enjoyed a 30% lead over his nearest rival and was the clear favourite to succeed Reagan until allegations of infidelity with model Donna Hart emerged. Hart initially denied meeting her until photos emerged of her sitting on his lap. Hart then withdrew from the campaign, then re-entered it later, totally sabotaging his own career in the process.

Skeletons in the closet (George HW Bush 1992, George W. Bush 2000)

A last minute recovery for President Bush against Bill Clinton stalled after allegations over his role in the Iran-Contra affair re-emerged. Later, his son was harmed by a last minute revelation over a 1979 drink driving incident during the closing stages of the very close 2000 campaign.

Picture: 43rd US president, George W. Bush and his father, the 41st president, George H.W Bush)

“Steal” a speech (Joe Biden, 1988)

Obama’s future vice president (and 2020’s current Democratic front-runner) withdrew after striking similarities were spotted between a campaign speech he delivered and one which had been made by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock (an unknown figure in the US).

Ignore all attacks (Michael Dukakis, 1988)

When the Bush campaign cast doubt on the Democratic nominee’s mental health, Dukakis refused to sink to their level. Unfortunately, by the time he did release his records (which revealed a clean bill of health), the damage to his campaign had already been done.

(Picture: Future 2004 nominee John Kerry, ex-1980 candidate Ted Kennedy and 1988 nominee, Michael Dukakis)

Insult your rivals (Bush, 1992)

“My dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than these two bozos,” President Bush said of Clinton and Gore late in 1992. The “bozos” bit went down very badly with voters. Clinton’s lead grew by around five percent just before election day.

(Picture: 1992 debaters: Democratic nominee and eventual winner, Bill Clinton, Independent Ross Perot and the incumbent President Bush).

Be too honest (Walter Mondale, 1984, Michael Dukakis, 1988)

Both these Democratic nominees admitted taxes would have to increase substantially to tackle Reagan’s huge escalating deficit. Bush in 1988 was much less frank “read my lips – no new taxes” but won. Taxes went up dramatically soon afterwards (Picture: Walter Mondale in 1984)

Insult women (Mitt Romney, 2012)

The Republican nominee referred to “binders full of women” he could choose from for his cabinet. This played badly.

Rely too heavily on your war record (John Kerry, 2004)

This backfired when several campaign groups began casting doubt over the Democratic nominee’s Vietnam War heroism which had been contrasted with Bush’s decision to join the state National Guard (a classic draft dodging tactic) and Vice President Cheney’s decision to duck out of the war altogether.

Run against your own party’s incumbent (Eugene McCarthy, 1968, Ronald Reagan, 1976, Ted Kennedy, 1980, Pat Buchanan, 1992)

This has never worked, although McCarthy undoubtedly made history by prompting President Johnson’s withdraw from the 1968 contest. Reagan also undoubtedly enhanced his credentials for a future run by challenging President Ford. Four years later, Reagan ran again and won.

(Picture: Eugene McCarthy in 1968)

Pick the wrong running-mate (George McGovern, 1972, John McCain, 2008)

The McGovern campaign was thrown into chaos when running-mate Thomas Eagleton had to be replaced. John McCain’s campaign was similarly undermined when Sarah Palin’s intellectual shortcomings became too obvious to ignore. Oddly, however,  Bush’s disastrous choice of Dan Quayle in 1988 seemed to do him little real harm.

Screw up the TV debate

Notably Richard Nixon in 1960.

Insult 47% of the electorate (Mitt Romney, 2012)

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Mitt Romney, remarks at private fundraiser. Ironically, he ended up losing having received 47% of the vote.

Get paranoid (H. Ross Perot, 1992)

The independent candidate accused the Bush camp of trying to sabotage his daughter’s wedding by labelling her a lesbian.

Make huge factual errors in public (Gerald Ford, 1976)

“There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration.” President Ford made this absurd claim in the 1976 TV debate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he went on to lose narrowly to Jimmy Carter. (Picture: 1976 Democratic nominee and eventual winner, Jimmy Carter debating President Ford).

“Win” (Al Gore, 2000)

Few election results look more dubious than the 2000 one. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, the Supreme Court declared George W. Bush not Al Gore the winner.

The wit and wisdom of Dan Quayle

In July 1988, the Republican presidential nominee George HW Bush (then generally known as plain old George Bush or more formally Vice President Bush) announced his choice of running-mate for the forthcoming presidential election. His choice, James Danforth (Dan) Quayle would generally be viewed as a disaster. The next four years would witness one of the most gaffe-prone vice presidencies of all time.

Quayle, a 41-year-old senator from Indiana certainly looked the part. After eight years of Ronald Reagan, by then 77, and his potential successor Bush already in his mid-sixties, Quayle certainly helped give the Republican Party a more youthful image. He was also much younger than his opponent Michael Dukakis’s 67-year-old running mate Lloyd Bentsen.

But doubts were immediately raised about Senator Quayle’s experience. Most observers had expected Bush to pick his defeated primary opponent, Senator Bob Dole as his running mate. Quayle’s speaking style was stilted and unconvincing. It also soon emerged that twenty years before, he had used his family’s powerful business connections to ensure enrolment in the Indiana National Guard. The National Guard was usually seen as a sure way of avoiding the draft. It was in short an easy way to dodge involvement in the Vietnam War.

Quayle was not the last public figure to face such allegations. Four years later, the Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton would be accused of draft dodging too, taking some of the heat off Quayle who was by then vice president. But Clinton had at least opposed the war, unlike Quayle and Quayle’s opponent Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s running mate, had actually served in Vietnam. Worse was to come: Bush’s own son faced the same charge when he ran for president himself in 2000 and 2004 and even managed to go AWOL during his time on the Texan National Guard. His running mate Dick Cheney also avoided serving claiming simply that he had had “other priorities.” But Quayle had left the political arena by then.

