Welcome to Derry: Reviewing Chapter One

 

 

In a couple of weeks' time I will be doing by annual Top Ten TV shows of the year. I can't state with certainty Welcome to Derry will officially make the list though I have confidence it will be there in some form.

What I can say after witnessing what the creators have now officially labeled as 'Chapter One' I have made three very broad and related judgments about the show.

First Welcome To Derry is officially the best TV adaptation of a Stephen King work in my lifetime, moving ahead of the ABC miniseries adaptations in the 1990s of The Stand and Storm of the Century. Second, this is one of best adaptations of intellectual property that I've seen in that same period for television, up there with such HBO classics as Watchmen and The Penguin. And lastly it is now among the first tier of prequels or origin stories for TV I've seen over the years among such standouts of Bates Motel, many of Greg Berlanti's Arrow-verse and the canceled too soon Dexter: Original Sin. It has a bit to go before it surpasses such masterclasses as Andor and Better Call Saul but its off to a promising start.

That said this won't be a review of what make the first season a masterpiece on  a creative level as a tribute to how the Muschietti siblings and their team of extraordinary writers have been faithful to all of the source material from their own films to the original novel. It will also deal with some of the theories I speculated on a few weeks earlier and some questions that I, in thirty years of reading King, never thought to ask. So let's go.

 

There actually was a Pennywise the Dancing Clown!

I've lost count of how many times I read King's original novel and I know one thing for sure. Never once in all those years did I wonder why Pennywise had the name Robert Gray.  I'm not sure if King himself ever considered why he named that character in that fashion and if he did he hasn't shared that in the forty years since he was published. I certainly in all that time never even considered that Robert Gray might have been as much a victim of IT as all the children that had been eaten by Pennywise over the centuries.

Now it's worth noting that in that book when Bev encounters Mrs. Kersh she will tell us that her father was Robert Gray, aka Pennywise. But since she also says, 'my mother was all my father' and is revealed to be another glamour of IT I assume that every reader took it as just another lie. Certainly neither the TV limited series nor the film version do anything to contradict that possibility.

So imagine my amazement when the penultimate episode of Chapter One told us that not only was there a real Robert Gray but that his daughter actually was Ingrid. (We'll get to that revelation a little below.)  I will grant you the writers had done much to imply that in the previous chapter but considering the source material I genuinely thought it was the delusion of a lunatic. And then we learn that yes Bob Gray existed, he was a clown with a traveling circus and we was a loving father who cared for his daughter very much. Bill Skarsgard must have been delighted when the writers created this part of the character for him; he has done an incredible job as Pennywise for more than eight years but he's never gotten a chance to be anything but the nightmare. By showing that Gray was just another victim of Pennywise – no doubt one of countless ones over the centuries  - it makes you realize that in a larger context  Derry Itself is the monster and the clown just another victim. And that brings me to the next part…

 

Poor Mrs. Kersh!

In my  most recent speculation I theorized two possibilities as to who Ingrid Kersh was: that she was an acolyte of Pennywise or another resident that IT did to do its evil over the years. It turns out it was a bit of both as well a third option: Ingrid was another victim in the long game that IT plays.

Having lost her father in 1908, we learned 27 years later she encountered him while working in Juniper Hill in 1935. Having lived that long she knew what summoned him but she also believed there was a chance she'd see her father again. And so for that reason she called Chief Bowers anonymously and used him to summon the mob to start the fire at the Black Spot.

It's clear Ingrid had been driven partially crazy by her father's disappearance and was no doubt subject to years of abuse by her husband (who absolutely deserved to get killed by Pennywise) So seeing her dressed in the makeup that she had shown to her father the last time they'd spoken fifty-four years earlier was truly sad and at partially explained her horrific actions. And just to be clear to see her become yet another victim of IT at the end of it, driven insane and put in Juniper Hill having seen the deadlights makes her yet another tragic victim.

In that sense the epilogue showing the senior version of Mrs. Kersh now brings her arc full circle and not just with the film. I suspect those who watch the movie will now feel a huge sorrow when they realize who Mrs. Kersh real was: another in a seemingly unending line of children destroyed by Pennywise. On a separate note given the writers plan for the series Mrs. Kersh may very well be the one character who links the entire story together now that we know for certain she is in Derry in all three time periods planned for the series.

 

Welcome to Derry is linked to The Dark Tower

In my previous article I speculated regarding the totems:

…there are even subtler links to The Dark Tower here, most notably when we were told that there are thirteen totems that keep It in place. Now if you've read the series thirteen is a number of significance because there are thirteen 'baubles' that have immense magical power. Roland is told of them in Wizard and Glass by his father: "Twelve for each of the Guardians and one for the Dark Tower itself." And if you try to control them, they will absolutely destroy you."

 

This was made clear in regards to the dagger the closer we got to the end of the season. We were told that the longer you held this totem the more it would drive you mad and we saw this playout with Margie, Ronny and Lilly during that final episode.  I think the clearest parallel is to Black Thirteen the most destructive of the 'baubles' listed, and not just because you could see 13 on it. That bauble is by far considered the one that the longest you have it the more it destroys you and that was definitely clear.

And its worth noting that leading up to that there was a clear picture of where the twelve totems were and if you freeze frame the screen (which all good fans do) you will see that each one is linked to another on the other side much like the 12 beams surrounded the Dark Tower as Roland told us in Waste Land.   The metaphor was extended by saying that the thirteenth totem had to be at a certain place to block the evil that was unfolded after the geniuses at the military base decided to destroy one of them in order to free IT (That may also be a different form of canon as I'll list below.) To be sure in the books it where all the beams intersect and in Welcome to Derry it's on the border but the principle is the same.

By the way the fact that just before everybody in Derry High school became possible victims of Pennywise we saw someone in a Turtle suit. Not a coincidence. Hopefully in future seasons will actually see to see the 'Turtle of enormous girth'.

 

The military operation has to be a Shop plan.

It didn't stun me to learn that General Francis never planned to win the Cold War with the totems but rather to free IT in order to turn America into Derry. The speech he gave in the penultima episode to General Francis is exactly the kind of mindset you would expect from the military that were about to drive us into the Vietnam War.  (Yes, it's also a bit of the conservative ideology but it is the 1960s and the General is a white man.)

And yes it also makes perfect sense that as a literal fog of evil begins to run over the town of Derry no doubt killing countless people and brainwashing others that the military acts as if everything is going to plan.  It also makes complete sense that they would try to stop the only people trying to save America and no doubt the world.

Why? Because this is the work of The Shop.  These are the exact kind of people who would have no problem giving drugs to a group of students and turning them into psychics, then killing the parents to try and track down and use Charlie McGee as a weapon. They are the people who when being told by the top scientist that this six year old girl "could someday  crack the world in two…like a China plate" would not only still take the girl prisoner and utilize her for testing but also kill the scientist who warned them.  And I have little doubt its this kind of mindset that will infiltrate the thinking that will lead to the creation of the superflu in 'other worlds than these' and the mindset of Colonel Kurtz who will try to track down an alien force in this very town decades later in Dreamcatcher.

So to be clear I was rooting for General Francis to get his head torn off by Pennywise when he got to close to it in those final minutes and I was overjoyed when it happened. You play with Winter Fire you deserve to get burned – or eaten by a monstrous clown.

 

Pennywise does know about the threats to him in the future…or the past.

Again I speculated this as early as the fifth episode but I was stunned as to how the writers proved it to me – even though they were hiding it in plain sight the whole time.

We'd been watching Margie the entire series wondering when she'd become part of the group. Margie had a pair of thick glasses and was clearly crushing on Richie in this season. In the fifth episode her eye nearly destroyed her – which in case you were curious was a nightmare than in the book Richie Tozier had his whole life. Obviously I think our hearts all utterly broke while the Black Spot burned down and Richie went out of his way to sacrifice himself for the girl he clearly loved.

