'Just a Man with his Quotes'
Ornstein, Norman
'Just a Man with his Quotes' by Norman Ornstein Bob Dole s decision to leave the Senate electrified the nation and impressed pundits everywhere. Soon after Dole's inspiring farewell speech, a...
...And I'd just say, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the qualities of American journalism that distinguish us from other nations is that we judge our pundits not by what they have to say but by how many times they are quoted in newspapers and magazines...
...It's about choosing a King of Quotes who's not attracted to the glories of the office, but rather to its difficulties...
...this is because I have seen victory and I have seen defeat and I know when the phone is about to start ringing and never seems to stop...
...For today-(applause)-for today I will begin to reconstitute our momentum until it is a great and agile force-clear in direction, irresistible in effect, pithy in observation, terse in sound bite...
...And to concentrate on the campaign, giving all and risking all, I must leave AEI, which I have loved and which I have been honored to serve-many of my friends, from Ben Wattenberg to Irving Kristol, are here today, as well as regular callers like Helen Dewar of the Washington Post, Mike Wines of theNew York Times, Terry Hunt of the Associated Press, Holly Yea-ger of Hearst Newspapers, Sharon Schmickle of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and dozens of other faithful reporters and editors...
...With all due respect to the Beltway, America has been my life...
...It's about doing what is right, like returning Maureen Dowd's phone calls before deadline...
...And I will then stand before the press without office or authority, a private citizen, a Minnesotan, just a man with his quotes...
...The press does not phone our way...
...We are gaining, but still behind in the quotes...
...It's about fundamental things, consequential things, things that are real, like call waiting or one's own Web site...
...Continued applause...
...I have been there before, I have done it the hard way, including without voice mail, and I will do it the hard way once again...
...Our campaign will leave Washington and the Post behind to look to America...
...My campaign is about telling the truth, only more times in more places than anybody else...
...So my campaign to recapture the title is not merely about obtaining office...
...You do not lay claim to a title like quotemeister...
...But I will be the same man I was when I walked into the room, the same man I was yesterday and the day before, and a long time ago when I was permitted by the grace of God to pontificate about every political subject known to humankind...
...And I trust in the hard way, for little has come to me except in the hard way-I have faced quote bans from the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal, and I only got access to the Internet this April-which is good because we have a hard task ahead of us...
...It's about choosing a King of Quotes who, once he takes office, will keep his perspective, giving no preference in answering messages from the Washington Post over the Omaha World-Herald, and who will remain by his deepest nature and inclination one of the people's pundits...
...Cheers, applause...
...it lays claim to you...
...I have absolute confidence in the victory that to some may seem unattainable...
...I will seek the kingdom of quotes with nothing to fall back on but a guest panelist position on Face the Nation or Nightline, and nowhere to go but my own talk show or home...
...Thank you, and may God, and Nex-is/Lexis, guide us to what is right...
...Thank you...
...Thank you, thank you...
...Cheers, applause...
...I am privileged-(applause)-I am highly privileged to be my think tank's quotemeister nominee, and I am content that my fate and my story are for the American press to decide...
...Inspired by Bob Dole's bold example, Ornstein this week made the following announcement from AEI's conference room: Let me say to many of my friends, my wife Judy and my sons Matthew and Danny, and my friends and colleagues standing behind me, we're very honored to have you here...
...And my time to leave this think tank has come...
...For the American press corps has always known throughout our long and trying history that God has blessed the hard way...
...Therefore, as the campaign for fiscal 1997's King of Quotes begins in earnest, it is my obligation to the American Enterprise Institute and to the people of the Newspaper Guild to leave behind all the trappings of the think tank, all comfort and all security...
...Your obligation is to bring to it the gifts of gab you can and then depart with grace...
...Thank you...
...So today I announce that I will forgo the privileges not only of a resident scholar, but of the think tank itself, from research assistant to on-line services, from which I resign effective on or before June 11...
...I do not find this disheartening and I do not find it discouraging, for this is where I touch the ground, and it is in touching the ground in moments of difficulty that I've always found my strength...
...And some may find it surprising, given the view that the Beltway has been my life, but that is not so...
...And many Beltway pundits confidently dismiss my chances for victory-and get quoted themselves doing so...
...Soon after Dole's inspiring farewell speech, a National Journal study showed that American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein, holder of the title "King of Quotes" since 1986, had been "dethroned" by Brookings scholar Tom Mann, who had garnered 277 quotes in major newspapers and magazines in the previous year, against 251 for Ornstein...
...Ten years-ten straight years-I've been in the quote race, and ten times journalists have turned to me in their Rolodexes more than to any other, and I'm proud of that...
...As summer nears, I will seek the bright light and open spaces of this beautiful country and will ask for the wise counsel of regional reporters and small-town editors, from the seacoast newspapers of Maine and California to the old railroad-town rags in the Midwest to the weeklies in the verdant South, from the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado to the Southtown Economist in the 'burbs of Chicago, and in places in between known mainly to you who read Editor and Publisher...
Vol. 1 • June 1996 • No. 39