Donald Kaul reflected the general furore: “Faced with a smorgasbord of vice presidential candidates – all conservative, some politically useful and some who might even wear the label ”distinguished” without embarrassment – Bush picked a callow, braying arch conservative from a state Bush was going to carry anyway. Quayle may not be on the lunatic fringe, but he can see it from where he’s standing. Of such decisions are concession speeches made…Quayle is a chicken hawk, a flag-waving jingoist who never met a war he didn’t like, but sought refuge in the National Guard when the opportunity to actually fight in one presented itself”.

The endless gaffes continued. A selection are included below.
Quayle was also humiliated in the 1988 vice presidential debates with Senator Lloyd Bentsen. By that stage in the contest, Vice President Bush was easily beating his opponent, Democrat Governor Michael Dukakis. But questions remained over Quayle’s experience. Nearly half of the United States’ post-war vice presidents had at that point, ended up being president (four out of nine. Bush would make it five out of ten, although no former vice presidents have become president since 1989). Bentsen was a veteran politician, who in the Sixties had beaten George HW Bush in an election for the Senate himself.

Quayle attempted to defuse the issue, by unwisely comparing himself to President Kennedy, who had been assassinated in 1963:

Quayle: It is not just age; it’s accomplishments, it’s experience. I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy. (Prolonged shouts and applause.)

Quayle: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause.)

Bentsen: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator — and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.

It was the most stunning TV debate defeat ever.

Satire had a field day. An urban myth developed that Quayle had initially clumsily first raised his left hand when asked to take the oath of office, before hastily correcting himself and raising his right (this was untrue) A record entitled “The Wit and Wisdom of Dan Quayle” was released, just as one entitled “The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan” had been released before. In both cases, both sides were of the record were completely blank. Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury strip meanwhile portrayed the new Veep as being distracted by the “spinny” chair in his new office. Saturday Night Live actually portrayed Quayle as a child in several sketches.

Why didn’t Bush drop Quayle? Did he as a former vice president himself secretly fear the power of the vice president and so like Nixon picking Gerald Ford in 1973 hope to protect himself from any risk of future impeachment by putting a supposed idiot in the Number 2 spot? Did he secretly see in Quayle, a young southern draft dodger, someone who reminded him of his own son? Most likely, he thought to drop Quayle would seem to concede error and might prove more damaging. In 1972, democrat nominee George McGovern’s campaign never recovered after his decision to drop his running mate Thomas Eagleton after questions were raised about him.

And in fact, Quayle’s selection seems to have had little electoral impact. The Bush-Quayle ticket won a comfortable forty state victory, over Dukakis and Bentsen in 1988. Quayle seemed to have had little impact in 1992 either. Voters, as usual, seem to have been voting for the main candidate not the running mate.

Quayle continued to make real gaffes too, none, it must be said of real global importance,  notably launching a scathing attack on the fictional US TV character Murphy Brown (played by Candice Bergen) for giving birth out of wedlock. President Bush, in fairness, had fallen into a similar trap declaring Americans should be “more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons”. On the show, Bart hit back: “We are like The Waltons…we’re all praying for an end to the Great Depression too!”

By now, it was 1992 and an unpopular Bush was facing possible defeat as he ran for re-election. There was talk of dropping Quayle. Bush had suffered a mild heart attack in 1991, reminding voters that Quayle was only a heartbeat away from the presidency. A secret service chief was fired after joking that if Bush were assassinated, his operatives should immediately shoot Quayle to prevent him becoming president.

1992 actually saw one of Quayle’s most memorable gaffes incorrectly changing the spelling of the word “potato” on a visit to a school after a pupil had written it on the board correctly (“You’re close, but you left a little something off,” he said “The “e” on the end”).

But generally Quayle performed better than expected during election year. He lost the TV debate to Al Gore, though not as spectacularly as in 1988. But when Bush lost to Clinton in November, Quayle wasn’t blamed. In 2000, he even launched an exploratory bid for the Republican presidential nomination himself. In the end, another Bush, George W, got it.

The vice presidency is an unfulfilling job for most. Unlike Nixon’s first Number Two, Spiro Agnew, who ultimately resigned when it emerged he had evaded paying his taxes when he was Governor of Maryland, Quayle avoided scandal. But a stream of gaffes and unconvincing public performances ensured that he never gained the confidence of the American public.

Like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin since, he was a rich source of gaffes. Here are some of his ‘finest’ moments…

The best of Dan Quayle…

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history….No, not our nation’s, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century, but in this century’s history.

People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
(Interview referring to Rasputin).

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

On Hawaii:

Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States. That is an island that is right here.

When you take the UNCF model that, what a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful, how true that is.
(Speech to the United Negro College Fund . The Fund’s slogan was “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”)

The other day [the President] said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. Would you like a puppy?

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.

Mars is essentially in the same orbit.… Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.

On the 1992 LA Riots:
I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.

On TV show Murphy Brown:

Bearing babies irresponsibly is simply wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown — a character who supposedly epitomises today’s intelligent, highly paid, professional woman — mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another “lifestyle choice.”

This is what I say about the scorn of the media elite: I wear their scorn as a badge of honour.

I believe that I’ve made good judgments in the past, and I think I’ve made good judgments in the future.

We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to move forward.

We understand the importance of having the bondage between the parent and the child.

The future will be better tomorrow.

I made a misstatement and I stand by all my misstatements.