The writers weren't exactly being subtle in this but I was blind side when Pennywise confronted Margie and told her that one day she was going to get married to someone named Tozier and have a son she would name Richie. Now it makes perfect sense not just in keeping with the novel but everything else: of course she would name her son for someone she loved and who sacrificed his life for hers.

And it did confirm in a way I suspected that Pennywise was aware of potential threats to him. Considering Will Hanlon is Mike's father and one of his original victims was Teddy Uris, no doubt a distant relative of Stan, I was on point with that. I didn't suspect that Pennywise Itself might see time differently than humans but it would track with so many of the adversaries we see in King's fiction. Randall Flagg, the villain King wrote the most about in his fiction, notoriously believes he has the ability to see the future and views time differently. And we get a similar sense with the Crimson King as well.

Nor was this the only confirmation of how IT operates. As we saw in that final scene in Juniper Hill Mrs. Kersh had an encounter with Beverly on the worst day of her life: when her mother committed suicide. We already know IT operates on the worst fears of ITS victims and this one was more personal to Bev. (Props to keeping the cameo of Sophia Lillis hidden.)

Margie and Lilly's speculation at the end of the episode confirms how Pennywise is no doubt planning to try and win. In 1935 IT will no doubt try to track down the descendants of the Losers who were still in Derry back then. Perhaps there we will encounter the Denborough family or the Kaspbaraks neither of whom we saw during the current season.  Three of the seven Losers ancestors were accounted for in some form in Chapter One. It would make sense if we saw the other four in the next two seasons.

 

I actually have one more question now that Chapter One is over that I hope the writers answer in the coming seasons.

 

Are the Bowers family being used by Pennywise as a way to get to the Losers?

We can't forget that during Chapter One the Police Chief of Derry was Clint Bowers, the grandfather of Henry who will being their biggest human adversary both in 1989 and 2017. Bowers spent most of Season 1 interacting with this generation of Losers trying to find Hank Grogan's murder and before he was forced out of office he told the mob where Hank was suspected to be. We now know the reason the mob was really sent was as much to kill the threat to Pennywise as to end the cycle.

I want to go on record I don't think this was just an Easter egg.  I think just as IT knows which people can be a threat to IT over the generations, IT knows what they can use for a tool. Yes Ingrid Kersh called in the threat but Chief Bowers was the adversary against everything this group of children were trying to stop for much of Chapter One and that set everything in motion for the fire at the Black Spot. Perhaps we'll see a younger Clint Bowers when it comes to Chapter 2 which will focus on the massacre of the Bradley Gang 27 years ago. Perhaps being in law enforcement isn't the only thing passed down in the Bowers family.(Although he does seem saner than his son and grandson will be.)

 

For the record even thought Welcome to Derry has not officially been renewed for a second season considering that the ratings have been increasingly exponentially with each new episode – 5.1 million viewers just last week – it's a matter of time. So I feel very strongly that we'll be coming back to Derry in 1935 very soon. We'll be in the middle of another major crisis, of course: the Great Depression. An era of great financial precariousness across the globe and countries around the world were looking to strong men to lead us out of the crisis, with the idea that democracy was about to become a failed experiment. So no parallels to today any more than in Chapter One!

 Oh and here's a historical spoiler: Maine was solidly Republican in 1932 and in all four of FDR's elections never once went for him.  So if the residents of Derry talk  about how America's becoming communist or that FDR's a radical leftist who someone should put a bullet in that's not the writers arguing about today's politics. That's how New England genuinely felt about 'That Man'.

Either way I look forward to the next chapter whenever IT comes. And don't worry about Dick Hallorann at the end. Compared to what he went through in Derry the Overlook hotel will be child's play.

 

 

 

 

 

Hollywood and Politics, Interlude:California's Involvement in Primary and Convention Politics The Highs and Lows

 

 

Before I continue with the direct discussion of this article I believe now would be a good time for a digression that I was planning to include in this series: the role of California in primary politics.

Starting in 1952 presidential primaries began to take an increased role in determining the nominations of Presidential candidates of both parties. At the same time with the expansion of California's population the number of delegates it was sending to conventions was becoming a sizable factor in how both political parties began to reckon with their involvement. California had held presidential primaries before but the majority of them had been non-binding as were the majority of presidential primaries until after World War II. For that reason California would become increasingly important to candidates of both parties when it came to contending for the nomination.

The peak of this period came during the presidential elections between 1952 and 1976. And since during this period political figures from California were increasingly becoming prominent in discussions of Presidential candidates – regardless of which party they belonged to this was pretty much the height of their power.

So in this article I will briefly discuss the California Presidential primaries during this period as well as their role, if any, at each major convention between this period.

 

1952 Republican Primary

In the leadup to the 1952 Presidential election it seemed likely the Republicans would take the White House. One prominent contender was the governor of California Earl Warren. In 1950 Warren had made history by winning his third consecutive gubernatorial election. He had served as the vice presidential candidate for Thomas Dewey in 1948, a role he had not wanted but had been told if he didn't take it he had no future in national politics. He might have been the only Republican relieved when Dewey lost to Truman.

On November 1951 Warren threw his hat into the ring. He knew he wouldn't be able to win the nomination outright but he hoped to have enough delegates to possibly be a dark horse and win if the convention deadlocked between frontrunners Eisenhower and Robert Taft.  While he attempted to campaign in Wisconsin and Oregon, his main focus was a win in the California primary and control of the 81 delegates. He would win easily and headed to the Chicago convention.

What he didn't know was that the junior senator from California Richard Nixon was being actively courted by the Eisenhower forces. Nixon had been making moves even before the convention to bring the candidates in Eisenhower's fold. Before the convention began Dewey, high in the Eisenhower food chain, went to Nixon and asked if he would be interested in becoming Ike's Vice Presidential candidate. (Eisenhower had no knowledge of this at the time."

At Chicago Taft controlled 525 delegates, Eisenhower about 500. Warren had 81. There was a struggle early on between contested delegations in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana of 75 delegates. If Taft won them he would almost certainly clinch the nomination. Eisenhower's strategist proposed a 'fair play Amendment' that would force a floor vote about seating the delegates' with the winner of the nomination almost certainly at stake. The Eisenhower forces won.

Before balloting began on the Presidential nomination Taft approached Warren and offered him the cabinet position of his choice if he released his delegates to him. Warren declined as much because his views were more moderate then the conservative senator. He didn't release his delegates to either candidate. Instead Minnesota delegation, led by Harold Stassen did so after the initial count, which put Eisenhower over the top.

After Eisenhower won election he would call Warren and promise him the first vacancy on the Supreme Court.

 

1956 Democratic Primary

In 1956 Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver announced he was running for the Democratic nomination. Kefauver had done extremely well in the 1952 Presidential primaries but concern about him as a national candidate led to the Democrats choosing on their third ballot Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. Despite Stevenson losing in a landslide to Eisenhower he chose to run again in 1956. This time, however, he would have to run in the primaries.

Kefauver would win the New Hampshire primary in a landslide, then trounce Stevenson in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The two men battled back and forth but in the California primary Stevenson trounced California decisively.

Kefauver actually won more primaries than Stevenson: 9 to 7.  At the Democratic Convention Stevenson decided not to name his Vice Presidential candidate but leave the decision to the delegates. It quickly became a battle between Kefauver and the 39 year old junior Senator from Massachusetts John F. Kennedy. Kennedy would briefly lead on the second ballot but eventually the delegates shifted to Kefauver and Kennedy made the nomination unanimous.

The Stevenson-Kefauver ticket was trounced in November but people remembered the impression of Kennedy.

