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Bush and the Blount campaign party trail - 1972

Now I get it! Now I know what they were laughing about HERE

First, briefly, from President Smoothie 2002: (bold emphasis in transcript is mine.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Please, be seated. It's a long speech. (Laughter.)

Thanks so much for coming. I don't know whether you know this or not, but in 1972, I helped organize Red Blount's campaign for the United States Senate right here in the state of Alabama. Because of me and Jimmy Allison, he managed to get 32 percent of the vote. (Laughter.) But I learned then and there how great the people are of the state of Alabama. I've got fond affection of those times. I count many of you as my friends, and I want to thank you for coming today to help the next governor of the state of Alabama, Bob Riley. (Applause.) ~ For Immediate Release | Office of the Press Secretary | July 15, 2002 | White House.gov LINK

Second. A little background on Jimmy Allison excerpted from an article (cited below) on Bush's time spent with the Blount campaign in Alabama in 1972.

Just prior to the day on May 15 when Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace took a bullet in a Maryland parking lot — a shock but a political relief for President Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate George McGovern in a race for the White House themselves — Bush was recruited for the Blount campaign by another Texan and Bush family friend named Jimmy Allison.

In several documented accounts, Allison is described as the original Republican political pro who may have inspired Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan's gung-ho political director, and Karl Rove, who is credited with orchestrating Bush's successful run for the White House in 2000. Atwater and Rove are reported to have taken a drive together across the South in 1972 campaigning for Rove's bid to lead the College Republicans, so it is safe to say they cut their political teeth that year as well as Bush.

Third Additional note on James Allison Jr.: From American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips. Phillips writes:

In 1972, he [George W. Bush] attached himself to another family friend, former Republican deputy national chairman James Allison Jr., in another losing effort-the Alabama U.S. Senate campaign of former postmaster general Winton M. Blount. Twenty-six years old in mid-1972, George W. was stumbling, falling far behind in his effort to walk in his father's footsteps. American Dynasty page 45

And now, for further flashback moments - GW Bush and the Blount campaign, circa 1972. Here we go, excerpts follow. (I haven't even finished reading this one myself but I will as soon as I stop laughing.)

Privileged Son George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama - By Glynn Wilson, Feb 11, 2004, 09:59

Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr. by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag about how much he drank the night before.

They also remember Bush's stories about how the New Haven, Connecticut police always let him go, after he told them his name, when they stopped him "all the time" for driving drunk as a student at Yale in the late 1960s. Bush told this story to others working in the campaign "what seemed like a hundred times," says Red Blount's nephew C. Murphy Archibald, now an attorney in Charlotte, N.C., who also worked on the Blount campaign and said he had "vivid memories" of that time.

"He would laugh uproariously as though there was something funny about this. To me, that was pretty memorable, because here he is, a number of years out of college, talking about this to people he doesn't know," Archibald said. "He just struck me as a guy who really had an idea of himself as very much a child of privilege, that he wasn't operating by the same rules."

During this period Bush often socialized with the young ladies of Huntington College, located in the Old Cloverdale historic neighborhood where he stayed. Bush even dated Nixon's daughter Tricia in the early 1970s, according to newspaper accounts. Bush was described as "young and personable" by the Montgomery Independent society columnist, and seen dancing at the Whitley Hotel on election night November 7 with "the blonde, pretty Emily Marks."

During the 2000 campaign, the Boston Globe named Marks as one of Bush's former girlfriends. But she and several other women who dated him during that time refused to say anything bad on the record about Bush, now a sitting president.

Many of those who came into close contact with Bush say he liked to drink beer and Jim Beam whiskey, and to eat fist-fulls of peanuts, and Executive burgers, at the Cloverdale Grill. They also say he liked to sneak out back for a joint of marijuana or into the head for a line of cocaine. ...

[...]

Winton Bount's [sic] son Tom, an accomplished architect who designed the Shakespeare Festival Theater in Montgomery, remembers well his encounter with Bush. He recently co-produced and underwrote a telling movie called The Trip, set in the period from 1973 to the early 1980s, about a young gay Texan and his conservative Republican lover. The son known as "Tommy" said he ended up in the same car with Bush, with Bush driving, on election night.

"He was an attractive person, kind of a 'frat boy,'" Blount said. "I didn't like him."

He remembers thinking to himself, "This guy thinks he is such a cuntsman, God's gift to women," he said. "He was all duded up in his cowboy boots. It was sort of annoying seeing all these people who thought they were hot shit just because they were from Texas."

Bush also made an impression on the "Blue-Haired Platoon," a group of older Republican Women working for Blount. Behind his back they called him "the Texas soufflé," Archibald said, because he was "all puffed up and full of hot air."

Archibald was recruited by Blount's Washington staff for his administrative skills after returning home from a tour of duty as a lieutenant in Vietnam.

There's a whole lot more. continue reading

And some people want to allow this same smirking pampered elitist hypocrite to diddle with the U.S. Constitution? What will we tell the children!

Character matters. Or, if it's a booby yer looking for....

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