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♦ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER Hi, 2008
6A
Post-mortem on John McCain's candidacy
Anyone who doesn’t
at the very least
appreciate the
historic nature of Barack
Obama’s election is-either
an idiot or a bigot. It is just
that simple.
So let me take a few sen
tences to say that as an
American, I congratulate
our new president, will pray
for his success both person
ally and as our new leader,
and will view his presidency
with the same objectivity I
had with regard to George
W. Bush.
That was probably the most
popular part of my column.
Here’s where my conserva
tive friends get really mad: I
Want to salute John McCain.
Why? Because he may be
the last true American hero
we ever see in a presidential
race.
McCain really never had
a prayer of winning the
2008 presidential race. The
Republican establishment
despised McCain for his will
ingness to cross the aisle
to work with Democrats,
and his equal willingness
to cross the system by tak
ing on George W. Bush in
the 2000 election. He wasn’t
their kind of conservative.
So they preferred to let
him wilt on the vine, strug
gling for money, searching
for issues, and having to deal
with a leaky, creepy, Bush
linked staff, who decided it
was far more important to
attack Sarah Palin before
the election was even over
than really try to win.
And McCain wouldn’t
get down into the gutter.
He could have run endless
Book details history found in shapes of our states
We’ve all seen a lot
of maps of the
United States
lately. Red states and blue
states. Undecided states
and swing states. Landslide
states and runoff states. Did
you ever wonder, though,
why our states look the way
they do?
Mark Stein did, and so
he wrote a book called How
the States Got Their Shapes
(2008, Smithsonian Books),
and its 51 chapters detail
how the boundaries of each
state and the District of
Columbia were derived.
In his introduction, Mr.
Stein - a Broadway play
wright, Hollywood screen
writer, and college drama
and writing instructor -
acknowledges that he had
long wondered why each
state is the shape and size
it is. As I read his book, I
learned an American history
I had never heard before.
There are reasons, for
example, why Colorado and
Wyoming are similar rect
angles with nearly the same
area; why Wyoming cuts
out a comer of Utah, min
ing another rectangle; why
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
is actually to
Wisconsin instead; and why
Mississippi is a mirror image
of Alabama. Let’s deal with
our state, though.
Georgia’s shape and size
have changed greatly over
CONGRADULATIONS
One named
to dean's list
Special to the Journal
Jon R. McDuffie of
Warner Robins was named
to Armstrong Atlantic State
University’s dean’s list for
the summer 2008 term. In
order to make the dean’s list,
a student must be enrolled in
at least nine semester hours
of course work and earn a
minimum grade point aver
age of 3.6.
‘Armstrong Atlantic
State University, part of
the University System of
Georgia, was founded in
1935. The university offers
more than 100 undergradu
ate and graduate academic
programs in the College of
Liberal Arts, the College of
Science and Technology, the
College of Education, and the
College of Health Professions.
Inside the numbers
■I
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Matt
Towary
Morris
News
Service
Jeremiah Wright ads toward
the end of the campaign. But
McCain was bright enough
to know that it would only
have destroyed his own rep
utation, and not given him
enough votes to overcome
the inevitable tide of Obama
votes.
You see, it was never sup
posed to be; a McCain race
that is.
Mitt Romney -- who I will
freely admit I had warmed
up to considerably by the
end of the campaign ~ was
meant to be the inheritor
of the GOP establishment
crowd. If not, they would
settle for Rudy Giuliani. But
when Mike Huckabee stole
the show in the November
2007 CNN debate, he became
the darling of populist and
social conservatives long
enough to deflate Romney
and Giuliani to also-rans.
Ironically, the media in
America, particularly the
national press, have always
liked McCain. They knew
he would buck the system,
was accessible, quotable and
open to them. It wasn’t until
he won his party’s nomina
tion that they attacked his
every move.
But in the end, it was
neither his choice of Sarah
Moore or less
mm
Glynn
Moore
Columnist,
Morris News
Service
the years. England’s char
ter called for the colony’s
northern boundary to extend
from the headwaters of the
Savannah River (north
west of us) straight' west
past Los Angeles (swim
ming pools, movie stars).
That encroached French
and Spanish claims, though,
so a more realistic colony
was drawn. (Say goodbye to
Hollywood.)
A few years later to the
south, The Battle of Bloody
Marsh determined that the
St. Marys River would sepa
rate us from Spanish Florida.
That’s why Georgia has a lit
tle appendage hanging down
near its southeastern corner.
Our state’s western bound
ary was determined after the
Revolutionary War, when
Georgia donated land to the
federal government.
