The Peachtree Party
Ferguson, Andrew
Andrew Ferguson THE PEACHTREE PARTY Our man in Atlanta reports on Democrats playing make-believe. Atlanta is a warm city—that is, after you have proved your right to share its warmth. Her people...
...Have you been up to Buckhead yet...
...By bringing Lloyd Bentsen onto the ticket he has shown that for him ideology is an ancillary matter...
...As I stood admiring this incorrigible young operator, it occurred to me that the part of the Carter saga Republicans should pay most attention to is how Jimmy got to the White House in the first place...
...The most insistently cordial native I met was Lethia Lance, who buttonholed me at a fundraising party as she and her husband, Bert, were on their way out...
...Well, I'm not really a Democrat," I said...
...You can let off steam to keep the whole thing from blowing up, but the Power Structure still keeps its hand on the valve, right...
...He slept through the demonstration at Portman's house, in fact, and awoke only on the trip back to downtown Atlanta, when we stopped to gather more troops in a McDonald's parking lot and the familiar odor of frying lard drifted into the bus...
...That was me...
...Lethia...
...Dukakis himself scored high marks for including in his acceptance speech a few references to his dead father, maudlin touches that satisfied commentators who wanted him "to tell us who Michael Dukakis is...
...A trip to the Presidential Center is instructive in this regard...
...This was the "protest area," and throughout the week, morning and night, someone could be seen there, demanding the Democrats' attention before a crowd of a few reporters and whoever happened by...
...Typical Democratic brainteasers, in other words...
...We were pretty familiar with the kind of stressers we were going to run into," he said...
...I'd get rid the army and the marines...
...At the end of the "revels," on Friday morning, I sought some explanation for the Democratic mood, by calling the Democratic National Convention Stress Hotline...
...Supporters called it the "No Tax Plank...
...Carter...
...Unfortunately, there wasn't much to respond to...
...Some people have called because they've lost their room keys, let's say, or they didn't know how to call for a pizza, and wanted to know how to go about doing that...
...It is a chilling thought...
...But I don't think that throwing pies is the way to go about doing that at this point in time...
...The last was never brought to a vote, and the others were resoundingly defeated, although private polls of the delegates showed that a wide majority supported them in principle...
...Then I'd turn the air force planes into luxury planes...
...It's the steam valve analogy," he said...
...After Ally Sheedy, the podium show was all downhill...
...Then I'd turn all the Navel, Air Force, Army and Marine bases into shopping malls...
...I thanked Dr...
...bulk into the seat...
...I'm very hot," he said, stopping at the seat across from me...
...Lance...
...Good thing, too...
...The Democrats have made odder appointments—remember Midge Costanza...
...The response, by Denver mayor Federico Pena, was baldly Democrat, too, but Democrat circa Atlanta 1988...
...Do you mind if I remove my shirt...
...I mentioned this to the Yippie Pie Thrower of the Seventies, and he nodded agreement...
...His 1976 campaign was a naked pursuit of power, fueled not by thoughts of governance but by his own relentless craving...
...Wait to the very last minute...
...Andrew Ferguson is assistant managing editor of The American Spectator and a frequent contributor to Credit Markets magazine...
...Bert tugged at her elbow...
...If you like big houses and trees, that's the place to go...
...I suspect that this is simply more of the white liberal condescension that has followed Jackson throughout his career: the speech was twice too long, and he tripped over several of his best lines...
...You're just there to make a statement, not hurt anybody...
...And Atlantans themselves are indeed cordial, to judge by my experience at the Democratic convention, but only to the extent that they are Atlantans first and Democrats second...
...Who are they responsible to...
...As I walked through the crowd, glancing at the name tags, dim memories stirred: here was Leon Charney, there was Stansfield Turner, across the room was Jack Watson with Bernie Aronson—the whole crew like characters from a bad movie one had seen long ago...
...You remember...
...Pratt, and told him I was glad to be reassured that at least somebody had a good time...
...Perhaps little David is bucking for Secretary of Defense...
...The address was stitched together almost entirely from his standard stump speeches--an LP of Jackson's Greatest Hits: three minutes of "Your Patch is Not Big Enough," two and a half of "I Just Want to Make Sense," a chorus of "We're a Better Nation than That," a brief segue into "(Let's Find Some) Common Ground" and a kick-ass live version of "They Work Every Day...
