It was a blustery, blusteriest day! Dateline: February 2001. Location: college town on the lip of Chicago.
Face down. Eyes crusted. Walking with a purpose. Off to a diner with a bottomless cup of coffee (refills only a buck). The Hawk Lives! Bitterly cold. With a shock, an elegant man, in an elegant camel colored coat, rounds the corner. His grey turtleneck peeks out from under a burgundy scarf.
"Good morning." 'Good morning', he replies. "Mr. Gephardt." 'Yes.' "We have something in common", I said. 'Oh, really?' Yes, I explain. 'Let's grab a cup of coffee.' Here we go. The House Majority Leader for the United States of America is going to buy ME a cup of coffee! Well, we'll see about that (I've got a few bucks just in case).
"So, what brings you to town." 'My daughter is a sophomore, and you?' "Senior." 'How do you like school?' "Just a few more months." Congratulations. Thanks.
"Oh, miss. I'll take another cup of coffee, please", I plead. Right away, sweety (reality check... yeah, when I get around to it.) Thanks.
"So, Mr. Gephardt. Are you going to run?" Chuckle. 'Lot of people would like to know the answer to that question. No. I don't think so.'
"Why not?" 'President Bush is pretty popular right now. Fundraising is really tough.' "Yeah, I understand." (reality check...I had absolutely no clue)
So why do I feel the need to tell this vignette? Why does this wine-soaked diary matter one bit? Here's why. The Republicans are Dicks.
Three years before the election, if not sooner, real candidates begin to survey the landscape. They start to ask the question, am I electable? Will the base be there for me? Can I get the money? Although it may be the inverse from the Honorable Dick Gephardt's situation, they will look at the popularity of the sitting President and determine how it affects them.
We have one year before that fateful announcement day. We need to make it impossible for those few electable Republicans to get elected. We need to hammer away. Keep pounding the drumbeat -- "Giuliani cheated on his wife!" Now is the time to defeat the frontrunners. To take away their funding. To piss off their base. To make the politcal landscape a moonscape. Not after the 2006 elections. All the decisions will have been made already.
Word to the wise though. Little known Arkansas governor threw his hat into the ring. Nobody knew him (if you say you did and you're north of Little Rock - you're lying). Nobody cared. Until he was the only one electable. And then things changed. Bush 41 became very unpopular. Clinton became very electable.
My question is this. Who is the Republican Cinton? Who is the one man/woman willing to throw caution and reason to the wind. Who will throw their hat into the ring and transform their party like the little boy from the town called Hope. The big Dicks are going to walk away from this fight and bide their time for a better day. Who is the reckless, feckless one?