The Pain of a Long Memory….



It’s an exhausting thing.



My mind switches back to all the dark horses I’ve stood for.



There was Moe Udahl, a great Congressman with the best white papers I ever saw.



The guy that called “Moonbeam Jerry,” but to me seemed like the incarnation of Bobby—the candidate I believed could make a difference; but he barely got out of the starting gate..



There was McGovern, the quiet, reasoned candidate for president, too intellectual to ever be considered seriously in this good ole’ boy society…..



Humphrey, the first great liberal who the liberals rejected because they didn’t know who it was they were attacking.



There was Jackson who self destructed in front of those who came to pay to homage including the rich and faithful, a man who brought his party down around his feet with his uncalled for remarks and his bad judgment.



Hunter had it pretty well down when he wrote Fear and Loathing....



Then there was Hart who thought he could play “gottcha” with the media and lost!….



Who would have thought that the good senator from Maine would cry?



Who would have thought that Eagleton’s depression would have lost him any hope for the VP spot?





Dukakis with his elitist, Bostonian bent who couldn’t see the forest for the trees. A candidate too inner directed to earn much traction against an entrenched dirty tricks cadre given new life by the peripatetic Atwater, the dream of the Republican party brought to an early end by brain cancer….



John swiftboated….Bobby assassinated…..Eugene, the stalking horse….



All of them haunt me now….. Howard, Wes, big Al, who picked the wrong VP and got snookered by a compliant media and a government that couldn’t count the votes & the rest over so many decades….it is hard to remember them all.





Where have they all gone?



What did they lack or fail to realize? What were their weaknesses that brought their individual houses down?



Could we see a repeat of that now….



That’s why I wrote the book, A Blueprint for Winning….



Trouble is not enough people in power knew about it or read it.



It was all there.



All the warnings, all the dangers, what they needed to do to win!….



After thirty five years, I do believe that democrats are powerfully good at aiding their opponents by shooting themselves repeatedly in the foot and working their way up to their brains…and never understanding “why!”



Maybe I have become cynical.



Maybe I have reason to be that way.



But after thirty five years, they have never figured it out.



I hope I am wrong; but I never believed that God was necessarily in the democrats corner when it came to winning elections.



And, sadly, I’ve often been right!



But I keep trying





Les Aaron….