...instead of "the principle of pay equity for working women" it's the Federal Board of Fair Female Wage Regulation (the Hon...
...Wait till the subject is right against you, almost...
...For a long time he didn't say much...
...This July in Atlanta the Democrats were willing to go along with him, and kept their traps shut...
...One could easily imagine Dr...
...Thus they reined in their own truest, goofiest selves, through sheer force of will...
...Pretty soon the time may come when you've got to throw a few pies...
...But there was some substance here, too: "There have been a lot of comparisons made between Dukakis and myself," said Jimmy, and he didn't disown any of them...
...The most instructive of the speechifying was Jimmy Carter's appearance at the close of the Monday session...
...Even here he was working the crowd...
...Pratt continued, "although they're not small to the individual stresser, of course...
...It made for an odd juxtaposition, this relentless boosterism hard up against the all-business sober-sides of the Democrats...
...Her people are cordial, once you have been accepted, and the cordiality is genuinely sincere...
...Many of those buildings are owned by John Portman, and it was to Portman's house we were headed, for a demonstration...
...Jack Carter, Jimmy's son, was on the terrace, also smoking, and passing out his business cards from a slim gold case...
...Otherwise, they just move aside all the people they're responsible to...
...It was one of those questions that isn't really a question...
...I'd do this to make our country better...
...I spoke for a while with Ed Muskie, who said, "I suspect that a lot of young voters out there who don't remember his administration have a rather high opinion of Mr...
...I got something of an answer to that 1 question on Sunday evening, before the convention even began...
...I thought at first that he was being ironic or wry, but he was quite serious, and probably politically astute, too...
...To be fair, I should add that, one at a time, these are all very good democratic speeches, sure to take their place in the canon of populist bushwa...
...The bus was ready to pull out when a massive man in a sweaty T-shirt and blue jeans lumbered aboard, breathing heavily as he moved down the aisle...
...By acclamation, however, it was the Rev.'s speech that reached new heights in convention performance art...
...Much of the media—including, for obvious reasons, the New Republic—was excited by the good looks of John F Kennedy, Jr., though they came as no surprise to those of us who have followed his career in the National Enquirer, Star, and other political journals...
...Thus as a candidate he successively assumed the shape of the fiscal conservative and the compassionate liberal, of the no-nonsense internationalist and the peacenik, with equal ease, as the need arose...
...And this is the way the Democrats have learned to control their truest selves: the enormous parking lot and the live mike for the aggrieved, the ceaseless praise of Jesse from the podium, and the dispensation of a plane and a bottomless purse, so the Rev can campaign forever...
...But most telling was how many of the Carterites wore laminated credentials from the convention reading: "Michael Dukakis, Staff...
...The question is, can they keep them shut till November...
...It's just like Rhett and Scarlett, only it's real...
...And suddenly it did...
...The Democrats know they can't treat people that way forever...
...Slopped together, though, they're merely-fatiguing and finally irritating: all climax and no foreplay...
...When you saw somebody wearing a stupid hat—part of the pack gear of conventions past—chances were that it was an Atlantan wearing it to promote some homegrown product...
...It was debated at the beginning of the Tiiesday session, in the afternoon, so that no matter how far behind the schedule fell, the chance of prime time viewers seeing a Democrat call for a tax increase was exactly nil...
...This tax increase proposal," said the Mayor, "is a distraction from the real issue of electing Mike Dukakis to the presidency...
...Portman is a model Democrat: a caring, loving, concerned zillionaire whose compassion moves him to donate large sums to left-wing causes so long as they keep their distance...
...The emphasis is mine, but it was really theirs, too...
...Most of the problems have been small ones," Dr...
...Bringing "behavioral soothing techniques" to any Democrat within reach of a telephone, the Hotline was the first of its kind, which surprised me...
...I n my mind, as he spoke, the fading pages of a college notebook fluttered open...
...Eleanor Smeal, Dir...
...How do you like Atlanta...
...In his deal with Dukakis, the Rev...
...He was in town for the convention, of course...
...instead of "reproductive rights" it's abortion...
...You want to plant it on him...
...They're responsible to the people on this bus...
