Post 81: Chapter 89
Chapter 89: September 2004 – February 2005
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
– Stephen King (OTL)
– Goetz’04 primaries logo/slogan, meant to clarify how the candidate himself pronounced him surname (as many were initially pronouncing it as “gets” instead of “guts”), first used c. early-to-mid 2004
Go With Your Goetz: For The Good Of The Country
– Goetz’04 slogan, first used 9/1/2004
…And down in South Africa, that nation’s President-Elect, Mangosuthu Buthelezei, was sworn into office earlier today. Buthelezei, age 75, has been a highly controversial politician in South Africa for decades due to accusations from opponents that Buthelezei supported paramilitary groups and encouraged acts of violence against whites during the Apartheid Era. However, due to his many years of public service improving the quality of life for all South Africans, Buthelezei won enough white South Africans to win the August 25 Presidential election outright. Outgoing President Chris Hani and former Presidents Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela also spoken highly of Buthelezei during the election campaign, allowing the new President to win over challengers Mathinus van Schalkwyk and Peter Marais…
– BBC News, 1/9/2003 broadcast
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 46%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 12%
– Gallup, 9/2/2004
“I’m running for a second term in the Senate so I can keep on fighting for the American people from that chamber of corruption, and I encourage everyone who loves freedom, peace and equality to help my good friends Dennis J. Morrisseau and Rosemary Jackowski get more ballot access. Right now, they are on just 21 state ballots, so please, visit their netsite, sign the petitions, and vote Morrisseau into the White House this November.”
– Peter Diamondstone (LU-VT), 9/4/2004
Another controversial aspect of Chik-fil-A’s founder was his political activities. In early September 2004, then-83-year-old S. Truett Cathy endorsed and strongly stumped for then-Republican Presidential nominee Bernhard Goetz, saying that Goetz would “keep the gays at bay” and “bring the heathens of the world closer to God one way or another.” The businessman’s statements caused the franchise to lose several sponsors and busyness partnerships as well as disapproval and condemnation from a host of individuals and groups, from celebrities and culinary bigwigs to politicians and activists.
KFC heads relished their rival’s sudden slip from grace, savored the moment, and then capitalized on it for all it was worth. Chik-fil-A hoped the cretins surrounding the incident would die down and the incident itself would soon be forgotten in the busy news cycle of the election year. KFC made sure this wouldn’t happen; less than a month after the comments were made, KFC was airing three 30-second commercials using archival audio footage of Colonel Sanders, seemingly praising the BLUTAG community as being “brave folks,” then cut to footage of Cathy’s comments.
KFC’s domestic sales were already turning around, but the commercials only helped, while Chik-fil-A’s boycotts from various groups ranging from online petitions to on-the-ground protests kept one of their biggest competitors at bay.
It was only recently that debate arose over the context of the audio used on the commercials, which leaked documents suggested were pulled from footage in which The Colonel was actually describing Civil Rights activists as “brave folks,” and not BLUTAGO-Americans [1]…
– Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
…The Jackson campaign invested heavily in door-to-door canvassing, community outreach, and techsite advertising in a strategy that combine old and new voter mobilization techniques. However, the marketing strategies and image tactics from 2000 could not be reused, for Jackson was no longer attacking an incumbent – now he was the incumbent trying to brush off attacks. Instead of calling for a changing of the guard, Jackson now had to resell his candidacy to the American people. “Keep Hope Alive” was essentially replaced with “Keep Me Around For Another Four Years.”
In early September, Jackson revisited his home state of South Carolina, and was joined onstage by US Senator Fritz Hollings. At the political event, Jackson retold his career, about how he worked in Chicago during the 1960s, but was born and raised in South Carolina, as were his children…
[snip]
…Jackson became National Director of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago in 1967. After Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped down from leading the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1970 over the scandal that indirectly led to the Ms. Arkansas Scandal and thus contributing to the First Arkwave, Jackson’s rival Ralph Abernathy became the new leader of the SCLC. However, when Abernathy died in plane crash in 1971, the organization’s new leader became Unita Blackwell, who moved the national office of Operation Breadbasket to Charleston in 1971, citing Jesse’s success in the Windy City and expressing hope that he could do the same for South Carolina.
– researcher Brenda J. Hargis’ Emboldening: The Jesse Jackson Presidency, Sunrise Publications, 2017
“Well, people, it looks like the Democrat Rats are really running out of things to criticize about me, because now their friends in the media are complaining about this minor incident from my early years as a hardware store owner. They’re upset about this time back in 1987, when I shot a thief in the leg. The cops found a gun in his jacket pocket. If I hadn’t kneecapped him, I’m certain he would have killed me. Now I defended myself and my store, as any businessman, or any person with a gun behind the counter, would have done in that kind of situation. But now only are the members of the media that are in the pockets of the Democratic establishment taking the hoodlum’s side, but the puppets are also completely ignoring the fact that that punk had several priors, you know, a pretty bad rap sheet, and the fact that he got off easy. Just juvie and community service. He was sixteen, and he was tall. Honestly, they should have tried him as an adult. But I suspect then-Mayor Wellington Webb pulled a few strings, you know? That incident are part of the reason why my feud with that guy kind of started, in fact. He was too oppressive to businesses. But anyway, my point, people, is that I’m not the bad guy there, like how I’m not the bad guy now. You’re all smart enough to realize that. Good for y’all. And I’m not sorry about that incident, either. I am not sorry for it at all. I would, without hesitation, shoot a violent criminal again.” [2]
– Bernie Goetz at a rally, Chesterfield, MO, 9/15/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 47%
Goetz: 43%
Undecided/other: 10%
– Gallup, 9/18/2004
…John and Paul each claim to have come up with having the reunion special be tied to a charity event, but in 2008, Paul confessed that putting on a benefit concert for SARS survivors was John’s idea.
Ahead on the concert, John told reporters “I think drumming up support for them this way is a better use of my time trying to work with parliament some more,” but was quick to boast about how he had already passed legislation for SARS survivor relief 10 months before leaving office…
[note: please ignore the poor cropping at the bottom there (D'oh!)]
Above: Ringo, John, Paul and George rehearse new material ahead of the September 20 concert, The Beatles Reunion Charity Benefit Special, which was held at the Millennium Dome.
…George would die from cancer ten months later, at the age of 62…
– Pat Sheffield’s Dreams, Reality, and Music: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole Entire World, Tumbleweed Publications, 2020 edition
JOANNA TSE, PULMONOLOGIST AND SARS SURVIVOR, AWARDED KEY TO THE CITY-STATE FOR SAVING LIVES IN HONG KONG
…Tse is being lauded for volunteering to save dozens of patients at four hospitals in Hong Kong, even after becoming infected with SARS twice, with the double-infection leaving her with permanent breathing problems. Arriving at the ceremony sporting an oxygen tank on her back to assist her SARS-damaged lungs, Tse, 36, accepted the award graciously, and in her prepared speech, encouraged “all who can” to contribute to SARS research and organizations aiding SARS survivors. “More needs to be known. Knowing more will help more people”…
– scientificamerican.co.usa, 9/21/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 45%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 13%
– Gallup, 9/23/2004
BIGGIE AND TUPAC ENDORSE “PREZY-JJ” IN FIRST-EVER JOINT PUBLIC APPEARANCE
Chicago, IL – at a Democratic fundraiser hosted by US Senators Katie Beatrice Hall (D-IN) and Paul Vallas (D-IL), guests were treated to an unexpected surprise… “This election is more important than our differences,” Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. The Big One, told the crowd. Smalls backed Meredith during the Republican primaries, while Tupac (along with Malcolm X and other members of the so-called “revolutionary left”) supported Diamondstone during the Democratic primaries. …The years-long rivalry between these two artists came to a head in the mid-1990s, when the “thug life” depicted in rap was accused of promoting and provoking violence. The assassination of Lee Iacocca, and several rappers being either killed or wounded in shootings, occurring during this period led to the rap industry scaling back their “pro-violence” image. For instance, Biggie’s 1997 “First To Last” album, a noted departure from his previous collections of songs, had noticeably lighter tone than many has expected from The Big One...
– The Los Angeles Times, 9/25/2004
DOW IMPROVING AS SARS RESTRICTIONS EASED, JOBS RETURNING NATIONWIDE
– The Wall Street Journal, 9/26/2004
…By the end of their fifth season in early 2004, the ratings were dropping again, and it seemed the cavalcade of controversies would not be renewed after season six. Then along came a certain politician.
The ascendance of Bernie Goetz helped L&S by allowing McFarlane to make Season 6 premier with a politically sharp episode in an attempt to boost the floundering ratings. The episode, “Landslides and Scrapes,” aired on September 27 and centered on thru introduction of the show’s Mayor character, an corrupt and possibly unhinged public official who was a bully in Larry’s old middle school. The plot focused on Larry trying to return a football helmet he stole from the character’s locker in school several years ago, only to unintentionally thwart Mayor Ernie Wimbleweed’s bibles-for-guns racketeering scheme. It’s another episode with plot elements that may be too mature for younger audiences, but they are mainly in the background. Nevertheless, Ernie was clearly a parody of Bernier Goetz, and that led to enough criticism for audience numbers to improve, as new viewers tuned in to this supposedly mature children’s show.
Interestingly, before the election had even occurred, McFarlane had decided that Mayor Wimbleweed was to become a prominent recurring character in the series if Goetz won, and was to be used rarely, in small doses, if Goetz lost...
[snip]
…L&S’s ratings continued to decline as the years continued on, and the show was ultimately not renewed for an eleventh season. Larry & Steve aired their final episode in 2009, after 10 seasons and roughly 11 years on the air.
The show’s creator has synced branching out into other genres and industries, but most of these projects have been largely hit-&-miss, usually picking up a cult status, especially his more…risqué projects that most audiences saw as falling flat for one reason or another...
– segment of video essay, “The Consistent Inconsistencies of Larry And Steve,” uploaded to Ourvids.co.can on 11/15/2019
“Jackson can’t lose this. I mean that in two ways, one being that the country can’t afford it and that he really shouldn’t lose, given the scope of his support. The President has the backing of religious people, those favoring social services, minorities, college-educated whites, women, and even many veterans. The only voting bloc he’s not winning over, it seems, is the racists. Goetz’s got that vote locked up tight. And, you know, I’ve dealt with racists in the past, like when I used to work for a radio station in Denver. It’s how on got this scar here, and this, uh, this bullet wound over here. Lots more Goetz types out there than you’d think. And their once-rare public rallies for Goetz are only getting bolder as election night nears. The voters need to nip this rise in racism and anti-Semitism in the bud. Even if the polling suggest he’ll win in a landslide, that’s not a guarantee. People have to vote; Jackson needs to win this!”
– radio host and political commentator Alan Berg (1934-2018), 9/30/2004
“GOETZ IS NUTS!” Dozens Declined RM Spot Over Bernie’s Base And Rhetoric
…US Congresswoman Laura Lane Welch was among several Republican politicians approached by the Goetz campaign with the offer of running mate. Like most, she turned down being vetted over a dislike for Goetz’s candidacy. “Mr. Goetz may not personally believe in the certain views that many of his supporters share, but the fact that he embraces those certain supporters instead of disavowing or downing them is enough to keep others away,” the retiring legislator said in a radio interview yesterday evening. “His people must have asked dozens of folks to join his sinking ship of a campaign, only to step back over the vitriol that seems to cling to his candidacy.” According to Welch, even Goetz’s attempts to shift to the right at the start of the primaries failed to rouse support from conservative Republicans such as herself. “Not only does his campaign serve to harbor negativity and bigotry, but his initial backpedaling and flip-flopping on several issues before, during, and after the primaries has turned off so many people, and when party unity and a broad support base are really needed to win in November, too!”
– The New York Post, 10/1/2004
“When you plant a garden, you can’t just walk away from after it bursts out through the ground but before the real fruit shows up and ripens. You’ve got to see it through all the way if you want to reap what you sow. Since 2001, income and wealth inequality conditions are improving, but the conditions can be even more fair and even more level if we stay the course. Inequality is eroding away, not just when it comes to the life quality of the lower class. It is eroding away at the American middle class itself, too. And why? Because, unlike my opponent, this administration understands that the entire point of this government is to provide for the people. In this current age, this government, this administration, this presidency aims to help and protect those who cannot help and protect themselves on their own. To look to improve the lives of all people, not to a dog-eat-dog mentality to permeate our industries; to inspire and encourage people to be the best they can be, not to cut down those who think differently or act differently, for they could be the Einsteins and O’Keefes and Hemingways and Jonas Salks of tomorrow; to promote understanding and love, not ignorance, bigotry, and hatred. It is the correct thing to do, it is the moral thing to do.”
– Present Jesse Jackson, campaigning in Clover, rural Virginia, 10/2/2004
“This very well may be the first autumn without a case of SARS since the initial outbreak in late 2001. No new cases of the pandemic strain of SARS, which caused or directly contributed to roughly 983,000 deaths worldwide over the past three years, have been confirmed outside of India in ten weeks, and no new cases have been confirmed inside India in seven weeks. It is apparent that this pandemic has run its course, thanks to the quick thinking and hard work of all people around the world, united in a thankfully brief era of international crisis.”
– Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization, unofficially declaring the SARS pandemic “over,” 10/3/2004
…The first Presidential debate of the autumn campaign was held on October 5 and focused mainly on foreign policy.
In regards to international commerce and humanitarianism, Jackson reiterated that he preferred direct aid and debt relief to impoverished nations instead of using trade reform as a way of helping them, as he believed that deregulation of trade policies only benefits corporations and exploits foreign labor. Goetz took the reverse stance, proclaiming that regulations interrupt the “natural flow” of the free market system responsible for innovation and technological advancements. When asked “what would you have done differently if you had been President during the pandemic,” Goetz replied “That’s in the past. This debate is about what I’ll do over the next four years, let’s not bring in hypotheticals.” When pressed on the topic, Goetz noted that he would have enforced “less severe and less restrictive” safezoning measures, arguing that those “allowed under Jackson suffocated our economy.” Goetz criticized Jackson’s business regulations as well, and while he generally ignored the markets recovering, the former Senator did note the types of jobs that were not returning. To this, Jackson countered by pointing out that new jobs had replaced old ones as more businesses began to harness the positive aspects of remote work.
When the subject of humanitarian aid came up, Goetz boasted his anti-interventionist stance, but noted that “North Korea-like situations” were the exception. The then added, “Still, we need to beef up the military so we never have to use them except in times of defense. If the military’s beefed up, only fools would dare mess with us.”
Overall, Goetz performed much better than expected, and he saw a slight rise in the polls immediately afterward...
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 47%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 11%
– Gallup, 10/6/2004
– Chris Rock interviewing President Jesse Jackson, The Chris Rock Show (1997-2005), 10/9/2004 [3]
“Wellstone won this debate hands down. The VP held his ground on foreign policy, and he knew what he was talking about when answering questions on domestic policy. He was passionate, compassionate, and professional. None of that could be said about Bargewell. He was aggressive to the moderator, had this weird scowl-like expression on with his face much of the time, and repeatedly interrupted the VP. Eldon may have gotten a few jabs in about a weak military, and he certainly knew his stuff about the Army, but the problem for him was that army stuff is all he knows. Bargewell failed to answer even basic questions about taxes, commerce, trade, housing, food insecurity, statehood. He even fumbled the question about police precinct reform! How does a military expert fail to talk about militarization?! That guy, though, he just tried to tie and relate every topic to the military. Saying trade is like the Army sharing intel with the other branches of the military, which doesn’t make sense as an analogy. Comparing housing to, quote, ‘comfy barracks,’ unquote, and food drives to rations and whatnot? Is that really going to win anybody over? At this point in the race, the sides have been formed and the job of the running mate is to play to undecideds by propping up the one heading their ticket. Wellstone did that without too much bull, praising Jesse’s handling of SARS and economic recovery, while Bargewell just mentioned Goetz’s name from time to time like he was an afterthought.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, reviewing the 2004 VP debate, Saturday 10/12/2004
BOBBITT THE BEATER: Investigator Blows Lid on Senate Hopeful’s Cover-Up of Lewd Past
Tucson, AZ – An Arizona Republic exposé article by investigative reporter Lorena Gallo has revealed that a GOP nominee for a US Senate seat had been lying about the past 19 years of his life to hide a history of sexual pestering and run-ins with law enforcement.
John Wayne Bobbitt, a single and childless 37-year-old state senator since 2001, may seem like a typical Goetz-backing politician, but Gallo has discovered that Bobbitt was twice arrested for assault and battery, first in Las Vegas in 1985 and again in Manassas Junction, Virginia, in 1990; in each case, he was initially accused of beating his first wife, only for her to decline pressing charges. Now, though, with Gallo’s urging, two of Bobbitt’s three ex-wives have come forward to warn people about his “sick” personality. “This is not slander, this is the truth,” says the first ex-wife, Margaret Thompson of Roanoke, Virginia, “That man had me believing that I was worthless and would be nothing without him.” His second ex-wife has polaroids of some of the many times when Bobbitt would severely beat her. The third wife has documents from a Nevada abortion clinic, and states “I wanted to have children, he didn’t. On the second pregnancy, he literally dragged out of the car, and I kicked and screamed, but he just beat me until I agreed to kill our baby.” Former aides of Bobbitt also back up their stories by recounting his history of sexual pestering. “This kind of behavior should have died out in the first Arkwave if not the second,” writes Gallo in the expose, “maybe it’s time for a third.”
