Unveiling the Secret Ballot

As I was first introduced to political parties in the Fifties, both parties agreed that racial injustice was the nation's first priority. The mid-Sixties through the early Seventies found little difference between the parties on the subject of Vietnam. It was not until Reagan that the conservative wing of the Republicans gained sufficient ascendancy that the Democrats were left to carve out the so-called "liberal" alternative. By Clinton, the Presidential race seemed changed forever. Suddenly, the race was more like the ones we had in school for class president -- whose personality was more seductive. The radio was rediscovered by voices pushing a political agenda. That is, until Trump. Then all hell broke loose. The political elite of both parties lost sway. The established press was exposed for the left-wing education shared by most.                

What Presidents have you voted for?

        My first vote was in 1964. I struggled with the vote. My concentration in Government at Harvard (which focused on domestic government primarily) had enhanced my understanding of the political arena. Our family was 100% Republican. My great grandfather Davis had been the Republican party boss in Tennessee. In the 50s it had been Republicans that integrated the schools. I thought of Republicans as the fiscally conservative and socially responsible party.

         My understanding at the time was that Republicans stood for limited Federal government and encouragement of upward mobility through individual creativity and diligence. Democrats were comprised of all labor unions, all Federal bureaucrats, and all those who felt either (1) the Federal government was responsible for their subsistence, or (2) they knew the right answers for everything and their answers should be imposed on the unlearned and unwashed by governmental fiat.

        Accordingly, it was with heavy heart that I voted for Lyndon Johnson. He had been instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Equal rights had been the promise of our Constitution and punishing racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination seemed necessary to try to fulfill that promise. I disliked his expansion of welfare through the “War on Poverty.” (I believed simply providing handouts without an incentive to enter the workforce would lead to generations of people seeking handouts.)

        However, on balance I felt the country needed to focus on ways to help families who were disadvantaged find a path to self-sustainment. While philosophically I agreed with Goldwater’s conservative principles for the long-term, I felt it was not the right time to stem the momentum we had for fulfilling the founders’ promise of equal opportunity (although at the time they were probably only referring to white men – since women lacked the right to vote and most blacks were slaves).

        The next two elections – 1968 and 1972 – can be summed up in three words. I hated Nixon. It started with his most famous (and favored) moment – the kitchen scene with Khrushchev that led to the Soviet dictator pounding a Maytag washing machine in response to Nixon’s rudeness. I found Nixon’s behavior crude and unacceptable. No matter how much you disagree with someone, you are not entitled to be rude.

           In 1972, a Cravath partner, in his annual review of my performance, commented that I was the only person he had met who could face a person with a smile while inserting a knife in their back. A Dallas lawyer who opposed me in a case described me according to several Texas lawyers as someone from whom you feel no resistance and even come to like until you find yourself sinking up to your head in the quicksand I had been quietly and politely building around you. Needless to say, rudeness was never acceptable to me and I voted against Nixon when he ran against Humphrey and then McGovern.

           In 1976, I personally met Carter at a gathering of 20-30 people. I walked away from our conversation and hearing his remarks to the group thinking I may have been wrong about politicians all being corrupt. He clearly was very smart and appeared not the type to repay large donors with favors. His Christianity was worn on his sleeve. But he won my vote with his promise to go to Washington and substantially trim the bureaucracy – a favorite issue for me along with term limits to rid us of professional politicians.

          Turned out to be the worst vote I ever made. Carter was too inexperienced for the D.C. piranha and he failed to appoint people with the experience to deal with Federal bureaucrats. He was undone by the Iranian hostage crisis and inflation caused in part by his failure to understand American businesses that were expanding their global imprint. The peanut farm in Georgia required some business acumen, but not enough to cope with differences in policy required to fuel the juggernaut that drives America’s success – the small businesses – in the face of the millions spent by international corporations lobbying Congress. While there is no way to stop the latter, you can put in place laws and regulations specifically aimed at assisting small businesses.

         Thank God for 1980. Vietnam, Watergate, and the Iranian hostages had sapped the confidence from our country. Democrats tried to paint Reagan as a mediocre actor out of his element, but enough Americans, including me, saw the unifying stateman who met pessimism with a smile and a quick quip. “There you go again” became a favorite retort throughout the land following his use of the phrase in his debate with Carter.

          I had come to have an intimate view of Reagan through my friendship with Ted Olson (later to be George Bush’s attorney before the Supreme Court and subsequently Solicitor General of the U.S.). In the late 1970s, I traveled to Los Angeles to defend KPMG in the Equity Funding case and met Ted who was the local lawyer. We became fast friends during that case. Ted worked closely with Reagan providing legal advice on certain issues that arose during Reagan’s years as Governor.

