Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1972

McGovern

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1972

McGovern ' 72

Reverse side has label: Insta-Button from the Richmark Co., 1110 E. Pine St., Seattle, Wash., 98122

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1972

McGovern Shriver

Reverse side has label: Insta-Button from the Richmark Co., 1110 E. Pine St., Seattle, Wash., 98122

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1972

McGovern Eagleton

The shortest-lived button in the history of Presidential campaigns. 18 days to be exact.

In 1972 I was a volunteer in the McGovern campaign in Olympia, Washington, so you'll be seeing quite a few buttons endorsing the Senator from South Dakota.

George McGovern was an authentic WWII hero and a good and decent man. And he was right on many issues. But he was a horrible politician. In spite of that, I still admire McGovern to this day and am so happy I worked on his campaign. When he came to Seattle I went to see him speak, and realized he was far from charismatic, but the guy had a geeky sincerity I admired. We didn't win, in fact we were slaughtered, but in the history of Presidential elections there was never a clearer choice between Good and Evil. 

And 1972 America voted in fear and overwhelmingly chose Evil.

I also voted for George in the Whitman County, Washington caucus when he ran in 1984. He didn't get it, but the eventual nominee, Walter Mondale (another good and decent man), lost by even greater margin to old Ron the Con who brought us a huge economic deficit, Iran-Contra, and a long parade of convicted public officials who betrayed the public trust that outnumbered the Watergate number of convicted crooks. 

This in spite of the fact that during the 1984 debates Ron the Con was clearly suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Sometimes, you have to wonder about the wisdom of the electorate.

If you look back in the history of Presidential elections, George McGovern is now the senior living major party candidate, having outlived his opponents and all running mates. When George crosses to the Other Side, which will be soon, those of us left behind will carry the flame in our own fashion.

God bless you, George McGovern. Thank you.

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1968

HHH Humphrey

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1968

RFK

In 1968 I drew a political cartoon involving Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1960

Progress for All

Forward with Kennedy

Not an original. On the curl it states: Kleenex Tissues '68

Buttons - Presidential Campaign - 1932? 1936? 1940? 1944?

Roosevelt

Curl says "G.H. Stamp Works, Aberdeen, Wash."

Phone photo 1740

No, that isn't me. The only elected office I ever sought to gain was for Democratic Precinct Committeeman for Mud Bay Precinct in Thurston County, Washington, in 1974, which has just dawned on me it was ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO! And I beat the incumbent only because I filed first and my name topped the ballot. But before my term was up I moved so I had to resign.

The Willis currently running for re-election as Grays Harbor County Commissioner is no relation to me, so far as I can ascertain from conversations with members of that family. I did vote for her when she first ran. But the brain cell jury is still out on whether or not I'll re-elect. Still gathering data.

There used to be a lot of Dickenson County, Virginia (Clintwood, Va.)-traced members of the Willis family in Grays Harbor and Pacific counties in the last century, but as far as I know, as of 2006 I am the last one of us left out here in this corner of the world between the two jurisdictions.

Fox News Geographical Professionalism

Faux News rewrites the political subdivisions of the United States of America.

Red/Blue Republican/Democrat

For some reason in recent history, states that lean Republican are known as "Red" states while states that go for the Dems are known as "Blue" states.

McLuhan would've had a field day with this. But I suppose it has to with the color red being connected to a visceral, reactionary and regressive point of view compared with blue, a cooler, rational and more intellectual vantage point.

At any rate, I have been watching the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS again. This is a classic recognized for using universal symbols of good and evil. I hope you all notice Darth Vader and the bad guys use red light sabers while Luke Skywalker uses a blue light saber.

Cartooning Washington

This was an illustrated history of Washington State political cartoons and cartoonists published in the same year of the Evergreen State's centennial-- 1989.

Lots of big names in here: Brian Basset, Paul Fung, Steve Greenberg, Walt Crowley, David Horsey, Mike Lukovich, Bob McCausland, Shaw McCutcheon, Alan Pratt, Milt Priggee.

And of course Ray Collins from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a comic artist who once met with me for an hour of his busy day in 1977, looked over the portfolio of a nobody young man and gave me many valuable pointers such as any good cartoonist needs to study poetry. He was also delightfully irreverent of authority-- putting this into practice by being the number one cartoonist to expose the craziness of Gov. Dixy Lee Ray.

My work slipped into this book by accident, and I think I was included as sort the token little rural weekly guy with a different day job since I'm definitely not in the same league as the professionals listed above. Apparently someone connected with this book, perhaps it was Maury Forman who called me up, used a printshop in Oly that I frequented. The printers mentioned my work to him, and the next thing you know I'm in this book.

As for this particular strip, Grays Harbor County continues to be solidly Democrat, but in this last election the Dems lost one, perhaps two countywide seats-- the first time since the 1950s!

In McCleary there used to be this joke: The ballot counter is tallying the votes, "Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Republican! The sonofabitch voted twice!"

The Democrats here aren't like the liberal Dems on the I-5 Roman Road through Seattle-Tacoma-Oly. Out here they are old time good ol' boys in the not-so-admirable sense. Frankly, I'm glad to see them finally lose a seat or two. Usually they run unopposed.

Wild John refers to local legend Wild John Tornow, the Wild Man of the Wynochee.

I'll be running my East County Comix strip in this blog eventually.