– The New York Post, 10/14/2004
The second Presidential debate was held on the nineteenth and focused primarily on domestic issues. Goetz started off the night with a call for reversing the gun restrictions passed in 1995 and 1996. President then quickly reminded Goetz that those laws had been passed because of how President Iacocca was assassinated, leading to Goetz fumble through a rebuttal that did not mention or acknowledge the cause of Iacocca’s premature demise. Then came discussions on energy, with Goetz disagreeing with Jackson on the value of fracking.
Another major topic in the debate on which both candidates disagreed was the proposed admittance of Puerto Rico and DC into the union as the 51st and 52nd states. Despite the rise in interest and possibility that such admissions would occur in the near future, Goetz openly questioned the validity and legitimacy of the movement, suggesting it was “propped up” by Democrats and had “no real, actual support in Puerto Rico itself.” His comments offended and upset many conservative Hispanics in the GOP, who later or immediately criticized him for the comments; several non-Hispanic Republicans privately voiced concern that the reply would “cost [the party] the Hispanic vote for years” if Goetz lost the election over this comment.
Overall, Goetz was seen as doing poorly in this debate. Jackson, on the other better hand, was more prepared than he was for the first one, and thus, this time, the incumbent was viewed as the winner of the debate.
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 52%
Goetz: 39%
Undecided/other: 9%
– Gallup, 10/21/2004
…The true “Autumn Surprise” of the 2004 race finally arrived three days ahead of the third send final Presidential debate, when audio leaked from a private Republican fundraiser held in Washington, D.C. In the audio, one can clearly tell that Goetz has been caught on a hot mic telling a lobbyist that he is “still open” to the idea of privatizing Social Security. Goetz then rants about the “ridiculousness” of gun safety: “You get in big trouble for shooting people. It’s serious business. But I also feel a lot of people probably deserve being shot, and a lot of people deserve being killed.” [2]
The public releasing of the audio sent Goetz’s campaign into a panic before Chief of Staff Nichols took control of the situation, telling his subordinates and the candidate that they would to downplay the comments at the upcoming debate and increase focus on the campaign’s them of “defending our national borders.”…
– author A’Lelia Bundles’ Consequential: The Presidency of Jesse Jackson, Random House, 2015
JACKSON: “It truly says something about one’s character when they make comments like that. The successes of my administration shows that you need heart and compassion and understanding for your fellow Americans. That is why we sent out the stimulus checks during the pandemic. That is why we expanded the Voting Rights Act and launched anti-GCD initiatives. Because nobody deserves being deprived of a well-deserved retirement, and nobody deserves to be killed. Mr. Goetz, your comments were despicable and you owe the American people an apology.”
GOETZ: “Look, we’re focusing on the wrong subject here. Leadership of the world’s most powerful country on Earth can’t be placed in the hands of a softie. You need to be able to prove to the enemies of peace that you will not tolerate them. To look at the recreadrug lords, the gun runners, the third-world despots and the countries like China and India that wish to take advantage of America’s good, decent and generous behavior to rip us off when it comes to international trade and outsourcing, stare ’em straight in the eyes, and tell them, ‘Hey – you mess with us, we mess with you.’ But under your administration, the US military budget is at its lowest level since 1980...”
JACKSON: “The economy is stable and is back to pre-SARS conditions, plus we have overseen the creation of more jobs as employers utilize the possibilities of the technet, which everyone saw during the lockdowns can be a valuable tool for remote jobs. This administration, if re-elected, will in the next four years continue the policies of the last four years…”
GOETZ: “I support small government except when a large government is needed to ensure a strong national immigration policy and strong law enforcement at all levels, and to defend the lives of freedom-lovers living in hell-hole countries abroad from Hitler wannabes. With all other cases, I say that, well, if you need help, what would you rather seek help from – the cold, impersonal bureaucracy of a federal government, or the welcoming in of a caring friend, spouse, or family member?”
JACKSON: “Our immediate response to the SARS pandemic and the success of the Manned Mars Mission prove the benefits that come from international collaboration.”
GOETZ: “In the world of geopolitics, you can’t afford not to be cutthroat and serious so that over countries don’t try and walk all over you. It’s foolhardy to believe that all countries will just agree to pay fair when it comes to trade. We need a President who will put the American workers ahead of foreign labor, who understands that outsourcing is never a good thing. I say keep American enterprises in America, and one way to do that is to lower the administration’s suppressive regulations.”
JACKSON: “Greatness is determined not through firepower but by choosing to hold off on using warfare until all avenues for a peaceful resolution have been tried.”
– Snippets from the third general election Presidential debate of 2004, 10/26/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 59%
Goetz: 35%
Undecided/other: 6%
– Gallup, 10/29/2004
Anchor DAN RATHER: “Now, I’m trying to be fair, unbiased and balanced here, but do truly believe that Goetz is going to win?”
Boulder University President CONDI RICE: “Yes. You cannot trust the polls, people. Dewey trusted the polls in 1948 and look what happened – he lost considerably to Harry Truman. You have to look at the people and what the incumbent has done for this country. The people always publicly join bandwagons and say they’ll vote for whoever they think is the popular candidate. But with the privacy of the ballot comes the truth of their analysis of who should serve over the next four year. In 1948, the people looked at the incumbent and saw Truman had ended World War Two and helped out lovers of freedom with the Berlin Airlift. Now, the people are looking at the incumbent and see an oppressive government that wastes their taxpayer money and forces people to stay indoors or wear masks over something that didn’t even kill a thousand people in this country.”
Lawyer and community organizer Janice Fine: “But that’s just why Jesse will win – because he kept them safe and prevented our numbers from being as bad as India’s or Russia’s or China’s, and ensured financial relief for the monetarily insecure in order to keep the Negative Income Tax Rebate program solvent. How many countries suffered financial issues, went in the red, for saw taxes spike because of SARS? Not the US, and Jesse didn’t even violate the BBA to do so, either!”
Political author HUNTER S. THOMPSON: “Yeah, I agree with Janice, it will be a blowout for Jesse next Tuesday. Condi, there might be a lot of racists lying to pollsters wend saying they’ll vote one way and plan on voting the other way, but it won’t be enough to make up the difference in the polls, or the number of Republicans defecting to Jackson/Wellstone ticket. You know something’s up, that something bails going down inside the GOP, when you go online and see ads everywhere reading ‘Republicans For Jesse Jackson,’ Condi.”
Journalist BOB SCHAEFFER: “Um, but, Condi does have a point. Condi, I agree that many Goetzers are misleading pollsters, but a big voting bloc here is undecided voters. And if anything turns them away from Goetz, it would be his debate performances. His demeanor, inability to answer several questions well, his posturing, the fact that he kept glancing over to the clock on the side on the wall during the second debate. The sweating, the shiftiness, it’s all superficial, but because undecided voters aren’t too ideological motivated, it’s the superficial that often wins them over.”
RATHER: “But at least this Tuesday not be too bad for Senate Republicans, right? Because more Democratic incumbent seats are up for grabs tonight?”
THOMPSON: “And because of how many Republicans are distancing themselves from Goetz. Especially that House GOP minority leader guy, David Emery.”
RICE: “I don’t know, I’m still convinced he’ll pull off a Truman-type upset. Bernie’s spending a lot of focus on Ohio and Florida, you know.”
FINE: “Yes, he’s essentially dismissing the Rockies, the plains, the south, and even Texas in favor of focusing on several historically decisive bellwether states like Missouri and Illinois. The strategy is as outdated as his views.”
– CBS News, round-table discussion, 10/30/2004
Tickets:
Jesse Jackson (SC) / Paul Wellstone (MN) (Democratic) – 78,720,536 (58.2%)
Bernie Goetz (CA) / Eldon A. Bargewell (VA) (Republican) – 54,238,719 (40.1%)
All other votes – 2,299,397 (1.7%)
Total Votes – 135,258,652 (100%)
[snip]
The remaining 1.7% of the popular vote was by won by several third-party and independent candidates; the Socialist Alliance ticket (Dennis J. Morrisseau (VT) / Rosemary Jackowski (NY)) came in third place with 0.8% of the total national vote (and receiving roughly 5.1% of the vote in Vermont), while the Patriotic Front ticket (Barbara Coe (CA) / Scott Lively (MA)) came in fourth, and the True America ticket, the United Freedom ticket, Pragmatic ticket, and Family ticket came in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth place, respectively...
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…Florida was closer than usual for a Republican state, especially since Florida has not voted for a Democratic nominee since 1948 [4], while Ohio confirmed its Republican lean. Kansas went blue due to the work of former Governor Jim Slattery, a Jackson surrogate who worked to “remind” Kansans that it was Jackson’s renewal energy policies responsible for the state’s economic recovery going smooth as wind turbines and sun panels began to add variety and diversity to Kansas’s seemingly-endless fields. …The ten closest states of the night, in order, were Texas (by 0.07%), Louisiana (0.11%), Kansas (0.24%), Montana (0.39%), South Dakota (0.57%), Missouri (0.79%), South Carolina (1.14%), Ohio (1.28%), Florida (1.54%), and Mississippi (1.87%)…
– Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: Roads to The White House, Sunrise Publications, 2011 edition
“The campaigning has concluded, but our work is far from over. Now is the time for healing. …What unites us as a nation is our differences, for they make us unique, so we should celebrate the strength of our nation and the accomplishment of tonight, the culmination of months of hard work that y’all put into this race.”
– Jesse Jackson, 11/3/2004
November United States Senate election results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Seats: 34 of 100
Seats needed for majority: 51
New Senate majority leader: Robert Byrd (D-WV)
New Senate minority leader: Webb Franklin (R-MS)
Seats before election: 57 (D), 40 (R), 2 (I), 1 (LU)
Seats after election: 62 (D), 36 (R), 2 (I), 0 (LU)
Seat change: D ^ 5, R v 4, I - 0, LU v 1
Full List:
Alabama: Doug Jones (D) over Tim James (R) and Bettye Frink (Rational Republican); incumbent Mary Texas Hurt Garner (D) retired
Alaska: Kevin Danaher (D) over Jerry Sanders (R), Marc Millican (I), and Jim Dore (HIP); incumbent Frank Murkowski (R) retired
Arizona: incumbent Eddie Najeeb Basha Jr. (D) over Garrett Wood (Republican (write-in)) and John Wayne Bobbitt (R)
Arkansas: incumbent F. Winford Boozman III (R) over Winston Bryant (D)
California: incumbent Mike Gravel (D) over Howard Kaloogian (R) and Marsha Feinland (Natural Mind)
Colorado: Mark Udall (D) over Bob Schaffer (R); incumbent Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R) retired
Connecticut: incumbent Chris Dodd (D) over Jack Orchulli (R)
Florida: incumbent Michael Bilirakis (R) over Nan Rich (D)
Georgia: Herman Cain (R) over John W. Carter (D), Denise Majette (Green), and Allen Buckley (Liberty); incumbent Dr. John Skandalakis (D) retired
Hawaii: incumbent Daniel Inouye (D) over Campbell Cavasso (R)
Idaho: Bo Gritz (R) over Lawerence Denney (Rational Republican), Wendy Jaquet (D), and Scott F. McClure (Independent Democrat); incumbent Bethine Clark Church (D) retired
Illinois: incumbent Paul G. Vallas (D) over Steve Rauschenberger (R)
Indiana: incumbent Evan Bayh (D) over Marvin Scott (R)
Iowa: incumbent Patty Jean Poole (D) over Jerry Kohn (R) and Albert Franzen (I)
Kansas: incumbent Bob Dole (R) over Lee Jones (D)
Kentucky: incumbent Patrick “Kelly” Downard (R) over Paul E. Patton (D)
Louisiana: Chris John (D) over incumbent Buddy Roemer (R)
Maryland: incumbent Barbara Mikulski (D) over E. J. Pipkin (R)
Missouri: Wayne Cryts (D) over Mike Steger (R); incumbent Bill Bradley (D) retired
Nevada: Dina Titus (D) over incumbent Patricia Anne “Patty” Cafferata (R)
New Hampshire: incumbent Lou D’Allesandro (D) over Sharon Carson (R)
New York: Allyson Schwartz (D) over Howard Mills III (R); incumbent Mario Biaggi (R) retired
North Carolina: incumbent Nick Galifianakis (D) over John Ross Hendrix (R)
North Dakota: incumbent Kent Conrad (D) over Mike Liffrig (R)
Ohio: incumbent appointee Peter Lawson Jones (D) over Nancy Putnam Hollister (R) and Tony Patrick Hall (Independent Democrat)
Oklahoma: Brad Carson (D) over incumbent Marvin Henry “Mickey” Edwards (R)
Oregon: incumbent Walter Leslie “Les” AuCoin (D) over Al King (R)
Pennsylvania: incumbent Bob Casey Sr. (D) over Betsy Summers (R)
South Carolina: incumbent Fritz Hollings (D) over Jim DeMint (R)
South Dakota: incumbent Teresa McGovern (D) over John Thune (R)
Utah: incumbent Lyle Hillyard (R) over Paul Van Dam (D)
Vermont: William Sorrell (D) over Peter D. Moss (R) and incumbent Peter Diamondstone (Liberty Union)
Washington: incumbent Gary Locke (D) over George Nethercutt (R)
Wisconsin: incumbent Bronson La Follette (D) over Tim Michels (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
United States House of Representatives results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Seats: All 435
Seats needed for majority: 218
New House majority leader: Barbara B. Kennelly (D-CT)
New House minority leader: H. Dargan McMaster (R-SC)
Last election: 227 (D), 207 (R), 1 (I)
Seats won: 238 (D), 197 (R), 0 (I)
Seat change: D ^ 11, R v 10, I v 1
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
United States Governor election results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Number of state gubernatorial elections held: 11
Seats before: 33 (D), 16 (R), 1 (I)
Seats after: 35 (D), 14 (R), 1 (I)
Seat change: D ^ 2, R v 2, I - 0
Full list:
Delaware: incumbent Ruth Ann Minner (D) over Bill Lee (R)
Indiana: Jill Long Thompson (D) over David Martin McIntosh (R (official write-in)), Ken Gividen (Liberty) and Jonathon Sharkey (R/WVP); incumbent Steve Goldsmith (R) retired
Missouri: incumbent Cynthia Bowers (D) over John Swenson (R)
Montana: Thomas Lee Judge (D) over Bob Brown (R); incumbent Denny Rehberg (R) retired
New Hampshire: Kelley Ashby (R) over John Lynch (D); incumbent George Condodemetraky (D) retired
North Carolina: incumbent Jim Hunt (D) over Patrick Ballantine (R)
North Dakota: incumbent Tracy Potter (D) over Roland Riemers (R)
Utah: incumbent Enid Greene (R) over Scott Matheson (D)
Vermont: Deborah L. “Deb” Markowitz (D) over Peter Plympton Smith (R); incumbent Howard Dean (D) retired
Washington: incumbent Norm Rice (D) over Michael Patrick Shanks (R) and Ruth Bennett (Liberty)
West Virginia: Bob Wise (D) over Monty Warner (R); incumbent Cecil Underwood (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
GREEK SENATORS’ CLUB LOSES ONE, GAINS TWO MORE
…The unofficial caucus of Greek-American lawmakers saw the retirement of Dr. John Skandalakis (D-GA) this year. However, Chris John (D-LA) and Dina Titus (D-NV) were elected last night, the latter in a majority (thus runoff-free) grab of the vote in his home state. With Mike Bilirakis (R-FL), Nick Galifianakis (D-NC), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Paul Vallas (D-IL), John and Titus increases the caucus’ number to a total of seven Greek-American Senators. …US Rep. Dina Titus’ victory was much closer than that of John’s, but ultimately received 50% of the vote, versus the 49% won by her opponent, a moderate incumbent... In total, Democrats swept five seats in the Senate, and were poised to win a sixth until the nominee for a Kentucky seat suffered a scandal in October…
– The Atlantis, Greek-American newspaper, 11/3/2004
SEVEN MORE STATES VOTE “YES” ON N.I.A., INCHING AMENDMENT CLOSER TO RATIFICATION
– thebostonglobe.co.usa, 11/3/2004
STATE REFERENDUM PASSES: New Constitutional Amendment Will Establish Lt. Gov. Post
…the new addition to the state constitution, first introduced in state congress in July of this year, will create the office of Lieutenant Governor as a means of resolving a succession controversy plaguing the Garden States for several years now. The new statewide elected position will officially come into existence at the start of 2006, after an inaugural lieutenant governor has been elected in the general elections being held this November. The amendment clarifies that the lieutenant governor candidates will be the running mates of the gubernatorial candidates…
– The Star-Ledger, New Jersey newspaper, 11/3/2004
DISGRACED STATE SENATOR JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT ARRESTED AFTER ASSAULTING EX-WIFE IN STORE
…given the high number of charges made against him, plus a class-action lawsuit led by former female staff members, Bobbitt’s “will be dealing with the legal consequences of his behavior for years. His political career is over,” according to Arizona’s state Attorney General…
– The Washington Post, 11/7/2004
NASA DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT; Will Leave Office In January
…last year’s manned mission to Mars was the magnum opus of his career. Now that it has been achieved, Dale Myers is stepping down… Sources have in recent weeks claimed that Jackson aims to take NASA in “a new direction” come 2005…
– The Houston Chronicle, 11/18/2004
THE FALL OF THE G.O.P.?: How Republicans Have Lost Their Way – And How They Might Come Back
…it is chilling that exit polling revealed that the improving economy and Goetz’s statements on Social Security were the top two reasons why people voted for Jackson over Goetz, with the issue of racism playing a much smaller role in the formation of the election results than expected…
– Time magazine, late November 2004
…“I won’t sugarcoat it – we got spanked in this cycle,” then-RNC Chair John Andrews told a gathering of supporters in early December 2004. The sheer size of the margins and loss of support among women, minorities, college-educated whites, and other demographics Andrews and others viewed as being “me to the long-term survival of the Republican Party” convinced party leaders to finally, openly, and publicly disavow the Wide-Awakes movement, hoping to push them and the more open racist and misogynistic GOP members and affiliates back to the fringes of the party’s “big tent”…
– Anne Meagher Northup’s Chicken and Politickin’: the Rise of Colonel Sanders and Rational Conservatism in the Republican Party, 2015
…The campaign had had grave concerns that either Huntsman, a soft-spoken moderate, or Meredith, a religious African-American, would chip away enough at the President’s numbers to pull off a victory in a general election. Hoping to see their boss compete against a less executable Republican nominee, Jesse Jackson’s communications team set about an under-the-radar strategy to prolong the primary contest by pushing out – often through third parties – the kind of research that could hurt Huntsman and Meredith. The “Savannah Team” of South Carolina-based researchers was deeply frustrated by the lack of serious campaigning by Huntsman’s rivals: there seemed to be no opposition research and no effort to expose the record of the man who, at the time, was alternating frontrunner status with Meredith in the polls. The solution was to weaken the likely nominee with an extended contest that would push the candidate and his party further to the right, and thus improve of odds of winning re-election. [5] They did not anticipate this strategy’s ultimate level of success…
– Richard Wolffe’s Reselling Hope: The 2004 Election, Hachette Book Group, 2005
“If it wasn’t for the economy doing better in the third quarter I would have won. Maybe doing better in the debates would have helped, too. I’m not sure what’s in store for me next. I might run for public office again, someday, but for right now, I’m okay taking a break from things. I’m going to take a breather, maybe learn to paint or something. Heck, I might just sit around and feed squirrels in some park somewhere. I like squirrels, they’re always happy to see you, especially if you’ve got a bag of nuts with you. Not like pigeons, who just fly around and leave droppings everywhere. They’re nasty little winged rats, that’s what they are. If I ever become a pigeon feeder, shoot me.” [2]
– Bernie Goetz, Herring Network News interview, 12/12/2004
US Senator Kirkwood Fordice (D-MS) he initially planned on resigning upon receiving a leukemia diagnosis in 2001, but concern that then-Governor Unite Blackwell would nominate a “radical” Democrat, he decided to stay in office, and became invested in Mississippi’s 2003 gubernatorial election. When Democrat James Chaney won said election, Fordyce continued to stay in office, and hoped he would be able to retire in early 2008. Instead, he passed away on December 14, 2004, at the age of 70. Governor Chaney appointed moderate Democrat Erik Fleming to his Senate seat.
