Thursday, May 6, 2010 - Its wrong, I think, for someone to reap the... |
| Its wrong, I think, for someone to reap the superior salaries, health care, and retirement plans normally found in union plants without making a contribution to the union that secures those benefits
My base in the Third District seemed secureAll the folks who had worked for me in 1974 were willing to go againI got some extra help from Hillarys brothers, both of whom had moved to Fayetteville and enrolled at the universityThey also added a lot of fun to our livesOne night, Hillary and I went over to their place for dinner and spent the whole evening listening to Hugh regale us with tales of his adventures in Colombia with the Peace Corpsstories that sounded as if they came straight out of One Hundred Years of Solitude but that he swore were all trueHe also made us pia coladas that tasted like fruit juice but packed quite a punchAfter two or three I was so sleepy that I went outside and climbed into the back of my Chevy El Camino pickup truck, which I had inherited from Jeff DwireThe shop for chanel bags back was covered in Astroturf, so I slept like a lambHillary drove me home, and the next day I went back to workI loved that old truck and drove it until it completely wore out
Out in the state, I found strong support in and around Hope, where I was born, and in the five or six counties outside the Third District where I had relativesI got off to a good start among blacks in central, south, and east Arkansas, thanks to former students who were practicing law in those areasAnd I had support from Democratic activists who had cheered my race against Hammerschmidt from the sidelines or been involved in the work of my affirmative action committeeDespite all that, there were still gaping holes in the organizationMost of the campaign was an attempt to fill them
As I traveled the state, I had to contend with the rise of a new political force, the Moral Majority, founded by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, a conservative Baptist minister from Virginia who had won a large television following and was fake louis vuitton bags monogram manhattan using it to build a national organization committed to Christian fundamentalism and right-wing politicsIn any part of the state, I might find myself shaking hands with someone who would ask if I was a ChristianWhen I said yes, I would be asked if I was a born-again ChristianWhen I said yes, there would be several more questions, apparently supplied by Falwells organizationOnce when I was campaigning in Conway, about thirty miles east of Little Rock, I was in the county clerks office, where absentee ballots are castOne of the women who worked there started in on me with the questionsApparently, I gave the wrong answer to one of them, and before I left the courthouse she had cost me four votesI didnt know what to doI wasnt about to answer a question about religion falsely, but I didnt want to keep losing votesI called Senator Bumpers, a good liberal Methodist, for adviceOh, I get that all the time, he saidBut I never let them get past the first questionWhen they ask me if Im a Christian, black and white chanel handbag I say, I sure hope so, and Ive always tried to beBut I really think thats a question only God can judgeThat usually shuts them upAfter Bumpers finished, I laughed and told him now I knew why he was a senator and I was just a candidate for attorney generalAnd for the rest of the campaign, I used his answer
The funniest thing that happened in the race occurred in Mississippi County, in far northeast ArkansasThe county had two cities, Blytheville and Osceola, and a host of towns dominated by planters who farmed huge plots of landTypically, their farmworkers and the small merchants whose incomes they made possible voted for the planters choice, normally the most conservative person runningin this case, Secretary of State JerniganThe county also had a strong local organization, headed by the county judge, Shug Banks, who was also for JerniganIt looked hopeless, but the county was too big to ignore, so I devoted one Saturday to working Blytheville and OsceolaI was by myself and, to put it louis vuitton galliera pm bag mildly, it was a discouraging dayIn both towns, though I found some support, thanks to my former law students, most people I met either were against me or didnt know who I was and didnt care to learnStill, I shook every available hand, finishing in Osceola about eleven at nightI finally gave up when I realized I still had a three-hour drive back to Little Rock and didnt want to fall asleep at the wheel
As I was driving south through a string of little settlements, I remembered that I hadnt eaten all day and was hungryWhen I came to a place called Joiner, I saw a light on in a beer jointIn the hope that it also served food, I pulled over and went inThe only people there were the man at the bar and four guys playing dominoesAfter ordering a hamburger, I went outside to call Hillary from the pay phoneWhen I walked back in, I decided to introduce myself to the domino playersThe first three, like so many people Id met that day, didnt know who I was and didnt careThe fourth man looked up and louis vuitton travel bag sm |
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