Final Assessment of Season 39 of Jeopardy

 

After the 200^th episode of Season 39 of Jeopardy I commented that Suresh Krishnan’s six game run as champion was the poorest of the years and that I truly hoped things would get better. Well that episode began the run of a new champions whose run was not only worse than Suresh’s but one of the worst of any five day champion in the post Trebek era.

That may not be fair to Ben Goldstein, but sadly its accurate. Sam had what charitably be considered one of the poorest track records of any five day champion in a very long time. He won $49,298 in five games in which he only got a single Final Jeopardy correct. The game that he played the best in was actually the game that he lost his title where again he got Final Jeopardy wrong.  I grant you the bar has been raised particularly high by so many Jeopardy champions over the past year but in five games Ben somehow managed to win less than Maureen O’Neill, who had the lowest total of any of the qualifiers for the Tournament of Champions, and she won $58,200 in four games. I’m not sure how far I want to go back in Jeopardy history, but its been a very long time – perhaps since before the dollar figures were doubled in 2001 – that I remember someone qualifying for the Tournament of Champions with this low a total in five games, hell, maybe even in three.

I say this because this was symptomatic of a truly wretched period of play since Ben Chan departed the show in May of 2023. The scores at the end of Double Jeopardy were collectively wretched, countless Final Jeopardys stumped all three contestants and many times we had finalists deep in the red. Things did improve slightly after Ben Goldstein’s departure, but there was very little consistency in the interim: for the last month of the season, no one was able to win more than two consecutive games.

It was not until the final week of the season that we finally had a champion who was able to get over the hump. During the last three days Lucas Partridge managed to win three consecutive games and $66,200. In the final day of the season, he managed a come from behind win in Final Jeopardy. Having spent much of the game trailing Sharon Bishop, it came down to Final Jeopardy.

The category was WORD ORIGINS: “Theories on the origin of this, a style of journalism, include Cajun slang for unhinged jazz and Boston slang for a person on a bender.” Ben was the only player who knew the correct response: “What is gonzo?” (The style popularized by Hunter Thompson.) He won $24,000 and managed to end Season 39 on a high note – something it will need given the problem it now faces.

The WGA strike and Actors strike have forced Jeopardy into an uncertain future. Mayim Bialik refused to cross the picket line, forcing Jennings to host the final month of the season. Jennings himself faced criticism for it, particularly from those such as Wil Wheaton. Season 40 is itself mired in controversy before it has even begun: as I wrote in an earlier article, many of the Tournament of Champions participants announced they would not cross the picket line for that Tournament causing it to be postponed. It remains uncertain when the new season will begin, and already there is controversy over the potential decision to use ‘recycled clues’ when the season starts. (I actually think that is particularly an overblown problem, but that’s a subject for a future article.)

The larger problem for the next Tournament of Champions is how it will proceed at all and what format it will take: where as last year, there was a surplus of participants for the tournament, which led to the format being changed, at this point there are only twelve players who have met the standard for qualifications. For the record, here they are:

Luigi De Guzman: 5 Wins, $140,700

David Sibley: 4 wins, $78,098

Cris Panullo: 21 Wins, $748,286

Ray LaLonde: 13 wins, $386,400

Troy Meyer: 6 wins, $214,802

Stephen Webb: 8 wins, $184,881

Matthew Marcus: 4 wins, $114,200

Justin Bolsen, High School Reunion Tournament Winner: $100,000

Hannah Wilson: 8 Wins, $229,801

Ben Chan: 9 wins, $252,600

Suresh Krishnan: 6 wins, $96,595

Ben Goldstein: 5 wins, $49,298

Admittedly this year Jeopardy held no other tournaments other than the high school reunion tournament. Neither the College Championship or Professors Tournament took place during Season 39, and there is no explanation as to why neither happened.  That said in order to fill out the brackets even partially, one would have to widen it to include three games winners, something that has not been necessarily for more than a decade.

Even then, there is not exactly an embarrassment of riches: a quick scan of the season on j-archive.com reveals five obvious candidates who have won three games: Sean McShane, who $80,401 just prior to Ray Lalonde’s streak, Emmett Stanton who won $72,600 after ending Luigi De Guzman’s run,  Melissa Klapper, who won $59,100, Brian Henegar who won $68,202 and the controversial Yogesh Raut who won $96,403. Admittedly, however, all of these players won more than Ben Goldstein did in five, so there is an argument for their inclusion.

I don’t know when Jeopardy's fortieth season will happen – it is listed to begin in six weeks same as regular but it remains an open question whether it will do so, given the mess that it is going on with the strikes in Hollywood. Considering the optics involved involving the Tournament and everything else, it might be in the show’s best interest to delay its premiere until the strikes is resolved.

On a personal note, I actually wouldn’t mind if that meant a reduced season. I have always felt that the 230 game schedule is far too demanding for even the casual fan and it would be worth cutting it by at least six weeks. Wheel of Fortune had done the same throughout its run and I don’t think there’s any calling for the show to keep running at such a demanding base. (I felt that near the end of Alex Trebek’s run it might have been better for both him and the show to have done so, at least out of respect for his health even before he was diagnosed.) Jeopardy has managed to survive a lot of obstacles the past three years; it does not need to give itself any more self-inflicted wounds. The show is running very well right now; the last thing it needs is to try and hurt its brand after its managed to recover from a scandal that should have crippled it two years ago.

In the next few days I will explain why the recycled clues that so many fans and champions are up in arms about are really much ado about nothing.

 

 

The Disruption Series: A New Series On The Consequences of Strikes And Protests In America - Not All Of Them Are Talked About

 

 

As the WGA and SAG-AFTRA engage in a labor stoppage that shows no end in sight, I have only recently begun to deal with my opinions on in my work.

I am understandably conflicted. I understand why both guilds must have these strikes. I fully comprehend the consequences for my medium if they do not receive even partial acknowledgement of their cause from the studios and streaming services. My columns have been as much a celebration of everything that they have gifted the world with for decades. I know people like me are blessed by their work. I know I am privileged to write about them for my own livelihood. Their cause is worthy and needs to be fought for.

But I am also aware of reality. Not merely the one that the writers and actors are fighting for, but the entire historical reality of labor stoppages and disruptions throughout the entire history of America. I also know the opinion of the public who devours the product that the writers and actors produce with little real thought for their labor. And I know that, for all the advocacy so many claim when it comes to this strike in particular and organized labor in general, there is far too much historical evidence to indicate that the men and women who are on the picket lines will get anything close to what they want for their protest and will end up losing far more from a public relations and financial standpoint than they ever hope to gain from this battle. I know that this is a battle that needed to be  waged and I do fully support it, but at the end of the day they had lost before they ever went on the picket line. This is not doomcrying in this sense that so many on this blog choose to do; it is a simple acknowledgement of reality, particularly when it comes to entertainment.