With the addition of Fleming to the roster, the US Senate now had serving in it a total of 63 Democrats – D. Jones, Danaher, Braun, Basha, Tucker, Gravel, Heath, Udall, Dodd, Frawley, Osterlund, Penelas, Mink, Inouye, Vallas, Hall, Bayh, Poole, Osborne, John, Sarbanes, Mikulski, Kennedy-Roosevelt, Collins, Humphrey, Belton, Fleming, Wheat, Cryts, Mudd, Sorensen, Nevenic, Titus, Hollingworth, D’Allesandro, Jiménez, Mondragon, Kaplan, Schwartz, Blue, Galifianakis, Glassheim, Conrad, Anderson, J. Jones, Carson, AuCoin, Kanjorski, Casey, York, Roberts, Hollings, McGovern, Clement, Leland, Pollina, Sorrell, Scott, Unsoeld, Locke, Byrd, Feingold, and La Follette.
– Gary C. Jacobson’s The Power and the Politics of Congressional Elections, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015
2001-2004 SARS Pandemic Mortality Rates By Country (based on confirmed deaths, not suspected deaths, and based on an aggregation of WHO reports and official national reports (see our totaling model for further details)):
[snip]
Brazil: 189,700 cases; 23,500 deaths (rate of 12.4%)
[snip]
Canada: 35,115 cases; 3,559 deaths (rate of 10.1%)
[snip]
China: 291,000 cases; 25,892 deaths (rate of 8.9%)
Colombia: 48,600 cases; 3,355 deaths (rate of 6.9%)
[snip]
India: 8,450,000 cases; 1,090,050 deaths (rate of 12.9%)
[snip]
Japan: 31,243 cases; 2,031 deaths (rate of 6.5%)
[snip]
Mexico: 14,700 cases; 985 deaths (rate of 6.7%)
[snip]
Russia: 1,595,000 cases; 180,240 deaths (rate of 11.3%)
[snip]
United Kingdom: 14,270 cases; 1,168 deaths (rate of 8.2%)
United Korea: 11,233 cases; 847 deaths (rate of 7.5%)
United States: 12,502 cases; 891 deaths (rate of 7.1%)
[snip]
Global Total: 15,129,012 cases (confirmed); 1,119,546 deaths (confirmed) (rate of 7.4% (average))
– sarswatch.co.uk
THE SCARS OF SARS: Life In A Post-Pandemic World
…The pandemic did not affect countries equally. For example, the United States experienced the pandemic for roughly two years (from February 2002 to late 2003) and experienced three major waves (the first in early 2002, the second in the post-midterm months of 2002, and the third in early-to-mid 2003), while India, arguably the worst-hit country, experienced at least five major waves and experienced the pandemic from January 2002 to early 2004.
…With no less than 15 million confirmed cases, SARS killed at least 1.1 million people globally by the end of the pandemic’s run this year. Compare these numbers to the largest pandemic of the twentieth century, the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic; that one killed roughly 50 million worldwide. SARS was closer, in terms of fatalities, to the 1889-1890 flu pandemic that killed 1 million worldwide, and the 1957-1958 influenza pandemic that killed 1-4 million worldwide, while the common flu kills roughly between 10,000 and 50,000 people in the US each and every year. “The biggest reasons for this pandemic feeling a lot deadlier was technology, access at your fingertips,” explains Charles Sidney Hirsch, pathologist and Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. “Make no mistake that the SARS virus is a once-in-a-century virus that, with its ferocious rate of transmission, virulently high mortality rate, and the extremely severe and harmful effects it has on those who survive it, very easily could have infected millions of more people. It didn’t because of the decisive preemptive measures taken by UN Secretary-General Carol Bellamy, international cooperation between most countries, and civilian compliance with emergency measures overall. But it felt like it was as bad as it easily could have been because of public media, because of the technet and TV reports. There was no 24-7 live news coverage in 1918. Because of technology, people were aware of nearly everything going on, and that made for some very scary viewing, which, in fact, may have helped keep the death tolls as down as they were.”
…Past pandemics also offer clues to how humanity will have to approach the SARS virus in the upcoming years and decades. “The Spanish Flu devolved into an endemic disease that circulated around for roughly four decades as a seasonal virus before finally going away for good. We will most likely see the same occur with SARS, with regional levels of severity varying from country to country,” says head virologist of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, NY…
…While divorces and domestic abuse cases went up, lockdown caused air pollution to drop worldwide dramatically. In July of this year, the amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions from factories, transportation and other sources shut down by quarantine dropped 70% from levels recorded in January 2001. However, NO2 output levels from China have bounced back from that country’s 2002-2003 slump since the nation’s “reopening” early this year. Nevertheless, the positive environmental conditions brought about by people cutting back of fossil fuels gave us a glimpse at how powerful the removal, even a temporary removal, of our carbon footprint can have on planet Earth. “This window into what could be should inspire us all,” says outgoing EPA Director Bob Ross, “Now we have the data to back up the calls for switching to renewable, less harmful forms of energy. We gave Mother Nature a break from us. She enjoyed it. But we owe to her and to ourselves to try to live harmoniously with what is still the only planet we call home.”
…With the virus apparently “beaten,” and citizens around the globe adjusting to the ways of the pre-SARS world surprisingly quickly, millions are voicing optimism for the years ahead. Says former US Secretary of Health and Welfare Jim Ramsted “Good and better times may finally be just around the corner!”
– Newsweek, late December 2004
…We can now confirm that a major tsunami has hit the island country of Indonesia, most likely caused by a powerful earthquake off the coast in the Indian Ocean. Seismologists are saying the quake may have been more than 9.0, at the high end of the Richter scale, meaning this quake has in all likelihood destroyed bridges, toppled buildings, and decimated roads. Likely caused by a fault plate rupture, this earthquake is being called an undersea megathrust earthquake by scientists, and according to reports out of Indonesia, massive waves have inundated western Indonesia. Thousands may be dead, and entire communities may have just been wiped out. This is a developing story. We will have more details as they become available to us. Please stay tuned…
– KNN Breaking News Alert, 12/26/2004
UK GOVERNMENT PLEDGES 50M POUNDS AND TO MATCH PUBLIC DONATIONS FOR ASIAN QUAKE RELIEF EFFORT
– The New York Times, 12/30/2004
…The December 2004 fault line rupture, the third-largest ever recorded (after the Great Chilean earthquake of 1960 and the Good Friday earthquake of 1964), and with the released energy of 1,500 Hiroshima bombs detonating at once, resulted in the deaths of over 250,000 people in 12 countries, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. …The advancements of individual recording devices such as cellular phones and other camera equipment allowed for the destruction to be caught as it happened, capturing gigantic waves overturning boats like bath toys, toppling buildings like houses of cards, and sweeping away coastal communities like a broom sweeping away dust; these shocking records soon found their ways onto the technet, and possibly contributed to the immediate responses from civilians around the world...
Above: an aerial view of the record-breaking devastation
…The effects of the quake and subsequent tsunamis prompted worldwide humanitarian responses; with just a few weeks, millions of individuals had donated to international aid organizations and charities alongside multinational pledges…
– worldvision.co.uk
…Prime Minister of the UK Harriet Harman greenlit “Operation Garron,” a military relief operation, to assist recovery efforts in Indonesia. The Royal Navy and RAF embarked on delivering aid supplies and participating in relief work starting on January 2nd, patrolling areas hit by the 2004 Tsunami in search of survivors, and using helicopters to assist locals in clearing wreckage. However, Indonesia’s government was conflicted over allowing ground troops to land on Indonesian territory due to past confrontations with British-led troops [6]. Indonesian leadership ultimately refused to allow help from land-based foreign military personnel, and instead welcomed in volunteers from charities, non-profit organizations, and other non-military and non-government groups and organizations…
– clickopedia.co.usa
Republican House leadership election, 2005:
Date: January 10, 2005
Seats: All 197 Republican-held seats
Seats needed to win: 99
MINORITY LEADER:
Description:
David Emery (ME) successfully best Robert Smith Walker for Republican House leadership in 1995, and served as Speaker from 1995 to 2001. To the left of the party, his ascension was a backlash to Walker being too far to the right ideologically and declining popularity among American voters and fellow GOP lawmakers. However, after Emery failed to lead the party to victory in three consecutive midterms, his own popularity was down within the party. Worsening the situation for the former speaker was the party becoming increasingly conservative, making his moderate record conflict with the goals of high-ranking conservative Representatives. As a result, Emery was challenged for leadership by Dorgan McMaster (SC), a Congressman since 1991 and House minority whip since 2001. McMaster blamed the loss of the House in 2000, 2002, and 2004, and of the 2004 Presidential election, on Emery being “far too liberal” to lead the GOP and “too polite” to the Jackson administration, and soon gained support. By the time of the election, all other anti-Emery candidates dropped out to rally behind McMaster.
Results:
McMaster – 125
Emery – 72
McMaster drew support from Congressional districts in the south and west, where many Republicans (including many Representatives) blamed unenthusiastic moderate Republicans for low voter turnout, essentially claiming their inability to embrace the Goetz campaign was responsible for four more years of President Jesse Jackson. “The majority conservatives in the party used me as a scapegoat,” Emery claimed in a 2020 book.
Following his loss, Emery at first declined to resign from his House seat, but upon McMaster threatening to strip him from party leadership committees and other entitlements, rendering him powerless within the GOP, Emery made the “shocking” decision of filing as an Independent and running for re-election as one in 2006.
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…I made it known that I was going to run for Governor long before I made the campaign itself official. There’s no sense in waiting until you reach a gas station to stop and check on a car problem; no sense in waiting until a certain time to announce something big like a run for Governor.
But anyway, I made it official in January 2005. Not too long after that, I first met a fella named Dick Cheney. Like me, he was a former US Congressman from a western state who had eyed a Governor’s seat. He had served in the House from Wyoming in the 1970s and 1980s, but lost re-election in ’86 on account of being guilty by association. Then he lost a bid for Governor in the 1990s. He met up with me at my first fancy fundraiser. It was way out of my comfort zone, what with the black ties and everything, but he was one of the more interesting penguins of the evening. To cut to the chase, he basically told me that I had “promise,” and offered to help me with the early fundraising stages of my campaign. He could see that I had “real potential,” as he put it.
Over the next several months, he donated to my campaign and served as an unofficial advisor to me and my staff. It turned out that he agreed with most of my views, especially when it came to BLUTAGO marriage and foreign intervention.
He was a good egg. It was a real shame when he died. According to his daughters, he had suffered several heart attacks before, but the one he had on February 14, 2006 was too much for him to take, and it turned out to be his last one. And just when I was seriously thinking of asking him to serve as my Chief of Staff when I became Governor. And who knows? Had his old ticker not burned out, we could have worked together on my campaigns for the Presidency…
…Upon learning of his death, I told the media about how he had met up with him a many times. I said, “he was very serious kind of guy, but he was a really good guy, the kind of guy I would have been proud to have serve as my White House Chief of Staff or Secretary of State. I’m gonna miss him.” I still kind of do…
– Harley Brown’s autobiography I’ve Got A Masters Degree In Raising Hell, Sunrise Publishers, 2019
FRANCE SUSPENDS DEBT REPAYMENTS FROM INDONESIA AS QUAKE RECOVERY CONTINUES
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 15/1/2005
“We are bound together as one united and indivisible nation by our faith in a mighty God and our faith in our fellow Americans. We in this administration will continue to steady our humane, just, peaceful course in ensuring Americans have food, shelter, and purpose.
[snip]
There will be a great focus over these next four years on protecting families, mom-and-pop shops, and the environment; we in this administration will continue to lift up the downtrodden, the poor, the sufferers of food insecurity, drug addiction, and disease, including helping the WHO stomp out SARS virus strains wherever they remain. We can do this for we had accomplishment such wonderful feats before; scientists eradicated smallpox with an extensive and exhaustive international collaborate effort over 36 years. The next four years will also see the United States of America lead the world in combating GCD, warfare and famine, in order to leave behind for our children a world better off than how it was when we were their age.
[snip]
Now is the time for redemption, healing, and unity. Life is what you make of it. You can choose to live in darkness, or you can do the brave thing, and choose to work hard to live in an age of enlightenment, jobs, peace, and justice. To shed light onto darkness, to heal wounds, to rekindle the fire of hope that for many felt extinguished during the darkest times of the 2002 pandemic. But we overcame the darkness and we did not do so alone. We could not have done so alone. For we had to come together, listen to one another, and care for one another. That is how we repelled the darkness. With love and care for each other, going beyond the love of friends and family, beyond the love of neighbors and community, to that rare love that is the love for the stranger. The power of love, faith, and hope is limitless and infinite, boundless and forever. A with the power of love, of faith and hope, we have prevailed over crisis and darkness time and again. We will not let this opportunity for another four years of progress slip on by. We will not take the mandate of November’s elections for granted. I agree that there is much more work to be done, America, so let’s get to it!”