...He began talking about himself...
...What have you seen so far...
...And he shouldn't, either...
...Perhaps he understands that when Democrats are true to their ideals and make them the centerpiece of the campaign, as in 1972 and 1984, they lose, and lose big...
...They become just like the Republicans...
...Lethia," said Bert...
...You remember the Yippie Pie Thrower of the Seventies...
...He pulled the thing over his head, scratched a rash that curved around the side of his belly, and dropped his 350-1b...
...But he did tell me a bit about the hotline...
...It doesn't quite work that way, of course...
...The idea seems a natural...
...Marcuse casting a knowing eye upon the scene, giving a slight tug to his beard, and smiling a wry smile: a textbook case of repressive tolerance...
...I don't want to throw a softball for George Bush to knock out of the park...
...He never campaigned on ideas, never considered why he should be President—only knew that he had to be...
...You're a visitor...
...she said, extending her hand...
...I haven't met you yet...
...One fellow called to say that he'd been a little overly involved in the drinking that sometimes goes on, and he had donesome embarrassing things, and now he simply didn't want to leave his room...
...I got William Colby, Moynihan, Abe Beame, Phyllis Schlafly...
...Jackson 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988 was only allowed to offer three minority planks for debate at the full convention: one calling for higher taxes on "the rich" and corporations, another pledging a "no-first-use" nuclear policy, and a third calling for a Palestinian homeland...
...The keynoter, Ann Richards, came off like a Texas Minnie Pearl—like a Minnie Pearl, anyway, who'd been held at gunpoint by Lord & Taylor fashion consultants...
...And judging by the reaction of the assembled Democrats that Monday night, he may get it...
...But having trudged around downtown Atlanta under the blazing sun of high noon in the middle of July I understand the metaphor of the warm arms...
...Maybe Jackson can keep that in front of them...
...The tax-hike plank lost despite its ingenious phrasing: "The Democratic Party pledges not to propose tax increases on middle and low income Americans...
...Start laughing along with a Democrat, burble over the wallet photos of his kids, tell him to loosen his tie, buy him a couple more shooters, encourage him and agree with him, and pretty soon the euphemisms drop away and instead of talking about "investing in our children" he's pledging branch offices of the Department of Education in every classroom...
...Our job (continued on page 49) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988 15 FERGUSON/ATLANTA (continued from page 15) is to keep the Democrats from forgetting who they are...
...Too much time spent there induces something akin to delirium, so after a few minutes I went outside for a smoke (the entire Carter center is a no-smoking area, of course...
...Get as close as you can...
...He laughed what I at first took to be a portentous laugh, but within a few minutes he was asleep again...
...The speech itself was a long string of non sequiturs, careening from allusions to Ed Muskie to lame jokes to Gorbachev to the familiar sententious moralism ("Change means hope—change means life"), all of it done without apparent method...
...When he saw we weren't he looked restless and annoyed and began talking again, giving a few pointers on pie-throwing...
...That doesn't matter," said Mrs...
...Dissent, taught the doctor, when it's a cooperative effort between The Man and the dissenting, is no dissent at all...
...Jimmy's pouting visage is everywhere, and the various displaysonfronting the Nuclear Threat," "Protecting the Future" (the moral equivalent of war), "Hostage Crisis"—bring the memories horribly to life...
...and she was gone, hauled off by her sultry husband who, as a Democrat first and an Atlantan second, had no time for pleasantries with obscure non-Democrats...
...he shouted, his eyes opening suddenly...
...I asked him if he was planning to throw any pies this week...
...I had hopped aboard a chartered bus with a dozen or so agitators from "Justice for Janitors," a group dedicated to unionizing the janitors who sweat and strain in the fresh gleaming highrises of downtown Atlanta...
...Nah," he said...
...It playson three of the defining characteristics of the modern Democrat, who, when placed in any extraordinary circumstance, will (1) search himself carefully for signs of stress...
...During the first half of his speech, in fact, he was interrupted by applause only when the house lights flared on, signaling the delegates to raise the roof...
...Do you like to shop...
...With Dr...
...The undeniable similarities between Jimmy and Dukakis will have no political value for the Republicans if the electorate has forgotten the Carter legacy...
...You have to keep at the Democrats, or they forget who they are," he said...