This series will be an ongoing saga of both the history of disruption in America, not only when it comes to this particular strike, but labor stoppages in general and so many of the protest movements that have made up so much of the twentieth century and continue to this day. So much of what has driven the leftist movement is the decision to fight for rights and protest for equality. While in many cases this has won battles that needed to be fought for Americans of all races, genders and sexual preferences, there have always been repercussions. And though the left has tried to pretend otherwise in their newsletter and histories, it can not be denied that far too often in the American experience, the reaction of the average American is indifference at best and a radical lean to the other side at worst. This was true well before our society had the radical polarization it has today and it is far truer now. The left has no answer to how to bridge this divide other than to deny it exist or demonize the other side. So many people who have spent their lives protesting keep arguing that their warnings and demands fell upon deaf ears. This series will make the argument that Americans did, in fact, hear their arguments – and the world we live is because they reacted that strongly against it.

And it has never helped the battle that so many of the people who are the loudest voices are in a sense people of privilege who react from a position that is not the same as the average American. Some of these columns will deal with the problems of Hollywood taking sides in these conflicts and how an argument can be made it has actually hurt the causes they fight for more than if they had stayed silent.

I think that is perhaps the best place to start this series.

 

Part 1: Some Say Fran Drescher is The Face of Organized Labor Today

That’s Not A Good Thing To Argue

 

The day that SAG-AFTRA went on strike SAG President Fran Drescher made a loud speech that went viral on YouTube and was quoted in so many progressive websites. People began to celebrate Drescher’s presence and forecast a political future for her. AOL has repeatedly referred to her in the opening days of the strike as the new voice of labor.

I can understand why so many would want to make that argument. But if the right were to show a picture of Fran Drescher and use the Chyron ‘1990s Sitcom Star Claims to Be The Voice of the Average Worker’ in their mocking fashion, they would not be entirely wrong in their sarcasm.

Don’t get me wrong: Drescher is the face and voice of SAG-AFTRA. She must be the public persona of the battle for her union and everyone who works in Hollywood. With her union on the presence of picket lines along with the WGA, she has given both sides immense public visibility in the battle going forward.

But to call Fran Drescher the voice of labor is the kind of obliviousness that shows just how blindly progressives will follow anyone who celebrates a cause they believe in. There is no world where Fran Drescher should be consider in the same voice as John L. Lewis or Cesar Chavez or Ralph Nader in their early days. All of them had to work to become the faces of their unions; all of them sacrificed immensely, and all of them no doubt faced enormous danger in their lives. Fran Drescher has been a millionaire for at least thirty years and like so many presidents of the SAG Guild hasn’t been an average actor for a very long time – or for that matter worked regular in the business for a while. The bosses have made it very clear that they intend to stall until so many of the rank and file start to lose their houses. Drescher will never be in that condition.

Nor will Bryan Cranston nor Robert Downey Jr. Nor will Margot Robbie. It is a grand gesture that Dwayne Johnson is contributed seven figures to support the strike. He can afford it. None of them are in any position to go broke or indeed have much of a problem finding work when this over. I have little doubt their support for the strike is real and deep in the bones. But it is the support of people who can afford to support it. Their livelihoods are not in question.

Now the people who organize unions at Amazon or Walmart or Starbucks – they are in real peril. Their decision to do so very likely could cost them their houses, put them out on the street or have them blacklisted whenever they try to find work. Their decision deserve to be celebrated. Their battles deserve to me made prominent every chance they get. So why is Fran Drescher being called the face of labor?

Because she’s rich and famous – and photogenic. People have heard of her. That is why so many progressive websites tend to push her as the voice and face of labor today. Why shouldn’t they? She’s an actress which means she already established at delivering rousing speeches to thunderous applause. Perhaps I am being too cynical when I see her speech given to her union was just a variation on the kind she spent years delivering on The Nanny when Fran was lecturing the Sheffield’s but I wouldn’t say it didn’t help her cause more than showing the ones of marchers outside a McDonald’s in New York.

That’s the real reason  actors are the face of this battle by progressives, which to be clear, shows their own hypocrisy. They have spent years berating the conservative politicians who deliver ‘canned speeches’ with ‘applause lines’ to their ‘rabid bases’ as frauds. That’s the definition of what so many actors do to earn their living. It is really hard to argue that you are a ‘man of the people’ when you live a life of privilege: the fact that so much of the left wants to celebrate every time a celebrity says something that they agree with as being ‘one of them’ shows their own tone-deafness.

 I acknowledge that far too many actors and writers are struggling because the financial burdens they suffered are not far removed from so many of the working class today. In all honesty, it would be far better optics if the celebrities themselves removed themselves from all these strike and let the rank-and-file do all the talking. Let them do the photo ops, let them walk the picket lines but whenever its time to do an interview or be on camera, step away and let the extras and table writers be your spokespeople.

Indeed, if you want this to be a battle about organized labor, then let’s hear from the ones who are truly suffering. We need to hear more stories from the writers who haven’t had a job in a couple of years and only make money every time an episode of The Good Wife they wrote seven years ago gets reran. Let’s hear from the extras who only get a paycheck whenever an episode when they were a villager in Game Of Thrones replays. We don’t need to hear from Bob Odenkirk and Bryan Cranston; find someone who played an addict in a meth lab in Breaking Bad who only gets money every time his or her episode is rerun.

I am not saying that this would make the battle easier to win when it comes to the bosses: as I have written before and will write again, they don’t even view Drescher herself as a real threat to their business model. But strictly from a PR standpoint, to have them being the voice of labor who make it a lot harder for so many on the right to argue, as they always do, that the people on the picket lines are overpaid Hollywood elites and might help some of the people who are trying to fight similar battles realize that Hollywood and the people struggling for higher wages at Burger King aren’t that far removed. Considering that Hollywood is about image and perception above all else, it might actually help move the goalposts a little. I may be overly optimistic on that last point; I do know that to call the star of The Nanny the face of the labor movement is absolutely the wrong image for your cause, even for this particular war.

Lost Rewatch On VHS: Flashes Before Your Eyes

 

This episode is agreed upon as the one unquestioned masterpiece of Season 3 with the exception of the season finale. I don’t hold with that idea it’s the only great episode of the series – I have one that I hold in higher regard that this one, as you’ll see – but there’s no denying that it was one of the great episodes in the show’s history, and one that to this day we can’t truly determine what exactly happened.

The episode, as we all know, is Desmond centric. Hurley is suspicious of Desmond because he believes that he has superpowers. It’s becoming increasingly hard to deny that something very strange is going on with our Scottish friend when in the teaser of the episode, he leaves the group and runs nearly a mile to the beach to rescue a drowning Claire.

(On a side note, this is another example of Locke’s difference when it comes to leadership. In the opening minutes, he sends for Charlie and Hurley to tell them that Eko is dead and that the ‘island killed him.’ When Charlie asks what he means, Locke says: ‘You know what it means, and because Charlie and Hurley have seen the monster they don’t argue. Locke essentially lets them in to the secret – something that Jack never would have done in a similar situation – and tells them to use their discretion because he knows the rest of the camp will be looking to them as to how to go forward. Locke clearly has a better idea of the psychology of the camp than Jack ever did.)

The rest of the episode is trying to find out what Desmond knows and how it happened. It is a tribute to the writers that we’re still not sure how exactly, but we don’t care mostly because we – like Desmond himself – is trying to figure out what’s happening from the moment he turns the failsafe key.