– Jesse Jackson’s 1/20/2005 inaugural speech
THE JESSE JACKSON ADMINISTRATION AT THE START OF 2005
Vice President: incumbent (since 2001) Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
CABINET
Secretary of State: incumbent (since 2001) Ann Richards (D-TX)
Secretary of the Treasury: incumbent (since 2001) Timothy Peter Johnson (D-SD)
Secretary of Defense: Lt. Gen. (ret.) Claudia Jean Kennedy (D-VA) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
Attorney General: incumbent (since 2001) Harry Thomas Edwards (D-DC)
Assistant Attorney General: Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Frank Hoover Easterbrook (D-IL) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Postmaster General: outgoing CD Undersecretary for Suburban Development and former St. Paul Mayor James Scheibel (D-MN) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Secretary of the Interior: outgoing US Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Secretary of Agriculture: incumbent (since 2001) Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Secretary of Commerce: incumbent (since 2001) Robert Reich (D-IL)
Secretary of Labor: incumbent (since 2001) Richard A. Gephardt (D-MO)
Secretary of Education: incumbent (since 2001) Dudley W. Dudley (D-NH)
Secretary of Health and Welfare (renamed Health and Humane Services in 2003): outgoing CD Undersecretary for Urban Development, former US Rep. and former state rep. Babette Josephs (D-PA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Secretary of Transportation: incumbent (since 2001) Toney Anaya (D-NM)
Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs: incumbent (since 2001) Mary Ann Wright (R-AR)
Secretary of Energy and Technology: outgoing Undersecretary of Education, former NASA Communications Director, and former school superintendent Barbara Radding Morgan (I-CA) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
Secretary of Community Development: outgoing CD Undersecretary for Rural Development and former Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah (D-AZ)
CABINET-LEVEL POSITIONS
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): former Governor, counter-terrorism expert, and former Deputy FBI Director John P. O’Neill (D-NJ) (incumbent retired in October 2003)
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): incumbent (since 2001) Raymond Walter Kelly (I-NY)
US Trade Representative: AFL-CIO affiliate, trade union activist and labor leader Arlene Holt Baker (D-TX) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA): former Philadelphia Mayor and former state Attorney General Edward Gene “Ed” Rendell (D-PA) (incumbent retired in December 2003)
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): chemical engineer, physicist, state Commissioner of Environmental Protection and former academic administrator Lisa Perez Jackson (D-NJ) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Administrator of the Overwhelming Disaster Emergency Response Coordination Agency (ODERCA): Chief Risk Assessor for ODERCA and former Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration Rodney Slater (D-AR) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
THE PRESIDENT’S EXECUTIVE OFFICE
White House Chief of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Ronald Daniels (D-OH)
White House Deputy Chief of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Morton Halperin (I-DC)
Counselors to The President: incumbents (since 2001) William J. Antholis (I-VA) and Kevin Alexander Gray (D-SC)
Chief Domestic Policy Advisor: National President of the Mexican American Political Association Nativo Lopez (D/LRU-CA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Chief Economic Policy Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Jeffrey P. Weaver (D-VT)
Chief Foreign Policy Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Randall Caroline Forsberg (I-MA)
Chief National Security Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Louis Freeh (R-NY)
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: incumbent (since 2001) Gerald Austin (D-OH)
Other Counselors and Advisors: political analyst Bob Beckel, political adviser Frank Watkinds, campaign policy director Frank Clemente, field director Eddie Wong, political strategist Peter Daou, social critic and progressive philosopher Marcus Raskin, and neorealist philosopher/respected political strategist/historian/author/former Advisor to the President John Lewis Gaddis
White House Communications Director: incumbent (since 2001) Betty Magness (I-DC)
White House Appointments Secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Mabel Teng (D-CA)
White House Press Secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Pam Watkins (I-DC)
President Jackson’s personal secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Jehmu Greene (D-TX)
OTHER MEMBERS
Solicitor General (representative of the Federal Government before the Supreme Court): lawyer, law professor and former Chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Anita Faye Hill (D-OK) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Henry Doctor Jr. (I-SC)
Secretary of the Army: incumbent (since 2001) Johnnie Corns (I-WV)
Secretary of the Navy: incumbent (since 2001) Norman Mineta (D-CA)
Federal Reserve Chairman: incumbent (since 2001) William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr. (D-VA)
NASA Administrator: biochemist, former astronaut, former lead CAPCOM at Mission Control, and Chief Scientist of NASA Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid (I-OK) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
NOTABLE AMBASSADORS
To Argentina: incumbent (since 2001) Jim Folsom Jr. (D-AL)
To Australia: incumbent (since 2001) Eni F. H. Faleomavaega Jr. (D-AS)
To Canada: author and former Governor Nora Dauenhauer (G-AK) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
To China: incumbent (since 2001) Bucky Ray Jarrell (D-KY)
To Colombia: incumbent (since 2001) Joseph Samuel “Joe” Nye Jr. (I-NJ)
To France: former New Orleans Mayor, former Lieutenant Governor, former H&W Secretary and former US Rep. Maurice Edwin “Moon” Landrieu (D-LA)
To Germany: incumbent (since 2001) Paul R. Soglin (D-WI)
To Israel: incumbent (since 2001) Norman Gary Finkelstein, PhD (D-NJ)
To Italy: incumbent (since 2001) Mario Cuomo (D-NY)
To Japan: incumbent (since 2001) Adlai Stevenson III (D-IL)
To Korea: incumbent (since 2001) John Lim (R-OR)
To Mexico: outgoing US Ambassador to Afghanistan and former CIA Director Linda Rose Carotenuto Cleland (I-NJ) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
To New Zealand: outgoing Governor Heinz Sablan Hofschneider (R-NM) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
To Russia: incumbent (since 2001) James Robert “J. R.” Jones (D-OK)
To South Africa: incumbent US Ambassador to France and former Governor Cleo Fields (D-LA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
To the U.K.: incumbent (since 2001) Harvey Gantt (D-NC)
To the U.N.: President of Refugees International and former spokesman for the US Department of Defense Kenneth Hogate Bacon (I-RI) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
– JesseJacksonPresidentialLibrary.org.usa/cabinet_composition/2001
…NASA’s new leader became former astronaut Shannon Lucid. Born in China to missionary parents in 1943 and primarily raised in Oklahoma, Lucid was a biochemist who joined NASA in 1978. While officially independent/apolitical, her support of several fiscally conservative stances was seen as both a bone thrown to the Republicans, as a way of placating fears on the right of Jackson being a “socialist would-be tyrant” like the new House Speaker had once called him, and as a signal of what significance NASA would play in the federal government’s annual budgets of the next four years...
– researcher R. Cargill Hall’s Impact: The History of NASA, Dover Publications, 2018 edition
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL CAROL BELLAMY URGES DONOR NATIONS TO ENSURE PLEDGES GO FULLY HONORED
…As countries jockey to make large donations, Bellamy notes that “competitive compassion is better than no compassion,” but stresses the need to fulfill funding promises made in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that have ravaged much of coastal Indonesia…
– The New York Times, 1/28/2005
FILIBUSTER-PROOF SENATE DEMOCRATS PREP FOR “EXTREMELY BUSY” 2005 SESSION
– The Washington Post, 1/30/2005
UPDATE: UK GOVERNMENT, CITIZENS HAVE RAISED TOTAL OVER 300M POUNDS IN NATIONAL QUAKE RELIEF DRIVE
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 2/2/2005
WOULD MAKING D.C. A STATE VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION?
…law experts are divided over whether or not our lawmakers are actually breaking the law by Democrats ignoring Article 4 of the top law of the land in their latest effort to expand their number of seats on Capitol Hill – by granting a city statehood and condensing Capitol Hill into a tiny strip of land…
– nationalreview.co.usa, 2/3/2005 e-article
…The Department of Justice has formed a Statehood Requirements Special Task Force in order to determine what legal hurdles await our representatives trying to grant statehood to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico...
– ABC Morning News, 2/5/2005 broadcast
HOST: …well say what you want to bout Prezy-JJ – just keep it clean since we’re on the air – but you have to admit, urban repair methods are improving. I mean, I think it’s really smart that, um. Did you see this the other day or last night? Some people in the Department of Transportation, I think, they’re studying how the ancient Roman Cobblestone Roads have managed to hold up for so long and their comparing them to our modern road-making ways. So, you know, hopefully, constant roadwork clogging things up on Route 74 will soon be a thing of the past.
GUEST: Naw, naw, you’ve got it all wrong, sir. State and federal transportation departments purposely build roads that fall apart easily and quick, so, that way, they can hire more deadbeats to rebuild them. Keep people employed, and they won’t complain. It’s just the government’s way of keeping the lower classes preoccupied with meaningless work so they don’t get wise to how they are being had and then rise up against it.
HOST: Yeah, now, see, that doesn’t mesh with that report I was talking about. Why would they be studying what works if they don’t want it to work?
GUEST: Because it’s a conspiracy, man!
HOST: Right, I forgot who I was talking to here – Conspiracy Joe, the guy who was too much for even George Noory of Coast to Coast AM to deal with.
GUEST: Hey, you invited me here.
HOST: That’s not an insult!
GUEST: Sounds like an insult.
HOST: Not to you. It is, but it’s not to you, I’m insulting George Noory. And George Noory, if you’re listening, I don’t mean to offend you either. I’m just saying that George Noory can’t tolerate the mastery of Conspiracy Joe’s thought process. It’s…really something.
GUEST: Thank you!
– WAAV (980 AM) news/talk Leland, NC, 2/6/2005 radio broadcast
…Jackson worked with congress to bolster his overhauling of the tax system, hoping to ensure that top marginal income rates remained fair throughout his time in office. He collaborated with progressive, moderate, and even some conservative Democrats to dismantle preferential treatment loopholes found in capital gains tax laws already on the books by essentially re-writing the books.
However, the two biggest acts of legislation of 2005 of which Jesse Jackson was the most proud were the Police Accountability Act and the Voter Roll Act. The former was a large package that aimed to hold police responsible for procedural misconduct; the latter was even larger, striking down voter roll purging, and working to establish new ethics codes and campaign finance regulations ahead of the 2006 midterms…
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
…The abysmal results of the Goetz-Bargewell ticket left a foul taste in the mouths of GOP string-pullers. Head party leaders saw the collapse of support among women and minorities as a sign that the party had to shift further to the center if it wished to remain electable, or at competitive, at the national level; in February 2005, former Chief of Staff John Dinger, a noted moderate, was made the new Chair of the Republican National Committee in a clear rebuke of “Country Conservatives.” The backlash to this was basically ontech rants and ineffective boycotts from strong-c conservative types such as Estus Pirkle and Tommy Tancredo. Behind closed doors, Dinger supported efforts from the likes of Bill Weld and Herman Cain to “lead the south by helping [it] evolve on racial issues,” as Cain supposedly put it, according to a 2013 WSJ article. “Because now is the time for that. Now, when open-faced racism was been unobjectionably and unquestionably rejected by the people, now is the moment for moderates to shine. Now is the time to reject, expunge, and erase the worst members of our party, say to them, ‘listen – we can’t win with your backward ways,’ and lead the party in a better direction away from the past and toward a brighter future”…
– Anne Meagher Northup’s Chicken and Politickin’: the Rise of Colonel Sanders and Rational Conservatism in the Republican Party, 2015
WEBB DECLINES BID FOR FOURTH TERM
…not long ago, Wellington Webb had an approval rating of over 80% and was the frontrunner for the President. But now, in his third term as Governor of Colorado, the iconic individual is seeing his approval ratings slide below 40% as his state political opponents go after the negative effects of his time in office. The biggest sticking point influencing public opinion is his restructuring of Colorado state law regarding prison and prisoners, essentially making it impossible to run a for-profit prison in the state. His opponents claim this has caused for-profit prison businesses the leave Colorado and votes to other states, causing the state economy to have a slower time recovering after the SARS pandemic shut down the state for 19 months. ...Since Webb gave no official reason for it, we can only assume that Webb today announced that he was not going to run for a third term in 2006 due to his drop in approval ratings…
– The Gazette, Colorado Springs newspaper, 2/15/2005
JACKSON SIGNS CLASS ACTION EMPOWERMENT BILL INTO LAW
– The Washington Post, 2/16/2005
…Efforts to improve legal immigrant rates that were taken in his first term were taken up a few more notches in his second. In the boldest expansion of guest worker programs since President Bellamy’s 1989 expansion of fair pay employment programs for Mexican labors and visa workers, President Jackson worked with congress to abolition caps on H-1B visas, in order to promote “global trade instead of global wars.” Former Presidents Mondale and Kemp, who themselves had passed immigration reform in 1974 and 1988, respectively, supported the move.
Jackson next called for a higher carbon tax in order for the US to better combat the effects of Global Climate Disruption…
– researcher Brenda J. Hargis’ Emboldening: The Jesse Jackson Presidency, Sunrise Publications, 2017
JOBS REPORT SHOWS GROWTH DESPITE RISE IN WILLFUL UNEMPLOYMENT
…Last week, the Jackson White House released a strong jobs report on the fourth quarter of 2004. The report shows that labor force participation (i.e., the share of Americans that are either working or looking for work) is still rising, and that wages are stable.
However, labor force participation and the employment-population ratio, while much better and improving, are doing so at a slower than expected rate. The long-term effects of the SARS pandemic may be to blame. “The months-long SARS lockdown affected the US socially as well as economically, and in the case of motherhood, both,” Babette Josephs, US Secretary of Health and Humane Services, explains. “Staying with their families prompted many mothers to reassess their priorities, leading to some entering college or the job market once the crisis subsided. However, even more mothers opted to stay at home after the crisis was over rather than re-enter the job market.”
Despite this increase in the number of unemployed adults, the national unemployment rate is down due to it not including those who are willingly no longer looking for work. As a result, the Jackson administration is touting this report for showing a 10-month stretch of uninterrupted job growth, from February to December 2004, with the private sector experiencing slightly more growth than the public sector did during the entirety of that period…
– The Wall Street Journal, 2/18/2005 [7]
US A.G. EDWARDS: “DC STATEHOOD DOES REQUIRE AN AMENDMENT, PUERTO RICO DOES NOT”
…According to the US Attorney General Harry T. Edwards, the Statehood Requirements Special Task Force set up under the US Department of Justice has determined that admitting Washington, DC as a US state will require the passing of a US Constitutional Amendment… “The District Clause of the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, describes the Federal District as, quote, ‘not exceeding ten miles square.’ [8] Washington DC is 68 ‘miles square.’ So, if anything, the redrawing of our federal capital to confine the direct control of the federal government would make D.C. more constitutional, not less constitutional,” says White House Deputy Chief of Staff Morton Hampering. The federal government having direct control over the seat of government is needed “for protection in the exercise of their duty” as President James Madison once put it [8]. Essentially, the condition aims to protect federal lawmakers from physical altercations.
However, what makes an Amendment necessary is the need to repeal an earlier D.C.-related Amendment that concerns the Electoral College. The 23rd Amendment was passed in 1961 under President Lyndon Johnson, and it granted 3 electoral votes to “the seat of government,” which is Washington, D.C. SRS Task Force members pondered if the amendment would become null and void if only the federal buildings and no official residences made up D.C. “In order for it to work without an amendment, the new federal district would have to have no official residencies. However, the only people who definitely would be residents of the new shrunken federal district would technically be whoever’s living in the White House, meaning that it is possible that without its repeal, the First Family would get three electoral votes in the Electoral College,” explains the Task Force leader.
The 23rd Amendment’s official wording is “The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint…a number of electors...to which the District would be entitled if it were a state.” The phrase “if it were a state” concerned the lawmakers, who believe that this wording would not render the amendment “null and void” because the electors mentioned are meant for the seat of government, and not for the District of Columbia itself...
On the plus side, it has been determined that Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution allows for the admittance of Puerto Rico as a state without the need for an Amendment-repealing Amendment…
– The Washington Post, 2/22/2005
GRANT SAWYER, NEVADA GOVERNOR AND PRIMARY REFORMER, IS DEAD AT 86
…Born December 14, 1918, Sawyer served as the District Attorney for Elko County, Nevada from 1950 to 1958 before being elected Governor of Nevada in 1958, and being re-elected in 1962 and 1966.
During his twelve years at the Governor’s seat, Sawyer, a moderate Democrat with some policies later labelled as being “libertarian” in nature, transformed Nevada from “the Mississippi of the West” to a bustling hot-spot for tourists, businesses, new families, and growing fields of agricultural innovation, especially for minorities, and one of Sawyer’s self-declared “greatest accomplishments” was pushing civil rights policies and legislation. Sawyer also developed the state’s Gaming Commission and combating “monopolistic” actions concerning corporate ownership of casinos across Nevada.
An early supporter of Democratic politician Jack Kennedy in 1960 and 1968, Kennedy chose Sawyer to be his running mate upon securing the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. Kennedy considered Sawyer’s impressive record, potential to appeal to western voters supportive of President Colonel Sanders, and effective governing feats as all being beneficial to the ticket. However, the pair lost the race handily due to the Sander’s high popularity.
Four years later, Sawyer himself ran for the Presidential nomination but lost; he later claimed he would have performed better had more western and southern states held primary contests. This experience led to him championing Presidential Primary reform, which ultimately led to all 50 US states perennially holding either primaries or caucuses in Presidential primary races, starting with the 1976 and 1980 election seasons… …According to a spokesperson for his family, Sawyer passed away from complications from a debilitating stroke that he suffered in September 2003, roughly twelve years after recovering from a minor stroke that he had reportedly had in August 1991...
– The Pahrump Valley Times, Nevada newspaper, 2/25/2005
NOTE(S)/SOURCE(S)
[1] I actually don’t know what The Colonel’s thoughts were on LGBTQ+ community; I couldn’t find any information regarding his thoughts on the subject prior to his OTL death in 1980. I would like to assume that, due to his support of racial integration and opposition to racism, as noted in the documented evidence that I noted in the notes sections of earlier chapters, that this means that he was not homophobic. However, due to the fact that one can be homophobic without being racist (just look at NY state assemblyman Charles Barron, for example), and given The Colonel being responsible for the First Arkwave ITTL due to his OTL actions and comments, I cannot just assume that The Colonel was pro-LGBTQ+ in OTL. Actual evidence is needed for Sanders’ depiction here to be in-character and historically accurate. If anyone knows of any primary or secondary sources concerning The Colonel’s opinions on the subject/topic, please let me know!
[2] Italicized piece is a quote from OTL: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/bernhard-goetz-quotes
[3] Full OTL interview found here; it's quite a good one:
youtube.com/watch?v=uKBp4un9D3s
[4] The success of the Cuban War means no Cuban refugees fleeing communist dictatorship in Cuba over course of several decades; as a result of this lack of an influx of Cubans into the US, most of whom relocated to Florida, the Sunshine State has a significantly smaller liberal Hispanic population, contributing to making the state be a reliable Republican state ITTL.
[5] Passages that are in italics are taken from page 73 of an OTL paper book that I own: Richard Wolffe’s “The Message: The Reselling of President Obama,” Hachette Book Group, 2013 (ISBN: 978-1-4555-8156-6); this was Obama’s strategy in OTL!
[6] OTL according to OTL’s Operation Garron’s wiki article.