...We should make these necessary investments and the rich and the corporations should pay...
...Instead, we will return taxes on the very richest Americans to their 1977 levels and restore corporate taxes to their pre-Reagan levels...
...The platform fight on Tuesday night, such as it was, illustrates the point...
...Pratt had also touched a side of the convention unknown to me...
...the chilled air of the bus made him drowsy, and he slipped into and out of sleep...
...After a period of being cordial and friendly yourself, you gradually realize you have been accepted, and it is then that you feel the warm arms of this bighearted city around your shoulders and find that you, too, have fallen in love with her —from Peachtree Parade, page 9 [where I stopped reading], by Ernest Rogers, 1956...
...C'mon, Lethia," Bert repeated, taking her elbow...
...and (3) need to complain about it, preferably by "sharing" with someone who has graduate training in behavioral soothing...
...We'll see how they do this week...
...Herbert Marcuse...
...Pratt, the Hotline volunteer with whom I spoke, was no help at all when it came to concocting a grand overarching theory about the Democrats' restraint in and about the convention...
...He tilted his right palm upward and leaned forward in his seat...
...A couple of days after his speech, I went to a reunion Jimmy held for his White House staff at the Carter Presidential Center...
...Marcuse, of course, that phrase is "repressive tolerance...
...So it is with the Duke...
...Before boarding the bus, I had noticed that across from the undersized hall where the Democrats gathered to enhalo Governor Dukakis, officials of the City of Atlanta had cleared a large parking lot...
...At school, under the guidance of a Marxist history professor, I once labored with great seriousness and diligence over the works of the late Dr...
...The pro-plank speech by Manhattan borough President David Dinkins was baldly Democrat: "This is a democratic [Democratic?] proposal," Dinkins hollered...
...I'd turn the navel ships into cruise liners...
...Then"--he pushed his palm into the back of the seat ahead of him'you give it to him...
...Put all that on prime time, and it's "kiss the election goodbye...
...Bert shot me a suspicious look and said, "C'mon, Lethia...
...Then I would lower the taxes...
...He played modestly with one of his ponytails...
...Smack in the middle, shade-less beneath a brutal sun, was an ample stage outfitted with a live mike and a Van Halen-like sound system, available to anyone with the nerve to use it...
...We're getting food...
...He never did get around to saying whether he thought taxes should be raised...
...There's the Galleria, up by . . . " "Lethia...
...But Dr...
...My professor had dismissed my reservations by saying that someday Marcuses work "would come alive for me...
...That was me...
...There's a time and place for throwing pies, and this isn't it...
...T he general consensus about why 1 the Democrats were so businesslike in Atlanta is that they think they can win in November, and winning requires some semblance of seriousness, which means "moderation...
...I'll throw a party once a week...
...I was never sure of its meaning, and even in my most gullible moments I retained the suspicion that the aged Teuton was employing the tools of paradox and oxymoron to draw attention from the fact that his proposition was clearly untrue...
...On one side was a line of porta-potties, and, facing them from another side, stood a battalion of cops in riot gear...
...The conventioneers stuck mostly to sports clothes (although a lot of these .were stupid, too...
...For my money, the most moving elaboration of Democrat principles came on Monday night, when Garrison Keillor, Ally Sheedy, and Ed Begley, Jr.—all of them celebrities of one sort or another—took the stage to read letters from children "on the theme of 'If I Were the President.' " Keillor, who over the years has developed the amazing trick of making a wholesome Minnesota-midwestern accent sound unctuous, read a letter from the adorable David Hass of Coventon, Rhode Island: "If I were the President I would sign the treaty to get rid of nuclear arms...
...This is absolutely necessary...
...The cops stood around joking...
...Another gentleman—a similar kind of thing—had woken up in a strange hotel room and had no idea how he got there...
...You can have some pretty unusual reactions when you pull together 15-20,000 people for four days, and we wanted to make available a full range of psycho-social resources to respond to that...
...Unfortunately, I now find, with an uneasiness familiar to most liberal arts majors, that all I remember from those weeks of eyestrain and mountains of note-taking is a single, two-word phrase...
...Now you don't want to hurt the subject...
...2) always find them...
Vol. 21 • September 1988 • No. 9