What we know for sure is that Desmond is clearly remembering when he and Penny were together. We know that Desmond and Penny have just moved in, Desmond is desperate to earn her father’s approval for their marriage, Desmond does not get it and not long after that, this causes Desmond to end his relationship with Penny. That is clearly canon. What else is going on is clearly a subject of debate and it depends on what you think to happened to Desmond. Even now, the writers have never been clear on that.

There were two prevailing theories at the time. The first was that when he turned the failsafe key, the electromagnetic pulse somehow propelled Desmond back in time to this same period but he had certain memories of what had happened to him on the island. The second theory was that, thinking he was about to die, Desmond’s life flashed before his eyes, stopped at a certain point and he started to play it out, but with the idea that he could change thing. In hindsight, both theories were sort of correct – and neither would explain the biggest problem.

What we see in this episode will be at the center of every story that will have to do Desmond: his love for Penny, his determination to win her father’s approval, and his conceptions of honor that continue to drive him. In ‘Live Together, Die Alone’  Desmond had joined the military (no doubt for the same reasons that drove so many to join the Foreign Legion the previous century) ended up in military prison (we will never learn why) and was dishonorably discharged. Charles Widmore was waiting outside, and we see that he had done everything in his power to make sure that Penny had never received any of Desmond’s letters. Desmond was determined ‘to get his honor back’ and decided to win Widmore’s race around the world. (It is still a subject of debate among Lost fans whether Widmore himself arranged this merely for Desmond to end up on the island and therefore permanently away from Penny.) But even on the island, Penny found a way of reaching out to Desmond and that helped give him the courage to make the ultimate sacrifice (or so we thought at the time.)

When the flashback begins Desmond is back in his flat around the time he and Penny have first moved in together. Desmond wants to try and win her father’s approval so he decides to get a job at one of his companies. He keeps experiencing moments of what he thinks is déjà vu but is no doubt trying to prepare himself for his meeting with Charles.

At this point, it’s not clear if the writers yet had a long term plan for Charles Widmore beyond being the obstacle between Desmond and Penny. Based on the one scene we get; it would have been more than enough if that were the case. The scene in the office is one of the hallmarks in series lore. Desmond sits across from Widmore, looking very small and Widmore treats him with the same detachment he would with any job applicant – but not what you’d expect for his daughter’s boyfriend. Finally Desmond works up the courage to ask for Widmore’s permission to marry Penny. Widmore gets to his feet and asks Desmond if he knows anything about whiskey. (Consider how often we’ve seen Desmond drunk to this point, it’s kind of funny he says not really.) Widmore talks up McCutcheon, a great man who created this brilliant whiskey. (We’ve already seen Charlie offer it to Desmond, and his hysterical reaction clearly now makes sense.) He pours a single glass and says: “This swallow is more than you could make it in a month. And to share it with you would be a disgrace to the great man who made it. Because you Hume will never be a great man.”

Now we know that this isn’t the eighteenth century and that there’s nothing stopping Penny and Desmond from eloping. But in Desmond, the  concept of honor is clearly entrenched.

The next scene I don’t know whether or not is real. We’ve already seen that the survivors have had links before they ended up on the plane and we already know that Desmond has links to more than a few of them. It just doesn’t seem quite accurate that Desmond would have come across Charlie at this particular moment in time. I think some part of Desmond’s subconscious is trying to tell him he’s been here before and Charlie is the most direct projection of it. (Considering what we learn at the end of the episode, there is another reason.) Desmond then goes to the pub with a physicist friend of his, trying to figure out if time travel is real. The friend understandably thinks he’s crazy until Desmond seems to remember this night. When his memories turn out to be faulty, Desmond decides that he is not thinking clearly and goes home to Penny. He has decided that they will have a night out and he intends to propose to her.

The next two scenes were jarring at the time and even once we knew who the woman is and what her link to everything else on the island is, it’s still not clear how she ended up here. Since its pretty clear that in the original timeline this woman wasn’t at the ring shop and since it’s just as clear that she is real, the question is how did she get here and how did she know every bit of Desmond’s life? This woman (at this point the show just calls her Miss Hawking, so we’ll keep that in) clearly know what Desmond will do. She clearly knows what will happen to the man in the red shoes. And by now we know she has an agenda to making sure that Desmond stays directly on his path. There is even a possibility as to how she knew what was going to happen the first time out. But in either case, it kind of makes neither version of events make sense. This clearly did not happen the first time around and if it is his life flashing before his eyes, it wouldn’t explain her presence. So how did she get here?

At this point in the series run, we were inclined to dismiss it as the same way Desmond did: this woman was some part of Desmond’s subconscious trying to play to his own doubts. It’s hard to ignore that fact given Hawking’s choice of words. She tells Desmond if he doesn’t go to the island, every single one of us is dead (which will turn out to be true, actually, though we don’t learn why for a very long time). She tells him that this is his path and we know that Desmond believes in destiny. And she tells him that pushing the button is the only ‘truly great thing you’ll ever do’. Considering what Widmore said he’d never be one, maybe he wants it to play to this.

At the time of the third season of Lost, Fionnula Flanagan was filming the second season of Brotherhood so there was no reason to believe that this was just a lone shot. Similarly Alan Dale was at the time a regular on Ugly Betty, so we had no reason to think this was a larger role either. And for all we know maybe this was even the truth at the time: Dale would not reappear on Lost until Season 4 and even then we were still unaware of just how deep Widmore’s connection to the island was.

What we know in retrospect is that Hawking had her own agenda, one far deeper than keeping Desmond and Penny apart. We won’t know the full scope of it for another two seasons – and even then, it still doesn’t give a full explanation as to her presence here.

Whatever the reason Desmond still does what he ends up doing. Maybe because he chooses to; maybe because he’s supposed to. And even though the viewer knows in the end it will all work out, it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking to see Penny walk away in tears and Desmond throw his ring in the Thames.

Then Desmond ends up at the pub and realizes he was off by one night on his prediction. This may be the clearest indication that he actually did travel back in time in some form. But maybe the fact that when he tries to change things by warning the bartender about Jimmy Lennon and he takes the blow to the head instead is in fact the sign of course-correcting Hawking was talking about. We shall find out much later on she was not being honest with Desmond on that (and that, in fact, she was making sure that fate had take a path in life) but the result is the same. Desmond wakes up in the jungle, back on the island, and runs to the hatch (which is what Locke saw him doing at the start of Further Instructions). Seeing Desmond break down cements the power of Henry Ian Cusick’s work in this episode as we see a man utterly determined to hope that there is a way to get off this bloody rock.

Then we are back in the present and Desmond confides what happened to him (without you know, telling him anything) but then he tells him that he keeps having flashes of the future. The problem is, the future he is seeing is Charlie’s – and Desmond is certain that no matter what he tries to do, Charlie doesn’t have much of one.