[7] Some market/economic terms/phrases were pulled from here: https://www.npr.org/2016/04/03/472745523/fact-check-the-white-houses-private-sector-job-streak
[8] As described here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-8/clause-17
Chapter 89: September 2004 – February 2005
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
– Stephen King (OTL)
– Goetz’04 primaries logo/slogan, meant to clarify how the candidate himself pronounced him surname (as many were initially pronouncing it as “gets” instead of “guts”), first used c. early-to-mid 2004
Go With Your Goetz: For The Good Of The Country
– Goetz’04 slogan, first used 9/1/2004
…And down in South Africa, that nation’s President-Elect, Mangosuthu Buthelezei, was sworn into office earlier today. Buthelezei, age 75, has been a highly controversial politician in South Africa for decades due to accusations from opponents that Buthelezei supported paramilitary groups and encouraged acts of violence against whites during the Apartheid Era. However, due to his many years of public service improving the quality of life for all South Africans, Buthelezei won enough white South Africans to win the August 25 Presidential election outright. Outgoing President Chris Hani and former Presidents Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela also spoken highly of Buthelezei during the election campaign, allowing the new President to win over challengers Mathinus van Schalkwyk and Peter Marais…
– BBC News, 1/9/2003 broadcast
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 46%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 12%
– Gallup, 9/2/2004
“I’m running for a second term in the Senate so I can keep on fighting for the American people from that chamber of corruption, and I encourage everyone who loves freedom, peace and equality to help my good friends Dennis J. Morrisseau and Rosemary Jackowski get more ballot access. Right now, they are on just 21 state ballots, so please, visit their netsite, sign the petitions, and vote Morrisseau into the White House this November.”
– Peter Diamondstone (LU-VT), 9/4/2004
Another controversial aspect of Chik-fil-A’s founder was his political activities. In early September 2004, then-83-year-old S. Truett Cathy endorsed and strongly stumped for then-Republican Presidential nominee Bernhard Goetz, saying that Goetz would “keep the gays at bay” and “bring the heathens of the world closer to God one way or another.” The businessman’s statements caused the franchise to lose several sponsors and busyness partnerships as well as disapproval and condemnation from a host of individuals and groups, from celebrities and culinary bigwigs to politicians and activists.
KFC heads relished their rival’s sudden slip from grace, savored the moment, and then capitalized on it for all it was worth. Chik-fil-A hoped the cretins surrounding the incident would die down and the incident itself would soon be forgotten in the busy news cycle of the election year. KFC made sure this wouldn’t happen; less than a month after the comments were made, KFC was airing three 30-second commercials using archival audio footage of Colonel Sanders, seemingly praising the BLUTAG community as being “brave folks,” then cut to footage of Cathy’s comments.
KFC’s domestic sales were already turning around, but the commercials only helped, while Chik-fil-A’s boycotts from various groups ranging from online petitions to on-the-ground protests kept one of their biggest competitors at bay.
It was only recently that debate arose over the context of the audio used on the commercials, which leaked documents suggested were pulled from footage in which The Colonel was actually describing Civil Rights activists as “brave folks,” and not BLUTAGO-Americans [1]…
– Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
…The Jackson campaign invested heavily in door-to-door canvassing, community outreach, and techsite advertising in a strategy that combine old and new voter mobilization techniques. However, the marketing strategies and image tactics from 2000 could not be reused, for Jackson was no longer attacking an incumbent – now he was the incumbent trying to brush off attacks. Instead of calling for a changing of the guard, Jackson now had to resell his candidacy to the American people. “Keep Hope Alive” was essentially replaced with “Keep Me Around For Another Four Years.”
In early September, Jackson revisited his home state of South Carolina, and was joined onstage by US Senator Fritz Hollings. At the political event, Jackson retold his career, about how he worked in Chicago during the 1960s, but was born and raised in South Carolina, as were his children…
[snip]
…Jackson became National Director of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago in 1967. After Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped down from leading the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1970 over the scandal that indirectly led to the Ms. Arkansas Scandal and thus contributing to the First Arkwave, Jackson’s rival Ralph Abernathy became the new leader of the SCLC. However, when Abernathy died in plane crash in 1971, the organization’s new leader became Unita Blackwell, who moved the national office of Operation Breadbasket to Charleston in 1971, citing Jesse’s success in the Windy City and expressing hope that he could do the same for South Carolina.
– researcher Brenda J. Hargis’ Emboldening: The Jesse Jackson Presidency, Sunrise Publications, 2017
“Well, people, it looks like the Democrat Rats are really running out of things to criticize about me, because now their friends in the media are complaining about this minor incident from my early years as a hardware store owner. They’re upset about this time back in 1987, when I shot a thief in the leg. The cops found a gun in his jacket pocket. If I hadn’t kneecapped him, I’m certain he would have killed me. Now I defended myself and my store, as any businessman, or any person with a gun behind the counter, would have done in that kind of situation. But now only are the members of the media that are in the pockets of the Democratic establishment taking the hoodlum’s side, but the puppets are also completely ignoring the fact that that punk had several priors, you know, a pretty bad rap sheet, and the fact that he got off easy. Just juvie and community service. He was sixteen, and he was tall. Honestly, they should have tried him as an adult. But I suspect then-Mayor Wellington Webb pulled a few strings, you know? That incident are part of the reason why my feud with that guy kind of started, in fact. He was too oppressive to businesses. But anyway, my point, people, is that I’m not the bad guy there, like how I’m not the bad guy now. You’re all smart enough to realize that. Good for y’all. And I’m not sorry about that incident, either. I am not sorry for it at all. I would, without hesitation, shoot a violent criminal again.” [2]
– Bernie Goetz at a rally, Chesterfield, MO, 9/15/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 47%
Goetz: 43%
Undecided/other: 10%
– Gallup, 9/18/2004
…John and Paul each claim to have come up with having the reunion special be tied to a charity event, but in 2008, Paul confessed that putting on a benefit concert for SARS survivors was John’s idea.
Ahead on the concert, John told reporters “I think drumming up support for them this way is a better use of my time trying to work with parliament some more,” but was quick to boast about how he had already passed legislation for SARS survivor relief 10 months before leaving office…
[note: please ignore the poor cropping at the bottom there (D'oh!)]
Above: Ringo, John, Paul and George rehearse new material ahead of the September 20 concert, The Beatles Reunion Charity Benefit Special, which was held at the Millennium Dome.
…George would die from cancer ten months later, at the age of 62…
– Pat Sheffield’s Dreams, Reality, and Music: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole Entire World, Tumbleweed Publications, 2020 edition
JOANNA TSE, PULMONOLOGIST AND SARS SURVIVOR, AWARDED KEY TO THE CITY-STATE FOR SAVING LIVES IN HONG KONG
…Tse is being lauded for volunteering to save dozens of patients at four hospitals in Hong Kong, even after becoming infected with SARS twice, with the double-infection leaving her with permanent breathing problems. Arriving at the ceremony sporting an oxygen tank on her back to assist her SARS-damaged lungs, Tse, 36, accepted the award graciously, and in her prepared speech, encouraged “all who can” to contribute to SARS research and organizations aiding SARS survivors. “More needs to be known. Knowing more will help more people”…
– scientificamerican.co.usa, 9/21/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 45%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 13%
– Gallup, 9/23/2004
BIGGIE AND TUPAC ENDORSE “PREZY-JJ” IN FIRST-EVER JOINT PUBLIC APPEARANCE
Chicago, IL – at a Democratic fundraiser hosted by US Senators Katie Beatrice Hall (D-IN) and Paul Vallas (D-IL), guests were treated to an unexpected surprise… “This election is more important than our differences,” Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. The Big One, told the crowd. Smalls backed Meredith during the Republican primaries, while Tupac (along with Malcolm X and other members of the so-called “revolutionary left”) supported Diamondstone during the Democratic primaries. …The years-long rivalry between these two artists came to a head in the mid-1990s, when the “thug life” depicted in rap was accused of promoting and provoking violence. The assassination of Lee Iacocca, and several rappers being either killed or wounded in shootings, occurring during this period led to the rap industry scaling back their “pro-violence” image. For instance, Biggie’s 1997 “First To Last” album, a noted departure from his previous collections of songs, had noticeably lighter tone than many has expected from The Big One...
– The Los Angeles Times, 9/25/2004
DOW IMPROVING AS SARS RESTRICTIONS EASED, JOBS RETURNING NATIONWIDE
– The Wall Street Journal, 9/26/2004
…By the end of their fifth season in early 2004, the ratings were dropping again, and it seemed the cavalcade of controversies would not be renewed after season six. Then along came a certain politician.
The ascendance of Bernie Goetz helped L&S by allowing McFarlane to make Season 6 premier with a politically sharp episode in an attempt to boost the floundering ratings. The episode, “Landslides and Scrapes,” aired on September 27 and centered on thru introduction of the show’s Mayor character, an corrupt and possibly unhinged public official who was a bully in Larry’s old middle school. The plot focused on Larry trying to return a football helmet he stole from the character’s locker in school several years ago, only to unintentionally thwart Mayor Ernie Wimbleweed’s bibles-for-guns racketeering scheme. It’s another episode with plot elements that may be too mature for younger audiences, but they are mainly in the background. Nevertheless, Ernie was clearly a parody of Bernier Goetz, and that led to enough criticism for audience numbers to improve, as new viewers tuned in to this supposedly mature children’s show.
Interestingly, before the election had even occurred, McFarlane had decided that Mayor Wimbleweed was to become a prominent recurring character in the series if Goetz won, and was to be used rarely, in small doses, if Goetz lost...
[snip]
…L&S’s ratings continued to decline as the years continued on, and the show was ultimately not renewed for an eleventh season. Larry & Steve aired their final episode in 2009, after 10 seasons and roughly 11 years on the air.
The show’s creator has synced branching out into other genres and industries, but most of these projects have been largely hit-&-miss, usually picking up a cult status, especially his more…risqué projects that most audiences saw as falling flat for one reason or another...
– segment of video essay, “The Consistent Inconsistencies of Larry And Steve,” uploaded to Ourvids.co.can on 11/15/2019
“Jackson can’t lose this. I mean that in two ways, one being that the country can’t afford it and that he really shouldn’t lose, given the scope of his support. The President has the backing of religious people, those favoring social services, minorities, college-educated whites, women, and even many veterans. The only voting bloc he’s not winning over, it seems, is the racists. Goetz’s got that vote locked up tight. And, you know, I’ve dealt with racists in the past, like when I used to work for a radio station in Denver. It’s how on got this scar here, and this, uh, this bullet wound over here. Lots more Goetz types out there than you’d think. And their once-rare public rallies for Goetz are only getting bolder as election night nears. The voters need to nip this rise in racism and anti-Semitism in the bud. Even if the polling suggest he’ll win in a landslide, that’s not a guarantee. People have to vote; Jackson needs to win this!”
– radio host and political commentator Alan Berg (1934-2018), 9/30/2004
“GOETZ IS NUTS!” Dozens Declined RM Spot Over Bernie’s Base And Rhetoric
…US Congresswoman Laura Lane Welch was among several Republican politicians approached by the Goetz campaign with the offer of running mate. Like most, she turned down being vetted over a dislike for Goetz’s candidacy. “Mr. Goetz may not personally believe in the certain views that many of his supporters share, but the fact that he embraces those certain supporters instead of disavowing or downing them is enough to keep others away,” the retiring legislator said in a radio interview yesterday evening. “His people must have asked dozens of folks to join his sinking ship of a campaign, only to step back over the vitriol that seems to cling to his candidacy.” According to Welch, even Goetz’s attempts to shift to the right at the start of the primaries failed to rouse support from conservative Republicans such as herself. “Not only does his campaign serve to harbor negativity and bigotry, but his initial backpedaling and flip-flopping on several issues before, during, and after the primaries has turned off so many people, and when party unity and a broad support base are really needed to win in November, too!”
– The New York Post, 10/1/2004
“When you plant a garden, you can’t just walk away from after it bursts out through the ground but before the real fruit shows up and ripens. You’ve got to see it through all the way if you want to reap what you sow. Since 2001, income and wealth inequality conditions are improving, but the conditions can be even more fair and even more level if we stay the course. Inequality is eroding away, not just when it comes to the life quality of the lower class. It is eroding away at the American middle class itself, too. And why? Because, unlike my opponent, this administration understands that the entire point of this government is to provide for the people. In this current age, this government, this administration, this presidency aims to help and protect those who cannot help and protect themselves on their own. To look to improve the lives of all people, not to a dog-eat-dog mentality to permeate our industries; to inspire and encourage people to be the best they can be, not to cut down those who think differently or act differently, for they could be the Einsteins and O’Keefes and Hemingways and Jonas Salks of tomorrow; to promote understanding and love, not ignorance, bigotry, and hatred. It is the correct thing to do, it is the moral thing to do.”
– Present Jesse Jackson, campaigning in Clover, rural Virginia, 10/2/2004
“This very well may be the first autumn without a case of SARS since the initial outbreak in late 2001. No new cases of the pandemic strain of SARS, which caused or directly contributed to roughly 983,000 deaths worldwide over the past three years, have been confirmed outside of India in ten weeks, and no new cases have been confirmed inside India in seven weeks. It is apparent that this pandemic has run its course, thanks to the quick thinking and hard work of all people around the world, united in a thankfully brief era of international crisis.”
– Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization, unofficially declaring the SARS pandemic “over,” 10/3/2004
…The first Presidential debate of the autumn campaign was held on October 5 and focused mainly on foreign policy.
In regards to international commerce and humanitarianism, Jackson reiterated that he preferred direct aid and debt relief to impoverished nations instead of using trade reform as a way of helping them, as he believed that deregulation of trade policies only benefits corporations and exploits foreign labor. Goetz took the reverse stance, proclaiming that regulations interrupt the “natural flow” of the free market system responsible for innovation and technological advancements. When asked “what would you have done differently if you had been President during the pandemic,” Goetz replied “That’s in the past. This debate is about what I’ll do over the next four years, let’s not bring in hypotheticals.” When pressed on the topic, Goetz noted that he would have enforced “less severe and less restrictive” safezoning measures, arguing that those “allowed under Jackson suffocated our economy.” Goetz criticized Jackson’s business regulations as well, and while he generally ignored the markets recovering, the former Senator did note the types of jobs that were not returning. To this, Jackson countered by pointing out that new jobs had replaced old ones as more businesses began to harness the positive aspects of remote work.
When the subject of humanitarian aid came up, Goetz boasted his anti-interventionist stance, but noted that “North Korea-like situations” were the exception. The then added, “Still, we need to beef up the military so we never have to use them except in times of defense. If the military’s beefed up, only fools would dare mess with us.”
Overall, Goetz performed much better than expected, and he saw a slight rise in the polls immediately afterward...
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 47%
Goetz: 42%
Undecided/other: 11%
– Gallup, 10/6/2004
– Chris Rock interviewing President Jesse Jackson, The Chris Rock Show (1997-2005), 10/9/2004 [3]
“Wellstone won this debate hands down. The VP held his ground on foreign policy, and he knew what he was talking about when answering questions on domestic policy. He was passionate, compassionate, and professional. None of that could be said about Bargewell. He was aggressive to the moderator, had this weird scowl-like expression on with his face much of the time, and repeatedly interrupted the VP. Eldon may have gotten a few jabs in about a weak military, and he certainly knew his stuff about the Army, but the problem for him was that army stuff is all he knows. Bargewell failed to answer even basic questions about taxes, commerce, trade, housing, food insecurity, statehood. He even fumbled the question about police precinct reform! How does a military expert fail to talk about militarization?! That guy, though, he just tried to tie and relate every topic to the military. Saying trade is like the Army sharing intel with the other branches of the military, which doesn’t make sense as an analogy. Comparing housing to, quote, ‘comfy barracks,’ unquote, and food drives to rations and whatnot? Is that really going to win anybody over? At this point in the race, the sides have been formed and the job of the running mate is to play to undecideds by propping up the one heading their ticket. Wellstone did that without too much bull, praising Jesse’s handling of SARS and economic recovery, while Bargewell just mentioned Goetz’s name from time to time like he was an afterthought.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, reviewing the 2004 VP debate, Saturday 10/12/2004
BOBBITT THE BEATER: Investigator Blows Lid on Senate Hopeful’s Cover-Up of Lewd Past
Tucson, AZ – An Arizona Republic exposé article by investigative reporter Lorena Gallo has revealed that a GOP nominee for a US Senate seat had been lying about the past 19 years of his life to hide a history of sexual pestering and run-ins with law enforcement.
John Wayne Bobbitt, a single and childless 37-year-old state senator since 2001, may seem like a typical Goetz-backing politician, but Gallo has discovered that Bobbitt was twice arrested for assault and battery, first in Las Vegas in 1985 and again in Manassas Junction, Virginia, in 1990; in each case, he was initially accused of beating his first wife, only for her to decline pressing charges. Now, though, with Gallo’s urging, two of Bobbitt’s three ex-wives have come forward to warn people about his “sick” personality. “This is not slander, this is the truth,” says the first ex-wife, Margaret Thompson of Roanoke, Virginia, “That man had me believing that I was worthless and would be nothing without him.” His second ex-wife has polaroids of some of the many times when Bobbitt would severely beat her. The third wife has documents from a Nevada abortion clinic, and states “I wanted to have children, he didn’t. On the second pregnancy, he literally dragged out of the car, and I kicked and screamed, but he just beat me until I agreed to kill our baby.” Former aides of Bobbitt also back up their stories by recounting his history of sexual pestering. “This kind of behavior should have died out in the first Arkwave if not the second,” writes Gallo in the expose, “maybe it’s time for a third.”
– The New York Post, 10/14/2004
The second Presidential debate was held on the nineteenth and focused primarily on domestic issues. Goetz started off the night with a call for reversing the gun restrictions passed in 1995 and 1996. President then quickly reminded Goetz that those laws had been passed because of how President Iacocca was assassinated, leading to Goetz fumble through a rebuttal that did not mention or acknowledge the cause of Iacocca’s premature demise. Then came discussions on energy, with Goetz disagreeing with Jackson on the value of fracking.