Book review: Power Trip by Damian McBride

History is likely to be kinder to the Blair-Brown Government than some contemporary critics, including, for example, the Cameron Government have been.
Day after day we are told that the last government wasted billions of the nation’s finances after 2008. The reality is that Brown Government handled the global banking crisis as well as any government could have done, indeed perhaps slightly better. Cameron’s Tories certainly seemed clueless on the subject at the time.
Indeed, Brown’s introduction of quantative easing most likely saved the global banking system. The Tory charge that the government had failed to save up any “rainy day” money during the years of prosperity is weak too. Levels of debt were no worse before 2008 than they had been under the Major years.
In short, if the Blair-Brown government is guilty of not legislating to restrain the markets and not clearing its debts before 2008 (and it is), it is no more guilty than any other previous post-war government was. And for all his faults as a leader (which are not insignificant), Gordon Brown’s leadership probably prevented a recession from becoming a depression.
All in all, with three election victories, the salvation of the NHS, a dramatic drop in the crime rate, a decade of prosperity and the Good Friday Agreement, it is not a bad record.
Labour have always been poor at boasting about their achievements, however, and memoirs like this by Gordon Brown’s ex-spin doctor Damian McBride which draw attention to the seedier side of New Labour, do not help.
Released in time for this year’s Labour Party Conference, the damaging effect of the book was ultimately cancelled out by the impact of the Daily Mail’s stupendous gaffe over Ralph Miliband.
But let’s not pretend New Labour come well out of this book. They don’t, simply because McBride’s memoirs revive memories of the unhappy days of the Brown premiership
McBride is clearly highly intelligent and writes well. Against all the odds, he comes across (occasionally) as a likeable figure. He was and is loyal to his former master Gordon Brown. He was a success as Treasury Head of Communications from 2003 until 2007, perhaps partly explaining why Brown enjoyed such popularity as Chancellor. The wheels came off after 2007 when Brown became PM. McBride had lost all the contacts at the Treasury he had relied upon. After the “election that never was” things went from bad to worse although McBride was felled by an email scandal in 2009 so escapes responsibility for Mrs Duffy and the other mishaps of Brown’s last year.
McBride’s competence is surprising bearing in mind he seems to have been a functioning alcoholic throughout this period. Only a tragicomic episode at the 2005 Party Conference where he was found fast asleep naked and face down on bed and unable to be woken caused him major trouble. Amusingly, after no one could wake him, Ed Balls attempted to, before reeling back after the naked drunken semi-conscious McBride apparently mistook him for a female bed partner and made an amorous grab for him.
Contrary to rumour, Eds Balls and Miliband do not come off badly in the book and are merely harmed by the reminder of their close association with Brown (which is hardly a revelation anyway). Brown too although prone to wail “How could he/she/they do this to me?” when anything went wrong, does not come across as all bad either. Although almost comically incapable of speaking fluently and naturally in public (McBride describes how Brown’s visage would suffer because his brain would be working at numerous levels at once), his decision not to exploit his family for party political gain (something that annoyed Cameron, who did, intensely) is admirable.
Damian McBride has written a memoir which (after some dry early chapters) is highly readable. He undoubtedly did his bit to ensure the success of the last government, yet the excess of spin and false briefing which he played a part in undoubtedly ultimately proved pernicious and self destructive.
Nor do I share his view that the Blair/Brown rivalry helped the government, giving it an edge which McBride compares to the healthy competition between Pepsi and Cola at a time when there was no serious competition in town. In truth, the feud between the two leaders poisoned the mood of an otherwise successful government and was lucky not to split Labour as the Liberals were split in the 1920s.
Let us hope the potential familial rivalries between the brothers Miliband or even the husband and wife team of Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper do not prove as harmful to Labour in the future.

How President Kennedy’s assassination changed the world forever

 

The full magnitude of the scale of shock at the news of President Kennedy‘s assassination half a century ago cannot be fully appreciated today. Perhaps only by comparison with more recent traumas such as the September 11^th attacks in 2001 or Princess Diana’s death in 1997 can we today find any suitable frame of reference.

But the impact of the shooting was huge. The effects on the Kennedy family, the US and the world in general have continued to resonate throughout ensuing fifty years…

1963

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as his successor. Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald is himself shot dead by night club owner Jack Ruby on live TV two days later. The Warren Commission is set up to investigate the assassination.

1964

Bobby Kennedy, the late president’s brother, resigns as Attorney General. He and President Johnson have long hated each other. Bobby is elected Senator for New York.

Ted Kennedy, already a Senator for Massachusetts since 1962, is involved in a serious plane crash. He suffers a broken back and punctured lung. Two others on board including the pilot are killed.

President Johnson passes a wealth of legislation including the Civil Rights Act. Johnson wins the 1964 presidential election handsomely with Hubert Humphrey as his running mate (both Humphrey and Johnson fought Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1960 and lost).

History will never know for sure whether Kennedy had he lived, would have passed as much legislation as Johnson, been re-elected in 1964 or escalated the Vietnam War to the same disastrous extent.

The Warren Commission (which includes future Republican president, Gerald Ford amongst its members) rules that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy.  Over time, most Americans grow to disbelieve this verdict.

1965

Malcolm X, black civil rights leader, is assassinated.

President Johnson dramatically escalates the Vietnam conflict.

1967

Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, dies in prison.

1968

Another traumatic year for the US and the Kennedys.

Martin Luther King, black civil rights leader, is assassinated prompting widespread race riots.

President Johnson shocks the world by pulling out of the presidential race following serious setbacks in Vietnam and a strong primary challenge from the anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy. Senator Bobby Kennedy has already entered the race by this point.

A bitter Kennedy-McCarthy primary battle ensues (McCarthy fans see Kennedy as jumping on the anti-war bandwagon). Kennedy eventually emerges triumphant at the California Primary in June. With Richard Nixon emerging as the new Republican candidate, the stage seems set for another Kennedy vs. Nixon contest as in 1960. But moments after his California victory speech, Bobby is himself shot and killed on live TV. The assassin is Sirhan Sirhan, a young man who objects to the Senator’s support for Israel (a position shared by most US politicians). Sirhan remains in jail today. Kennedy leaves behind a pregnant wife, eleven children and a Democratic Party in disarray.

At a deadlocked convention, some Democrats move to draft 36-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy as the candidate but the last Kennedy son is at this point fearful of assassination himself. Vice President Hubert Humphrey is eventually chosen as nominee but loses narrowly to JFK’s defeated 1960 opponent, Republican Richard Nixon in the November general election.

Jacqueline Kennedy horrifies many by marrying Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

1969

The Apollo 11 mission fulfils JFK’s 1961 pledge to land an American on the moon and return him to Earth by the end of the decade.