The writers had been honest when they told journals that they would be using the flashback structure in a way they never had before and never would again. In the former case, they were telling the truth. When it came to Desmond, they were not being honest. Desmond would be at the center of four more episodes after Flashes Before Your Eyes and none of them would fit the conventions of the traditional Lost episode (or at least how the writers would define them with each season they occurred). We’re still not sure how Desmond managed to basically survive ground zero of an electromagnetic explosion and walk away unhurt (and well, unclothed) but we’re still not yet sure whether that means anything special. Locke walked away unhurt as well. What seems more critical right now is his love for Penny. The last photo the two took together has managed to survive a trip around the world, nearly being soaked in the ocean and the destruction of the hatch. That would seem to be a clear sign that the love that Des and Penny have can survive anything and we already know that Penny hasn’t given up on Desmond either. There have always been immense obstacles stopping their love and right now Desmond thinks that photo is the last link he has to the woman he ran away from.

As we’ll see in Season 3, Desmond’s love for Penny will seem to lead the survivors to their ultimate salvation. But considering what we eventually learn, the question might be: who was sending those flashes in the first place?

VHS Notes: Ads running through this episode include promos for one of the most significant blockbusters of 2007: 300. The Academy awards were still a few weeks off, so when we saw ads for the DVD release of The Departed, they only mentioned that it had received five Academy Award nominations. Mark Wahlberg would be the only recipient of a nomination to go home empty handed Oscar night.

The Real Reason Donald Trump Appeals to Millions Of People

 

I’ve lived in New York for more than thirty years which means on a near daily basis I use the subway or the Long Island Rail Road

During that period no part of the service has notably improved. The trains still arrive on a schedule that involves a lot of contortion if you’re not near a particular station. The subways are as dirty and smelly as they were thirty years ago. The homeless people still move from the subway cars begging despite the warnings not to do over the announcements. The trains still stop between stops with no real explanation. And every time they do so, the loudspeaker does not give an explanation but always ends the lecture with ‘Thank you for your patience.”

I have always found that last part the most infuriating. When you are stuck in a metal tube going nowhere, you are at the mercy of the system. You have no choice but to be patient because if you ask a question or worse still, raise your voice, you are automatically considered a problem. If you get too loud, they might throw you off at the next station.

The only thing that has changed in thirty years on either is that the price on both keeps going up. You truly wonder why. It isn’t to improve the service because there has been none; it isn’t to make repair work because that never has happened. But the average New Yorker has no choice but to suck up it and take it. We have no one to complain to. We can write a letter to a newspaper if we have the time and energy, but that’s an act of futility. We might complain at a community board, but that takes effort and no one listens. And at the end of the day we know that its posturing because we are trapped by the system. What else can we do? Swim from Long Island to Manhattan? No, we just suck it up and seethe.

I have long considered that life is little more than a series of microaggressions. The one involving public transportation is the most glaring one in my life, but every day I go through at least one or two. We all do. Some of us, because of our race or gender, have to deal with far more than someone like me, a straight white man but we all have to go through them as part of our daily lives. What makes them worse is not merely the existence of the microaggression but that we can never get angry about any of them. As a straight white man, I am no doubt granted more latitude in many aspects of my life, but whenever I try to express any signs of frustration at the vicissitudes life throws me, whenever  I argue about the unfairness of it, whenever I even raise my voice, the response is always some variation on a theme: Calm down. That’s just the way life is. Why are you taking it out on me? It’s not worth getting mad about. None of this makes you feel better or helps you deal with these problems. Indeed, it makes you feel that there is something wrong with you. The best case scenario is that you have to bury your rage, day after day, month after month. We all know what happens when this rage boils over; we see it in so much of our lives. We’re desensitized to the violence in the world.

And what I have found more frustrating is that while one side continuously always blames guns and another side blames cultural differences, no one wants to consider the simple fact that so many of us are just plain angry. Both sides argue against the others grievance politics, saying that their grievances are real and the others are manufactured. That’s part of the larger problem: everyone agrees we’re all angry, but we have no solutions as to how do anything about it.  And worse, we each call the other sides grievances made up and not connected with reality.

This brings me to a revelation I have had about Donald Trump’s popularity with a certain part of America. It has nothing to do with his politics or the movement he represents. It has nothing to do with his privilege or his utter contempt for society. It doesn’t even truly have to do with what he actually says. The reason so many people go to Trump rallies no matter what he says or does is simple: Donald Trump get to yell and scream and say how unfair the world is and never gets punishes.

I do not have one bit of commonality with anything Donald Trump has ever said or done in his entire life, and that includes well before he even considered running for President. But don’t kid yourselves: there is a part of every single person on this planet who wishes they could hold a rally like Trump does and just vent. The left is very clear that’s all he does: vent, scream at his perceived slights, bemoan the unfairness of the world and call everybody he doesn’t agree with names. If some part of that has never appealed to you at any point in your life, if at some point in your life you haven’t just wished you could do what Donald Trump was and suffered no consequences for it, in fact be worshipped by a certain people for doing so, then you’re lying to yourself.

Both sides of the political spectrum are agreed about so many of the fundamental basics: the system is irrevocably broken and just doesn’t work the way it should. Every agrees that the world is just plain as simple a mess and only seems to get worse every day. The institutions that are supposed to work for us don’t work now and maybe never have. What none of us are allowed to is scream about it, not just in public but to anybody at all. We are just at basic level told that it’s part of life or that you’re making too much of things. None of these things do anything to abate our justifiable hostility towards this. We’re told that is just how our society works.

So in that sense Trump does not represent to much a political movement but the national id. I have a feeling that the fact of his wealth and privilege appeals who the Democrats claim the right is exploited for that reason. Donald Trump, despite his wealth and privilege, has spent his entire life in politics playing the victim and claiming he is being persecuted. Don’t pretend that so many Republicans – so many people -  don’t have that exact same feeling in their everyday lives.

For at least twenty years, the Democrats have argued that the Republican party and the conservative moment has no real policy and is simply a culture of grievances. Let’s say that they are right. I’ve read enough articles from progressives and the left to know that they have any many grievances as the Republicans do. What makes their grievances less important or significant to them than the ones that the right has? I certainly have never read articles from at least the beginning of the Trump era to argue anything otherwise or even so much as empathy for them.

The left rarely talks about the people who vote Republican specifically. The most generous interpretation that they have willing to give in their articles – when they are not calling them outright racists, sexists or homophobes – is that they have been brainwashed into a way of thinking from Republican politicians, Fox News and conservative pundits. This is, to be clear, demeaning and insulting enough because it fundamentally argues that these people  are incapable of having these opinions on their own and will simply listen to any voice that shouts at them, but fine, let’s meet them on the idea they are suffering from a massive delusion.

When a therapist has to deal with a patient who is suffering from delusional thinking, such as an irrational fear, they do not dismiss his clients fear as irrational. He spends time talking to them, trying to meet them halfway. They try to get to the core of their problems, why they feel this way and what the real reason is, use logic and dictum to try and get to the root cause and do everything they can to help them. This is a long-term process, and it may not succeed, but if you know your patient is sick, a therapist is obligated to help them.

The progressives attitude to so much of the Republican voters thinking in this regard is that of a therapist going to a claustrophobic, yelling at them that their fears of closed spaces is something only stupid people believe, that no reasonable person would be scared like this, and then locking them in a closet for a week and waiting for them to get over it. Overdramatic? I’ve read enough articles written by people on the left, commentators on MSNBC and so many so called ‘enlightened Americans’ that take this exact attitude. They argue that whatever fears that a Republican voter or people who live in red states might have are false ones, not even worth considering by ‘reasonable people’. They will then often in articles argue about how many Republican voters don’t graduate college, saying not very subtly they are ignorant. They will argue that these people believe in these things because they live in rural areas that people who grow up in ‘civilization’ would not think this. And of course because so many conservatives thinkers talk in racist and sexist views, all of these people must have these same views just because they lives in states that vote for candidates who might espouse these views.