 

1960 Democratic National Convention

When JFK made his historic primary campaign for the White House he intentionally chose to leave California out of the running. The new governor of the state Edmund 'Pat' Brown ran unopposed and he would hold the delegation.

The Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles for the first time in 1960. During the convention a stealth campaign for Adlai Stevenson was running and it kept trying to convince numerous delegations of five major states to shift their votes to Stevenson on the first ballot to stop Kennedy from getting the nomination outright. They would fail in every state except California where governor Brown would agree to give 41 of the states 81 delegates to Stevenson on the first ballot.  Despite that and a rousing nomination speech by Minnesota's junior senator Eugene McCarthy that led to an hour-long demonstration Kennedy would end up narrowly winning the nomination on the first ballot.

 

1964 Republican Primary

All through the leadup to the 1964 Republican convention the party knew it was headed for a disaster during a confrontation between the two biggest men in the party. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

Both men had major drawbacks. Rockefeller's moderate views, while in touch with the electorate at the time, were increasingly anathema to the conservative base of the party. The bigger problem was that he would begin an affair with socialite Happy Murphy while both of them were married to other people. The two would divorce their respective spouses and marry each other during 1963. In a conservative America that considered divorce a sin, many citizens were appalled and Rockefeller seemed eliminated from serious consideration.

Goldwater's views were popular with a growing number of conservatives but they were out of touch with the majority of Republican officeholders who were terrified that if he were to run they would suffer an electoral disaster at the polls. They felt this well before the assassination of JFK.

Both men entered the Presidential primaries and a pattern developed. Goldwater was doing well in caucus states but not the primaries. This was clear from the start where Goldwater finished second in the New Hampshire primary to write-in candidate Henry Cabot Lodge. The pattern held throughout and in Oregon Rockefeller won in a landslide and Goldwater finished a distant third.

It all came down to the California primary.  The Goldwater camp knew that while they had a huge number of caucus states it was fragile and if Rockefeller could sweep California and the New York primaries he would win 178 delegates more than enough for the bosses to get behind him. And on the Friday before the California primary Rockefeller was leading by 9 percent over Goldwater 49 percent to 40 percent. The Goldwater forces put out a barrage of press releases to try and prevail but they were helped by an outside factor.

On May 30, 1964 Happy gave birth to Nelson Rockefeller, Jr.  This reminded countless conservative Californians of Rockefeller's violation of family values and overnight Rockefeller's lead collapsed. The final election count was incredibly close: Rockefeller would carry forty of the forty seven California districts in play but Goldwater would win Orange County – and Los Angeles by 207,000 votes to narrowly win. Under the unit rule he was entitled to all 86 of the California delegates. Rockefeller could read the writing on the wall and withdrew from the fight.

The battle to come up with an alternative candidate was a disaster. So was the convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. By the time Goldwater uttered his famous words: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice…Moderation in the defense of tyranny is no virtue!" the Republicans across the country knew the optics and essentially withdrew from the fight, leaving Goldwater to be landslided by LBJ in November, despite a speech given by an actor named Ronald Reagan that October in Hollywood to speak for the California base.

 

1968 Democratic Primary

Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel after giving his speech celebrating his victory of the California primary on June 6^th would mythologize him in the eyes of millions. It has been commemorated and made a part of the lore of so many Hollywood films about the era, including those of Oliver Stone to 2006'S Bobby. Lost under the tragedy is the fact that aides would acknowledge years later:  even the Kennedy campaign was sure that within a matter of days Hubert Humphrey would wrap up the nomination.

The fact that going into the New York Primary Bobby Kennedy faced what he knew was an uphill battle against Eugene McCarthy has been ignored, as well as the fact that the Lyndon Johnson was more in control of the party and that he loathed Bobby Kennedy.  Also ignored is the fact that as events unfolded during Chicago he considered renouncing his decision to not seek reelection and had starting talking with the Texas delegation to see what would happen if he made an appearance in Chicago. (He was only talked out of it because Mayor Richard Daley said that if  the President showed up in the riotous city, he could not guarantee his safety.) There is little doubt in my mind that Johnson would have done the same thing had Kennedy lived.

 

1972 Democratic Primary, Democratic Convention

As I've written in multiple articles the race for the 1972 Democratic nomination ended up turning on the California primary and a debate between Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern.

Humphrey knew that everything turned on the California primary, which itself was a subject of controversy. Before the primary schedule the California primary had been winner take all, which had angered the McCarthy delegates after Kennedy had won it by a narrow margin. There had been fight over but it had been decided that it would remain the same. Now 271 delegates were at stake. If Humphrey were to win, McGovern, who already had 560 delegates to Humphrey’s 311, might be stopped before the convention. The Humphrey campaign was understaffed and underfunded against McGovern and it was only due to the efforts of the campaign treasurer that the campaign was still solvent. On May 18^th, polling showed that McGovern might win by as much as twenty points.

Humphrey’s campaign decided their own hope was to show McGovern’s fuzziness on the issues to the California audience. They would challenge McGovern to three televised debates in order to wreck him. Humphrey’s position was to attack on his campaign theme :’Right from the Start.”  And that is what he did: “I believe that Senator McGovern, while having a catchy phrase…”Right from the start, that there are many times that you will find he was wrong from the start. We were both wrong on Vietnam. He has been wrong on unemployment compensation…on labor law. On taxation he is contradictory and inconsistent..”

McGovern froze and peddled water for several minutes. He told Theodore White that he had not expected such a ferocity of attack from a friend. He had been advised by his campaign to go after Humphrey had but he had not taken him seriously.

Humphrey came across as harsh while McGovern seemed nicer and few people actually saw the debates at the time. But time and the press were about to catch up. McGovern’s lead in California began to erode bit by bit. On primary night, McGovern underperformed by a huge margin. He ended up winning California by five points and that was enough to eliminate Humphrey  - in theory But while the McGovern campaign considered the debates attack harsh, none of them yet knew how critical they had been. Before the primary McGovern had been within five points of Nixon. After that the gap began to widen and he never came that close to him again in the polls.

Humphrey’s candidacy, however, was not quite over. The Democratic National Convention the following month should have been a coronation for McGovern and his followers. The problem was the old guard could see disaster if McGovern was the nominee and was determined to stop it. And California was at the center of it.

The ABM (Anybody But McGovern) coalition insisted that the law of California contradicted the new rules of the Democratic Party and that McGovern was only entitle to 120 of the 271 delegates. The coalition had taken over the rules committee and by a six vote majority, McGovern had lost 151 delegates. Everything was being done to deny McGovern a first ballot nomination: once he lost control of them, the old guard could take the convention. Humphrey was more than willing to be quoted by the New York Times as part of that guard.

The McGovern managed to outmaneuver the ABM – and Humphrey – by a parliamentary maneuver. The McGovern campaign decided to vote against the seating of the South Carolina women’s Caucus in order to overturn a ruling that the McGovern seating had already won. This decision would eventually lead to the California delegation going for McGovern. The problem was, it appeared to the Women’s Caucus that McGovern had double crossed him. This would lead to the McGovern coalition beginning to fall apart. With the omission of so much of the old guard under the quota system, a platform that went too far for even the most loyal Democrats and the disastrous hunt for a Vice President, the McGovern campaign was doomed by the end of the convention.

 

1976 Democratic and Republican Primaries

In a sense 1976 marked the highwater mark for California in presidential politics as two Governors of the states – one current, one former – were making a concerted effort to receive their respective parties nomination.

The former was of course Ronald Reagan who has spent the 1976 primary season in a challenge to incumbent President Gerald Ford for both the nomination and the direction of the Republican Party. It had been a back and forth battle the entire year and on the final day of the primary season Reagan and Ford were still deadlocked with three big states still in play: California, New Jersey and Ohio. The Ford campaign decided to concentrate on the latter two states assuming Reagan would naturally sweep his home state. As a result of some dirty campaign ads which Reagan would never forgive Ford would manage to overwhelmingly win both New Jersey and Ohio negating the California sweep.

