newsobserver.com projects - You can call him Jim - Comments

Re: Campaigns Need Folks Like Jim

Russell123 — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:15:40 -0400

spare it McKnight

Re: Campaigns Need Folks Like Jim

Proctor — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:13:26 -0400

Well, as for "Jim," it probably ought to be pointed out that people who are willing to take care of supposedly "menial" tasks can often be indispensable to a candidate in the midst of a political campaign. As a candidate, you're expected to be in the know on all the leading issues of the day; you're expected to know all the local dignitaries at a given stop on the campaign trail; and you're expected to be dressed to the nines while also being accessible to the press at the drop of a hat even when a reporter can't make up his or her mind just what questions are to be asked.

Add to that all the restrictions on earning outside personal income after a candidate has filed for a particular political campaign, and you can get the feeling that if the candidate personally walks into a McDonalds, a Hardees, a Burger King or some other fine national food chain shop, it won't be long before someone in the press will be raising questions about the proper use of personal or campaign funds for purchasing a burger, fries and a soda. And if you go all the way and order a milkshake as George McGovern was known to do in the late afternoons to get a bit of extra energy for the rest of his campaign day back in the 1972 presidential race, then you can leave yourself open to charges of fiscal extravagance, personal aloofness and insensitivity to the needs of rank-and-file voters. In selecting Wendy's for special anniversary outings, the Edwardses were able to stay under the radar of political budget analysts for the longest time perhaps because the politically curious would have been reluctant to go one-on-one in a Q & A with Dave Thomas.

At such times as these, you cannot help but be grateful when someone offers to help out on this little outing or that. But even if you're the governor of North Carolina and trying to get space in a freight train box car or on the back of a Greyhound bus for a weekend excursion to the beach, the pundits will demand that the candidate go out and book a flight instead, reasoning that hopping a freight train would be demeaning to the office. But at least former Sen. and now-Veep Joseph Biden rode Amtrak trains faithfully to get back and forth between Washington and Wilmington--ah, make that the Wilmington in the great state of Delaware as opposed to the Mecca of the Lower Cape Fear. Gov. Beverly Perdue should order her own personal train car as did Southern governors of yesteryear and have that coach hooked onto the back of Amtraks, freight trains or what have you just so long as the train is headed to the right destination, whether this be Goldsboro, Burlington or Gastonia.

Editorialists often give the appearance of expecting that "serious candidates" for national or state office should demonstrate the ability to raise substantial amounts of funds for their campaign war chests, and nobody cares how many millions of dollars can be raised at a single event regardless of whether corn bread and cabbage are included in the dinner or not. But let a candidate, either on his or her own or by way of a staff assistant or political supporter, try to scoot by the Golden Arches to pick up a Fish Filet combo, then pretty soon, political reporters will start raising questions about the efficacy of embellishing workday lunches with unreported side fixings.

Then candidates will be left with no choice but to emulate the "Long-Haired Country Boy" who proclaims that he doesn't want anything at all "if I can't get it on my own."

David P. McKnight

Re: You can call him Jim

BIGFAN — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:19:54 -0400

Well Elizabeth isnt the person she seemed to be in her first book. She seems to think that she and her hubby are above it all. It's not very becoming.

Re: You can call him Jim

domewatcher — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:28:07 -0400

Paraphrasing a comedy routine from long ago:

"Ahh, ya doesn't has to call me Jim! You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me RayJay, or you can call me RJ... but ya doesn't hafta call me Jim."

You can call him Jim

janestancill — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:13:39 -0400

In Elizabeth Edwards' new book, "Resilience," she scorns her husband's former mistress (Rielle Hunter, whom she refuses to name). But she paints another former campaign worker with the same brush, calling them both "pathetic."

Edwards compares the mistress with a young man who first volunteered in John Edwards' 1998 Senate campaign, reports Jim Morrill. She describes him as "John's obsessed fan."

"I will call him Jim," she writes.

Jim "volunteered for everything," drove the candidate around, washed his car, took care of his dry-cleaning. "There was no job too menial for Jim," she said.

Jim and his wife, who worked a late shift, would leave McDonalds breakfasts outside the Edwards' door until Elizabeth told her to stop. Jim's obsequiousness got to Elizabeth until a lie on his part finally forced his departure from the campaign. But he hung around. He tried to vacation where they vacationed and sent daily e-mails to the Edwards' friends.

"The existence of a Jim made it easier to accept the existence of this woman," Elizabeth wrote. "...My life at some level is tragic. Theirs is worse; theirs is pathetic."