That’s if they were to give them therapy in the first place. Just as often, when you hear Democrats talk say, when they chortle about ‘the brain drain’ on red states or how states led by Republican governors are suffering from advanced poverty or Covid rates, the acknowledgement is as much a dog whistle as they accuse the Republican of making. It translates to: the inmates are running the asylum, so let’s not waste time treating them.

From so many of these newsletter, you constantly hear variations on the same things when it comes to Republican officeholders or the people who vote for them. “Their time is almost over.” “They are on the wrong side of history.” “The change that is coming is inevitable and it will sweep them away.” That is not a tone of accommodation or inclusivity. It is the political equivalent of so many of the microaggressions that we deal with on a larger scale. It’s telling you that the phone that you’ve had for five years has to be replaced because none of the new technology you’re going to need these days is compatible with it.  It’s telling that you’re going to have to refile your documents with the government to get disability payments because they didn’t read your form correctly. It’s telling you that even though you’ve been waiting in the subway for fifteen minutes waiting for your train to move that we still have no idea when we’re going to be moving but ‘thank you for your patience’. And then having to go home and learn another fare hike is coming.

Are all of these minor versions of what so many of us have to deal with? I don’t pretend they’re not. But to just give answers that you have to do these things whether you want to or not because that’s the way the world works, it makes you hostile towards the world with no outlet. It makes you want to rant at the unfairness of the world or call people dirty names or look for someone who says they can fix or at least is as angry as you.

I honestly think that the way to solve the problem that so many people think Donald Trump represents to society is simple. The Republican Party just has to tell him that if he drops out of the rate. they will pay him the same exorbitant fees gets from fundraising. He can give all the rallies he wants; it’s the only part of the job he ever liked. All he has to do is just rant on stage for two hours and in the last five seconds say: Vote for such and such a candidate.

I’m not saying it solves any of the systemic problems we face in our society (I’m not convinced either side truly wants to solve them, but that’s a story for another day) but it would let Trump to do what he – and America really need him to do – be our national outlet. Be the Complainer-in-Chief. I’ve always thought that the world would benefit from their being some phone line where the caller could just scream for one minute about all the things that bother them in daily life. Why not let Trump fill that purpose for the nation? We’re all fundamentally angry at the world and we all agree life is just unfair. Let him spend the rest of his life saying that for all of us. He’s been doing that anyway all his life. Let it be a contribution to society. I know I might feel better about my daily life if I could turn on TV somewhere and just hear someone rant about how unfair fare hikes are. Why not let him just do that on a national level?

 

 

 

Lost Rewatch On VHS: Not In Portland

 

I am not the kind of person to give credit to the Emmys, but when it came to Lost with the sole exception of almost entirely shutting out Season 2, they mostly were fair and generous with the nominations and awards they got. I’ll even extend it to their decision to not nominate Season 3 for Best Drama; while I do think it was superior to Heroes and Boston Legal, the show had taken a hit in the ratings and reviews and I get the logic. I admit I would have liked more acting nominations than the series ending up finally getting but when you consider the caliber of the casts of all of the dramas at the time – and in the second half of the show’s run it would the level would increase exponentially – then I have to give credit for the voters when it comes to recognizing as many actors as they did over six seasons.

However, the most glaring omission in the minds of many fans (and in fact, contemporary critics) was to ignore Elizabeth Mitchell for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama the three seasons she was a regular. This would be particularly glaring in 2007 when four of the six nominees for Best Supporting Actress were from other ABC dramas (three from Grey’s Anatomy and Rachel Griffiths from Brothers and Sisters; Katherine Heigl would end up winning that year.) My opinion of Grey’s Anatomy fluctuated wildly over time and while I thought Heigl was a deserving winner (she was the only actress on the series who I genuinely thought deserved a nomination at the time) I was then – and am now frustrated at Mitchell’s being shut out. This is particularly glaring when you look at Not In Portland and Mitchell steps into the spotlight for the first time.

Juliet has been a fascinating character to watch over the first six episodes, and indeed even people who were having trouble watching the series during Season 3 were fascinated by her character. (Indeed TV Guide would name Lost Number 8 in its 2006 top ten list as much because of Mitchell’s performance as anything else.) Now Juliet becomes the first Other to get her first flashback – and what we learn is a revelation.

As always the opening is designed to fake us out. We see Juliet on a beach, staring out at the water weeping. Then she walks down a shabby looking hall with a flickering light, Ethan walks out of a door (creepy as ever) and says hello. She walks into an apartment, towards a sleeping woman, takes the stylus of a phonograph and blows out some candles. She looks at the woman, and then the woman wakes up. Then the two of them start talking and its like we don’t recognize what we’re seeing. Juliet is kind and caring, and clearly doesn’t want to do what she’s doing – especially when we learn the woman is her sister, Rachel. (You could be forgiven for not knowing she’s Robin Weigert; there’s no aspect of Rachel that seems in the same universe as Calamity Jane.) Then Rachel says she likes living on the beach and Juliet tells us that this is Miami. Our preconceptions of Juliet have done a one-eighty.

Then we’re back literally where we left off at the cliffhanger and Juliet is stock still. By this point Kate and Sawyer have taken advantage of the turn of events and the two of them turn the tables on Danny. Juliet, however, is the picture of calm. She informs Jack that his noble plan is for nought and that they are on a different island. When Jack starts making demands, Juliet takes on the ice cold attitude we’ve seen her show before but never with Jack in the room. She calmly orders a random other to help Danny and tells her to bring ‘Ford and Austen back. If they resist, kill them.” Mitchell should have gotten an Emmy nomination for the opening alone.

Jack has been put on the defensive but he does have certain cards to play he turns on Juliet and tells Tom that she told him to kill Ben and make it look like an accident. Juliet is ordered out, and Jack is very cool about he intends to follow through…and then it turns out Ben is awake. Awkward. (As is the scene where Jack tries to ask professionally towards the man he’s just said he would kill: ‘Are you in pain?”) The scene that follows is both incredibly cold and quietly hysterical; Ben realizes he’s been outmaneuver but is still trying to control the situation. Similarly awkward is the scene where Tom and Jack watch from the observation room, though when Tom says to Jack: “They’ve got history”, we can just tell there’s a backstory here. (This will pay off a lot in Season 3.) We watch the dumbshow and Juliet is also clearly upset at one point, but when it does she composes herself, walks out and tells Jack to finish the surgery because she’s going to help his friends escape.