Leading up to the convention in Kansas City in two months’ time, both the Ford and the Reagan campaigns made every effort to try and win over the more than 400 delegates who were uncommitted.  Working through state conventions Reagan had managed to lock down 178 delegates during state conventions, while Ford had managed to get 114 with 64 uncommitted. The battles would go back and forth for the next month, with neither side gaining much of an advantage and neither side able to give an inch.

As the weeks went on Reagan knew that he had to do something daring to try and take the momentum from Ford, who was using all the trappings of the White House to pull delegates in. He then came up with a daring strategy that seemed inspired but ended up costing him the nomination. Reagan had never really cared for the traditional, midnight crash sessions to decide on a vice presidential candidate and considering how fresh the memory George McGovern’s disastrous pick was in the memories of both parties, it was hard to argue with him. He chose John Sears and Paul Laxalt, the manager and chairman of his campaign to make a recommendation for him. Both these men were tacticians who believed in winning, not ideological purity as most conservatives clearly did. Their decision was not to worry about the south, but rather the hope that take could make inroads in the Northeast.

The man Sears and Laxalt eventually agreed upon was the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania Stephen Schweiker.  While Schweiker was not a ‘knee-jerk liberal’ as was considered by the conservatives later on.  While his voting record was liberal, Schweiker was opposed to gun control, abortion and the ‘Captive Nations’ argument. Furthermore, he was in the convention as a Ford delegate, so it might very well undermine the Pennsylvania delegation. Reagan asked simply whether he thought Schweiker would do it.

On July 24, the two men had their first meeting. The two got along fairly well. Schweiker told Reagan: “I’m no knee-jerk liberal.” And Reagan replied: “I’m no knee-jerk extremist.” The next three hours were spent planning how it could be done, how to make this the element of surprise that would undermine the Ford campaign.

The first sign that this would not go as planned for anybody was when Schweiker called Drew Lewis, a friend of his and a key member of the Philadelphia delegation. Lewis refused to go along with Schweiker’s decision.  The party conservatives were also shocked and angry, particularly in the Mississippi delegation. The problems got worse when the official announcement took place. When questioned on his position on the Panama Canal, a major bugbear among conservatives that had been one of the guiding forces behind Reagan’s primary campaign Schweiker bloviated for several minutes before admitting he had no position. In the eyes of the conservative caucus, this was viewed as a betrayal. Southern conservatives began to defect and the only way to ensure a rebound was to make movement about the Pennsylvania delegation that would trigger switches in New Jersey and New York.

It never happened. Lewis called Ford at the White House and assured him that he would hold at least ninety delegates for Ford on the first ballot.  The Ford campaign, led by Dick Cheney knew that they had to make a play for the Southern delegations. Their target was Mississippi where the Ford campaign had spent a lot of time and energy courting the head of the delegation Clarke Reed. The state had never been as solid for Reagan as the campaign had hoped, and the selection of Schweiker lit the fuse.  Reed ended up saying prior to the convention that he was bringing the 30 delegates to Ford. But nobody was sure.

When the convention finally began, Sears played one last card. He was determined to force Ford to show his hand on the vice presidential nominee before the convention. He decided to propose what amounted to a floor fight over what would be called Rule 16-C and if it worked, it might undo whatever momentum Ford still had. The problem was the rule didn’t sit well with conservatives. As Jules Witcover pointed out with some irony: “they did not look favorably on an upset to the status in any regard, even if it was to the benefit of their candidate.”

Again everything came down to Mississippi and Clarke Reed, who was having second thoughts again. Reed’s haphazard personality kept everybody guessing through the next few days. Finally after three days the Mississippi delegation of sixty (thirty of them were alternates) finally voted: 31 to 28 against 16-C. That was the final battle; the actual role call was anticlimactic.  Later that week, Gerald Ford was nominated with 1187 to Reagan’s 1070.

On the Democratic side the current governor Jerry Brown (Pat's son) nicknamed Governor Moonbeam because of his spacey behavior had been favored by many for the nomination since his election. Late in the campaign season with Jimmy Carter still ahead in the drive of the nomination Brown and Idaho's Frank Church would challenge Carter in several late primaries. Brown would end up winning Maryland, Rhode Island, Nevada and doing well in Oregon while Church would win Nebraska, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. On the last day of the primaries Brown would win in both California and New Jersey but when Carter won Ohio Mayor Daley, the last of the big city bosses would declare Carter the winner. Brown would have his name placed in nomination at the 1976 Convention role call as Carter ended up winning.

 

After this California would increasingly become less important to the determination of the Presidential nominee, either by coming too late to do anything but confirm the front-runner's win after the majority of the delegates had dropped out or, as would be in the case of the 1980 Democratic primary when it went to Ted Kennedy, serve as an afterthought.  It has been moved about constantly over the years but at this point in campaign history it is more significant in popular culture's history being critical in Season 1 of 24 or on shows such as The West Wing.

 

 

 

 

Homicide Rewatch: The Damage Done

 

Written by Jorge Zamacona ; story by Henry Bromell & Tom Fontana

Directed by Jace Alexander

 

In many ways The Damage Done is the most important episode in Homicide's history to this point, as significant to the series' second half as Adena Watson's murder in the Pilot was. Like so much else involving Homicide it was done almost by accident I still don't know if when decisions were made. And in a way the repercussions of the character introduced here would be felt not just throughout Homicide's run but would be just as significant to how much of 21^st century TV would unfold, not just on HBO but overall.

Homicide was to this point famous for not following the traditional police procedural structure of having villains in the traditional sense. The series dealt with the banality of evil better then any major drama during the 1990s with the exception of The X-Files. The monsters on this show were very human and frankly not particular interesting in their own rights,  which made the crimes they committed all the more horrific. That is until Luther Mahoney came along.

The effect that the war on drugs had on Baltimore was at the center of Season 1 but since then it has increasingly gone to the backburner. Considering that the majority of homicides in Baltimore, then and now, were drug related some fans of the early seasons were no doubt chafing at how 'formulaic' these red balls were becoming. 'The Damage Done' is the first episode in a long time to directly deal with the body count that this has in Baltimore eventually coming to see it as a battle between two opposing forces.

Considering this episode introduces Luther Mahoney its striking how little he actually appears in the episode. One of the best tricks of Homicide was how little it was willing to actually show its primary force of evil and malevolence and this would continue right up until…well, you know. Erik Todd Dellums only appears in two scenes and the last one is almost incidental to the story, so passing you might almost think his character was going to be a one-shot. This is true of the Mahoney organization in general: we rarely see Luther and when we do in so many of his appearances he's so careful not to be doing anything overtly monstrous. The aura is enough.

It's not clear which of the major drug lords in The Wire Mahoney is the most like. It's true he has the idea of the community organizer roles and never personally getting his hands dirty that we would see in Stringer Bell but he has such clear menace and unctuousness in his tone that we can only see how Avon Barksdale works. The latter is more likely an influence considering, like the Barksdale crew, it is based in family though we won't learn that part until Season Five. There's also an arrogance to him that seems to be daring the detectives to catch him knowing how safe he is from protection. In that sense the way that the detectives – Kellerman in particular – begin to take Mahoney's flaunting of the law increasingly personally will be made very clear in Jimmy McNulty, though in the latter's case his attitude is based more on the fact that he wants to prove he's smarter than the drug lords he chases. With Kellerman and Lewis they're more upset because of the body count he racks up.

