02-20-2008, 12:25 AM
The time they counted the Dems out
20:28pm 17th February 2008 Comments Comments
Keith Waterhouse
Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton: Still a toss-up between the two
American democracy's covered wagon rolls on, across the peaks and the prairies. Republicans seem to be settling for John McCain as their presidential candidate. A good choice.
For the Democrats, it could still be a toss-up between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
It could in fact be such a damn close-run thing that the question of whether Democratic voters get a woman presidential candidate or a black presidential candidate might still have to be decided on the floor of their convention centre.
It beats your average municipal by-election, anyway. And it does give me the opportunity to issue my four-yearly warning, as regards the United States, of counting your turkeys before they are out of the egg.
This applies even to icons of the political scene, such as the great H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun, the most influential newspaper journalist of his day.
Or, as some of his followers would say, of any day.
The year is 1924, the month a sweltering July, the temperature in the 90s and rising.
We join Mr Mencken in the dining car from Baltimore to New York's Grand Central. Checking his bags in at The Algonquin Hotel, he instructs his Yellow Cab driver to convey us to Madison Square Garden.
We are about to witness the most historic Democratic Party convention since American party politics began. Certainly the longest.
It will continue for 15 stifling nights, the only form of airconditioning being if you waved your hat around like a fan.
Before the Dems shook themselves up and got properly prepared for this kind of jamboree ("I'm not a member of any organised political party - I'm a Democrat," quipped the comedian Will Rogers) there was no real separation of the sheep from the goats as in the present highly-tuned system of primaries and caucuses.
Thus when the party assembled in New York to decide who it wanted to fight the good fight, it had 24 hopefuls in tow.
With the then 48 states voting ponderously in turn, it took some days to thin the contenders down to two - William G. McAdoo of California, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson, a supporter of Prohibition and with delegates who supported the Ku Klux Klan.
This nowadays would be like our own LibDems rooting for the BNP, but that was then. They were known as Dixiecrats.
On the other half of the ticket was Al Smith, the popular governor and former mayor of New York and a dedicated opponent of Prohibition.
Mr Mencken was on his side. But the rules of the Democratic Party at that time were not.
They seemed geared to arrange that nobody could win. McAdoo and Smith fought almost hand to hand, through ballot after ballot, without either of them gaining an inch.
Finally, to break the deadlock, the party dragged in their Mister Cellophane - a totally obscure ex-congressman from West Virginia and sometime ambassador to the Court of St James's, called John W. Davis.
It all seemed even more hopeless than ever, and yet another ballot - the 103rd - was looming. Mr Mencken drew up his Remington Portable and composed his dispatch for the Baltimore Sun:
"Nothing is certain in the world of politics but of one thing we can be absolutely sure.
"John W. Davis from West Virginia will not be the victor in the 103rd ballot for the presidential nominee in the 1924 Democratic National Convention."
Mr Mencken then wired his story to Baltimore and went across the road to a neighbourhood bar, where he fell among friends, as you do.
Returning a few hours later, and long after the Baltimore Sun had gone to press, he heard that John W. Davis had, despite all expectations, won the 103rd ballot.
Whereupon Mr Mencken was heard to utter: "I just hope those know-nothings down in Baltimore have at least had the savvy to remove the word 'not'."
Many years ago, that prolific writer Arnold Bennett of Five Towns fame wrote a little book called How To Live On 24 Hours A Day.
Its theme was the art of getting a pint into a half-pint pot. Our Arnold crammed more into each day than most of us can manage in a week.
He insisted that we all start out each morning with exactly the same ratio of time - which some of us use to the hilt, while the rest of us fritter much of it away.
If Arnold's little book had not been long out of print, I should have asked Culture Secretary Andy Burnham to send copies of it to all the headteachers in this country, following his plan for schoolchildren to spend five hours a week on cultural activities such as visiting theatres and galleries.
Given that they're already expected to find more time for cookery classes, lessons in citizenship, tests and exams, extra reading, a restoration of compulsory sports, not to mention Gordon's new holiday for a day of patriotism, where are these five hours a week to be found?