We spend much of the episode trying to understand Juliet’s motivation and we get a very clear picture of it in her flashback. Juliet was a fertility specialist who at one point was married to the equally brilliant Edmund Burke. By this point Zeljko Ivanek, one of the great character actors of all time had moved almost entirely away from his everyman and was now fully embracing villainy. He had already proven his chops in as the repulsive Governor Devlin in OZ, the series that had started the revolution, and had played one of the key villains in the groundbreaking first season of 24. (I was immensely gratified that the following year he would deservedly take home an Emmy for his incredible supporting performance as a conflicted Texas attorney in Damages another of the great series in Peak TV.) Ivanek at this point needed to say and do very little to ooze sleaze and he does it to perfection in his three scenes with his ex-wife, in which he flaunts an affair with a new research assistant right in front of her, attempts to blackmail her to get in the research in the next scene and just before his exit from the world of Lost has a line that basically tells us everything we need to know about Edmund Burke: “Because you’re insufferable and you’re mean. Well, you asked for the truth, Mom.”  It would later be considered by fans of the show that the bus accident is sloppily done, even if it isn’t being staged by the Others; I honestly think that works in the show’s favor. The Others have decided that they’re not even going to bother to make this particular ‘fate’ look subtle or even well done; Edmund Burke doesn’t deserve some giant manipulation.

Juliet looks very much the same but we don’t recognize her in her flashbacks. In every scene she’s in, she seems to be either in tears or on the verge or completely unsure of herself. It’s pretty clear that her ex-husband has her under her thumb and the only person in her life who offers sympathy is Rachel. Most regulars on Lost don’t have any siblings and the two we’ve seen so far (Eko and Charlie) have had problematic relationships with them in their lives, so its nice to see two sisters who are willing to do anything for the other. Juliet has experimented with research not for scientific advancement but to help her cancer ridden sister have a baby. And when Rachel realizes her dreams, the second thought she has after getting healthy is to thank her sister and to basically order her to take the job with Mittelos.

And it says a lot for Juliet that, after everything her husband put her through, that she still has the capability to weep when she stands over his body at the morgue. In that sense the fact that Mittelos has gone out of their way to recruit her for the island is very strange. Almost everyone in the Others we have met so far has essentially been ice cold to everyone in their circle and rarely capable of acting with empathy towards the rest of their group. True Danny did go into grief when Colleen was killed but he is fundamentally full of rage. We never see much camaraderie among the Others, perhaps because they have sacrificed it to a higher purpose. Juliet has been an exception because, as much as she does not want to be on the island – she was told she’d be here for six months; she’s been here for three years – she’s clearly as tried to blend in and build a life. This affection hasn’t been reciprocated so far in Season 3, and it may very well be because even now, the rest of them view as an outsider.

If it were just for what we learn of Juliet in this episode, Not in Portland would be a great episode. But there are many other layers, most of which will pay off in the series going forward. The most significant one is subtle and the fanbase could have been forgiven for not noticing it at the time; I know I didn’t. In the flashback we meet: “Mr. Alpert”, the representative of ‘Mittelos’ who has been sent to recruit Juliet. He presents himself as a corporate headhunter and it seems he’s been sent here because the island needs Juliet to help with a problem involving her specialty. We are not yet aware what that problem is but based on the research, they clearly need Juliet’s help with fertility. The viewer is honestly more interested in that and later on the return of Ethan that you’d be inclined to dismiss Alpert, who we have yet to see on the island at all. He’s just another Other, so it seems.

We’re more interested in Alex, who has resurfaced in a big way and seems hellbent on getting Kate and Sawyer off the island. This is the first time that Alex has had more than one scene since we officially met her in ‘Maternity Leave’ and she makes a hell of an impression. She has hidden places all over the island, is able to meet Sawyer sarcasm for sarcasm, and offers to help Kate and Sawyer escape if they can find Karl, who she is frantically trying to find. She is so determined to save her boyfriend that she finally reveals her ‘secret’ – she’s Ben’s daughter.

Now given who we suspect Alex’s mother is, the conclusion is pretty obvious: when the Others came to Rousseau Ben was one of the party and he’s been raising Alex as his own ever since. Why he subsequently put Karl in a polar bear cage we can’t comprehend – and when we see where he’s been holding him, we really question what kind of father he’s been. Some parents are overprotective of their children dating but locking your daughter’s boyfriend in a room to be deluged by an endless scope of images and loud music and noise, with an IV stuck in his arm, seems a little extreme even by the standards of Others. We spent so much time trying to interpret the images Karl is seeing that I don’t think we pay enough attention to the actor’s reactions. The music is so loud that we can’t hear anything - Kate shouts for a while; Sawyer just stares and Alex stands over Karl pleading. Kate keeps trying to pull Karl loose while Alex starts to cry, frantically looking at him. (Full points to Tania Raymonde in this scene.) Finally they manage to haul Karl to his feet and get him out of there.

(Aldo, the hapless guard who falls for the ‘Wookie Prisoner Transfer’ is played by Rob McElhenney. By that point It’s Only Sunny in Pennsylvania had been on the air for two seasons  and McElhenney, a fan of the show, was cast in what he no doubt thought would be a one episode cameo as comic relief. Lost, as we will see, didn’t let this loose end dangle.)

Some have questioned why Juliet ends up killing Danny at the end of the episode rather than radio Tom have been confirm what Juliet’s telling him. I’ve now rewatched the show often to know that even if he had heard this from Ben itself, it would not have made a difference. Keep in mind the last episode ended with him fully intending to kill Sawyer, and that was before he was beat up, shocked by him and stuck in the same cage. Danny was going to kill Sawyer and Kate even if Ben had been standing in front of him at the time, and Juliet knew it as well as the audience did.

The last scene before that happens is profoundly moving as it signifies so many departures. Alex clearly wants to run away with Karl and from her father, but she cares so much for him that she is willing to trade her freedom for his. It’s a very touching scene. Kate and Sawyer are about to leave, when Juliet, who has not forgotten the conditions takes out the walkie-talkie and puts in front of Kate. Jack is in the middle of a crisis involving Ben, but even now he won’t relent. Kate tells the story we heard in the pilot about Jack’s first solo surgery  - and given that she basically tells it back to him word for word, it speaks volumes to her devotion to Jack. Is it purely by chance that by the time she’s finished telling the story, Jack has ‘fixed’ Ben?

At the end Jack officially tells Kate that he is trading his freedom for hers, ordering her never to come back. The final moments are profoundly moving Kate is in tears, pleading and Jack silently orders Tom to turn the walkie-talkie off. Sawyer, who has been completely silent during this exchange, just tells her they have to leave. (Holloway is superb in this scene without saying a word. You can tell by the look on his face the torment he’s going through, both at the sacrifice Jack is making – and the fact he’s now certain that Kate is in love with Jack.) The two paddle off with an exhausted Karl in toe. We know even before the next time we see them that Kate has no intention of taking this seriously.

At the end of the episode we have learned so much about the characters, but particularly Juliet. We now realize that, just like everyone else we’ve met, she wants to leave the island as badly as they do. But unlike the survivors of Oceanic 815 she is different because she was brought her under false pretenses, has been here far longer, and most importantly knows far better than them the kind of man Ben Linus is. She has been given the same deal Jack was for helping save Ben’s life, and she is even more desperate to believe it is true. But she’s also been with the Others for three years. Which side will she come down on?