          I learned then, and had confirmed during his Presidency, that Reagan tried to limit his workday to eight hours; appointed people he believed were very smart and experienced in the fields to which they were appointed; and had limited matters that he viewed as first priorities requiring his daily attention. As President, those priorities were (1) breaking the Soviet Union and (2) stimulating the economy with a reduction in taxes to free up capital for the consumer and for businesses and, as to the latter, be more competitive internationally (while incomes taxes on individuals were higher than the U.S. on individuals in socialistic European countries, they were lower than the U.S. on business income).

          Reagan’s success in weakening the U.S.S.R. and stimulating the economy made the vote in 1984 the easiest of my life. I do not even recall who the Democrats nominated to take the thrashing that was inevitable. Reagan was the most popular President in my lifetime. The press may have gone crazier over Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner”, but the American people loved Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

          In 1988, I voted for G.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis. One of the things I liked about Bush was that he came from a wealthy family and had started an oil company after World War II that he sold for over $1 million in the mid-sixties (the equivalent of $8.6 million today). Accordingly, he seemed less open to the corruption I felt naturally befell career politicians. More importantly, he had substantial experience in the international world – having been an Ambassador to the United Nations, worked with a group that liaised with China, and been Director of the CIA; not to mention eight years as Vice-President.

          I think he may have been the last Republican to win the Presidency by a big margin. He won every state except New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. I believe he was the last Republican to win California. He won the popular vote by over 8% and the Electoral vote by 426 to 111.

         I voted for Bush again in 1992 when he lost to Bill Clinton. This was the only election where a third-party candidate won a substantial number of votes (over 19%). Ross Perot was a billionaire who ran on a platform to reduce the national debt (which was less than $5 trillion at the time – compared to the over $30 trillion it is today) and against the threat to democracy posed by the professional politician and their bureaucratic lackies in D.C. Sound familiar? Perot failed to call it “draining the swamp” but in 2016 when Trump used the phrase I sure was reminded of Perot’s campaign.

         Given his platform, you would have thought I might have voted for Perot. I was tempted. Although third-party candidates had never been a serious threat, in the summer of 1992 public polls were favoring Perot by something like 39% to 31% for Bush and 25% for Clinton. When Perot temporarily withdrew from the race only to reenter a month or so later, he seemed goofy to me. While I wanted to like Perot, Bush was experienced and I always thought him as exuding class in its most positive aspect.

        In 1996, I quietly voted for Bill Clinton. In response to the substantial losses Democrats had suffered in the mid-term election because of Gingrich’s “Contract with America”, Clinton shifted from a leftist-leaning start to his Presidency to a centrist approach. Working with Republicans, he had begun moves toward a balanced budget (which he achieved in his second term) and reformation of welfare. Ross Perot ran again but was not nearly the factor he had been in 1992 (when he probably cost Bush a second term). While issues about Clinton’s morality swirled, they were limited to extramarital dalliances which hardly disabled one from governing effectively. Moreover, the public had been dished a full helping of alleged affairs during his campaign in 1992 and nevertheless handed him victory. I always felt that the animosity Clinton faced was more about Hillary than “good ole” Bill.

        The 2000 election was the beginning of Americans being forced to choose between two mediocre candidates. I was very familiar with Al Gore. His father was a professional politician having served in Congress from the late 1930s (with a four-year tour in the war) until he was elected a Senator from Tennessee in 1953 where he served until he was defeated in 1971. He had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I had watched his son essentially ride his dad’s coattails into public office. He always struck me as a pompous know-it-all. When added to your grandmother’s distaste for his sister (who she had known at Vanderbilt), voting for George Bush was an easy choice.

        In the 2004 election, I voted for Bush. While I understood that he may have been feeding the country’s lust for revenge following the 9/11 attack, I had wished that his approach to finding and punishing Al Qaeda did not include a significant military invasion of Afghanistan, or the invasion of Iraq. With respect to the former, I would have hoped he could have used the CIA (maybe with help from Mossad in whose skills I had much more faith) to find Osama bin Laden. Maybe that was not a feasible alternative.

          However, the invasion of Iraq was not open to debate for me. Iraq reminded me of Yugoslavia. While Tito ruled the country with an iron hand, Yugoslavia appeared stable. As soon as he was gone and the Soviet Union dissolved, the centuries-old hatred among people from the same gene pool surfaced. Croats, Serbians, and Arabs returned to their historic animosities. Iraq was the one large Arabian country with diversity between Sunnis (roughly 17 million) and Shias (roughly 9 million) and Kurds (roughly 5.5 million). Saddam Hussein ruled the country much like Tito had ruled Yugoslavia.