In truth to this point I still find Kellerman and Lewis's attitude more forgivable than McNulty's when it comes to the drug lords they chase. The fact that Mahoney is responsible for so many deaths and keeps skating infuriates them because they can't stop the man responsible for so many murders. McNulty is a narcissistic personality who wants to catch drug runners because as to how it reflects on him personally. In his mind drug dealers and addicts dying is just how the world is, what he wants is to be recognize for the fact he's smarter than the bosses.

And its interesting to compare Giardello's reaction to the dead bodies as opposed to Rawls. Where Rawls is always angry when a string of dead bodies comes Giardello becomes increasingly cheerful and sanguine as the red piles up under Kellerman's name. This is actually more effective than Rawls' profanity. The detectives are used to the ranting of their boss in The Wire, but Kellerman and Lewis become increasingly unsettled the nicer Gee becomes. (And it's a lot more fun to see the always imposing Yaphet Kotto playing against type.)

Speculation about influences on The Wire aside (we'll deal with it more in future seasons) The Damage Done is another fine episode which gives another chance for Reed Diamond to shine as Kellerman. Much of the discussion in the early stages is about the two detectives sex lives (note how Lewis does not share) and when Kellerman learns that he is about to be connected to a triple homicide his reaction is typically Baltimore PD. "With all this overtime, I'll never get schtupped."

We get a sense of the drug war in Baltimore from every angle in a way we haven't in a long time. The episode begins with the raid on the supplier, we see a street level dealer engaging in a re-up before he gets killed, then we see a very up class white woman stepping into a car owned by her dealer.  We also get a chance to see two narcotics detectives for the first time since Season 1 (and one will become critical in regards to this storyline two years later) as well as the sanguine to the point of bloodthirsty attitude of the narcotics to their jobs when they realize that they now have less work to do. We also get the very blunt perspective of the neighbors who have to live around them; in the aftermath of three people being killed a neighbor says he knows what they were doing "but it's considered more of a sin to be on welfare then deal drugs in Washington." Seeing as we've just seen a rich white woman by from people she no doubt personally despises the statement is clear.

But the squad is just as unsympathetic to Kellerman. Bayliss seems to take a special joy in watching the new guy have to deal with four stone cold whodunits and Pembleton wants to be clear that he and his partner want nothing to do with it in case things go badly. Of course they eventually agreed to help on a bust and actually cheer him when the case is closed  - Frank of all people actually leads the cheering section which is actually nice of him.

And its worth noting Kellerman and Lewis acknowledge themselves just how well 'the game' works for some of these people. Prior to a bust that the target is going to get $50,000 Lewis acknowledges its better than waiting to hit the lotto.  And waiting outside a club for their target they acknowledge the expensive cars a lot of these people are driving. This leads to a conversation about "whether you've ever been tempted". Kellerman acknowledges that every cop in Baltimore knows what they're talking about: they raid a bust on a stash house and there's a whole pile of money lying around. Lewis and Kellerman both claim they've never been tempted but Meldrick acknowledges that he gets why a patrol officer might be.  Considering that The Wire will never actually deal with corruption at this level of law enforcement in its entire run (most of the cops who were labeled that way were just the ones who had been ground down by the system) its fascinating that Homicide will not only talk about it but in fact address the issue in a far more direct matter than its successor. (And almost by chance it presages Kellerman's major storyline the following season.)

In keeping with how Homicide works we only learn of the major monster while pursuing another one Antonio Fortunato, aka Drac.  The man connected to the dead bodies Kellerman and Lewis, after a great deal of effort, track him down. His attitude is not unlike Mahoney overtime, ridiculously cheerful to the point he almost seems to be baiting the cops. But once he's brought in the conversation takes a more interesting turn.

Drac has no official criminal record, went to the same high school Meldrick did and indeed their paths took similar courses. When Drac learns Meldrick walked out of Lafayette Court, he's astonished he's still alive and actually thinks he's a role model. He graduated with a 3.1 average and had a track scholarship but somehow he ended up here. And he has a far more realistic view of the world of drugs then we ever hear Mahoney state: he knows that he has made bad choices but he also knows that this is very much how America works. He clearly mourns the deaths of those he lost and while he's combative he's not nearly as nasty.  There's more empathy in Drac's one appearance then we see in any of Mahoney clan in the two years they are part of the series, not just towards the cops but even their employees and their own family.  You could make the argument that Mahoney is no more cutthroat then a corporate CEO – in which case the real comparison for him as a villain is not anyone on The Wire but George Hearst on Deadwood while Drac for all his sins still has empathy.

The first impression we get of Mahoney is someone who really seems to enjoy baiting detectives. One of his first lines is "I'm smart' and that's the defining aspect of Luther. His aura of the community organizer is so fully realized that there's a good chance the people who only know that side of it don't know anything about the other – and if they do, they don't care. We'll see this model carried out in several brilliant shows that will unfold in the next decade, most notably Gus Fring in Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul.  (The fact that Giancarlo Esposito actually starred in Homicide – albeit after all stories involving the Mahoney clan were resolved – might have served as an influence for his character: many of the traits we see in Luther are very obvious in Gus Fring on both sides.)

The show is essentially a drug war: we see Drac's crew kill one of Mahoney's suppliers in the opening (we don't learn the connection until the episode is half over) and Luther retaliates by taking out five different members of Drac's crew.  It's never clear how many of Drac's crew were involved in the murders or if Mahoney was just using the raid as an excuse to wreak vengeance on one of his rivals. We will quickly learn Mahoney is a man who believes that he is the king of the mountain in Baltimore and those who encroach him have violated the code. As we'll learn, he is big on principle but he is the only one who gets to make the rules.

The episode clearly has far more sympathy and empathy to Drac in the climatic raid on his home. Kellerman has been nursing a grudge as the episode continues and when Drac runs he takes out his gun and it jams. He'll claim to be scared later on but we've already seen him struggling to deal with the burden of the deaths and everything involving Mahoney.

In this case Drac gets the jump on him and while he beats him up confesses in a way that might seem unrealistic but is in keeping with his earlier conversation with the detectives. He says that he's been running all his life and he's been afraid even longer. He also says he's guilty of a lot of things but he's innocent of this. And then he chooses to let Kellerman live, just as much out of his nature as he doesn't want a charge on him.

The case is solved when the narcotics detectives bring in a dealer with the gun that killed all six people. Both Lewis and Kellerman know that Mahoney has pinned the murders are a skell in order to stop the detectives from looking into him but that they can never prove it.

However the real reason that Kellerman wants to take down Mahoney comes in the final scene of the episode. The godmother of the last member of the Mathias family has arranged a candlelight vigil outside the precinct. Kellerman and she have been flirting earlier and Mike is about to ask her out when she introduces him to Danny. This clearly dents Mike's heart. Then as the candles are lit and Amazing Grace is sung we see Drac show up at the vigil with his wife and daughter. He catches Kellerman's eye. A look of understanding is there.

And then a shot rings out. Drac falls to the ground bleeding with his family screaming. Kellerman runs to him and frantically tries to tell the man who held a gun on him to hang on. The shooter is caught down the block and Kellerman tells us Drac is dead.

And then Luther walks up holding a candle. Instantly we know what has happened. Mahoney has taken the opportunity to murder his great rival and what better way to assure his alibi by being right next to him when it happens. Kellerman knows this and Mahoney knows he knows this. And he still looks at him and sense in a tone that is more of pride than sorrow: "What a waste."

This changes the game on the show in a way we've never seen. We have witnessed suspected murderers who we know are guilty escape justice on the show, either because the detectives couldn't prove it (the Araber) or because they have managed to arrange circumstances to alleviate it (Annabella Wilgus). But never before have we seen a man essentially commit a murder in plain view of the cops and all but confess his involvement to one of them and walk away free as a bird. The look on Reed Diamond's face in that final moment speaks volumes.

