Campaign Fundaments
Lippman, Theo Jr.
"Campaign Fundaments" Theo Lippman, Jr. Pieced together from piles of evidence. If, like most people, you would rather read someone's medical records than his love letters or income tax...
...Having hemorrhoids is political...
...Carter broke precedent in 1976 by confessing publicly to having the ailment-and he was elected...
...In fact, the odds are that about half of all the presidents who preceded Carter also did...
...Philip Crane has "an external hemorrhoidal tag at about 7 o'clock...
...Two or three denials are probably lies...
...I am not referring to Carter's getting elected, but to a more important effect of his campaign: his making a large group of Americans feel, for the first time in history, that they are just as good as anybody else, despite their affliction...
...The odds are that one of the two had what Jimmy Carter.said he had in 1976, which is hemorrhoids...
...One of its articles lists the workings and non-workings of the vital organs of John Anderson, Howard Baker, George Bush, John Connally, Philip Crane, Robert Dole, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Edward Kennedy...
...I f , like most people, you would rather read someone's medical records than his love letters or income tax returns, the February 18 issue of Medical I~or/d News is for you...
...William Lukash in Medical World News...
...Everybody else is okay...
...It is all part of the brilliant political strategy spelled out in a still-secret postscript to Hamilton Jordan's famous 40-page memorandum of 1974, the audacious plan by which Jimmy Carter rose from unpopular Southern governor to President of the United States...
...Presidents since George Washington have all denied having them, not only to their contemporaries, but to posterity...
...That is true even though having them is almost by definition imperial, the Emperor Napoleon I being the most famous sufferer in the history of the world...
...You can learn all the details upon reading there, but my concern here is limited to the candidates' hemorrhoids, for this is a po/itical essay, not a personality profile or "character" study...
...Wearing blue jeans, carrying your own suitcase, cleaning out a pond--on a scale of one to ten these are twos and threes when it comes to unimperialness...
...I saw a medical record to that effect at the FDR library a couple of years ago...
...I am one of the few journalists to have seen it, and luckily the only one not sworn to secrecy...
...Jordan reasoned that by claiming to have hemorrhoids, Carter would accomplish two important things as a candidate...
...Jimmy Carter's saying he has hemorrhoids is the best, most helpful lie an American president has told the American people since Dwight Eisenhower said he was a Presbyterian, a lie which Carter's closely resembles, and he should be praised for it...
...People stick with their own kind...
...They are part of our cultural well-being...
...This makes me wonder about the earlier presidents, particularly the very early ones who often rode horseback...
...Why do I detect "two or three" false denials...
...that half or more of all adult American men are sufferers...
...Or their doctors say they're okay...
...I think it is not undue cynicism to surmise that George Washington may have told a lie about his health...
...der problems that cannot be properly described in a family magazine of this kind...
...Four or five should...
...Until 1976 no presidential candidate had ever done so...
...This targeted group was called the "Preparation H vote" in Carter planning sessions, by the way, and is not to be confused with the so-called "asshole vote," which was an even more important element in the Carter coalition but is not related to what I am talking about...
...He also told me Theo Lippman, Jr., writes editorials for the Baltimore Sun...
...Badge is not exactly the right metaphor, but you know what I mean...
...It had always been a badge of shame and invited ridicule...
...This year he's still suffering, according to Dr...
...It is more important that candidates reveal their human qualities to be like yours and mine than that they have "policies" or "programs" or "ideas...
...Remember, the odds suggest that of these nine men, four or five should be troubled, not just three...
...Marx, from near-sightedness, tonsilitis, appendicitis, lumbago, high blood pressure, flu, small strokes, abcessed teeth, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and bowel and blad...
...John B. Moses, of Scarsdale, New York, has a book on this subject coming out later this year-Presidential "Courage...
...And I mean thoroughness...
...John Connally has a "small external hemorrhoid...
...Elections and the campaigns that precede them are not just a part of a political process...
...Second, by" admitting" to his condition, Carter would appeal to those millions who suffer similarly...
...Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered from polio, of course, but also, according to Dr...
...Admitting to having hemorrhoids is a ten...
...I know, however, that FDR did...
...Jerry Brown refused to "volunteer his medical records...
...Many Southerners who voted Republican in 1968 and 1972 voted for Carter in 1976, as did many people suffering from the condition under discussion here...
...No, but admitting to having them is...
...You are doing the arithmetic in your head...
...22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980...
...First, he would appeal to those Americans, like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who wanted a "less imperial" presidency...
...Three of nine admit it...
...You may search the literature of the presidency and find no mention of them...
...Some political scientists and ministers may object to a candidate's deceiving the voters about his health, but in this case I believe the end justifies the means, so to speak...
...A proctologist I know (only socially, of course) once told me that in today's America cowboys are the group most afflicted by hemorrhoids...
...Ifa candidate has to lie to make us feel better about a quality or condition that most of us have and are concerned about, what's wrong with that...
...CAMPAIGN FUNDAMENTS Pieced together from piles of evidence...
...He says he also found out about FDR and suspects from indirect evidence that Andrew Jackson had the dark secret...
...1 Theo Lippman, Jr...
...Or maybe Jefferson...
...Considering the odds, and recalling that even Rudolph Marx, M.D., was misled about FDR, one has to wonder...
...The saddle contributes greatly to the awful condition...
...Misery loves company, and like favors like, as they say in Georgia...
...Marx's FDR did not suffer from hemorrhoids...
...In fact, Rudolph Marx, M.D., has done this with great thoroughness in The Health of Presidents...
...Because, if the truth be known, Jimmy Carter does not have hemorrhoids...
...He only claims he does...
Vol. 13 • April 1980 • No. 4