          The division between Sunnis and Shias is not the same as the differences between Baptist and Methodists. Wars were fought among their tribes from the mid-600s on. I felt Bush was naïve to believe democracy would bloom if only Hussein was gone. Moreover, Iraq’s neighbor, Iran, which was 90-95% Shia would likely see an opportunity for more mischief in a weakened Iraq. Although Saudi Arabia and Syria were 85-90% Sunni, they had never shown any propensity to push back with respect to Iran’s quest for dominance in the region.

      There simply was no reason to send young soldiers into the beehive of the Middle East. The idea that democracy would somehow blossom given the historical divisions of the populace based on differing interpretations of the  Koran was ludicrous. The excuse of “weapons of mass destruction” seemed empty. If Hussein really had atomic capability, Mossad would have taken that out. If his weapons of mass destruction were poisonous gases, then use the U.N.

         But John Kerry? That was the alternative to Bush. Kerry was better suited to run a chocolate factory for his wife and lead his church in prayer for the Lord to save us from climate change since most humans did not seem to care if they destroyed the planet. After all, Earth is destined to die anyway within the next 4-5 billion years. Or Kerry could put us all to sleep retelling us of his heroism as a captive.

         In 2008, I paid close attention to the Democratic race for the nomination. Obama was a newcomer with almost no experience (3-years as U.S. Senator and a few years as a State legislator). Hillary Clinton was, I believed, the most corrupt politician that I had witnessed. I only knew Joe Biden from observing his utter nastiness toward Clarence Thomas during the hearing related to Thomas’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. And you know from my Nixon account how I feel toward rudeness – although Biden’s came with spittle flying from his rancid mouth.

          Iowa finished Biden. After a barrage of campaign ads from Clinton showing the variety of lies Biden had told through the years regarding his education, his accomplishments, and his ethnic background (he was apparently an Italian, Jewish, Cuban, Irish, Polish, French, and Scottish person with a pinch of black). The Clinton ads against Biden were hilarious and explained why Biden received less than 1% of the votes in Iowa and quickly withdrew. Obama’s team apparently missed those Biden ads and chose him as his running mate.

         I wanted to vote for Obama primarily so our country could put racism to bed. He also ran on a platform that included obtaining energy independence through the oil and gas reserves controlled by U.S. companies. In the end, I could not vote for a man who wanted to put health care in the hands of another Federal bureaucracy funded by more tax dollars. Private health care companies may not provide the lowest cost to the sick, but at least they reward those who invest in stocks (not the rich alone but everyone with a pension or a 401K at work). I held my nose and voted for McCain.

          In 2012, I voted for Romney. Obama’s first term had given me a chance to take the measure of the man and my conclusion was that he was a slick con man with a disdain for the United State’s place in the world. I felt that he believed our history of slavery and failure to smooth a path for blacks to find their place in America as the Irish had, the Italians had, and the Asians and Hispanics were, represented a fatal flaw in the country’s claim of leadership in the free world. Romney seemed a professional politician mired in the elitism of D.C., but at least I felt his political philosophy was closer to mine. Obama’s efforts at socialized medicine were his fatal flaw with me.

         2016 presented America with the worst choice it had faced in its history. I had dubbed Marco Rubio as a future Presidential candidate in 2012 and voted for him in the Alabama primary. I despised Trump as a person but enjoyed watching him rile up the left with his political positions and crude manner of presenting them. Trump had to remind those who recalled him of Archie Bunker in All in the Family. I certainly understood his reference to the “swamp” that was the Federal government. (I had warned against the practice of passing laws then creating agencies to interpret and enforce those laws when I was in college -- believing it would lead to a class of entrenched bureaucrats without providing the accountability of being voted out of office when a majority of Americans disagreed with the agency’s actions as we could with a Congressman or Senator who passed a law with which we disagreed,)

          As low as my opinion was of Trump, I believed Hillary Clinton represented the epitome of the corrupt politician with an elitist attitude that held middle-class Americans in utter contempt. For her, the middle- and lower-class whites were the deplorable, trailer trash who needed to be silenced, or at least, ignored. Accordingly, I did not vote for Trump, I voted against Clinton as I believe many Americans did.

          The 2020 election was easy for me. As low as my opinion was of Clinton, it was geometrically lower of Biden. At least Clinton had a modicum of intelligence. Biden was one of the least intelligent people I had observed in politics, but he had topped that by his lack of class. Moreover, age had not been kind to the doddering idiot. Only Trump’s narcissism and bombastic crudeness could convince the majority of Americans to vote for Biden. Marco Rubio would have crushed Biden were he not now a shadow of himself from Trump’s crude bombardment in the 2016 campaign.

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