Another major topic in the debate on which both candidates disagreed was the proposed admittance of Puerto Rico and DC into the union as the 51st and 52nd states. Despite the rise in interest and possibility that such admissions would occur in the near future, Goetz openly questioned the validity and legitimacy of the movement, suggesting it was “propped up” by Democrats and had “no real, actual support in Puerto Rico itself.” His comments offended and upset many conservative Hispanics in the GOP, who later or immediately criticized him for the comments; several non-Hispanic Republicans privately voiced concern that the reply would “cost [the party] the Hispanic vote for years” if Goetz lost the election over this comment.
Overall, Goetz was seen as doing poorly in this debate. Jackson, on the other better hand, was more prepared than he was for the first one, and thus, this time, the incumbent was viewed as the winner of the debate.
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 52%
Goetz: 39%
Undecided/other: 9%
– Gallup, 10/21/2004
…The true “Autumn Surprise” of the 2004 race finally arrived three days ahead of the third send final Presidential debate, when audio leaked from a private Republican fundraiser held in Washington, D.C. In the audio, one can clearly tell that Goetz has been caught on a hot mic telling a lobbyist that he is “still open” to the idea of privatizing Social Security. Goetz then rants about the “ridiculousness” of gun safety: “You get in big trouble for shooting people. It’s serious business. But I also feel a lot of people probably deserve being shot, and a lot of people deserve being killed.” [2]
The public releasing of the audio sent Goetz’s campaign into a panic before Chief of Staff Nichols took control of the situation, telling his subordinates and the candidate that they would to downplay the comments at the upcoming debate and increase focus on the campaign’s them of “defending our national borders.”…
– author A’Lelia Bundles’ Consequential: The Presidency of Jesse Jackson, Random House, 2015
JACKSON: “It truly says something about one’s character when they make comments like that. The successes of my administration shows that you need heart and compassion and understanding for your fellow Americans. That is why we sent out the stimulus checks during the pandemic. That is why we expanded the Voting Rights Act and launched anti-GCD initiatives. Because nobody deserves being deprived of a well-deserved retirement, and nobody deserves to be killed. Mr. Goetz, your comments were despicable and you owe the American people an apology.”
GOETZ: “Look, we’re focusing on the wrong subject here. Leadership of the world’s most powerful country on Earth can’t be placed in the hands of a softie. You need to be able to prove to the enemies of peace that you will not tolerate them. To look at the recreadrug lords, the gun runners, the third-world despots and the countries like China and India that wish to take advantage of America’s good, decent and generous behavior to rip us off when it comes to international trade and outsourcing, stare ’em straight in the eyes, and tell them, ‘Hey – you mess with us, we mess with you.’ But under your administration, the US military budget is at its lowest level since 1980...”
JACKSON: “The economy is stable and is back to pre-SARS conditions, plus we have overseen the creation of more jobs as employers utilize the possibilities of the technet, which everyone saw during the lockdowns can be a valuable tool for remote jobs. This administration, if re-elected, will in the next four years continue the policies of the last four years…”
GOETZ: “I support small government except when a large government is needed to ensure a strong national immigration policy and strong law enforcement at all levels, and to defend the lives of freedom-lovers living in hell-hole countries abroad from Hitler wannabes. With all other cases, I say that, well, if you need help, what would you rather seek help from – the cold, impersonal bureaucracy of a federal government, or the welcoming in of a caring friend, spouse, or family member?”
JACKSON: “Our immediate response to the SARS pandemic and the success of the Manned Mars Mission prove the benefits that come from international collaboration.”
GOETZ: “In the world of geopolitics, you can’t afford not to be cutthroat and serious so that over countries don’t try and walk all over you. It’s foolhardy to believe that all countries will just agree to pay fair when it comes to trade. We need a President who will put the American workers ahead of foreign labor, who understands that outsourcing is never a good thing. I say keep American enterprises in America, and one way to do that is to lower the administration’s suppressive regulations.”
JACKSON: “Greatness is determined not through firepower but by choosing to hold off on using warfare until all avenues for a peaceful resolution have been tried.”
– Snippets from the third general election Presidential debate of 2004, 10/26/2004
POLL: “If the election for President was held today, whom would you vote for?”
Jackson: 59%
Goetz: 35%
Undecided/other: 6%
– Gallup, 10/29/2004
Anchor DAN RATHER: “Now, I’m trying to be fair, unbiased and balanced here, but do truly believe that Goetz is going to win?”
Boulder University President CONDI RICE: “Yes. You cannot trust the polls, people. Dewey trusted the polls in 1948 and look what happened – he lost considerably to Harry Truman. You have to look at the people and what the incumbent has done for this country. The people always publicly join bandwagons and say they’ll vote for whoever they think is the popular candidate. But with the privacy of the ballot comes the truth of their analysis of who should serve over the next four year. In 1948, the people looked at the incumbent and saw Truman had ended World War Two and helped out lovers of freedom with the Berlin Airlift. Now, the people are looking at the incumbent and see an oppressive government that wastes their taxpayer money and forces people to stay indoors or wear masks over something that didn’t even kill a thousand people in this country.”
Lawyer and community organizer Janice Fine: “But that’s just why Jesse will win – because he kept them safe and prevented our numbers from being as bad as India’s or Russia’s or China’s, and ensured financial relief for the monetarily insecure in order to keep the Negative Income Tax Rebate program solvent. How many countries suffered financial issues, went in the red, for saw taxes spike because of SARS? Not the US, and Jesse didn’t even violate the BBA to do so, either!”
Political author HUNTER S. THOMPSON: “Yeah, I agree with Janice, it will be a blowout for Jesse next Tuesday. Condi, there might be a lot of racists lying to pollsters wend saying they’ll vote one way and plan on voting the other way, but it won’t be enough to make up the difference in the polls, or the number of Republicans defecting to Jackson/Wellstone ticket. You know something’s up, that something bails going down inside the GOP, when you go online and see ads everywhere reading ‘Republicans For Jesse Jackson,’ Condi.”
Journalist BOB SCHAEFFER: “Um, but, Condi does have a point. Condi, I agree that many Goetzers are misleading pollsters, but a big voting bloc here is undecided voters. And if anything turns them away from Goetz, it would be his debate performances. His demeanor, inability to answer several questions well, his posturing, the fact that he kept glancing over to the clock on the side on the wall during the second debate. The sweating, the shiftiness, it’s all superficial, but because undecided voters aren’t too ideological motivated, it’s the superficial that often wins them over.”
RATHER: “But at least this Tuesday not be too bad for Senate Republicans, right? Because more Democratic incumbent seats are up for grabs tonight?”
THOMPSON: “And because of how many Republicans are distancing themselves from Goetz. Especially that House GOP minority leader guy, David Emery.”
RICE: “I don’t know, I’m still convinced he’ll pull off a Truman-type upset. Bernie’s spending a lot of focus on Ohio and Florida, you know.”
FINE: “Yes, he’s essentially dismissing the Rockies, the plains, the south, and even Texas in favor of focusing on several historically decisive bellwether states like Missouri and Illinois. The strategy is as outdated as his views.”
– CBS News, round-table discussion, 10/30/2004
Tickets:
Jesse Jackson (SC) / Paul Wellstone (MN) (Democratic) – 78,720,536 (58.2%)
Bernie Goetz (CA) / Eldon A. Bargewell (VA) (Republican) – 54,238,719 (40.1%)
All other votes – 2,299,397 (1.7%)
Total Votes – 135,258,652 (100%)
[snip]
The remaining 1.7% of the popular vote was by won by several third-party and independent candidates; the Socialist Alliance ticket (Dennis J. Morrisseau (VT) / Rosemary Jackowski (NY)) came in third place with 0.8% of the total national vote (and receiving roughly 5.1% of the vote in Vermont), while the Patriotic Front ticket (Barbara Coe (CA) / Scott Lively (MA)) came in fourth, and the True America ticket, the United Freedom ticket, Pragmatic ticket, and Family ticket came in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth place, respectively...
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…Florida was closer than usual for a Republican state, especially since Florida has not voted for a Democratic nominee since 1948 [4], while Ohio confirmed its Republican lean. Kansas went blue due to the work of former Governor Jim Slattery, a Jackson surrogate who worked to “remind” Kansans that it was Jackson’s renewal energy policies responsible for the state’s economic recovery going smooth as wind turbines and sun panels began to add variety and diversity to Kansas’s seemingly-endless fields. …The ten closest states of the night, in order, were Texas (by 0.07%), Louisiana (0.11%), Kansas (0.24%), Montana (0.39%), South Dakota (0.57%), Missouri (0.79%), South Carolina (1.14%), Ohio (1.28%), Florida (1.54%), and Mississippi (1.87%)…
– Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: Roads to The White House, Sunrise Publications, 2011 edition
“The campaigning has concluded, but our work is far from over. Now is the time for healing. …What unites us as a nation is our differences, for they make us unique, so we should celebrate the strength of our nation and the accomplishment of tonight, the culmination of months of hard work that y’all put into this race.”
– Jesse Jackson, 11/3/2004
November United States Senate election results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Seats: 34 of 100
Seats needed for majority: 51
New Senate majority leader: Robert Byrd (D-WV)
New Senate minority leader: Webb Franklin (R-MS)
Seats before election: 57 (D), 40 (R), 2 (I), 1 (LU)
Seats after election: 62 (D), 36 (R), 2 (I), 0 (LU)
Seat change: D ^ 5, R v 4, I - 0, LU v 1
Full List:
Alabama: Doug Jones (D) over Tim James (R) and Bettye Frink (Rational Republican); incumbent Mary Texas Hurt Garner (D) retired
Alaska: Kevin Danaher (D) over Jerry Sanders (R), Marc Millican (I), and Jim Dore (HIP); incumbent Frank Murkowski (R) retired
Arizona: incumbent Eddie Najeeb Basha Jr. (D) over Garrett Wood (Republican (write-in)) and John Wayne Bobbitt (R)
Arkansas: incumbent F. Winford Boozman III (R) over Winston Bryant (D)
California: incumbent Mike Gravel (D) over Howard Kaloogian (R) and Marsha Feinland (Natural Mind)
Colorado: Mark Udall (D) over Bob Schaffer (R); incumbent Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R) retired
Connecticut: incumbent Chris Dodd (D) over Jack Orchulli (R)
Florida: incumbent Michael Bilirakis (R) over Nan Rich (D)
Georgia: Herman Cain (R) over John W. Carter (D), Denise Majette (Green), and Allen Buckley (Liberty); incumbent Dr. John Skandalakis (D) retired
Hawaii: incumbent Daniel Inouye (D) over Campbell Cavasso (R)
Idaho: Bo Gritz (R) over Lawerence Denney (Rational Republican), Wendy Jaquet (D), and Scott F. McClure (Independent Democrat); incumbent Bethine Clark Church (D) retired
Illinois: incumbent Paul G. Vallas (D) over Steve Rauschenberger (R)
Indiana: incumbent Evan Bayh (D) over Marvin Scott (R)
Iowa: incumbent Patty Jean Poole (D) over Jerry Kohn (R) and Albert Franzen (I)
Kansas: incumbent Bob Dole (R) over Lee Jones (D)
Kentucky: incumbent Patrick “Kelly” Downard (R) over Paul E. Patton (D)
Louisiana: Chris John (D) over incumbent Buddy Roemer (R)
Maryland: incumbent Barbara Mikulski (D) over E. J. Pipkin (R)
Missouri: Wayne Cryts (D) over Mike Steger (R); incumbent Bill Bradley (D) retired
Nevada: Dina Titus (D) over incumbent Patricia Anne “Patty” Cafferata (R)
New Hampshire: incumbent Lou D’Allesandro (D) over Sharon Carson (R)
New York: Allyson Schwartz (D) over Howard Mills III (R); incumbent Mario Biaggi (R) retired
North Carolina: incumbent Nick Galifianakis (D) over John Ross Hendrix (R)
North Dakota: incumbent Kent Conrad (D) over Mike Liffrig (R)
Ohio: incumbent appointee Peter Lawson Jones (D) over Nancy Putnam Hollister (R) and Tony Patrick Hall (Independent Democrat)
Oklahoma: Brad Carson (D) over incumbent Marvin Henry “Mickey” Edwards (R)
Oregon: incumbent Walter Leslie “Les” AuCoin (D) over Al King (R)
Pennsylvania: incumbent Bob Casey Sr. (D) over Betsy Summers (R)
South Carolina: incumbent Fritz Hollings (D) over Jim DeMint (R)
South Dakota: incumbent Teresa McGovern (D) over John Thune (R)
Utah: incumbent Lyle Hillyard (R) over Paul Van Dam (D)
Vermont: William Sorrell (D) over Peter D. Moss (R) and incumbent Peter Diamondstone (Liberty Union)
Washington: incumbent Gary Locke (D) over George Nethercutt (R)
Wisconsin: incumbent Bronson La Follette (D) over Tim Michels (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
United States House of Representatives results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Seats: All 435
Seats needed for majority: 218
New House majority leader: Barbara B. Kennelly (D-CT)
New House minority leader: H. Dargan McMaster (R-SC)
Last election: 227 (D), 207 (R), 1 (I)
Seats won: 238 (D), 197 (R), 0 (I)
Seat change: D ^ 11, R v 10, I v 1
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
United States Governor election results, 2004
Date: November 2, 2004
Number of state gubernatorial elections held: 11
Seats before: 33 (D), 16 (R), 1 (I)
Seats after: 35 (D), 14 (R), 1 (I)
Seat change: D ^ 2, R v 2, I - 0
Full list:
Delaware: incumbent Ruth Ann Minner (D) over Bill Lee (R)
Indiana: Jill Long Thompson (D) over David Martin McIntosh (R (official write-in)), Ken Gividen (Liberty) and Jonathon Sharkey (R/WVP); incumbent Steve Goldsmith (R) retired
Missouri: incumbent Cynthia Bowers (D) over John Swenson (R)
Montana: Thomas Lee Judge (D) over Bob Brown (R); incumbent Denny Rehberg (R) retired
New Hampshire: Kelley Ashby (R) over John Lynch (D); incumbent George Condodemetraky (D) retired
North Carolina: incumbent Jim Hunt (D) over Patrick Ballantine (R)
North Dakota: incumbent Tracy Potter (D) over Roland Riemers (R)
Utah: incumbent Enid Greene (R) over Scott Matheson (D)
Vermont: Deborah L. “Deb” Markowitz (D) over Peter Plympton Smith (R); incumbent Howard Dean (D) retired
Washington: incumbent Norm Rice (D) over Michael Patrick Shanks (R) and Ruth Bennett (Liberty)
West Virginia: Bob Wise (D) over Monty Warner (R); incumbent Cecil Underwood (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
GREEK SENATORS’ CLUB LOSES ONE, GAINS TWO MORE
…The unofficial caucus of Greek-American lawmakers saw the retirement of Dr. John Skandalakis (D-GA) this year. However, Chris John (D-LA) and Dina Titus (D-NV) were elected last night, the latter in a majority (thus runoff-free) grab of the vote in his home state. With Mike Bilirakis (R-FL), Nick Galifianakis (D-NC), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Paul Vallas (D-IL), John and Titus increases the caucus’ number to a total of seven Greek-American Senators. …US Rep. Dina Titus’ victory was much closer than that of John’s, but ultimately received 50% of the vote, versus the 49% won by her opponent, a moderate incumbent... In total, Democrats swept five seats in the Senate, and were poised to win a sixth until the nominee for a Kentucky seat suffered a scandal in October…
– The Atlantis, Greek-American newspaper, 11/3/2004
SEVEN MORE STATES VOTE “YES” ON N.I.A., INCHING AMENDMENT CLOSER TO RATIFICATION
– thebostonglobe.co.usa, 11/3/2004
STATE REFERENDUM PASSES: New Constitutional Amendment Will Establish Lt. Gov. Post
…the new addition to the state constitution, first introduced in state congress in July of this year, will create the office of Lieutenant Governor as a means of resolving a succession controversy plaguing the Garden States for several years now. The new statewide elected position will officially come into existence at the start of 2006, after an inaugural lieutenant governor has been elected in the general elections being held this November. The amendment clarifies that the lieutenant governor candidates will be the running mates of the gubernatorial candidates…
– The Star-Ledger, New Jersey newspaper, 11/3/2004
DISGRACED STATE SENATOR JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT ARRESTED AFTER ASSAULTING EX-WIFE IN STORE
…given the high number of charges made against him, plus a class-action lawsuit led by former female staff members, Bobbitt’s “will be dealing with the legal consequences of his behavior for years. His political career is over,” according to Arizona’s state Attorney General…
– The Washington Post, 11/7/2004
NASA DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT; Will Leave Office In January
…last year’s manned mission to Mars was the magnum opus of his career. Now that it has been achieved, Dale Myers is stepping down… Sources have in recent weeks claimed that Jackson aims to take NASA in “a new direction” come 2005…
– The Houston Chronicle, 11/18/2004
THE FALL OF THE G.O.P.?: How Republicans Have Lost Their Way – And How They Might Come Back
…it is chilling that exit polling revealed that the improving economy and Goetz’s statements on Social Security were the top two reasons why people voted for Jackson over Goetz, with the issue of racism playing a much smaller role in the formation of the election results than expected…
– Time magazine, late November 2004
…“I won’t sugarcoat it – we got spanked in this cycle,” then-RNC Chair John Andrews told a gathering of supporters in early December 2004. The sheer size of the margins and loss of support among women, minorities, college-educated whites, and other demographics Andrews and others viewed as being “me to the long-term survival of the Republican Party” convinced party leaders to finally, openly, and publicly disavow the Wide-Awakes movement, hoping to push them and the more open racist and misogynistic GOP members and affiliates back to the fringes of the party’s “big tent”…
– Anne Meagher Northup’s Chicken and Politickin’: the Rise of Colonel Sanders and Rational Conservatism in the Republican Party, 2015
…The campaign had had grave concerns that either Huntsman, a soft-spoken moderate, or Meredith, a religious African-American, would chip away enough at the President’s numbers to pull off a victory in a general election. Hoping to see their boss compete against a less executable Republican nominee, Jesse Jackson’s communications team set about an under-the-radar strategy to prolong the primary contest by pushing out – often through third parties – the kind of research that could hurt Huntsman and Meredith. The “Savannah Team” of South Carolina-based researchers was deeply frustrated by the lack of serious campaigning by Huntsman’s rivals: there seemed to be no opposition research and no effort to expose the record of the man who, at the time, was alternating frontrunner status with Meredith in the polls. The solution was to weaken the likely nominee with an extended contest that would push the candidate and his party further to the right, and thus improve of odds of winning re-election. [5] They did not anticipate this strategy’s ultimate level of success…
– Richard Wolffe’s Reselling Hope: The 2004 Election, Hachette Book Group, 2005
“If it wasn’t for the economy doing better in the third quarter I would have won. Maybe doing better in the debates would have helped, too. I’m not sure what’s in store for me next. I might run for public office again, someday, but for right now, I’m okay taking a break from things. I’m going to take a breather, maybe learn to paint or something. Heck, I might just sit around and feed squirrels in some park somewhere. I like squirrels, they’re always happy to see you, especially if you’ve got a bag of nuts with you. Not like pigeons, who just fly around and leave droppings everywhere. They’re nasty little winged rats, that’s what they are. If I ever become a pigeon feeder, shoot me.” [2]
– Bernie Goetz, Herring Network News interview, 12/12/2004
US Senator Kirkwood Fordice (D-MS) he initially planned on resigning upon receiving a leukemia diagnosis in 2001, but concern that then-Governor Unite Blackwell would nominate a “radical” Democrat, he decided to stay in office, and became invested in Mississippi’s 2003 gubernatorial election. When Democrat James Chaney won said election, Fordyce continued to stay in office, and hoped he would be able to retire in early 2008. Instead, he passed away on December 14, 2004, at the age of 70. Governor Chaney appointed moderate Democrat Erik Fleming to his Senate seat.