In a sense the fresh-faced fun-loving detective who was joking freely when we first met him is gone after this episode. It will be a while before the full effects are seen and Mahoney will not be the only reason it happens. But Luther Mahoney will end up haunting Kellerman the same way that the Araber will forever haunt Bayliss. We knew that not even his death would allow Tim any sign of closure and Mahoney will have the same effect on Kellerman. The difference is it will end up being far more destructive and the body count will be far higher. The writers could not have known that when they titled this episode The Damage Done but it was more prophetic then they could have dreamed.

 

Notes From The Board

When Meldrick tells Kellerman he is in love Mike thinks he's joking. He's actually telling the truth as we'll find out in the very next episode chronologically.

One of the narcotics detectives we meet is Detective Castleman. Given what we later learn about him there's a very real possibility that the police themselves may have played a role in making sure that the addict who they found with a gun got it from Mahoney.

Get The DVD: In this case I really do think the syndication takes away from the value of the episode. The use of Dawn Penn's "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No) as the drug war unfolds is extremely effective to the overall mood. Just as effective is the use of Garbage's Vow in critical moments, particularly in the final scene. This time the DVD is the better version.

Hey, Isn't That…Erik Todd Dellums was the son of California Congressman Ron Dellums who served in Congress for twenty six years as the first openly socialist Congressional candidate from 1970-1998. Erik had appeared in many Spike Lee films in small roles before starring as Luther Mahoney in 1996. Strangely enough he never chose a more elite role, though he has had some roles of significance over the years. He played Dr. Randall Frazier, a coroner on The Wire, Bayard Rustin in the TV Movie Boycott and made small appearance in Homeland. By and large most of his work has been small voice overs in video games such as Fallout, League of Legends, The Elder Scrolls Series and Star Wars: The Old Republic. His biggest voiceover work has been as Aaravos in The Dragon Prince on Netflix which ended last year. It's a great pity such a great talent has mostly done voiceover work – though what a voice!

 

Before The 2026 Jeopardy Postseason Begins We Actually Do Have Two New Participants for The 2027 Tournament of Champions

 

 

When Harrison Whitaker's remarkable Jeopardy run ended on December 1^st I told my readers that barring the arrival of a new Jeopardy champion my next article would be in regard to the Second Chance Tournament that will begin on Monday. I knew that there was a possibility of at least one new champion coming but I honestly expected nothing.

Instead in the last two weeks Jeopardy fans have seen not one but two players who will be in next year's Jeopardy postseason in some form. And it actually started the day after Harrison was defeated.

Libby Jones had won back to back games with over $70,000 in earnings. Then on Wednesday when her opponents was announced he had a last name any Jeopardy fan knew: Lalonde. As in Ray Lalonde who just three years ago became won thirteen games and just over $386,000.  Here was Ron Lalonde who very clearly resembled Ray. When Ken Jennings pointed that out in the interview Ron confirmed that he was Ray's identical twin.

Now to be clear the resemblance was uncanny and Ray had mentioned having a brother but in three years I had forgotten that detail. When Ken actually asked the question: "How do we know you're not Ray in disguise?" Ron's answer was: "Ray's in the audience." Cut to the audience with Ray Lalonde sitting right there.

Even the non-long time Jeopardy viewer thought: "Holy Shit! Has this become a soap opera?" To be fair in the over forty years history of Jeopardy we've seen countless permutations of relatives. This past year  Isaac Hirsch finalist in the 2025 Tournament of Champions and semi-finalist in the Jeopardy Masters reminded us that he is the son of Steve Hirsch who appeared on the show in its second season. I've heard of sisters, cousins and husbands and wives but an identical twin brother? That's a new one to me. Obviously I now had to root for Ron to win and he did on Wednesday defeating Libby, who will almost certainly be back for Champions Wildcard next year around this time.

Ron was good but not nearly  at the level of Ray. It is true he did manage to win the next two victories in runaways and he was able to respond correctly on twenty to twenty two responses per game but he also got the next two Final Jeopardys incorrect. In truth I thought he would be lucky to win five games at most.

And on Monday he got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round but he ran into a player who was slightly better Will Riley. It didn't help his cause that halfway through Double Jeopardy he found the second Daily Double in THAT SEEMS FAIR. In second place he bet $4000:

"These 2 words, one with an extra two letters, can be a promise of opportunity vs. the same outcome." Ron was stumped and so was I. The words were equity and equality. Ray gave 21 correct responses that day and 5 incorrect ones and that one Daily Double made the difference as going into Final Jeopardy he was trailing Will.

The category was AROUND THE USA. "A geological survey published in 1883 said this landmark was 'regular in its operations' that 'occur…frequently."

Ron wrote down: "What is Old Faithful?" That was correct but its clear he knew the game was up because below it he wrote: "I had fun." He bet just $1199 and he was clearly hoping Will would make a mistake. Will did not and he became the new champion.

We'll get back to Will momentarily but first let's deal with Ron. Now Ron has only won $52,501 in three games. As any Jeopardy fan knows three wins has been more than enough to get a Jeopardy winner into the Tournament of Champions in their own right most of the time in the last two seasons. At the very least he will likely be extended an invitation to Champions Wild Card next year.

That said I'm relatively sure that barring a plethora of multi game winners (which we can't rule out of course) Ron won't have to bother with the rigamarole that other Champions Wild Card players who have only won three games have had to deal with since it was created at the started of Season 40. Because come on: the story is just too good for the producers to pass up on. This is the identical twin brother of one of the greatest Jeopardy super-champions of all time. The fans are going to want to see if he can do better than Ray in the Tournament of Champions. I want to see it. I know I'm all for rules and order and against the lowering of the standards of entrants into the Tournament of Champions and have been for the last four years. But I am not immune to the idea of wanting to see certain players back again when it makes for a good story. To be clear I would be feeling differently if Ron had only won one or two games or even lost. I would have expected him to get invited back in the Second Chance Tournament because that would have been just as good a story. I will stand behind Ron coming back in the Tournament of Champions in 2027 with no questions asked, certainly not by me.

To be fair the man who unseated him Will Riley is going to be in the Tournament of Champions in 2027 without having to go throw any contortions. He has already proven so by winning the next three games in all the ways Jeopardy champions can. And in his case it took more luck than Ray was allowed particularly on Wednesday.

Facing off against Chelsea Carter and Eddie Kass it honestly seemed it should have been Eddie's day. However Eddie fell victim to the first Daily Double in the Jeopardy round which cost him a chance at the lead  and lost another $1800 on the second. In Double Jeopardy Will and Eddie kept going back and forth for the lead and each got a Daily Double incorrect. The two were actually tied but Eddie broke it with a $1600 clue in my new favorite category (though not the contestants): MAKE YOUR OWN WES ANDERSON MOVIE TITLE. I can't resist so let me give you the $1600 clue:

"The + 'Citizen Kane' director + high-in-the forest apple juice brand + book of maps. "What is The Orson Welles Tree Top Atlas?"   Tell the truth: you're already wondering who Tilda Swinton would play in that film.

That clue gave Eddie $13,800 to Will's $12,200 while Chelsea was at $4400. Will would later tell us that he discussed wagering strategies with his brother in Final Jeopardy and it clearly paid off.

The Final Jeopardy category was RUSSIAN LITERARY WORKS. "The son of a former serf buys this title area for 90,000 rubles above the mortgage." Chelsea was the only one who knew the correct work: "What is The Cherry Orchard?" She bet all but a dollar to put her at $8799. Will couldn't come up with a response and he wagered $3399. That put him at $8801 in second place.

Eddie wrote down: "What is the Gulag?" He wagered $11,000 which left with $2800 and gave Will a win that Ken told us in the next game he would use to pay off his student loans.