Arnold would know. Does Andy?
20:28pm 17th February 2008 Comments Comments
Keith Waterhouse
Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton: Still a toss-up between the two
American democracy's covered wagon rolls on, across the peaks and the prairies. Republicans seem to be settling for John McCain as their presidential candidate. A good choice.
For the Democrats, it could still be a toss-up between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
It could in fact be such a damn close-run thing that the question of whether Democratic voters get a woman presidential candidate or a black presidential candidate might still have to be decided on the floor of their convention centre.
It beats your average municipal by-election, anyway. And it does give me the opportunity to issue my four-yearly warning, as regards the United States, of counting your turkeys before they are out of the egg.
This applies even to icons of the political scene, such as the great H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun, the most influential newspaper journalist of his day.
Or, as some of his followers would say, of any day.
The year is 1924, the month a sweltering July, the temperature in the 90s and rising.
We join Mr Mencken in the dining car from Baltimore to New York's Grand Central. Checking his bags in at The Algonquin Hotel, he instructs his Yellow Cab driver to convey us to Madison Square Garden.
We are about to witness the most historic Democratic Party convention since American party politics began. Certainly the longest.
It will continue for 15 stifling nights, the only form of airconditioning being if you waved your hat around like a fan.
Before the Dems shook themselves up and got properly prepared for this kind of jamboree ("I'm not a member of any organised political party - I'm a Democrat," quipped the comedian Will Rogers) there was no real separation of the sheep from the goats as in the present highly-tuned system of primaries and caucuses.
Thus when the party assembled in New York to decide who it wanted to fight the good fight, it had 24 hopefuls in tow.
With the then 48 states voting ponderously in turn, it took some days to thin the contenders down to two - William G. McAdoo of California, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson, a supporter of Prohibition and with delegates who supported the Ku Klux Klan.
This nowadays would be like our own LibDems rooting for the BNP, but that was then. They were known as Dixiecrats.
On the other half of the ticket was Al Smith, the popular governor and former mayor of New York and a dedicated opponent of Prohibition.
Mr Mencken was on his side. But the rules of the Democratic Party at that time were not.
They seemed geared to arrange that nobody could win. McAdoo and Smith fought almost hand to hand, through ballot after ballot, without either of them gaining an inch.
Finally, to break the deadlock, the party dragged in their Mister Cellophane - a totally obscure ex-congressman from West Virginia and sometime ambassador to the Court of St James's, called John W. Davis.
It all seemed even more hopeless than ever, and yet another ballot - the 103rd - was looming. Mr Mencken drew up his Remington Portable and composed his dispatch for the Baltimore Sun:
"Nothing is certain in the world of politics but of one thing we can be absolutely sure.
"John W. Davis from West Virginia will not be the victor in the 103rd ballot for the presidential nominee in the 1924 Democratic National Convention."
Mr Mencken then wired his story to Baltimore and went across the road to a neighbourhood bar, where he fell among friends, as you do.
Returning a few hours later, and long after the Baltimore Sun had gone to press, he heard that John W. Davis had, despite all expectations, won the 103rd ballot.
Whereupon Mr Mencken was heard to utter: "I just hope those know-nothings down in Baltimore have at least had the savvy to remove the word 'not'."
Many years ago, that prolific writer Arnold Bennett of Five Towns fame wrote a little book called How To Live On 24 Hours A Day.
Its theme was the art of getting a pint into a half-pint pot. Our Arnold crammed more into each day than most of us can manage in a week.
He insisted that we all start out each morning with exactly the same ratio of time - which some of us use to the hilt, while the rest of us fritter much of it away.
If Arnold's little book had not been long out of print, I should have asked Culture Secretary Andy Burnham to send copies of it to all the headteachers in this country, following his plan for schoolchildren to spend five hours a week on cultural activities such as visiting theatres and galleries.
Given that they're already expected to find more time for cookery classes, lessons in citizenship, tests and exams, extra reading, a restoration of compulsory sports, not to mention Gordon's new holiday for a day of patriotism, where are these five hours a week to be found?
Arnold would know. Does Andy?