The north-south
Chattahoochee River would
separate Georgia from the
land it gave up, which was
split into two states roughly
the size of Georgia: Alabama
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Palin nor his performances
in the debates -- not even
his Joe the Plumber strategy
- that did John McCain in.
Instead it was an economic
collapse rooted in a rotten
housing market, propped up
by a phony mortgage market
that for some reason decided
to collapse and bring down
with it the entire U.S. econ
omy with just weeks to go
before the election.
McCain was guilty of doing
what he had taken a solemn
oath to do: deal with the
situation. Obama handled
the crisis in the same man
ner. But McCain’s party,
fractured and broken, could
not decide whether to trust •
a badly damaged President
Bush who warned Congress
of almost dire immediate
consequences if a so-called
“bailout bill” was not passed
immediately, or the phone
calls from constituents, the
very same who had put Bush
back in office in 2004 by a
huge margin. They demand
ed that Congress reject any
bailout.
McCain was trapped
between what he believed
would put his country or his
campaign first. As had been
his tradition, he opted for,
whether one agrees or not,
country first. His fate was
sealed.
Ironically, only a day after
the election ended, pun
dits and writers from many
national news organizations
were musing that they “real
ly didn’t know much about
Barack Obama.” They were
right.
And so America entered a
new era of change not know-
and Mississippi.
After reading How the
States Got Their Shapes,
I was left with only a few
questions. Why is Missouri
shaped like a chubby Georgia,
for instance, and why can
Alaska’s governor see Russia
from her porch? Maybe a
sequel will tell us all that.
MOORE WORDS: The
other .night, my wife said:
“You grew up on a farm, Is
maw’ part of a barn? My
novel says this man walked
into the maw of the barn.”
The only meaning of
“maw” I knew was “mouth”
or “throat,” so I looked it
up. I found it means the
mouth, jaws, gullet or throat
of a cud-chewing or carnivo
rous animal (picture the gap
ing jaws of a roaring grizzly
bear).
A secondary meaning is a
hole that devours something,
or a huge, open space, so I
suppose a barn can have a
maw.
The word comes to us from
the Germanic for “stomach,”
and, before that, “bellows”
- anything to do with “skin”
or “bag.”
“Mark my words,” I told
my wife. “Before I fall asleep
tonight, I will encounter
maw’ in my own book. Stuff
like that is always happening
to me.”
I went to sleep mawless.
The next day, though, I read
a news article about a busi-
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The day your
first child
Is born...
The day
you need
to file a
claim.
"McCain really never had a prayer ol
winning the 2008 presidential race.
The Republican establishment despised
McCain lor his wilingness to cross the
aisle to work with Democrats, and his
equal willingness to cross the system
by taking on George W. Rush in the 2000
election"
ing if Obama would become
the next John Kennedy, if he
would meet the comparisons
drawn earlier in the year by
some to Jimmy Carter.
Thankfully he had sur
vived the campaign season
without being harmed, t a
constant fear justified when
a group of white suprema
cists was arrested just days
before the election having
plotted Obama’s assassina
tion.
We will have none of that.
Instead we needed as we
came to the end of the 2008
race to pray for the safety
and success of our presi
dent, be he Republican or
Democrat - liberal or con
servative.
And we needed to thank
John McCain. A man who
suffered physically for his
country as a soldier and bat
tled valiantly and honorably '
for his party, even if they
never wanted him in the
first place.
Ironically in the closing
days of the race, I heard
Mitt Romney on talk shows
across America. Sarah Palin,
when asked if she was inter-
nessman wondering how he
could survive “in the maw of
the worst financial crisis since
the Great Depression?”
Stuff like that is always
happening to me.
Reach Glynn Moore at
glynn.moore@morris.com.
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Odds of a child becoming a quarterback in the NFL: i mioaoool
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ested in running for presi
dent in 2012 said, “No.” But
then again, she noted she
was responding after a gru
eling campaign.
And after being on the air
and giving interviews for a
solid 24 hours, I entered my
home the day after the elec
tion, and my wife handed me
a special overnight package.
It was from Newt Gingrich
outlining the achievements
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No babbling by
12 months.
No words by
16 months.
of his Americans Solution
group in 2008.
I tossed it on my desk in
a stack labeled: To Be Read
Before 2012.
Matt Towery served as the
chairman of former Speaker
Newt Gingrich’s politi
cal organization from 1992
until Gingrich left Congress.
He is a former Georgia state
representative, the author
of several books and cur
rently heads the polling and
political information firm
Insider Advantage. To find
out more about Matthew
Towery and read features
by other Creators Syndicate
writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Syndicate Web
site at www.creators.com.
Aged Hand-cut
Steaks
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