With the addition of Fleming to the roster, the US Senate now had serving in it a total of 63 Democrats – D. Jones, Danaher, Braun, Basha, Tucker, Gravel, Heath, Udall, Dodd, Frawley, Osterlund, Penelas, Mink, Inouye, Vallas, Hall, Bayh, Poole, Osborne, John, Sarbanes, Mikulski, Kennedy-Roosevelt, Collins, Humphrey, Belton, Fleming, Wheat, Cryts, Mudd, Sorensen, Nevenic, Titus, Hollingworth, D’Allesandro, Jiménez, Mondragon, Kaplan, Schwartz, Blue, Galifianakis, Glassheim, Conrad, Anderson, J. Jones, Carson, AuCoin, Kanjorski, Casey, York, Roberts, Hollings, McGovern, Clement, Leland, Pollina, Sorrell, Scott, Unsoeld, Locke, Byrd, Feingold, and La Follette.
– Gary C. Jacobson’s The Power and the Politics of Congressional Elections, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015
2001-2004 SARS Pandemic Mortality Rates By Country (based on confirmed deaths, not suspected deaths, and based on an aggregation of WHO reports and official national reports (see our totaling model for further details)):
[snip]
Brazil: 189,700 cases; 23,500 deaths (rate of 12.4%)
[snip]
Canada: 35,115 cases; 3,559 deaths (rate of 10.1%)
[snip]
China: 291,000 cases; 25,892 deaths (rate of 8.9%)
Colombia: 48,600 cases; 3,355 deaths (rate of 6.9%)
[snip]
India: 8,450,000 cases; 1,090,050 deaths (rate of 12.9%)
[snip]
Japan: 31,243 cases; 2,031 deaths (rate of 6.5%)
[snip]
Mexico: 14,700 cases; 985 deaths (rate of 6.7%)
[snip]
Russia: 1,595,000 cases; 180,240 deaths (rate of 11.3%)
[snip]
United Kingdom: 14,270 cases; 1,168 deaths (rate of 8.2%)
United Korea: 11,233 cases; 847 deaths (rate of 7.5%)
United States: 12,502 cases; 891 deaths (rate of 7.1%)
[snip]
Global Total: 15,129,012 cases (confirmed); 1,119,546 deaths (confirmed) (rate of 7.4% (average))
– sarswatch.co.uk
THE SCARS OF SARS: Life In A Post-Pandemic World
…The pandemic did not affect countries equally. For example, the United States experienced the pandemic for roughly two years (from February 2002 to late 2003) and experienced three major waves (the first in early 2002, the second in the post-midterm months of 2002, and the third in early-to-mid 2003), while India, arguably the worst-hit country, experienced at least five major waves and experienced the pandemic from January 2002 to early 2004.
…With no less than 15 million confirmed cases, SARS killed at least 1.1 million people globally by the end of the pandemic’s run this year. Compare these numbers to the largest pandemic of the twentieth century, the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic; that one killed roughly 50 million worldwide. SARS was closer, in terms of fatalities, to the 1889-1890 flu pandemic that killed 1 million worldwide, and the 1957-1958 influenza pandemic that killed 1-4 million worldwide, while the common flu kills roughly between 10,000 and 50,000 people in the US each and every year. “The biggest reasons for this pandemic feeling a lot deadlier was technology, access at your fingertips,” explains Charles Sidney Hirsch, pathologist and Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. “Make no mistake that the SARS virus is a once-in-a-century virus that, with its ferocious rate of transmission, virulently high mortality rate, and the extremely severe and harmful effects it has on those who survive it, very easily could have infected millions of more people. It didn’t because of the decisive preemptive measures taken by UN Secretary-General Carol Bellamy, international cooperation between most countries, and civilian compliance with emergency measures overall. But it felt like it was as bad as it easily could have been because of public media, because of the technet and TV reports. There was no 24-7 live news coverage in 1918. Because of technology, people were aware of nearly everything going on, and that made for some very scary viewing, which, in fact, may have helped keep the death tolls as down as they were.”
…Past pandemics also offer clues to how humanity will have to approach the SARS virus in the upcoming years and decades. “The Spanish Flu devolved into an endemic disease that circulated around for roughly four decades as a seasonal virus before finally going away for good. We will most likely see the same occur with SARS, with regional levels of severity varying from country to country,” says head virologist of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, NY…
…While divorces and domestic abuse cases went up, lockdown caused air pollution to drop worldwide dramatically. In July of this year, the amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions from factories, transportation and other sources shut down by quarantine dropped 70% from levels recorded in January 2001. However, NO2 output levels from China have bounced back from that country’s 2002-2003 slump since the nation’s “reopening” early this year. Nevertheless, the positive environmental conditions brought about by people cutting back of fossil fuels gave us a glimpse at how powerful the removal, even a temporary removal, of our carbon footprint can have on planet Earth. “This window into what could be should inspire us all,” says outgoing EPA Director Bob Ross, “Now we have the data to back up the calls for switching to renewable, less harmful forms of energy. We gave Mother Nature a break from us. She enjoyed it. But we owe to her and to ourselves to try to live harmoniously with what is still the only planet we call home.”
…With the virus apparently “beaten,” and citizens around the globe adjusting to the ways of the pre-SARS world surprisingly quickly, millions are voicing optimism for the years ahead. Says former US Secretary of Health and Welfare Jim Ramsted “Good and better times may finally be just around the corner!”
– Newsweek, late December 2004
…We can now confirm that a major tsunami has hit the island country of Indonesia, most likely caused by a powerful earthquake off the coast in the Indian Ocean. Seismologists are saying the quake may have been more than 9.0, at the high end of the Richter scale, meaning this quake has in all likelihood destroyed bridges, toppled buildings, and decimated roads. Likely caused by a fault plate rupture, this earthquake is being called an undersea megathrust earthquake by scientists, and according to reports out of Indonesia, massive waves have inundated western Indonesia. Thousands may be dead, and entire communities may have just been wiped out. This is a developing story. We will have more details as they become available to us. Please stay tuned…
– KNN Breaking News Alert, 12/26/2004
UK GOVERNMENT PLEDGES 50M POUNDS AND TO MATCH PUBLIC DONATIONS FOR ASIAN QUAKE RELIEF EFFORT
– The New York Times, 12/30/2004
…The December 2004 fault line rupture, the third-largest ever recorded (after the Great Chilean earthquake of 1960 and the Good Friday earthquake of 1964), and with the released energy of 1,500 Hiroshima bombs detonating at once, resulted in the deaths of over 250,000 people in 12 countries, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. …The advancements of individual recording devices such as cellular phones and other camera equipment allowed for the destruction to be caught as it happened, capturing gigantic waves overturning boats like bath toys, toppling buildings like houses of cards, and sweeping away coastal communities like a broom sweeping away dust; these shocking records soon found their ways onto the technet, and possibly contributed to the immediate responses from civilians around the world...
Above: an aerial view of the record-breaking devastation
…The effects of the quake and subsequent tsunamis prompted worldwide humanitarian responses; with just a few weeks, millions of individuals had donated to international aid organizations and charities alongside multinational pledges…
– worldvision.co.uk
…Prime Minister of the UK Harriet Harman greenlit “Operation Garron,” a military relief operation, to assist recovery efforts in Indonesia. The Royal Navy and RAF embarked on delivering aid supplies and participating in relief work starting on January 2nd, patrolling areas hit by the 2004 Tsunami in search of survivors, and using helicopters to assist locals in clearing wreckage. However, Indonesia’s government was conflicted over allowing ground troops to land on Indonesian territory due to past confrontations with British-led troops [6]. Indonesian leadership ultimately refused to allow help from land-based foreign military personnel, and instead welcomed in volunteers from charities, non-profit organizations, and other non-military and non-government groups and organizations…
– clickopedia.co.usa
Republican House leadership election, 2005:
Date: January 10, 2005
Seats: All 197 Republican-held seats
Seats needed to win: 99
MINORITY LEADER:
Description:
David Emery (ME) successfully best Robert Smith Walker for Republican House leadership in 1995, and served as Speaker from 1995 to 2001. To the left of the party, his ascension was a backlash to Walker being too far to the right ideologically and declining popularity among American voters and fellow GOP lawmakers. However, after Emery failed to lead the party to victory in three consecutive midterms, his own popularity was down within the party. Worsening the situation for the former speaker was the party becoming increasingly conservative, making his moderate record conflict with the goals of high-ranking conservative Representatives. As a result, Emery was challenged for leadership by Dorgan McMaster (SC), a Congressman since 1991 and House minority whip since 2001. McMaster blamed the loss of the House in 2000, 2002, and 2004, and of the 2004 Presidential election, on Emery being “far too liberal” to lead the GOP and “too polite” to the Jackson administration, and soon gained support. By the time of the election, all other anti-Emery candidates dropped out to rally behind McMaster.
Results:
McMaster – 125
Emery – 72
McMaster drew support from Congressional districts in the south and west, where many Republicans (including many Representatives) blamed unenthusiastic moderate Republicans for low voter turnout, essentially claiming their inability to embrace the Goetz campaign was responsible for four more years of President Jesse Jackson. “The majority conservatives in the party used me as a scapegoat,” Emery claimed in a 2020 book.
Following his loss, Emery at first declined to resign from his House seat, but upon McMaster threatening to strip him from party leadership committees and other entitlements, rendering him powerless within the GOP, Emery made the “shocking” decision of filing as an Independent and running for re-election as one in 2006.
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…I made it known that I was going to run for Governor long before I made the campaign itself official. There’s no sense in waiting until you reach a gas station to stop and check on a car problem; no sense in waiting until a certain time to announce something big like a run for Governor.
But anyway, I made it official in January 2005. Not too long after that, I first met a fella named Dick Cheney. Like me, he was a former US Congressman from a western state who had eyed a Governor’s seat. He had served in the House from Wyoming in the 1970s and 1980s, but lost re-election in ’86 on account of being guilty by association. Then he lost a bid for Governor in the 1990s. He met up with me at my first fancy fundraiser. It was way out of my comfort zone, what with the black ties and everything, but he was one of the more interesting penguins of the evening. To cut to the chase, he basically told me that I had “promise,” and offered to help me with the early fundraising stages of my campaign. He could see that I had “real potential,” as he put it.
Over the next several months, he donated to my campaign and served as an unofficial advisor to me and my staff. It turned out that he agreed with most of my views, especially when it came to BLUTAGO marriage and foreign intervention.
He was a good egg. It was a real shame when he died. According to his daughters, he had suffered several heart attacks before, but the one he had on February 14, 2006 was too much for him to take, and it turned out to be his last one. And just when I was seriously thinking of asking him to serve as my Chief of Staff when I became Governor. And who knows? Had his old ticker not burned out, we could have worked together on my campaigns for the Presidency…
…Upon learning of his death, I told the media about how he had met up with him a many times. I said, “he was very serious kind of guy, but he was a really good guy, the kind of guy I would have been proud to have serve as my White House Chief of Staff or Secretary of State. I’m gonna miss him.” I still kind of do…
– Harley Brown’s autobiography I’ve Got A Masters Degree In Raising Hell, Sunrise Publishers, 2019
FRANCE SUSPENDS DEBT REPAYMENTS FROM INDONESIA AS QUAKE RECOVERY CONTINUES
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 15/1/2005
“We are bound together as one united and indivisible nation by our faith in a mighty God and our faith in our fellow Americans. We in this administration will continue to steady our humane, just, peaceful course in ensuring Americans have food, shelter, and purpose.
[snip]
There will be a great focus over these next four years on protecting families, mom-and-pop shops, and the environment; we in this administration will continue to lift up the downtrodden, the poor, the sufferers of food insecurity, drug addiction, and disease, including helping the WHO stomp out SARS virus strains wherever they remain. We can do this for we had accomplishment such wonderful feats before; scientists eradicated smallpox with an extensive and exhaustive international collaborate effort over 36 years. The next four years will also see the United States of America lead the world in combating GCD, warfare and famine, in order to leave behind for our children a world better off than how it was when we were their age.
[snip]
Now is the time for redemption, healing, and unity. Life is what you make of it. You can choose to live in darkness, or you can do the brave thing, and choose to work hard to live in an age of enlightenment, jobs, peace, and justice. To shed light onto darkness, to heal wounds, to rekindle the fire of hope that for many felt extinguished during the darkest times of the 2002 pandemic. But we overcame the darkness and we did not do so alone. We could not have done so alone. For we had to come together, listen to one another, and care for one another. That is how we repelled the darkness. With love and care for each other, going beyond the love of friends and family, beyond the love of neighbors and community, to that rare love that is the love for the stranger. The power of love, faith, and hope is limitless and infinite, boundless and forever. A with the power of love, of faith and hope, we have prevailed over crisis and darkness time and again. We will not let this opportunity for another four years of progress slip on by. We will not take the mandate of November’s elections for granted. I agree that there is much more work to be done, America, so let’s get to it!”
