Fritz Hollings, the Thinnest Fat Man

You got a problem, buddy?

I met the man who nearly would be President!

In 1983, I worked for CTM, a firm that operated MetroNet and MetroSat, Washington DC's satellite uplink service. The explosion in satellite distributed channels with DC operations made for a good business.  We contracted with the local news bureaus, hauling their signal back to network HQ over "toll" telephone line, microwave, and satellite.

It was that spring that I got my first-ever "Producer" credit.

Hollings: The Citadel, 1943

Fritz Hollings, (D., SC) was to announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to challenge Ronald Reagan in the '84 elections.  With no one else around interested to handle it, I was made Associate Producer for the event carried live on C-SPAN and uplinked to all the broadcast news services as well as the cablers - at the time, CNN and Group W's "Satellite News Channels" (SNC I & II).

We used an outdoor setting for the short speech, then hustled into C-SPAN studios on Capitol Hill , where CTM topper Robert Schmidt introduced me to C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, who interviewed the distinguished senator from South Carolina.

Silver hair and shining teeth, straight from central casting.  And then there was his wife, "Peatsy" - I thought he'd said that her name was "Peaches," and I addressed her as such throughout the event....

I guess he had 'em...

Knew How To Pick 'Em:
After a new Hampshire drubbing, Fritz dropped out of contention for '84, and ultimately endorsed Gary Hart (oy...), he called eventual nominee Walter Mondale a "lapdog," and later endorsed Jesse Jackson in '88.  He had also voted in 1967 against confirming Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, and later for Robert Bork.  Not a winning record at the track. And yes, he's the wag who called Howard Metzenbaum (D., OH) "the Senator from B'Nai B'rith."

Hollings/Porter, '83

Hollings is distinguished for serving 8th longest time in Senate (over 38 years), 36 as the younger in the home-state pair - the junior Senator - w/Strom Thurmond (Strom then then the longest serving Senator, since surpassed by Robert Byrd). Thus - like John Kerry more recently behind "lion" Teddy Kennedy for 26 years - Hollings was known in Senate parlance as the "Senior Junior." Such as when Homeland Security announces that "The Threat Level has been 'lowered to Elevated'."  Or, the Phantom Tollbooth conundrum of the perfectly normal character who represents himself alternately as the shortest tall man, tallest short man, fattest thin man....

I helped to tell the world about this gent's candidacy for President of the United States, and although the world responded with a yawn, for one brief, shining moment in '83 it was all Fritz, Fritz, Fritz !!!