That very same weekend Senator Ted Kennedy – already seen as the most likely Democratic presidential nominee in 1972 – appears to crash his car at Chappaquiddick, leading to the death of a young girl Mary Jo Kopechne. The scandal and Kennedy’s unsatisfactory explanation for his behaviour (he claimed to have “repeatedly dove” to rescue her), the suspicion that he was having an affair with her or that he may have been drink driving, casts a shadow over the rest of his career. His judgement is certainly questionable, calling his lawyer immediately after the crash before calling the emergency services. He is not jailed and is re-elected to the Senate many times. But he will never become president.

Father Joseph P. Kennedy dies aged 81 (he has been unable to speak since as stroke during his son’s presidency. He has seen two of his sons assassinated, another killed in the war, a daughter lobotomised and another killed in a plane crash.

1972

George Wallace, pro-segregation Governor of Alabama and an old rival of the Kennedys, is shot and badly wounded by student Arthur Bremner. Bremner’s disturbed diary inspires the film Taxi Driver which itself inspires John Hinckley to shoot President Reagan in a bid to “impress” actress Jodie Foster in 1981.

Ted Kennedy threatens to run for president when last minute polls suggest he could win the nomination. But he chooses not to. Senator George McGovern gets the Democratic Party nomination instead.

Sargent Shriver, Eunice Kennedy’s husband, is picked as Senator George McGovern’s running mate after his first choice, Thomas Eagleton is forced out by revelations about his medical history.

McGovern and Shriver are defeated heavily by President Nixon who wins 49 out of 50 states.

1973

Lyndon Johnson dies (had he ran in 1968 and ran again, his presidency would have ended just two days earlier). Unusually, as Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower all died within the last decade, there are no former US presidents alive for a period between January 1973 and August 1974.

The tenth anniversary of the JFK assassination. The US is mired in Vietnam and Watergate.

1974

Alan J. Pakula’s  film The Parallax View starring Warren Beatty focuses on assassination conspiracy theories.

President Nixon resigns over the Watergate Scandal. Gerald Ford succeeds him.

1975

President Ford narrowly escapes two assassination attempts within the space of a fortnight. Both the assailants are women. “Squeaky” Fromme (a member of the Manson “family”) draws a gun on Ford when he attempts to shake her hand in the crowd. Sara Jane Moore fires a gun at Ford but a bystander knocked her arm causing her to miss. Both women were freed only after Ford’s death over thirty years’ later.

Aristotle Onassis dies. Although only in her forties, Jackie Onassis does not remarry again.

1976

The film Taxi Driver featuring a fictional assassination attempt on a presidential candidate is released.  As mentioned, this inspires John Hinckley Junior to shoot President Reagan in 1981.

Democrat Jimmy Carter narrowly beats President Gerald Ford for the White House.

1979

Maria Shriver, Sargent and Eunice’s daughter meets Austrian bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is already an aspiring film actor and Republican supporter.

The William Richert film Winter Kills centres on a fictional Kennedy-esque family cursed by assassinations.

1980

Senator Ted Kennedy mounts his one and only bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. He mounts an effective challenge and delivers a memorable speech to the Democratic Convention but is beaten by President Carter who goes on to lose to Ronald Reagan in November. Kennedy is harmed by the ghosts of Chappaquiddick. In retrospect, he also seems foolish to have run in a year where he would have to unseat a sitting incumbent Democratic president (the only election in which this was the case between 1968 and 1996).

Ex-Beatle John Lennon is shot dead in New York.

1981

President Reagan is shot and wounded by John Hinckley Junior. Hinckley is ruled not guilty as he is insane. Reagan’s press secretary Jim Brady is badly wounded in the shooting. Secretary of State Al Haig declares on TV in the hours after the shooting that after Reagan and Vice President Bush, he is in control. This is constitutionally incorrect (he was third in line after both the Vice President and the Speaker of the House) and the “I’m in charge” gaffe reassures no one on an alarming day. Reagan makes a full recovery and eventually dies in 2004, long after the end of his presidency.

This seems to break the supposed “curse” which has seen every president elected in a year ending in zero since 1840 die in office (1840: Harrison, 1860: Lincoln, 1880: Garfield, 1900, McKinley, 1920: Harding, 1940: FDR, 1960: JFK).

1983

Martin Sheen stars as JFK in the acclaimed TV series, Kennedy.

1984

David Kennedy, Bobby’s fourth son, dies of a drug overdose, aged 28.

1986

Mara Shriver marries Arnold Schwarzenegger, by now a huge film star. He is Republican Governor of California from 2003 until 2011. She remains a Democrat. Their marriage ends in 2011.

1987

Kennedy-esque Democratic contender, Gary Hart is forced out of the presidential race after a sex scandal.

1988

Future Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore evoke Kennedy strongly in their presidential bids as does the eventual nominee Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis. 

Senator Dan Quayle unwisely compares himself to JFK in the vice presidential debate:

Quayle: I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Judy Woodruff: Senator [Bentsen]?

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.

Bentsen wins the debate although Bush and Quayle win the election.

1991

William Kennedy Smith, Senator Edward Kennedy’s nephew is acquitted after a high profile rape trial. Although he is acquitted, the family’s image is further tarnished by the scandal.

Oliver Stone’s hugely controversial film JFK is released. It centres less on the President himself but on conspiracy theories surrounding his death.

1992

Democrat Governor Bill Clinton is elected to the presidency. His campaign makes great play of various superficial similarities between the candidate and JFK. Clinton’s “New Covenant” echoes Kennedy’s “New Frontier” (though proves less resonant). Clinton is also similarly youthful (46), has a slight physical resemblance to JFK and actually met the assassinated president when the 35th president visited his high school when Clinton was 16.

Joyce Carol Oates’ novella Black Water is published. It is clearly inspired by the Chappaquiddick Incident.

1993

John Connally, the former Governor of Texas wounded in the 1963 assassination dies, aged 76. In the years since, he has defected to the Republicans and ran for president himself in 1980, being beaten for the party nomination by Ronald Reagan.

1994

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, widow of the former President, dies aged 64.

Special effects technology enables JFK to appear as a character in the film, Forrest Gump.

Patrick Kennedy, a son of Ted Kennedy, is elected to the House of Representatives.

1995

Rose Kennedy dies aged 104. She is the mother of Jack, Bobby and Ted.