But Will's luck came to an end tonight against Trey Hart and Madeline Dawson. Will started strong but Trey managed to take a lead halfway through the Jeopardy round and never relinquished it. Will gave 20 correct responses but gave 8 incorrect ones; by contrast Trey gave 23 correct responses but got only three wrong and went into Double Jeopardy with $19,600 to Will's $10,395 (he lost a big $5 on a Daily Double) and Madelyn's $900.

The Final Jeopardy category was TV HISTORY. "A 1964 review of this TV special, still played today, mentions 'trials as an outcast' & 'the songs of Johnny Marks'. Neither Madelyn nor Will could come up with a correct response but Trey did: "What is Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer?" (As Ken mentioned many people will be watching this special this month.) Trey gained $4500 to make him the new champion with $24,100 as Will's run ended with four wins and an impressive $77,403. Ken hedged the idea that we would see Will in next year's postseason but according to Jeopardy Archive it is a done deal and any reasonable viewer would agree: it is more money then Bryce Wargin and Ashley Chan won in four games during last season and we will be seeing them in the Tournament of Champions in just a few weeks.

So for the 2027 Tournament of Champions three slots filled, only eighteen to go. Next week we'll focus on the 2026 Tournament of Champions and I will be back on Wednesday with the results of the first group of semifinals for the Second Chance Tournament. I keep my promises.

The History of Hollywood & Politics, Part 2: How Hollywood Both at The Time And Now Took The Wrong Lessons From McCarthyism and its Effect On The Industry

 

 

Upfront it is important to state that in the moral definition the HUAC and the actions of Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s were an abuse of power and despicable. However both at the time and especially decades later and to this day historians, various progressives and Hollywood in particular have chosen to do what so many members of all three groups do: take events out of context and view it in moral terms rather than the big picture.

To be clear there was never any real danger of the Communist Party taking over America at any point in our history: it's doubtful even the most diehard defenders of McCarthy will argue otherwise. But the reason that so many people chose to believe McCarthy even after his fall has to do with multiple reasons, almost all of which are excluded years after the fact.

The first is, of course, that McCarthy's rise to power happened at the exact same period Communism's dictatorial drive were at its height. Stalin had just taken over much of Eastern Europe and it was only because of the policies of both the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine that the boundaries held where they did. Not long after this Mao and the Communists would officially take power in China and spent much of the next twenty years trying to take over countries in Asia, most notably Korea and Vietnam. Indeed at the start of 1950 the Korean War was declared and while it would initially seem to be able to stop the division of Korea it very quickly bogged down in a quagmire that would end with Korea being divided into a Northern Communist country and a Southern more democratic one. Coming just five years after the end of World War II after Americans had united to stop a fascist totalitarian state bent on world domination, we now seemed to be facing a communist totalitarian state with that same goal in mind. These fears were no doubt deep in the heart of every single American to an extent.

As I said in my previous article in October of 1947 62 percent of Americans thought the Truman administration was soft on Communism while only 24 percent felt it was just right. This feeling extended during Truman's second term as the argument "Who Lost China?" became part of the political conversation.  And it's worth noting a speech McCarthy gave in 1952 when he was running for reelection:

"In 1945, at the time of the first conference to map out the peace after the Second World War, there lived within the Soviet orbit 180 million people. Lined up on the antitotalitarian side were 1,620,000 people. Today just seven years later there are 800 million people under the domination of Soviet Russia: an increase of over 400 percent. On our side the figure has shrunk to under 500 million. In other words, in less than seven years, the odds have changed from nine to one in our favor to eight to five against us. The threat of global communist domination is a reality that can be ignored at the risk of our annihilation."

McCarthy, who was best known for pulling figures out of thin air to justify his actions, was completely correct with the math in this speech and every one in Washington knew it. And it is no doubt one of the reasons that the horror of McCarthyism was not just tolerated but openly approved up during his tenure in power not just by the majority of political figures in both parties but the American public at large.

Another critical factor not taken into consideration as to why so many Republicans might have tolerated the vileness not just of McCarthy but men such as Jenner and Karl Mundt was simple. After the 1948 election when Harry Truman had referred to Congress in terms that was short of demagoguery and just an importantly led to an electoral upset Republicans in both houses of Congress were inclined to despise Truman. Indeed many of the failures of his second term were built out of the spite that Congressional Republicans felt for him. The one who was inclined to be the angriest was Robert Taft, essentially the power behind Senate Republicans even though he didn't hold the official title of majority leader.  McCarthyism and HUAC were essentially seen as wedge issues: a way to win back power in the midterms and regain the White House in 1952. Taft, a strident anti-Communist and one of the last diehard isolationists in Congress, was considered a front runner for the Republican nomination that year. Twice he had been denied the nomination by the so-called Eastern establishment; by Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Dewey four years earlier. Taft was the leader of what was consider the midwestern wing and after three straight election losses led by that wing, it seemed certain that the old guard conservatives would take it in 1952. (In large part because of that threat Eisenhower would choose to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination that year, though no one could have known that when HUAC swung into action.)

And its worth remembering that Joseph McCarthy was the first politician of either party to effectively use film and television to maximum political effect. Millions of Americans were glued to their sets watching HUAC hearings and McCarthy during the 1950s and while one can argue how many were disgusted the fact remains just as many were in favor of it. Indeed McCarthy and the actions of the HUAC were considered one of the key reasons the Republicans returned to power in 1952. (I'll get back to that in a bit.) And one of the things that no doubt drew so many viewers was the fact that HUAC was constantly calling actors and writers from Hollywood to the stands for public hearings.  In a sense the pillorying of Hollywood from 1947 on could be seen as little more than a publicity stunt designed to attract attention for millions of Americans to get people to vote Republican.

It's worth looking at Hollywood's role. To be clear there was nothing illegal about being a member of the Communist Party and the numerous fellow travelers who were blacklisted had the moral high ground. But two things can be true and it has to be said that they were also incredibly naïve,  members of the bourgeoisie who basically never had the nerve to commit to taking over America the way their Russian counterparts were more than willing to do in Moscow thirty years earlier.

I don't so much judge the creative people in Hollywood for doing anything illegal rather than being naïve to the point of stupidity, talking about Communism as a serious way forward for America when Stalin was becoming a dictator just as bad as Hitler if not worse. In truth those in Hollywood who became members had all of the horrible qualities of the left that were historically true a century earlier and are just as true today: wealthy elitists who think that their superiority makes them fit to judge what the best system of governments, communists for whom capitalism had worked out just fine, and lacking any real plan to make their politics into a reality. All of these were on full display during Henry Wallace's campaign for the White House in 1948 and it is worth reminding them how many of those actors and followers were fellow travelers.

And it is worth noting that the actions of the Hollywood Ten were the definition of those who thought that they were above the system and not only didn't cooperate but challenged the legitimacy of it, comparing the tactics – to Nazi Germany. "I am not on trial," John Howard Lawson said. "This committee is on trial." All of them were held in contempt of Congress and to a man all ten were found guilty sentenced to spend a year in prison. They chose to appeal believing the Supreme Court would void their conviction. They were mistaken and in 1950 they all began to serve their sentences. Notoriously Dalton Trumbo and other believed they were political prisoners who had never committed a crime.

As to the blacklist itself Lillian Hellman would famous argue that the studio executives were spineless when it came to confronting the government. This makes sense in the moral universe that Hellman and her colleagues lived in and not the business one that Hollywood was. The studio executives knew how popular McCarthy was and they didn't want their business to be associated with the radical politics of Communism which the movie going public was very much against. So the blacklist was as much an economic decision as a political one.

It's worth noting that after the Cold War those who survived chose to frame this as a purely moral decision and showed particular contempt for those who chose to name names. This was perhaps made the most clear in 1999 when the Academy Awards chose to present Elia Kazan with a Lifetime Achievement award.