 

VHS NOTE: While this episode was airing, we saw promotions for the first of a three-part event series on Grey’s Anatomy that would involve a ferry crash that would result in Meredith going through a near-death experience. This episode would be one of the major Emmy nominees for Grey’s Anatomy that year – and it is, in my opinion, one of the last truly great storylines they said before the show began to go off the rails.

The Decision To Postpone The Tournament of Champions is A No-Brainer

 

I won’t deny that I feel that, while the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are noble battles that need to be fought, the owners will end up winning anyway because they always do and when it comes to entertainment, the public’s patience when their pleasures are being delayed is always minimal. That doesn’t mean that, even when it comes to the immediate effect on some of my great joys as a TV watcher, I’m still not completely and fully  on the side of the writers. I make no exception even when it comes to Jeopardy!

When the last writers’ strike took place in 2007-2008 I have no memory if this had any effect on Jeopardy at the time. There was never a disruption in new episodes and even if the show was using recycled clues, it never seemed obvious. Such will not be the case when it comes to Season 40 and it is clear the producers are scrambling.

To be clear, this is because of a box they choice to put themselves in. They made the decision early last year to put all of the ‘postseason’ to open Season 40. That included the Tournament of Champions. They made this bed. They really should have had a backup plan.

And to be perfectly clear, I fully support the fact that most of the participants in the next Tournament have made it well-known that they will not participate until the strike is resolved. Much of this was made public by Ray Lalonde, who won thirteen games and just under $400,000 during December of 2022 and the first days of 2023.

Ray’s job was a factor in his decision. He is a scenic artist who has worked on many television series and films. He has decided to support the unions who are vital to his own livelihood. The stoppage has no doubt hurt his job, so his principled stand even more meaningful.

At this point, most of the participants in the upcoming Tournament have agreed with Ray’s stand. This costs them less than his as most of them don’t work in the entertainment industry and can wait as long as they want. Still they are standing with the writers of the show that brought them acclaim, and that has to count for something with them.

I thought the decision to have the Tournament at the beginning of the next season was not particular a wise one and will honestly not be bothered if it postponed. Jeopardy Tournaments have not had a hard and fast scheduling for the past forty years; it won’t kill anybody for it to not happen in October and November. And honestly, I can live in Season 40 itself takes a while to begin. Jeopardy decided to terminate play in 2020 because of Covid, deal with the passing of Alex Trebek in November of that year, dealing with the restrictions of travel and illnesses as a result of lockdowns, survive the passing of Alex Trebek, a constant stream of guest hosts, everything that happened with Mike Richards and playing to basically empty studios for two years. It has survived all that. If it really thinks that the writers of the show didn’t have something to do with its success and even thriving in the post-Trebek era – well, they are as thick as the studio heads who think they can make their movies and TV shows without writers and actors.

On a separate note, Mayim Bialik’s decision to stop hosting the show in the final month of the season was the only one she could make. She is, after all, an actress first and a game show host second. It was the right decision.

Ken Jennings is a more problematic one. Jennings is not an actor and one doesn’t think that a game show host is truly a performer. It was probably bad optics for him to cross the picket line after SAG went on strike, but it is one that is at least explainable. So Wil Wheaton, you shouldn’t yell at him for that. You can, however, justifiably berate him for choosing to cross the WGA’s picket line.

And really Ken this was a real blunder on your part. I’ve spent a lot of time praising your work over the last two years, and you have deserved much of it. This decision, however, was really tone-deaf. How many books have you published since you’re streak on Jeopardy ended? Do you really think you would have gotten any of them published if you hadn’t been successful on Jeopardy?

Yes I know, you write books not screenplays or teleplays. Don’t try to thread that needle with me: a writer is a writer. Throw in the fact you were briefly writing clues for Jeopardy before Alex died and you look like the biggest of hypocrites here. When this is over, you are going to get some ugly looks backstage, and you will have completely  earned them.

As to the decision of  Jeopardy to keep shooting episodes while the strike was going on, I will let that slide as that apparently happened during the last strike. But it will be bad optics for the show if they choose to try and begin Season 40 in whatever form before the strike is resolved. Considering how much controversy has been surrounding the show over the last couple of years, this is really something I think they should stay away from for their own good. (I’d actually argue given the nature of the last few weeks they should have stayed away altogether, but I’ll save that for my final thoughts on the season at the end of the week.) This is going to be a messy situation for everybody; the last thing the show needs is to be considered as part of the work of scabs.

And on a personal note: when you do get around to having the Tournament of Champions, maybe have Bialik do it this time. I’m not entirely sure some of the participants will be able to keep up the happy face if they have to see Jennings this time. Just a thought.

Enough unpleasantness. I’ll do a final season assessment  later this month.

 

Historical Figures Series, The Electoral Path of Ronald Reagan, Part 2: 1968, The Campaign That Never Got Off The Ground

 

 

Hard as it may be to believe in this era of it being a Democratic bulwark, for much of the 20^th century California was essentially a swing state. Harder to believe, much of that period it was reliably in the Republican corner.

Of course back then, Republican had a different definition and that was particular clear of California. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party manage to take the state. In 1916 California showed its electoral importance for the first time in a Presidential election. Charles Evan Hughes looked like the likely winner on election night but after the votes were all counted, Woodrow Wilson ended up winning by a mere 1300 votes. The thirteen electoral votes it carried ended up being the difference in that election as Wilson won with 277 electoral votes to 254 for Hughes.

For the next three straight presidential elections, California was solidly in the Republican column. Indeed in 1924, Democrat John W. Davis finished third in the popular vote in California to Calvin Coolidge and Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette, running on the Progressive ticket. Like most of the country California went into the Democratic ledger in all four of FDR’s victories and as I mentioned in my series on Tom Dewey, not even the presence of Governor Earl Warren was enough to stop it from it going to Harry Truman in 1948. Richard Nixon’s presence on the Republican ticket under Eisenhower no doubt played a large part in its returning to the Republican fold in both of his victories and even when JFK won in 1960, the state had gone to Nixon. The fact that LBJ had managed to carry in his landslide victory of 1964 meant nothing to the Democratic establishment; they knew they’d have to watch it carefully four years later.

For that reason when Ronald Reagan managed to upset Pat Brown in 1966 in his race for Governor, the Democrats took as a sign that problems would be on the horizon two year later in that state. Reagan was not yet being considered as a serious candidate for national office yet, but the fact that he was governor of one of the biggest states in the union meant they couldn’t outright dismiss him.

During the last twenty years California political figures had become considered likely candidates for the Presidency. In fact, when he made a stop there in advance of the California primary in 1956, Theodore White thought that there might be as many four serious contenders for the Republican nomination in years to come from that state: Nixon, Earl Warren, William Knowland, then the minority leader in the Senate and Goodwin Knight, the incumbent governor. The latter three had all won election the last time around by winning both the Republican and Democratic nominations for their office. While Pat Brown had never made much of a national impact, his defeat of Nixon for reelection in 1962 had raised his national profile – and his stunning loss to Reagan had raised his.

Reagan clearly had a desire to try and earn the nomination for President in 1968 but would get off to a late start mainly when the conservative branch of the party wanted to stop Richard Nixon.  I find it hard to believe that even if Reagan had made more of a concerted effort to do so that year, he could have gotten the nomination for what was probably the most obvious of reasons.

