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DEL.ICIO.USThat third-party opportunity has vanished, but Hamilton Jordan has not
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For Hamilton Jordan, the 63-year-old, one-time boy wonder of Georgia politics, who gave us Jimmy Carter and Ross Perot, this is the ninth inning.
That was the phrasing used by one close friend. And yet there was Jordan this afternoon, frail, bewigged and with an oxygen tube that dripped from his nostrils, holding forth before the Atlanta Press Club on the topic that he loves best — the chess game of presidential politics.
Some of his best friends crowded the event, as well as his family. Tom Johnson, the former president of CNN, made sure the room was filled. Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn and his wife Colleen were there. So was Howard “Bo” Callaway, anchoring the Republican contingent.
If you closed your eyes, Jordan was brimming with health. His voice was full and strong, except for the few times it cracked with emotion.
Jordan took his audience through his 20-year battle with six different kinds of cancer. Beginning with lymphoma, followed by another and another. Cancers have piled up like the Georgia defense on a loose ball. And Jordan has been the ball.
We saw flashes of the funny, ribald South Georgian who, as a president’s chief of staff, scandalized an uptight Washington in the 1970s when he glanced at the wife of the Egyptian ambassador — and marveled that he’d always wanted to see the Pyramids.
Jordan took his Press Club friends into the doctor’s office where the physician warned him, and his wife Dorothy, that surgery for prostate cancer could result in sexual impotence. “That would not be a change from his current condition,” replied Dorothy, according to her dead-panning husband.
Jordan also confessed that he had fibbed when he chose the title on the book he wrote about his first encounter with cancer: “No Such Thing As a Bad Day.”
He’s battled depression and hopelessness. He’s worried about his family and his finances. He has had not bad just days, but bad years. One hundred and fifty documented trips to Piedmont Hospital will do that.
“I’ve been to the edge of life. I’ve had to face my own mortality,” Jordan said — that strong voice breaking. “But I’m here to tell you today I’m not through yet.”
Fortunately, the topic could shift to Tuesday’s presidential primary votes — and to Jordan’s role, this year and last, in fomenting a third-party revolution, perhaps with Michael Bloomberg at the top of the ticket.
Said Jordan:
“I thought there was going to be the opportunity this year for a third-party candidate. I saw a perfect storm of events — both parties preoccupied with discussions of social issues, not the real issues, and the prospect that both parties were going to nominate people from both extremes, and leave a huge territory in the middle for a third party.
“Instead, what happened in both parties, particularly with [Barack] Obama in the Democratic party and [John] McCain in the Republican party, this sense of frustration with the establishment and this focus on these narrow issues, gave expression….
“So I think the oxygen for an independent candidacy or third-party movement basically is gone now.”
“If the nominees of the two parties today were…[Rudy] Giuliani and [Hillary] Clinton, I believe that [New York Mayor] Mike Bloomberg would be running — and I think he’d have a helluva chance.”
Perot and his curious running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, got 20 percent of the vote in 1992, Jordan pointed out.
He continued:
“Suppose a guy like Mike Bloomberg had been smart enough to run against Giuliani and Clinton, and had been smart enough to have Sam Nunn or Chuck Hagel on the ticket with him. I believe, with his resources, with a team like that, with the frustration of the American people at both parties — which I feel myself — I believe there was really the possibility.
“But I think that possibility is gone now that McCain and Obama are on the playing field.”
No doubt, you’ve noticed that the 2008 presidential race has brought true suspense back into politics. But to hear Jordan speak, you can’t miss the sense that the contest is more important than a never-ending plot line. It has given this particular man one more reason to get up each morning, when reasons might be in short supply.
Comments
By RJ
March 5, 2008 4:20 PM | Link to this
Thanks for sharing this remarkable piece about tenacity and inspiration.
By Churchill
March 5, 2008 4:55 PM | Link to this
Finally, someone to blame for Jimmy Carter.
By mickeyd
March 5, 2008 7:32 PM | Link to this
Hamilton Jordan is a hell of a man. (Probably more than could be said for “Churchill” in the previous post.) I am proud that Hamilton is a Georgian who, even while suffering serious health issues, is still so vitally interested in the well-being of our country. Bravo to Hamilton. May he continue to be a stalwart advocate for the “average guy” in America. I hope we can benefit from his wisdom for many years to come.
By Churchill
March 5, 2008 8:36 PM | Link to this
Jimmy Carter was, is and will continue to be a miserable failure. Besides Habitat, what has he done that has substantively changed the live of those he had championed? Thankfully, James Carter will go down (a treat for the clitonoids) in history as the most impotent President of the 20th century.
By lea
March 5, 2008 11:12 PM | Link to this
Churchhill, Jimmy Carter and Ham Jordan have contributed a lot more to this world than YOU have. Get over yourself, creep!!
By Churchill
March 5, 2008 11:19 PM | Link to this
That is it, lea!! I have trouble with Carter’s contribution. All contribution is not good, darlin’. Peace.
By RJ
March 6, 2008 12:11 AM | Link to this
Among other adjectives this piece is about Hamilton Jordan and his courage. Though quite provoking, let’s not allow distasteful and out of place posts to shift the nature of the subject matter. Left alone such comments speak for themselves.
By Will Jones
March 6, 2008 7:02 AM | Link to this
“…curious running mate, Admiral James Stockdale.”????
Medal of Honor-winner Stockdale told the truth on the Gulf of Tonkin Hoax, which sent 58,000 of us to die for the Roman Catholic five percent in Vietnam, that owned 95% of that nation’s wealth and enslaved the Buddhist 95% of the population - and lived a vital, good life to the advanced age of 82.
Maybe if Hamilton Jordan had used his gifts to serve America and the People, rather than playing games with politics - by “outing” the Anti-Christ bi-partisan false-elite which put Carter into office only to quell the outrage against JFK-killing, Rockefeller/Bush-servant Nixon’s pardon, the quality of his life and America’s would have been better.
As ancient wisdom teaches, “The curse causeless shall not come.”
Death for Treason
By GodHatesTrash
March 6, 2008 7:13 AM | Link to this
Churchill is the board’s resident Bush administration turd-polisher, up to her ears in turds all day.
But Churchill, hey, she absolutely loves it.
Trash.
By t
March 6, 2008 7:36 AM | Link to this
GHT, Churchill had a lobotomy. She isn’t fully responsible for her ineptitude.
By bsteve76
March 6, 2008 8:23 AM | Link to this
As one who attended the Jordan/APC event, I was impressed with the courage he has shown in getting this far in his battle. I was a youngster in journalism in 1976 when Carter and Co. overcame long odds to win the presidency. There’s a lesson there for everyone, and Hamilton continues to teach it.
By GHT's Mama
March 6, 2008 9:02 AM | Link to this
Everybody who gets cancer, be it prostate, pancreatic, lung, etc., will be fighting that battle all their lives. I appreciate the difficult struggle that Ham Jordan faces, but he’s no different than any other cancer sufferer. It’s a lifelong struggle for those who have the disease and a lifelong battle for those who wish to avoid cancer-causing agents.
I wish him well, but I won’t give Ham Jordan the Purple Heart that thousands of other cancer sufferers also deserve.
By Aaron Burr V. Mexico
March 6, 2008 10:09 AM | Link to this
Carter? Most ineffective president of the 20th century? BAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAH.
Taft. Harding. Hoover. Coolidge.