The novel Idlewild by British writer Mark Lawson imagines President Kennedy surviving into old age. Idlewild in New York was renamed JFK Airport following the 1963 assassination.

1997

Michael Kennedy, another of Bobby’s children, dies in a skiing accident. He is 39.

The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh is published.

1999

John F. Kennedy Junior, the only son of the assassinated president, dies in a plane crash, alongside his wife and sister-in-law. He is 39.

2000

Thirteen Days, a film about the Cuban Missile Crisis is released. Kevin Costner stars as he did in JFK (although does not play JFK in either case). Bruce Greenwood is JFK and Steven Culp, RFK (The 13 days referred to in the title are October 14^th-28^th 1962).

2004

Another JFK , Senator John (Forbes) Kerry wins the Democratic presidential nomination. He is also from Massachusetts and is the first Roman Catholic to be nominated since John F. Kennedy himself. However, he ultimately lacks the Kennedy magic and is beaten in the November election by President George W. Bush. The Bush political dynasty has thus far produced two US presidents.

The Manchurian Candidate centring on political assassinations is remade, starring Denzel Washington.

2006

The film Bobby, directed by Emilio Estevez and based around the day of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination is released. Estevez is the son of Martin Sheen who played JFK in 1983.

2008

Barack Obama is the first African American to be elected US president. Some see this as a fitting tribute to the career of Senator Ted Kennedy, who has by now been diagnosed with a fatal brain condition. Obama is also the first president born during Kennedy’s presidency and the first serving US senator to win the presidency since JFK himself in 1960.

2009

Ted Kennedy dies, age 77. Although his career was marred by the Chappaquiddick Incident in 1969, he enjoyed a long and successful career as “the lion of the Senate”. He is the third longest continuously serving Senator in US history.

Four out of five of Joe and Rose’s remaining daughters die during this decade (Rose, Kathleen, Eunice and Patricia).

2011

TV series The Kennedys starring Greg Kinnear as JFK and Katie Holmes as Jackie. It is less well received than the series, The Kennedys, thirty years before.

2018

Jean Ann Kennedy, former US ambassador to Ireland is the only remaining daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy left. She is 90.

100 years of Gerald Ford

July 2013 is the centenary of US President Gerald Ford. Here are a few facts about the man.

1. Gerald Rudolph Ford was the 38^th US president. He took over when Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 and left office in January 1977, after being narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.
2. He was born in July 1913 (the same year as Richard Nixon) and died in December 2006, aged 93. He lived longer than any other US president (narrowly beating Ronald Reagan). Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush may beat this record if they live until 2018 (update: they both now have).
3. Ford was the only president never to be elected as President or Vice President. He succeeded Spiro Agnew as Veep when the latter resigned after being accused of tax evasion. He then succeeded Nixon when he became the first and only president to resign (over the Watergate Scandal). Agnew was and is only the second VP to ever resign and the only one to resign over criminal charges (which he was later found guilty of).
4. Ford was a college American football star in the 1930s. This prompted President Johnson to comment when Ford was Republican Minority leader in the 1960s that Ford “is a nice fellow” but had played “too much football without a helmet” and that “Jerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.” This is sometimes sanitised as “walk and chew gum at the same time”). Johnson died in 1973 and never lived to see Ford become President.
5. He had a reputation for clumsiness, falling over in public several times. Comic Chevy Chase made his name on TV’s Saturday Night Live impersonating the president by depicting him endlessly falling over and crashing into things. Chase made no attempt to look or sound anything like Ford.
6. Ford was the fourth of the six presidents to serve in the Second World War (the others were Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and the first Bush).
7. As a Congressman, Ford served on the Warren Commission which investigated President Kennedy’s assassination. The Commission controversially concluded Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for the killing, something that has been disputed ever since..
8. Betty Ford, Gerald’s wife was a notable champion of political causes and was open about her own battle with alcoholism and substance abuse. She is famous for the Betty Ford Clinics which bear her name and is arguably the only First Lady to exceed her husband in fame. She died in 2011, aged 93.
9. One of Ford’s first actions as president was to pardon his predecessor Richard Nixon for “any offences he may have committed at the White House”. This was an unpopular move as many suspected (wrongly) that Nixon and Ford had done a deal to secure Ford the presidency in exchange for Nixon’s freedom. The pardon seemed to link Ford to the sleaze of Watergate and probably cost Ford the 1976 election.
10. The Helsinki Accords of 1975 were an early step towards Détente (an early attempt to end the Cold War).
11. Ford’s presidency included the bicentennial year of 1976. But it was also a time of fuel crisis, inflation and post-Watergate/Vietnam gloom. Vietnam fell to communist forces in 1975.
12. Ford decided to run for the presidency in 1975. He previously had shown little personal ambition beyond being Speaker of the House. He faced a serious challenge from Ronald Reagan in the primaries which he eventually fought off.
13. Ford recognised his status in a car-related pun (made when Vice President): “I am a Ford, not a Lincoln!”
14. When LBJ took over following Kennedy’s death in 1963, he was not constitutionally obliged to pick a new Vice President immediately. Hubert Humphrey became Johnson’s running mate in the 1964 election and was thus sworn in after they won but between November 1963 and January 1965, there was no vice president. In 1967, the law changed, thanks to the Twenty Fifth Amendment. Any new president had to pick a VP immediately. Few expected it to come into practice so quickly. Ford had to pick a new VP in 1974 and appointed Nelson Rockefeller, a choice which Congress had to approve.
15. Rockefeller, a scion of the very rich oil family, had run for president himself in 1960, 1964 and 1968. He failed to win the nomination. Some attributed this to social stigma: Rockefeller (like Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s) had divorced, following the death of one of his children in the early Sixties. This divorce stigma had lifted by the Seventies. When Rockefeller announced he was retiring, Ford picked another divorced man, Senator Bob Dole as his running mate in 1976. Reagan would become the only divorcee to win the presidency in 1980 (update: twice divorced Donald Trump has since won the presidency in 2016). Dole and John McCain, another divorcee, were both presidential nominees in 1996 and 2008, although their divorced status was not a major factor in their subsequent defeats.
16. Ford narrowly escaped two assassination attempts in September 1975. Both the assailants were women. “Squeaky” Fromme drew a gun on Ford when he attempted to shake her hand in the crowd. Sara Jane Moore fired a gun at Ford but a bystander knocked her arm causing her to miss. Both women were freed only after Ford’s death, over thirty years’ later.
17. Ford’s 1976 running mate Bob Dole, a World War II veteran, committed a damaging gaffe during a terrifically bland performance in the 1976 Vice Presidential TV debate (the first ever). “I figured it up the other day: If we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans — enough to fill the city of Detroit”. Many objected to the suggestion that the two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam were necessarily “Democrat wars”.
18. Ford made an even worse gaffe in his own TV debate with Democrat Jimmy Carter. Ford claimed “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration.” This was an absurd statement to make at the time.
19. Ford was defeated by Jimmy Carter very narrowly in November 1976. Ford actually won more states but carried less Electoral College votes. Had he won, Ford would not have been eligible to run again in 1980 as he had already served more than half of a full four year presidential term.
20. Former President Ford made his acting debut playing himself alongside his old Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on an episode of Dynasty in 1983.
21. The career of British Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home has a number of parallels to Ford’s. Both entered conservative politics after a college sports career (Home was a celebrated cricketer at Oxford in the 1920s). Both rose to power unexpectedly. Both inherited parties ravaged by scandal (the Profumo Affair in Home’s case, Watergate in Ford’s). Neither were personally implicated in scandal themselves and were considered lightweight but fundamentally decent. Both enjoyed short spells in office – Home was PM for a year, the second briefest premiership of the 20^th century. Ford had the shortest tenure of any 20^th century US president. Home was 60 when he became PM, Ford was 61 when he became president.  Both were defeated narrowly in general elections. Home enjoyed a comeback as Foreign Secretary in 1970-74. Ford was nearly appointed as Reagan’s running mate in 1980, though this did not actually happen. Ford died aged 93 in 2006, Home was 92 when he died in 1995.