– Jesse Jackson’s 1/20/2005 inaugural speech
THE JESSE JACKSON ADMINISTRATION AT THE START OF 2005
Vice President: incumbent (since 2001) Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
CABINET
Secretary of State: incumbent (since 2001) Ann Richards (D-TX)
Secretary of the Treasury: incumbent (since 2001) Timothy Peter Johnson (D-SD)
Secretary of Defense: Lt. Gen. (ret.) Claudia Jean Kennedy (D-VA) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
Attorney General: incumbent (since 2001) Harry Thomas Edwards (D-DC)
Assistant Attorney General: Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Frank Hoover Easterbrook (D-IL) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Postmaster General: outgoing CD Undersecretary for Suburban Development and former St. Paul Mayor James Scheibel (D-MN) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Secretary of the Interior: outgoing US Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Secretary of Agriculture: incumbent (since 2001) Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Secretary of Commerce: incumbent (since 2001) Robert Reich (D-IL)
Secretary of Labor: incumbent (since 2001) Richard A. Gephardt (D-MO)
Secretary of Education: incumbent (since 2001) Dudley W. Dudley (D-NH)
Secretary of Health and Welfare (renamed Health and Humane Services in 2003): outgoing CD Undersecretary for Urban Development, former US Rep. and former state rep. Babette Josephs (D-PA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Secretary of Transportation: incumbent (since 2001) Toney Anaya (D-NM)
Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs: incumbent (since 2001) Mary Ann Wright (R-AR)
Secretary of Energy and Technology: outgoing Undersecretary of Education, former NASA Communications Director, and former school superintendent Barbara Radding Morgan (I-CA) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
Secretary of Community Development: outgoing CD Undersecretary for Rural Development and former Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah (D-AZ)
CABINET-LEVEL POSITIONS
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): former Governor, counter-terrorism expert, and former Deputy FBI Director John P. O’Neill (D-NJ) (incumbent retired in October 2003)
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): incumbent (since 2001) Raymond Walter Kelly (I-NY)
US Trade Representative: AFL-CIO affiliate, trade union activist and labor leader Arlene Holt Baker (D-TX) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA): former Philadelphia Mayor and former state Attorney General Edward Gene “Ed” Rendell (D-PA) (incumbent retired in December 2003)
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): chemical engineer, physicist, state Commissioner of Environmental Protection and former academic administrator Lisa Perez Jackson (D-NJ) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Administrator of the Overwhelming Disaster Emergency Response Coordination Agency (ODERCA): Chief Risk Assessor for ODERCA and former Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration Rodney Slater (D-AR) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
THE PRESIDENT’S EXECUTIVE OFFICE
White House Chief of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Ronald Daniels (D-OH)
White House Deputy Chief of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Morton Halperin (I-DC)
Counselors to The President: incumbents (since 2001) William J. Antholis (I-VA) and Kevin Alexander Gray (D-SC)
Chief Domestic Policy Advisor: National President of the Mexican American Political Association Nativo Lopez (D/LRU-CA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
Chief Economic Policy Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Jeffrey P. Weaver (D-VT)
Chief Foreign Policy Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Randall Caroline Forsberg (I-MA)
Chief National Security Advisor: incumbent (since 2001) Louis Freeh (R-NY)
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: incumbent (since 2001) Gerald Austin (D-OH)
Other Counselors and Advisors: political analyst Bob Beckel, political adviser Frank Watkinds, campaign policy director Frank Clemente, field director Eddie Wong, political strategist Peter Daou, social critic and progressive philosopher Marcus Raskin, and neorealist philosopher/respected political strategist/historian/author/former Advisor to the President John Lewis Gaddis
White House Communications Director: incumbent (since 2001) Betty Magness (I-DC)
White House Appointments Secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Mabel Teng (D-CA)
White House Press Secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Pam Watkins (I-DC)
President Jackson’s personal secretary: incumbent (since 2001) Jehmu Greene (D-TX)
OTHER MEMBERS
Solicitor General (representative of the Federal Government before the Supreme Court): lawyer, law professor and former Chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Anita Faye Hill (D-OK) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: incumbent (since 2001) Henry Doctor Jr. (I-SC)
Secretary of the Army: incumbent (since 2001) Johnnie Corns (I-WV)
Secretary of the Navy: incumbent (since 2001) Norman Mineta (D-CA)
Federal Reserve Chairman: incumbent (since 2001) William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr. (D-VA)
NASA Administrator: biochemist, former astronaut, former lead CAPCOM at Mission Control, and Chief Scientist of NASA Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid (I-OK) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
NOTABLE AMBASSADORS
To Argentina: incumbent (since 2001) Jim Folsom Jr. (D-AL)
To Australia: incumbent (since 2001) Eni F. H. Faleomavaega Jr. (D-AS)
To Canada: author and former Governor Nora Dauenhauer (G-AK) (incumbent retired in January 2005)
To China: incumbent (since 2001) Bucky Ray Jarrell (D-KY)
To Colombia: incumbent (since 2001) Joseph Samuel “Joe” Nye Jr. (I-NJ)
To France: former New Orleans Mayor, former Lieutenant Governor, former H&W Secretary and former US Rep. Maurice Edwin “Moon” Landrieu (D-LA)
To Germany: incumbent (since 2001) Paul R. Soglin (D-WI)
To Israel: incumbent (since 2001) Norman Gary Finkelstein, PhD (D-NJ)
To Italy: incumbent (since 2001) Mario Cuomo (D-NY)
To Japan: incumbent (since 2001) Adlai Stevenson III (D-IL)
To Korea: incumbent (since 2001) John Lim (R-OR)
To Mexico: outgoing US Ambassador to Afghanistan and former CIA Director Linda Rose Carotenuto Cleland (I-NJ) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
To New Zealand: outgoing Governor Heinz Sablan Hofschneider (R-NM) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
To Russia: incumbent (since 2001) James Robert “J. R.” Jones (D-OK)
To South Africa: incumbent US Ambassador to France and former Governor Cleo Fields (D-LA) (incumbent retired in December 2004)
To the U.K.: incumbent (since 2001) Harvey Gantt (D-NC)
To the U.N.: President of Refugees International and former spokesman for the US Department of Defense Kenneth Hogate Bacon (I-RI) (incumbent retired in February 2005)
– JesseJacksonPresidentialLibrary.org.usa/cabinet_composition/2001
…NASA’s new leader became former astronaut Shannon Lucid. Born in China to missionary parents in 1943 and primarily raised in Oklahoma, Lucid was a biochemist who joined NASA in 1978. While officially independent/apolitical, her support of several fiscally conservative stances was seen as both a bone thrown to the Republicans, as a way of placating fears on the right of Jackson being a “socialist would-be tyrant” like the new House Speaker had once called him, and as a signal of what significance NASA would play in the federal government’s annual budgets of the next four years...
– researcher R. Cargill Hall’s Impact: The History of NASA, Dover Publications, 2018 edition
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL CAROL BELLAMY URGES DONOR NATIONS TO ENSURE PLEDGES GO FULLY HONORED
…As countries jockey to make large donations, Bellamy notes that “competitive compassion is better than no compassion,” but stresses the need to fulfill funding promises made in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that have ravaged much of coastal Indonesia…
– The New York Times, 1/28/2005
FILIBUSTER-PROOF SENATE DEMOCRATS PREP FOR “EXTREMELY BUSY” 2005 SESSION
– The Washington Post, 1/30/2005
UPDATE: UK GOVERNMENT, CITIZENS HAVE RAISED TOTAL OVER 300M POUNDS IN NATIONAL QUAKE RELIEF DRIVE
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 2/2/2005
WOULD MAKING D.C. A STATE VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION?
…law experts are divided over whether or not our lawmakers are actually breaking the law by Democrats ignoring Article 4 of the top law of the land in their latest effort to expand their number of seats on Capitol Hill – by granting a city statehood and condensing Capitol Hill into a tiny strip of land…
– nationalreview.co.usa, 2/3/2005 e-article
…The Department of Justice has formed a Statehood Requirements Special Task Force in order to determine what legal hurdles await our representatives trying to grant statehood to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico...
– ABC Morning News, 2/5/2005 broadcast
HOST: …well say what you want to bout Prezy-JJ – just keep it clean since we’re on the air – but you have to admit, urban repair methods are improving. I mean, I think it’s really smart that, um. Did you see this the other day or last night? Some people in the Department of Transportation, I think, they’re studying how the ancient Roman Cobblestone Roads have managed to hold up for so long and their comparing them to our modern road-making ways. So, you know, hopefully, constant roadwork clogging things up on Route 74 will soon be a thing of the past.
GUEST: Naw, naw, you’ve got it all wrong, sir. State and federal transportation departments purposely build roads that fall apart easily and quick, so, that way, they can hire more deadbeats to rebuild them. Keep people employed, and they won’t complain. It’s just the government’s way of keeping the lower classes preoccupied with meaningless work so they don’t get wise to how they are being had and then rise up against it.
HOST: Yeah, now, see, that doesn’t mesh with that report I was talking about. Why would they be studying what works if they don’t want it to work?
GUEST: Because it’s a conspiracy, man!
HOST: Right, I forgot who I was talking to here – Conspiracy Joe, the guy who was too much for even George Noory of Coast to Coast AM to deal with.
GUEST: Hey, you invited me here.
HOST: That’s not an insult!
GUEST: Sounds like an insult.
HOST: Not to you. It is, but it’s not to you, I’m insulting George Noory. And George Noory, if you’re listening, I don’t mean to offend you either. I’m just saying that George Noory can’t tolerate the mastery of Conspiracy Joe’s thought process. It’s…really something.
GUEST: Thank you!
– WAAV (980 AM) news/talk Leland, NC, 2/6/2005 radio broadcast
…Jackson worked with congress to bolster his overhauling of the tax system, hoping to ensure that top marginal income rates remained fair throughout his time in office. He collaborated with progressive, moderate, and even some conservative Democrats to dismantle preferential treatment loopholes found in capital gains tax laws already on the books by essentially re-writing the books.
However, the two biggest acts of legislation of 2005 of which Jesse Jackson was the most proud were the Police Accountability Act and the Voter Roll Act. The former was a large package that aimed to hold police responsible for procedural misconduct; the latter was even larger, striking down voter roll purging, and working to establish new ethics codes and campaign finance regulations ahead of the 2006 midterms…
– Nancy Skelton and Bob Faw’s Thunder In America: A Chronology of The Jesse Jackson White House, Texas Monthly Press, 2016
…The abysmal results of the Goetz-Bargewell ticket left a foul taste in the mouths of GOP string-pullers. Head party leaders saw the collapse of support among women and minorities as a sign that the party had to shift further to the center if it wished to remain electable, or at competitive, at the national level; in February 2005, former Chief of Staff John Dinger, a noted moderate, was made the new Chair of the Republican National Committee in a clear rebuke of “Country Conservatives.” The backlash to this was basically ontech rants and ineffective boycotts from strong-c conservative types such as Estus Pirkle and Tommy Tancredo. Behind closed doors, Dinger supported efforts from the likes of Bill Weld and Herman Cain to “lead the south by helping [it] evolve on racial issues,” as Cain supposedly put it, according to a 2013 WSJ article. “Because now is the time for that. Now, when open-faced racism was been unobjectionably and unquestionably rejected by the people, now is the moment for moderates to shine. Now is the time to reject, expunge, and erase the worst members of our party, say to them, ‘listen – we can’t win with your backward ways,’ and lead the party in a better direction away from the past and toward a brighter future”…
– Anne Meagher Northup’s Chicken and Politickin’: the Rise of Colonel Sanders and Rational Conservatism in the Republican Party, 2015
WEBB DECLINES BID FOR FOURTH TERM
…not long ago, Wellington Webb had an approval rating of over 80% and was the frontrunner for the President. But now, in his third term as Governor of Colorado, the iconic individual is seeing his approval ratings slide below 40% as his state political opponents go after the negative effects of his time in office. The biggest sticking point influencing public opinion is his restructuring of Colorado state law regarding prison and prisoners, essentially making it impossible to run a for-profit prison in the state. His opponents claim this has caused for-profit prison businesses the leave Colorado and votes to other states, causing the state economy to have a slower time recovering after the SARS pandemic shut down the state for 19 months. ...Since Webb gave no official reason for it, we can only assume that Webb today announced that he was not going to run for a third term in 2006 due to his drop in approval ratings…
– The Gazette, Colorado Springs newspaper, 2/15/2005
JACKSON SIGNS CLASS ACTION EMPOWERMENT BILL INTO LAW
– The Washington Post, 2/16/2005
…Efforts to improve legal immigrant rates that were taken in his first term were taken up a few more notches in his second. In the boldest expansion of guest worker programs since President Bellamy’s 1989 expansion of fair pay employment programs for Mexican labors and visa workers, President Jackson worked with congress to abolition caps on H-1B visas, in order to promote “global trade instead of global wars.” Former Presidents Mondale and Kemp, who themselves had passed immigration reform in 1974 and 1988, respectively, supported the move.
Jackson next called for a higher carbon tax in order for the US to better combat the effects of Global Climate Disruption…
– researcher Brenda J. Hargis’ Emboldening: The Jesse Jackson Presidency, Sunrise Publications, 2017
JOBS REPORT SHOWS GROWTH DESPITE RISE IN WILLFUL UNEMPLOYMENT
…Last week, the Jackson White House released a strong jobs report on the fourth quarter of 2004. The report shows that labor force participation (i.e., the share of Americans that are either working or looking for work) is still rising, and that wages are stable.
However, labor force participation and the employment-population ratio, while much better and improving, are doing so at a slower than expected rate. The long-term effects of the SARS pandemic may be to blame. “The months-long SARS lockdown affected the US socially as well as economically, and in the case of motherhood, both,” Babette Josephs, US Secretary of Health and Humane Services, explains. “Staying with their families prompted many mothers to reassess their priorities, leading to some entering college or the job market once the crisis subsided. However, even more mothers opted to stay at home after the crisis was over rather than re-enter the job market.”
Despite this increase in the number of unemployed adults, the national unemployment rate is down due to it not including those who are willingly no longer looking for work. As a result, the Jackson administration is touting this report for showing a 10-month stretch of uninterrupted job growth, from February to December 2004, with the private sector experiencing slightly more growth than the public sector did during the entirety of that period…
– The Wall Street Journal, 2/18/2005 [7]
US A.G. EDWARDS: “DC STATEHOOD DOES REQUIRE AN AMENDMENT, PUERTO RICO DOES NOT”
…According to the US Attorney General Harry T. Edwards, the Statehood Requirements Special Task Force set up under the US Department of Justice has determined that admitting Washington, DC as a US state will require the passing of a US Constitutional Amendment… “The District Clause of the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, describes the Federal District as, quote, ‘not exceeding ten miles square.’ [8] Washington DC is 68 ‘miles square.’ So, if anything, the redrawing of our federal capital to confine the direct control of the federal government would make D.C. more constitutional, not less constitutional,” says White House Deputy Chief of Staff Morton Hampering. The federal government having direct control over the seat of government is needed “for protection in the exercise of their duty” as President James Madison once put it [8]. Essentially, the condition aims to protect federal lawmakers from physical altercations.
However, what makes an Amendment necessary is the need to repeal an earlier D.C.-related Amendment that concerns the Electoral College. The 23rd Amendment was passed in 1961 under President Lyndon Johnson, and it granted 3 electoral votes to “the seat of government,” which is Washington, D.C. SRS Task Force members pondered if the amendment would become null and void if only the federal buildings and no official residences made up D.C. “In order for it to work without an amendment, the new federal district would have to have no official residencies. However, the only people who definitely would be residents of the new shrunken federal district would technically be whoever’s living in the White House, meaning that it is possible that without its repeal, the First Family would get three electoral votes in the Electoral College,” explains the Task Force leader.
The 23rd Amendment’s official wording is “The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint…a number of electors...to which the District would be entitled if it were a state.” The phrase “if it were a state” concerned the lawmakers, who believe that this wording would not render the amendment “null and void” because the electors mentioned are meant for the seat of government, and not for the District of Columbia itself...
On the plus side, it has been determined that Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution allows for the admittance of Puerto Rico as a state without the need for an Amendment-repealing Amendment…
– The Washington Post, 2/22/2005
GRANT SAWYER, NEVADA GOVERNOR AND PRIMARY REFORMER, IS DEAD AT 86
…Born December 14, 1918, Sawyer served as the District Attorney for Elko County, Nevada from 1950 to 1958 before being elected Governor of Nevada in 1958, and being re-elected in 1962 and 1966.
During his twelve years at the Governor’s seat, Sawyer, a moderate Democrat with some policies later labelled as being “libertarian” in nature, transformed Nevada from “the Mississippi of the West” to a bustling hot-spot for tourists, businesses, new families, and growing fields of agricultural innovation, especially for minorities, and one of Sawyer’s self-declared “greatest accomplishments” was pushing civil rights policies and legislation. Sawyer also developed the state’s Gaming Commission and combating “monopolistic” actions concerning corporate ownership of casinos across Nevada.
An early supporter of Democratic politician Jack Kennedy in 1960 and 1968, Kennedy chose Sawyer to be his running mate upon securing the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. Kennedy considered Sawyer’s impressive record, potential to appeal to western voters supportive of President Colonel Sanders, and effective governing feats as all being beneficial to the ticket. However, the pair lost the race handily due to the Sander’s high popularity.
Four years later, Sawyer himself ran for the Presidential nomination but lost; he later claimed he would have performed better had more western and southern states held primary contests. This experience led to him championing Presidential Primary reform, which ultimately led to all 50 US states perennially holding either primaries or caucuses in Presidential primary races, starting with the 1976 and 1980 election seasons… …According to a spokesperson for his family, Sawyer passed away from complications from a debilitating stroke that he suffered in September 2003, roughly twelve years after recovering from a minor stroke that he had reportedly had in August 1991...
– The Pahrump Valley Times, Nevada newspaper, 2/25/2005
NOTE(S)/SOURCE(S)
[1] I actually don’t know what The Colonel’s thoughts were on LGBTQ+ community; I couldn’t find any information regarding his thoughts on the subject prior to his OTL death in 1980. I would like to assume that, due to his support of racial integration and opposition to racism, as noted in the documented evidence that I noted in the notes sections of earlier chapters, that this means that he was not homophobic. However, due to the fact that one can be homophobic without being racist (just look at NY state assemblyman Charles Barron, for example), and given The Colonel being responsible for the First Arkwave ITTL due to his OTL actions and comments, I cannot just assume that The Colonel was pro-LGBTQ+ in OTL. Actual evidence is needed for Sanders’ depiction here to be in-character and historically accurate. If anyone knows of any primary or secondary sources concerning The Colonel’s opinions on the subject/topic, please let me know!
[2] Italicized piece is a quote from OTL: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/bernhard-goetz-quotes
[3] Full OTL interview found here; it's quite a good one:
[4] The success of the Cuban War means no Cuban refugees fleeing communist dictatorship in Cuba over course of several decades; as a result of this lack of an influx of Cubans into the US, most of whom relocated to Florida, the Sunshine State has a significantly smaller liberal Hispanic population, contributing to making the state be a reliable Republican state ITTL.
[5] Passages that are in italics are taken from page 73 of an OTL paper book that I own: Richard Wolffe’s “The Message: The Reselling of President Obama,” Hachette Book Group, 2013 (ISBN: 978-1-4555-8156-6); this was Obama’s strategy in OTL!
[6] OTL according to OTL’s Operation Garron’s wiki article.
[7] Some market/economic terms/phrases were pulled from here: https://www.npr.org/2016/04/03/472745523/fact-check-the-white-houses-private-sector-job-streak
[8] As described here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-8/clause-17