Kazan was one of the best directors in movie history who received Oscar nominations for directing such films as Gentleman's Agreement, Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden and America, America. He also directed numerous other respected films as  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Viva Zapata!, A Face in the Crowd and  Splendor in the Grass. However at the height of McCarthy's reign in 1952 he chose to testify as a witness before HUAC and name among others Phoebe Brand and Clifford Odets. He was the subject of huge criticism from his liberal friends and colleagues. He justified his actions saying that he took: "only the more tolerable of two alternatives that were either way painful or wrong."

His colleagues, even those he didn't name, never saw it that way. In what it part of the martyr complex that has always been part of the left: it was more important to stay morally pure and face both the end of your professional career and possibly prison as opposed to 'compromising' but being allowed to keep making a living doing what you loved. And it is telling that Hellman chose to be the most condemning because for her she had a fallback position: leave Hollywood and go back to Broadway. The lion's share of those weren't nearly as lucky or as talented a writer as here.

It's worth noting that when the announcement was made the most bizarre commentary came from Rod Steiger who went out of his way to condemn Kazan. Steiger had come to prominence when he starred in On The Waterfront which was written by Budd Schulberg (and in some circles is seen as the two men's justification for testifying to Congress) and he received his first Oscar nomination for it. When confronted with this fact Steiger doubled down saying that if he had known about Kazan's actions he would never have starred in the film. Karl Malden, President of the Academy and Steiger's co-star in that film, pointed out "Rod is either ignorant or a liar." Given the behavior of so many of the left historically both are equally possible.

So much of what happened during the blacklist era could be seen as the first real example of how so many celebrities felt that their position allowed them to think that the rules of the government should not apply to them the same way it did everyone else. I have little doubt they felt they had the moral high ground and perhaps they did but it doesn't change the fact of their elitism and willful ignorance. And what must have galled them all the more was that much of this hostility was coming from a prominent California politician who rose to prominence on anti-Communism even more than McCarthy did.

Helen Gaghan  was an opera singer and actress who had starred on Broadway. In 1931 she married Melvyn Douglas, who would one day win two Oscars for Supporting Actor. A prominent friend of Eleanore Roosevelt she became a member of the Anti-Nazi league and had roles in the WPA and Youth administration. She became active in California politics in 1940 and in 1944 she ran for Congress, speaking at the Democratic National convention in 1944.

Douglas would serve three terms in the house championing issues such as civil rights, migrant worker welfare, affordable housing, progressive taxation and nuclear disarmament. One could make the argument that she was an early model for so much of the progressive elected officials we see today. She was a close friend of Henry Wallace but never defected to the campaign thinking he was making a horrible mistake. When Wallace announced this to many of her friends she would recall they were aghast and many of them left quickly "as if they were fleeing a bad odor." Douglas stayed behind trying to warn Wallace of what he would face. She would actually confide this to fellow Congressman (and her lover) Lyndon Johnson who told her that Truman and his colleagues would tear him apart.

In 1950 Douglas chose to challenge incumbent Sheridan Downey for his seat in the Senate. Encouraged not to wait until 1952 rather then split the party in a fight Gahagan Douglas told Malone that Downey was insufficiently leftist and had to be unseated. Downey withdrew from the race and supported a third candidate, Manchester Boddy.

It was Boddy who coined the phrase that Gahagan Douglas was 'the Pink Lady…right down to her underwear." Richard Nixon, who was the Republican opponent, merely repeated the line. And its worth noting that many prominent Democrats – include John F. Kennedy – would donate money to Nixon's campaign because they shared similar views on Communism. 

The campaign was one of the most vicious in California political history and dealt with numerous assassinations of her character, which involved calling her a Communist and using anti-Semites to attack her reputation. It was one of the dirtiest campaigns imaginable. It was also incredibly effective as Nixon won in a landslide getting 59 percent of the vote. Douglas admitted later she would likely have lost the election anyway as voters felt Douglas was too liberal and felt more of  a personal connection to a thirty-something man with a young family.

This essentially destroyed Douglas's career in politics mainly because she was too controversial. But it made Douglas the best thing possible in the mind of the left and Hollywood: a martyr. And its almost certain that this action pretty much cut off any chance Hollywood would ever feel affinity with Nixon.

In 1952 Dwight Eisenhower became the Republican nominee for President and mainly due to the influence of members of his advisors, chose Richard Nixon as his running mate. He went out of his way to distance himself from the most zealous anti-communists Jenner and McCarthy but his personal views on them came into conflict for campaigning within them. He shared the platform with both men when they were running for reelection but did as little possible to mention them by name. Famously he felt dirty at the mere touch of Jenner. The compromises he made cost him dearly in the minds of liberal admirers. That however didn't count for much as he won the biggest electoral landslide a Republican had to that point, carrying 39 of 49 states and 442 electoral votes.

Nixon was even more vitriolic and in a far darker place, particularly when he accused Truman and Democrat Adlai Stevenson as being 'traitors to which a majority of the nation's Democrats believe'. Then on September 18^th the news of Nixon's slush fund became public.

It's worth noting that there was nothing either unethical or illegal about the fund. It was used largely to pay office expenses not covered by Nixon's Senate allowance. Stevenson had a similar fund. Nixon was infuriated that Eisenhower refused to defend him and putting the burden proof on the man he shared the ticket with. Eisenhower's advisers came up with a plan in which the RNC would pay for a half-hour nationally televised address in which he would provide an explanation of the fund and offer to resign. When Eisenhower called Nixon, he told him that he had not made a decision. Nixon refused to offer to resign: if his political life had to end he wanted it to be done by him. It's not clear who had the moral high ground in this argument or if Nixon's chronic paranoia made him suspect Eisenhower was being disloyal.

The Checkers speech was to that point in the brief history of television the most watched political broadcast in American history. Nixon chose to plead his case in emotional, an often maudlin terms – his wife's respectable cloth coat, just to use one example – and he took the decision out of Ike's hand and put it in the hands of the people. He told viewers to send their opinions to the RNC, not Eisenhower, and he said that he would abide by their decision. Furthermore he demanded that Stevenson and his running mate also make a full financial accounting which meant putting public pressure on Eisenhower to show his favorable tax treatment for books like Crusade in Europe. 

The Checkers speech would quickly become repudiated and mocked by liberal America as well as Democrats ever since, ignoring the fact that it overwhelmingly worked. The response was enormously favorable and Eisenhower made the easy decision to keep Nixon on the ticket.

It's worth noting that the first two politicians to use television to obtain massive effect and support were two of the most conservative, near demagoguing, elected officials. For the left and Democrats their enormous success and popularity at the time should have been a clear warning sign as to how well the right could use emotional response more than intellectual debate to win the hearts and minds – and more importantly the votes – of Americans.  That both men would later suffer public defeats in large because of the media – though critically, not in the minds of many of those conservatives who had supported them both at the time and in the future – make it at least forgivable that the Democrats failed to comprehend this lesson.

Hollywood should have taken a larger one from it but there's no sign they did and its worth noting even if they had there is no reason to suspect anyone in either party was going to take them seriously. In the 1950s no one in the political world seriously thought anyone in Hollywood could be an asset to a campaign, there was no sign they could even help in California. Indeed the 1952 election was going to prove just how out of touch the left was with its own state as it would go for the Republican candidate for the first time since 1928.  It would go Republican for what would be nine times out of the next ten Presidential elections, only going for LBJ in his 1964 landslide victory. Even Helen Gahagan Douglas's presence on the campaign trail in 1960 would not stop the state from going to Nixon even as Kennedy won the closest Presidential election in history.

Even during the most liberal time in American history Hollywood had no political power. And starting in the 1960s they were about to become even more behind the rest of the country then before. In the next article I will deal with Hollywood's official embrace of leftist activism began in an earnest during the 1960s even as the conservative movement officially started led by two of the most successful California politicians in history – who won office going against everything they stood for.