Boris Johnson: the man who won’t be King

Don’t get me wrong. There is undoubtedly much to like about Boris Johnson.

He is, after all, by some way, the most colourful and popular figure in early 21^st century British politics.  He is undeniably highly intelligent, his buffoonish to some extent a façade presented to entertain the electorate. He has been generally successful as Mayor of London.

But the recent speculation that Boris might one day succeed his fellow old Etonian David Cameron as Tory Prime Minster should be a cause for concern.

Currently, this prospect seems some way off. Johnson’s second term as mayor – assuming he sticks to his word and serves it out in full – will end in 2016, soon after the next General Election. Returning to parliament in a by-election after that, should be easy enough. The next step would be to unseat whoever is party leader by then (it might, of course, still be Cameron). I am assuming the Tories will be in Opposition by then. It is then not hard to envisage a scenario in which Boris Johnson, by then in his late fifties (a similar age to Gordon Brown when he came to power) could be leading the Tories back into power circa 2020.

For all his charm, however, there is a cloud over Johnson’s character. At the risk of seeming po-faced, he has behaved badly in his private life in the past. His stance on the Leveson Report suggests he is more compromised even than Cameron by his close ties to the sometimes dubious forces which run the British press. His buffoonish is not entirely an act either. He is genuinely gaffe-prone.

Most worrying is the sense that many people want Boris to get into power because “it’ll be a laugh”. At the risk of sounding boorish, that is not a reason to elect a Prime Minister. This isn’t The X Factor. It’s a serious job. It matters. And the fact is: Boris Johnson is not a serious enough figure to occupy Number 10.

The Class of 2016

The dust may have only just settled on the 2012 race but already thoughts are turning to 2016. Obama can’t run again due to the two term limit, Romney is unlikely to stand again either. So who’s in contention at this early stage?

Hilary Clinton (Dem)

Secretary of State, former First Lady and near winner of the party nomination in 2008.

For: Certainly, the most famous of any of the possible contenders, she has been a success as secretary of state and any wounds left by the bitter 2008 primary race against Obama now seem to have (largely) healed.

Against: She is getting on in years (she will be 69 in 2016) although seems good for her age. There are also a lot of Clinton-haters still in the US (although most are more obsessed with Obama now) and, oh yes!: the US has still never nominated a woman as presidential candidate for any major party, let alone elected them president. Then again, until 2008, they had never elected a black president either…

Joe Biden (Dem)

Vice President.

For: With the exception of the corrupt (Spiro Agnew), the evil (Dick Cheney), the mortally ill (Nelson Rockefeller) and the stupid (Dan Quayle) every Vice President in the last sixty years has gone on to eventually win the presidential nomination for themselves. Four out of the last ten Veeps have gone onto the presidency too (Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Bush I). Biden performed well in this year’s TV debates.

Against: Age again. Biden will be 74 in 2016 and he has already proven gaffe-prone. His 1988 presidential bid was scuppered when he delivered a speech which turned out to have been plagiarised from one previously delivered by British Opposition leader Neil Kinnock (an unknown figure in the US).

Paul Ryan (Rep)

Wisconsin Rep. Mitt Romney’s running mate.

For: Romney’s confused introduction of Ryan as “the next president of the United States” may yet prove correct.

Against: He could be tainted by defeat. He lied in his convention speech and he and Romney both lost their home states in 2012.

Rick Santorum (Rep)

Former Senator for Pennsylvania.

For: Ran against Romney in 2012. A Catholic who will benefit if the party shifts to the Right. Anti-gay marriage and in denial over climate change.

Against: Just horrible.

October Surprise!

