European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 26, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday May 26, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13commentary play the running mate game 0b92.thetffisbjfgh�?z,United be tort is Wonov 1 would it Nappy to Bill Cunt on a running wife James j. Kilpatrick to hum let s the dog Days by definition done to come until just after the fourth of july but they seem to have come Early this year pundits Are so desperate for something to write about that they Are speculating on Bill Clinton a Choice for vice president. How desperate can we get William Safire of the new York times got so bored last week that he turned out a thumb sucker mentioning a dozen possibilities on a Clinton ticket. The commentators on one of the weekend talk shows a i forget which one a were similarly absorbed. Here i am writing a thumb sucker of my own but at least i have a Good excuse its a Lovely Spring Day and As soon As i finish this piece i can go out to the Garden and Putter. Clinton a running mate who cares really now who cares Clinton was asked about his Choice the other Day and he dutifully gave the right answer he would pick the Man or woman Best qualified to step into the Oval office if death or illness should remove him from the scene. Every presidential candidate has made the same response since Millard Fillmore picked col. Andrew Jackson Donelson in the election of 1856. I covered that Campaign extensively and i can Tell you that Donelson was a Nice Guy but he was no help to Fillmore. They ran on the know nothing ticket. It figured. I talked to Ben Harrison during his run for re election in the summer of 1892, and he was going to drop Levi Morton from the ticket and pick Whitelaw Reid instead. Reid was then running the new York Tribune. I told him that it would be a mistake to pick a newspaper publisher a after All what do they know a but be listen. Harrison lost new York to Cleve and by nearly 50,000 votes. A vice presidential candidate who can to even carry his own state is nothing. Many such candidates prove to be nothing. Franklin Roosevelt carry new York for James m. Cox in 1920. Henry Wallace was such a drag on the democratic ticket in 1940 that Iowa went for Wendell Willkie. Earl Warren carry California for Tom Dewey in 1948. In l�60, Henry Cabot Lodge was supposed to help Nixon in Massachusetts. Nixon lost Massachusetts by half a million votes. What does Clinton really want he wants a running mate who wont Hurt him. That Sall. Only once in this Century has a vice presidential candidate apparently helped his partner. That was in 1960, of course when Lyndon Johnson helped John f. Kennedy carry Texas. If Kennedy had lost to Richard Nixon in Texas Nixon could have won the White House by a successful Challenge to the crooked count in Illinois. If that Isnit Clear never mind. Sue me. Its really Nice outside. A just done to Hurt that a the plea of a presidential nominee. The plea has often failed. In 1972, George Mcgovern picked Tom Eagleton As his running mate. Eagleton was a Fine Man and an Able senator but it transpired that years before the election he had suffered a mental illness. It was a sad chapter in american political history when Mcgovern dropped him Over Oard and summoned Sargent Shriver of Maryland in his place. Mcgovern should have stuck with Eagleton. Shriver was a dead loss. Did Geraldine Ferraro help Walter Mondale in 1984? the dear lady even carry her District in Queens. Did Dan Quayle help George Bush in 1988? come on we were Well into october of that year before the press stopped trashing Danny boy the intrepid National guardsman. Quayle May be an asset in 1992, but he was a walking liability four years ago. What were we talking about we were talking about Bill Clinton and his Choice of a running mate. Sen. Bill Bradley of new Jersey might be the perfect Choice. The senator has All the personality of a Concrete Block and he Speaks with the same Grace and Charm. Bradley Hurt him. There a sen. Albert Gore or. Of Tennessee. Environmentalists love him. Or sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. He could bring Home the tall menus vote. How about sen. David l. Boren of Oklahoma he a too Lump. Gov. Ann Richards of Texas she a too toughen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska too too have i yet done 750 words pretty close. Id suggest that Clinton pick his Brainy wife Hillary but a president and vice president get penalized if they come from the same state. Hillary would Cost him the six electoral votes of Arkansas. Might be Worth it at that. Now May i go outside and play c Universal press Syndicate Ellen Goodman Quayle throws to baby out with Bath water it was enough to bring on a postpartum depression. One Day Murphy Brown completes her finest funniest investigative piece a the truth about natural childbirth it hurts a and gives birth to a bouncing baby boy. The next Day the vice president of the United states lambasted her for a mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child he implicates her in everything from the a poverty of values to the disintegration of the family. The Only one who appeared to take the Flap in stride was Candice Bergen. But then she grew up in an Normal two Parent family with a wooden Dummy As a sibling and a father who made his Fame As a ventriloquist. On the radio. The rest of the country deep in debt politically paralysed and polarized jittery about jobs and the future ignored the fact that hey its just television. Everybody jumped into a free for All about motherhood single motherhood families and family values. First George Bush and the boys in the White House floundered around trying to find a politically Correct position on a policy that a showing shall we say stretch Marks. Murphy Brown had a baby. That s bad. She chose the baby Over the abortion. That a Good. Now she san unwed Mother. That s bad. What a a pregnant woman to do with an administration that a hostile to single mothers and opposed to abortion stay pregnant but conservatives weren to the Only ones wearing contradictions in their maternity outlooks. Contradictions Are Standard Issue nowadays. In those wonderful yesteryear that the vice president brings Back to moisten our eyes with nostalgia unwed mothers were judged by the single Standard of morality. A pregnant broadcaster and a pregnant teenager were tarred by the same Brush. As the new York daily news headline blared it a Quayle to Murphy Brown you tramp a today when a fort something woman with a secure Job a hefty Bank balance health insurance self Confidence and an extended family of co workers finds herself pregnant and decides to have the baby a lot of people figure that its none of their business. When a High school Sophomore tee something with a Par time Job at Mcdonald a and a time Frame that envisions life All the Way to next weekend has a baby they re sure its a disaster. If an Independent single woman becomes pregnant her co workers Are Likely to hold their tongues and hold a baby Shower. If a woman on welfare has a third child by a third husband everyone has something to say and it Isnit pleasant. What makes the difference now fact and fiction television and real life maturity Money Good sense most of us would still like to allot one Well adjusted happily married secure and adoring Mother and father to each Newborn. But we have a much More complicated View of reality. A More layered sense of what a child needs. With 10 million single mothers marriage Isnit what it used to be. We have the unwed and the previously wed both struggling on their own. Even Quayle reflects a modicum of ambivalence. On one Day he said a bearing babies irresponsibly is simply on the next he said a i have the greatest respect for single mothers. They Are the True but Are you a a irresponsible if you bring a baby into the world with every advantage except a husband father Are you a hero Only if you once had a husband who left you and the kids the problem Isnit that we have a a poverty of its that we have a plethora of values most of them in conflict with each that a confusing for adults its More confusing for kids. I join the chorus of parents tired of Rich famous and unwed mothers. There a a difference Between a sitcom and a news Story about single motherhood. We do not repeat do not want our 16-year-Olds to do what Murphy did. It is harder now to pass on a single simple message. But there is one other conflict Here. Most of us hold one set of values in the abstract. We have an opinion in general about a single mothers a or a responsibility a or a family we often Amend that make allowances and exceptions for people we know and the life stories we hear. We understand lives one by one and that a the Way it should be. In the Odd Way of television Murphy Brown has become someone we know. By the time 38 million americans watched her go through labor and sing the first Lullaby to her son we understood what it meant and Why it was right. For her. Dan should have figured that out. Murphy Brown had a son. Quayle Laid an egg. C the Boston Globe
