A Voice of Baltimore Commentary

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“The Donald” (Trump, that is) represents one of the worst examples of American presidential candidates to seek the country’s highest office.

‘OLE STROM,’ GEORGE WALLACE, ‘THE DONALD’
AND THE RACIST DOOFUS FROM ’SEINFELD’
ENLIVEN PRESIDENTIAL SWEEPSTAKES

Could American politics sink any lower?
 
By Jay Liner
 
If you’ve been genuflecting lately over Donald Trump’s ugly display of affection for the Mexican murderers and rapists that have illegally entered our country, don’t get your bowels in too much of an uproar. Although he’s the center of attention and the pick hit to click at the moment, history will give us some perspective.

Trump is going to flame out, and be relegated to a short list of haters that have attempted this maneuver.

The glowing examples I’m referring to from past history were Southern white males, who had garnered an inordinate amount of national attention during their ascendancy. Their careers in public service took some very strange twists and turns later on.

In 1948 Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina bolted the Democratic Party and ran for the Oval Office on a states’ rights/segregationist platform.

Against incumbent President Harry S. Truman and Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey, he carried four states: Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

One of Ole Strom’s finest hours of Southern charm occurred more than four decades later during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings when, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thurmond railroaded the confirmation through, while being seen and heard asking “if the machine was on,” in reference to the recording devices in use while the hearing was being broadcast.

Poor old Anita Hill (the about-to-be Justice Thomas’s accuser of sexual misconduct) got trashed, and it was ugly.

The then-Republican Senator Thurmond — he abandoned the Democrats and switched parties in 1964 — wound up endorsing a black man for the Supreme Court in a very contentious hearing involving allegations of sexual harassment.

The icing on the cake, however, was when it was revealed near the end of his tenure as a U.S. Senator, that Thurmond had fathered a black child. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

At his inauguration as Governor of Alabama in Jan. 1963 George Wallace famously prom- ised his followers “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

The most notorious and blatant race-baiting candidate for president emerged in the mid 1960s from Alabama. All of us who were around then remember the “estimable” Alabaman, George Wallace.

Wallace’s most famous quote when he was Governor was indelibly ingrained during the decade, and it resonated far and wide. His mantra, ”segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever,” was the last ugly gasp of Jim Crow that emanated out of the Confederacy since the days of Reconstruction.

He was a tour de force, and played the race card better than anyone before or since — although later in life he apologized for his racist and segregationist policies and was overwhelmingly reelected as Alabama Governor in 1982 with a surprisingly large African-American constituency.

Earlier in his career his wife Lurleen succeeded him as Governor in 1967 when he was forbidden by the state constitution to run for a consecutive term and Alabama voters elected her as his proxy. He was then reelected in 1970 and 1974.

His most productive attempt in the presidential sweepstakes came in 1968 when he ran as a third-party candidate with retired Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay as his vice-presidential running mate.

Wallace and LeMay won five states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi — and garnered close to 10 million popular votes against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, who achieved a razor-thin margin to win the election, and the Democratic candidate, then-incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

ARTHUR BREMER SHOT WALLACE IN LAUREL, MD. IN 1972

Four years later, all Marylanders know what happened at the Laurel Shopping Center during the 1972 campaign when a misfit named Arthur Bremer did to Wallace what many people were all wishing and hoping — get him out of presidential politics.

Wallace was kaput nationally from then on, spending the rest of his life paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair; although LeMay lives on in presidential lore for his role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

Later in his life Wallace acknowledged his evil ways and begged for forgiveness for his past behavior. Many whom he had hurt forgave him, but the damage that he did as Governor and presidential candidate cannot be minimized.

He did terrible things when it mattered the most. History will not be rewritten even with his mea culpa.

Now we are appalled by the spectacle of Donald Trump, the anti-role model and a master of self- aggrandizement. However, I have an alternative candidate who can get your juices flowing. I’m talking about a “legend” — a man who can handle the scorn that will inevitably come his way.

KRAMER FOR PRESIDENT!

I propose we should draft Kramer for President.

Kramer — a/k/a actor Michael Richards — doesn’t have to go by his real name. He’s better known by his TV persona because it works in his favor.

He’s impulsive, lazy, manipulative, vacant and arrogant, and is always screwing up and dependent on his friends to bail his ass out of jackpots.

In other words he could be another member of the Bush Family and perfect for the job. He’s got the chops.

Again, this is not news — comedians have run for president before. Who could forget the imaginative and wonderfully stoic countenance of Pat Paulsen in 1968 running for the job while he was part of the Smothers Brothers comedy troupe?

And of course the State of Minnesota elected SNL funnyman and political satirist Al Franken to the U.S. Senate in 2008, then reelected him in 2014.

For President? — Michael Richards as “Cosmo Kramer” on the long-running show “Seinfeld.”

Kramer has similar advantages. He’s funny and well-known because of the “Seinfeld” show’s long-standing popularity from both its original long run on NBC and the reruns still being broadcast today.

Most importantly, however, Kramer will forever be labeled as a racist. Automatic presidential timber as we’ve learned from history.

This occurrence was duly recorded during a standup routine at a comedy club not too many years ago when he was bombing, and laced into the black attendees, blaming them for his poor performance.

He dropped the N-word several times during his meltdown, which should put him in excellent standing with those who despise Barack Hussein Obama, welfare mothers, professional basketball players, Jesse Jackson, and the reigning heavyweight race-baiting champion of the world, Al Sharpton.

I could go on and on, but you get my drift.

Raising money should present no problems for Kramer. Although his career emanates from that so-called bastion of greed, liberalism, and loose moral character known as show biz, he’ll still be able to tap some resources there.

No doubt the rednecks on “Duck Dynasty” will make a large contribution; and all the producers, cast, and crew of the “Dukes of Hazzard” are a shoo-in. Boss Hogg might even be willing to run his campaign.

I’m sure also that donations would be pouring in from fans and admirers of Paula Deen, the celebrity cook and ex-Food Network darling, whose admitted racial slurs and use of the N-word have been forgiven by former President Jimmy Carter, no less.

Kramer for President! an idea whose time has come.

Why should Donald Trump get all the attention?
 
jay.l.liner@gmail.com
 
Voice of Baltimore Managing Editor AL Forman contributed to this report.
 
Jay Liner is an attorney practicing in Pikesville and is an avid political observer… who does not mince words.

Check out his most recent Voice of Baltimore entry:  click here