A look at nine last minute stories which (if they happened) could swing the US presidential election…

1. Governor Mitt Romney is revealed to have taken part in a recent ceremony in which thousands of dead non-Mormons were baptised posthumously as Mormons. Embarrassingly, many of those listed as baptised included many people who were not actually dead who Romney assumed were dead (such as actress Angela Lansbury and Senator John McCain), several people who were clearly already Mormons and several fictional characters who Romney apparently thought were real people (Sherlock Holmes, Roger Ramjet, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Skeletor).
2. Romney also admits switching the past votes of many dead Democrats to Republican ones, this changing the outcome of every presidential election since 1920 into a Republican victory. Former president Bob Dole defends Romney’s actions.
3. The Romney campaign receives another blow when an hour long programme is broadcast featuring actor Clint Eastwood interrogating an empty chair which he believes to be occupied by President Barack Obama. Surprisingly, the actor appears to be won over by the chair’s arguments during the course of the programme and ends the show by endorsing President Obama’s re-election campaign.
4. Obama is revealed to be “following” Hugo Chavez on Twitter.
5. Romney reveals he briefly hypnotised the President during the first presidential debate thus explaining Obama’s semi-comatose state throughout. Similar hypnosis largely explains the soporific effect Romney’s speeches have on many audiences.
6. Secret plans reveal Romney intends to sell the state of Ohio to the People’s Republic of China if elected. “It makes sound business sense,” he argues. “There’s no money in Ohio. I’ve seen the projections.”
7. In a speech, President Obama unwittingly reveals a major plot twist in the new Bond film Skyfall.
8. Newly released wannabe Reagan assassin John Hinckley attempts to “impress” actress Ellen DeGeneres by assassinating Obama. Once again, he fails on both counts. Obama survives and like Jodie Foster before her, Ellen isn’t even slightly “impressed”. She is more “alarmed”. Women eh?
9. In a surprise move, Great Britain is suddenly granted admission as the 51^st state of the Union. With a firmly pro-Obama population and far more Electoral College votes than California, the change secures the re-election for the president.

The Mormon conquest?

“The history book on the shelf. It’s always repeating itself.”

So sang Abba in their 1974 hit Waterloo. And they were right. 1907, for example, was virtually the same as 1894.

So what’s it to be then?

Which election of the past is this year’s presidential election most likely to echo?

Here are the main scenarios:

1948: The Truman Show: Shock result! Electoral upset!

The precedent: Every underdog in every election prays for a repeat of the 1948 result. President Truman was universally expected to lose to his Republican opponent, the ultra-bland moustached weirdo Governor Thomas Dewey throughout the campaign. One newspaper even reported “Dewey defeats Truman” on its front page. Yet the polls were staggeringly wrong. Truman was, in fact, returned comfortably. He even gleefully held up a copy of the inaccurate newspaper for the cameras.

Is it likely?: Actually with the election so close, neither a Romney or an Obama win would exactly constitute an electoral upset. So assuming neither candidate wins by a huge margin or something insane happens, this wouldn’t be possible. Especially as neither Truman nor Dewey are alive.

1956, 1964, 1972 and 1984: President re-elected in a landslide.

All of these elections saw the incumbents (Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon and Reagan) winning by huge margins. Nixon and Reagan both won 49 out of 50 states. Could Obama do the same?

Likely? This may have been possible when Romney was in a flap over his moronic 47% comments. But unless something dramatic happens between now and polling day (perhaps Romney will be revealed to have sold one of his elderly relatives to a powerful conglomerate) this now seems very unlikely.

1996: President re-elected comfortably but not by a landslide.

1996 saw President Clinton comfortably quashing Senator Bob Dole’s leadership bid by a 7% poll margin.

Likely?: Not too farfetched actually and probably the best result Obama can realistically hope for. Had the result gone the other way…Monica Lewinsky? And the 73 year old President Dole? Let’s not think about it.

2004: A narrow-ish win for the president.

Nobody likes being compared to George W Bush. But in 2004, he did beat Senator John Kerry by a three percent margin. And get this: he didn’t have to cheat this time!

Likely?: A narrow Obama win is currently the most likely result.

1976: A narrow win for the challenger.

After Watergate, the fuel crisis and the Nixon pardon, ex-peanut farmer Jimmy Carter achieved a very narrow win over the maladroit President Gerald Ford.

Likely: Horribly plausible. Romney could scrape home narrowly. And remember: Ford was also undone by a poor TV debate performance!

1980: A big win for the challenger.

The 1980 victory of Reagan over incumbent President Carter was decisive and seems inevitable in retrospect. In fact, it seemed much closer at the time. Carter’s diaries reveal he felt he had a good chance at winning almost to the end.

The result famously forced loon John Hinckley Junior to reconsider his plan to shoot President Carter and shoot the new president Reagan instead. All to impress the actress Jodie Foster. Who apparently wasn’t even very impressed anyway! Tsk! Women eh? Next time just try sending a bunch of flowers. Or stalking someone who isn’t a

Likely?:A Mitt Romney landslide? If you believe in a God, pray to him or her that this doesn’t happen.

Romney and Obama: the great TV debate

Tonight sees the first of this year’s debates between Romney and Obama.

Before we get too excited, let us consider a few key facts:

1. Whoever’s winning the election will probably win the debate…

Debates usually reflect the existing state of the campaign rather than deciding it. President Obama is comfortably winning the election so can probably expect to win the debate.

There are exceptions to this rule however: if as in 1960 or 1976, the race is very close. Nixon’s shifty appearance and President Ford’s confusion over the USSR may have swung the race in both cases. In 2000 and 2004, Al Gore and John Kerry both easily beat Bush in the debates. Expectations were so low for Bush, however, that the debates felt like a victory for Bush who went on to win narrowly (in 2004 anyway). In 1988, Bush’s father managed to lose the first of two debates to Michael Dukakis but still won the election by a landslide.

But trust me usually the first place candidate usually wins the debate.

2. The Vice Presidential debates don’t matter 

From the 1988 Dan Quayle/Lloyd Bentsen VP debate…

Quayle: I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Judy Woodruff: Senator [Bentsen]?

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy. (Prolonged shouts and applause.) What has to be done in a situation like that is to call in the — Woodruff: (Admonishing applauders) Please, please, once again you are only taking time away from your own candidate.

Quayle: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause.) Bentsen: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator — and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.

Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s “no Jack Kennedy” humiliation of Senator Dan Quayle in 1988 is probably the finest moment in any national US presidential debate ever. But it didn’t help the Dukakis/Bentsen campaign which still went down to a hefty defeat.