Just four years earlier, the conservative wing of the GOP had nominated Barry Goldwater and it had ended in disaster for the party. Most of the conservative wing had retreated into the shadows but Reagan was by far the most obvious face of it, having made one of the most famous campaign speeches for him a month before election day. Considering the Republicans clearly had an opportunity to win the White House just four years after LBJ’s landslide seemed to have completely destroyed the party as force, it is highly unlikely that the old guard would have let Reagan do so.

Still the same forces that had been the architect of the Goldwater campaign, including Clifton White had been determined to make the effort. Reagan had been ambitious to make the fight but in the summer of 1967, a scandal erupted in the governor’s office. His chief of staff, Philip Battaglia was discovered to be openly gay and was having affairs with his junior staff. Nine of them went to Reagan and demanded that Battaglia be fired. At the time Reagan had a decent relationship with the gay community in Hollywood but the national attitude and the California electorate forced him to replace him with William Clark. This decision effected his confidence and made him cautious. It is likely that if Reagan had just said the word at any point in 1967, Reagan could have taken the Southern bloc of delegates and deadlocked the convention. But he tarried along the way and by the time he made his move before the convention, Nixon’s men had snatched them all up.

Reagan’s name was written in on many of the primaries  but he did not make an official try until the Nebraska primary on May 14^th. He obtained 21 percent of the vote but Nixon still won in a landslide. Two weeks later, he managed to get roughly the same amount in Oregon while Nixon again destroyed the competition. Nixon stayed out of the California primary and Reagan took the entire delegate slate unopposed. Reagan would also win the North Carolina primary, the only Southern state on the ballot without even campaigning.

The liberal wing of the party was headed by Nelson Rockefeller who was even now more out of step with the party. While he managed to defeat Nixon in Massachusetts by a small margin, any chance Rockefeller had for the nomination would only be possible if a stop-Nixon movement developed at the convention. It would come down to a decision by the governors in the Southern states who were inclined to support either Nixon or Reagan, and whether there were enough Eastern states that could support Rockefeller.

Reagan’s conventions effort were geared towards ripping away the southern delegations from Nixon, South Carolina which was commanded by Strom Thurmond (in Nixon’s camp) and Texas, led by John Tower while Rockefeller would do the same for the East. The problem was twofold. Reagan and Rockefeller both wanted to stop Nixon, but neither was willing to let the other be the force of stopping it. And second, with the memory of the chaos in the 1964 Republican convention fresh in everyone’s mind, no one truly wanted there to be a fight on the floor. No one truly loved Richard Nixon, but it was not worth destroying a golden opportunity to win the White House, particularly in a year with so much chaos in the country.

For all that, the final tally on the first ballot was less imposing than it appeared. Nixon won the nomination with 692 votes to Reagan’s 182 and Rockefeller’s 277. However, Nixon had needed 667 to win the nomination – and only received 25 more than that. There had been room for all sorts of possibilities. If the Reagan people had managed to get Florida and its 34 delegates away from Nixon on the first ballot, Nixon would have been short. Similarly Rockefeller’s decision to take to long to announce had changed Spiro Agnew, then the Governor of Maryland who had been a staunch Rockefeller advocate for a year, to eventually give his states eighteen delegates to Nixon. Arkansas, which was governed by Winthrop Rockefeller, Nelson’s brother, could have gone for either man and Reagan’s decision to tarry had cost him the South that would be his base. Reagan no doubt could have been the victor on a second or third ballot.

However, I feel very strongly that even had Reagan managed to start his campaign early, win over the South, managed to prove himself to the Old Guard and get the nomination – all of them big variables – he would not have prevailed in a general election against Hubert Humphrey.

The first and most obvious problem would have been that of George Wallace. As we shall see Reagan’s base was in the south and much of the Reagan vote would be the kind of voter Wallace appealed to. It is likely the two would have divided the South even more than usual. However, at that point Reagan did not have a general appeal within the North and Eastern states and it is far more likely that the votes that ended up going to Nixon in 1968 would have gone to Humphrey instead.

There are other questions in place. Unlike Nixon who refused to debate Humphrey, it is likely that Reagan might very well have accepted Humphrey’s challenge to debates. It is unclear, however, if this would have helped him or hurt him. Reagan was a skilled orator and debater but at that point in his career he was far less polished, particularly in comparison to Hubert Humphrey, who few questioned was one of the greatest campaigners and orators of his era. Humphrey would not have underestimated Reagan and would have been more than prepared for him. Considering that he had a gift for humor and language, Humphrey very likely would have outshone him.

Just as important was the likelihood that Wallace would have been invited to participate. Much as few people would have wanted to give Wallace a podium, his polling numbers were high enough that it would have been foolish not to. And unlike Jimmy Carter, who would famously refuse to debate John Anderson in 1980, Humphrey would no doubt have been more willing to share the stage with Wallace.

If that happened, who could say what the end results would have been? Few could accuse Wallace of not being as gifted at his oratory as Humphrey or Reagan. Could he have risen in national prominence by such a debate? Or would have potential voters listened to both Reagan and Wallace, found there wasn’t much difference, and gone for Humphrey instead? It is  impossible to say for sure.

But perhaps the most important issue of the campaign would definitely have hurt Reagan: the Vietnam War. Reagan was notoriously a hawk and while much of his rise to prominence had been due to his ‘law and order’ agenda, his particular wing of the party believed more in escalation in Vietnam than a negotiated peace. (Reagan would famously oppose the Nixonian policy of détente and berate the eventual defeat in the years to come.) It is hard to picture a world where this particular campaign attitude would have helped him in a general election, even if he had been willing to moderate. For all of Nixon’s false promises in having ‘a secret plan’ to win the war, I’m relatively certain given the national mood Reagan’s attitude of open escalation would have helped him.

Which brings us to the final wrinkle. As I mentioned in the Humphrey article, in the days before the campaign LBJ looked like he was about to bring a negotiated peace in time before Paris pulled out – due to the machinations of the Nixon campaign. At that time Reagan did not have the international connections to do such a thing and (if I’m being honest) he did not have the kind of personality to allow that to be done in his name. It is likely that this would have probably led to a Humphrey victory. (On a side note if Reagan had actually gotten the nomination in 1968, the end of the Vietnam War might have been something we could have thanked his candidacy for.)

So I think if Reagan had somehow gotten the nomination for President in 1968, he would likely have gone down defeat. Probably not as badly as Barry Goldwater four years earlier (it would probably have been as close at the actual 1968 election) but his political future very well could have ended right there. And just as certainly the conservative movement in the GOP might well have been finally crushed. It would have been one thing to lose to LBJ in a landslide, but if the circumstances had been lined up for a Republican win and the conservative movement had somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory anyone even associated with the Reagan and Goldwater campaigns would have been drummed out of the party. Given the state of our politics today, it might not have been the worst thing for the GOP.

But Nixon had managed to win a narrow victory. Reagan no doubt was going to have to bide his time. In the next article in this series, I will look at the era between Nixon’s 1972 electoral landslide, how Reagan’s hopes for the White House no doubt could have been crushed for good had Watergate never happened and how he finally decided to take on Gerald Ford in the critical 1976 Republican primary.