3. There’s always the potential for a gaffe from either side.

Nixon’s anxious scowling at JFK during the 1960 debate. President George HW Bush glancing at his watch throughout his debate with Bill Clinton. Senator Bob Dole’s foolish labelling of both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam as “Democrat wars”.

It is these potentially random factors which have the power to swing elections, which make the four yearly ritual of the televised presidential debates so compelling.

Welcome to the Muppet Show…

The Muppet Show returned last week. Or to be more precise, the Republican National Convention met in Tampa, Florida.

For such a stage managed event, it’s surprising how many things went wrong. Most disturbingly and indeed almost unbelievably, some racist Republicans reportedly threw peanuts at a black camerawoman claiming: “This is how we feed animals.” Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan then used his speech to blame the Obama Administration for the closure of a General Motors plant. The truth soon came out: the plant had in fact closed under Bush.

Prospective First Lady Ann Romney was judged to have done well with an appallingly sentimental speech. Remember Sarah Brown’s introduction of her husband Gordon as “my husband, my hero” at the British Labour Party Conference a few years back? Ann Romney’s speech made this look positively restrained by comparison. Indeed, some of Mrs Romney’s attempts to make the ultra-rich Romneys appear normal, barely made sense. “I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a storybook marriage,” she said at one point. “Well, let me tell you something. In the storybooks I read, there never were long, long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once.” Er, no. Okay then…

Mitt himself didn’t mince words either. Recognising the key issue that worries many Americans – how happy was the marriage of Mitt Romney’s late parents – the former Governor of Massachusetts was extremely reassuring. “Mom and Dad were married 64 years,” he said. “And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist – because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table.” Never let it be said that Mitt Romney has dodged the all important “parents’ marriage” issue.

The Republican Party is incredibly short on glamour these days. Recognising that they are both extremely unpopular, former President George W Bush and ex-Veep Dick Cheney did not attend the Convention at all. Sarah Palin, the heroine of the Convention, just four years ago, kept her head down too. Hence why Clint Eastwood was given a ten minute speech. Had the ageing star restricted himself to a few simple platitudes: “Obama: make my day” etc, the speech might have passed off successfully.

As it was, the eighty two year old Eastwood rambled, muttering his way through the speech dreadfully. Things got even worse when the actor began speaking to an empty chair, pretending it was occupied by President Obama. Oddly, most of the joke seemed to revolve around the invisible Obama supposedly swearing at Eastwood and telling him to “shut up” (not actually things the President is renowned for doing). Little wonder much of the audience looked on in apparent abject horror. No actor has done such harm to his reputation with a political gesture since the late Charlton Heston started appearing at pro-gun rallies.

But the scariest fact of the whole week remains this: bland as Romney undeniably is, with unemployment still so high in the US, Obama is barely more popular than Romney. Contrary to the prediction in my first blog entry back in March, Romney could actually win in November.

The myth of Obama’s hatred for the British

Have you heard the one about US President Barack Obama being fiercely anti-British?

For that’s what it is: a joke. But for many of Britain’s Right (persecuted and deluded fools that they are), Obama’s anti-UK credentials are a reality, marking a decisive shift in Anglo-US relations. Daily Telegraph scribe, Nile Gardiner recently even recently claimed “Mr. Obama has been by far the most anti-British president in modern American history”.

On what are they basing this argument? Well, let’s consider the evidence (such as it is)…

1. Obama’s grandfather’s third wife says so: Amongst other things, the elderly Mrs Onyango claims Obama’s position has been shaped by stories of how his grandfather suffered under British brutality in Kenya. According to her “he has never believed the British do anything for a common good, rather than their selfish interests…He said the whole act sounded barbaric. He wondered why the British never respected African culture.” The problem is, if this were true, we might expect it to be reflected in his words and actions. Has this been the case? Let’s take a look…

2. Obama doesn’t support Britain over the Falklands: “Two of our friends, the United Kingdom and Argentina, confront each other in a complex disagreement which goes back many generations. Because they’re both our friends, I’ve offered our help in an effort to bring the two countries together”. Pretty neutral stuff eh? Except that’s not Obama but Reagan after the Argentine invasion of 1982. Obama, contrary to conservative myth, has never failed to support the British presence on the islands.

3. Obama had a bust of Winston Churchill removed from the Oval Office: This might sound like the most absurd one of all but in fact it may well be true. What hasn’t been proven is that it had anything to do with any hostility to either Churchill or the British themselves. Indeed, it may have had more to do with the fact that the bust was installed by Obama’s disastrous predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama even quoted Churchill during his 2011 State visit to the UK stating “Above all, among the English-speaking peoples, there must be the union of hearts based upon convictions and common ideals.” Hardly what one would expect of a committed enemy of Churchill or Brit-hater is it?

4. Obama got very anti-British after the BP oil spill: if ever there was a time to lay into BP it was after their role in the 2010 oil spill. Much has been made of the fact Obama repeatedly labelled BP “British Petroleum” (this was, of course, originally its name. BP has never stood for anything else). Yet look at the actual speech he made. Despite the many claims of Brit-bashing in the UK press, there is nothing anti-British in it at all. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-nation-bp-oil-spill.

5. Obama never refers to the “special relationship”, visits or praises Britain. An odd one bearing in mind the then Senator Obama actually (very unusually for an unelected candidate) visited the UK during his 2008 election campaign. He has visited twice since and is one of only two US presidents to be accorded the status of a state visit. And he praised the UK extensively stating: “From that day to this, you have been our closest partner in the struggle to protect our people from terrorist attacks and violent extremism around the world, despite very heavy sacrifices here. And allow me to pay tribute to the contributions of your military forces, which have stood shoulder to shoulder with us for decades.” He has also used the term “special relationship” in speeches and asserted: “We meet to reaffirm one of the greatest alliances the world has ever known,”

Why on Earth does this silliness persist? Purely because the Right love to feel persecuted and because they hate the fact Obama, a liberal, remains such a much-loved figure. But their views should be treated with the contempt they deserve.