Keep Counting, Florida !!

My shining moment with Madame Secretary, here.

Cheers, all!

Katherine Harris, at the Orchid Ball
"Those Who Do Not Learn From Their History Are Doomed To Repeat It ! "

Winston Churchill,   paraphrasing George Santayana 

Presidents and Near-Presidents I've Met, or Nearly Met

You've Spoken, and We've Listened: with the Presidential Election imminently upon us, I can't resist re-stunting these posts for you, the well-informed electorate.

Like an erstaz Forrest Gump?  Zelig?  Joe Garagiola?  I have blundered across the paths of more than one person who occupied or lusted to occupy the Oval office... or the U.S. Naval Observatory... and a couple who helped determine the outcome of a Presidential campaign or election.

Meet a few of them here:

• Alan Cranston (D, 1984)
• John Edwards (D, 2004, 2008)
• Tony Goldwyn (R, 2012)
• John Glenn (D, 1984)
• Katherine Harris (R, 2000)
• Donna Rice [Gary Hart (D, 1984, 1988)]
• Fritz Hollings (D, 1984)
• John F. Kennedy (D, 1960)
• Teddy Kennedy (D, 1980)
• John Kerry (D, 2004)
• Hadassah Lieberman [Joe (D, 2000)]
• George McGovern (D, 1972)
• George Stephanopoulos [Bill Clinton (D, 1992)]
• Mo Udall (D, 1976)

To come:

• Tipper Gore [Al Gore (D, 1992, 1996, 2000)]
• H. Ross Perot (I, 1992)

Mo Udall, Sweetheart of Theta Delta Chi

Well, it was a snowy, snowy winter's Saturday night, of which we had many, on the Hill.  Morris Udall (D, AZ) who had tried to capture the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination by running to the left of Jimmy Carter, visited the campus to speak in the Hamilton College Chapel.

Have a Drink on Me, Mr. President

My politico friends attended, I didn't.  I was at the Pub.  But some of the leftest-leaning students on the Program Board, who'd brought ol' Mo to Clinton, were upperclass members of Theta Delta Chi where I had friends, and where a second-shift party was to occur as the Pub was closing.

In the inexorable political movement of the moment, I followed in the hip-deep, snowy peloton of the happy throng ... to the promise of more beer.

Never Fail

Inside, it was elbow to elbow, cheek-by-jowl, and I found myself braced in a huddle of Psi U varsity basketball players just outside TDX's dimly-lit "library." Into the scene came Mo, himself a former pro hoopster with the [original] Denver Nuggets.  Lots of back-slapping and Q&A about the Continentals' prospects ('77-'78: ECAC finalists, 23-3) - "Go Conts!" we loved to shout.  So yours truly, head and shoulders shorter than the gaggle, was suddenly face to face - or chin to chest - with the Senator.

"What's your name, son?" he boomed.

"Tom.  And I loved your speech!"

But for 7,500 votes to Carter in the Wisconsin primary two years before, Big Mo might have been in the White House that night in January, 1978.  Instead, he was holding forth in Clinton, NY with clowns like my friends and me, leaning on a broken-down frat-house piano in the Great Hall of TDX.

I know that we were all right where we belonged.

R.I.P. George McGovern - My Co-Pilot

He led thirty seven missions as a B-24 pilot in World War II, but my thrill was to sit across the aisle from George McGovern when we flew our joint mission as passengers on the Eastern Shuttle, from Washington DC to New York City, one autumn morning in 1986.

We found ourselves seated in aisle seats opposite each other.  Aloft, I allowed the Senator a few moments to enjoy the New York Times before catching his eye.  "Senator McGovern, what an honor - I worked for you in 1972!" I blurted out.  He smiled, closed his paper, and said graciously "Really? You can't possibly be old enough to have worked on my Presidential campaign!"

What I Wouldn't Give for a Little Un-Interrupted Newspaper Time!

"But it's true," I said:  "I was 13, and I passed out McGovern-Shriver leaflets all over my neighborhood in Massachusetts!"

"Ah, Massachusetts," he winked, and then said "Whatever you did there... it worked!"

Then he asked me what part of Massachusetts I came from.  "Well, Amherst."  I shared with him the interesting fact that, when the entire US save for Massachusetts and Washington DC had voted to re-elect Nixon, our perky little burg had gone all-in for McGovern - with 93% of the popular vote!  Nixon collected 5%, and Wallace 2%.  Yes, we in Amherst were a bit out of the mainstream, even then.

Here is a nice clip of George signing books in Amherst a little earlier this year.

 
At all this he laughed, adding "What a great, great town.  Academic town.  Had a lot of good support there!  Probably thanks to all of your hard work!"

I wasn't sure I'd changed anyone's mind on West Street or Mill Lane, but said lots of people including my parents had worked very hard for him, and were proud of what he hoped to accomplish for the country.  We made a bit more conversation, landed, grabbed our respective overcoats from the overhead bins, and bid one another adieu. 

Rest In Peace, Good Man
July 19, 1922 - October 21, 2012

At the Deli Counter with Mrs. Vice President

"You call that LEAN ????!!!!"

A Shopping Cart Communion:

There I was, fourth in line at the delicatessen in the hurly-burly of Katz's Kosher Supermarket on a Saturday afternoon in Rockville, MD.  Each of us yanking our broken-down carts back and forth, waving our paper tickets, and craning our necks for a clear view of the goods behind the glass.  Jockeying for position....

... when up on the left flank a cart and driver flash past me, and swerve right up the the counter.

"Joey! Bring that box in from the car!  They'll be here any minute!"

Annoyance: sure, everyone is pushing and shoving, but to have the chutzpah to actually cut the line so brazenly - who would try that, in such a tough crowd?  From behind, the hair looks familiar... still, it's an awfully pushy move.

But lo, the counter guys all dropped their towels, brightened their punims, and fawned and teemed to hang their paws over the glass-top like so many Kilroys - literally elbowing each other like Kurt Rambis and Bill Laimbeer under the hoop, to wait on this lady.  "Yes, Yes! It's all ready - won't be a moment!  Yes, allow me! Just wait - here it is, Here It Is!"

Vice President Lieberman

Up from the kitchen comes a huge, 4-foot by 2-foot cardboard catering box, with the name LIEBERMAN along the side in big hand-lettered magic marker.  Instantly I was in her thrall, a Portnoy among the Kilroys.  Less than a year earlier, I'd voted for Gore/Lieberman, and brought my new two-day-old home from G.W. Hospital and right through the middle of the pitched 35-day turf war between Bush and Gore supporters outside the Naval Observatory on the way up Massachusetts Avenue.

Hadassah Lieberman could have been (should have been? may have been?) the Second Lady of the U.S.A.

Hadassah had class, charm and integrity that I admired during the campaign, and as she collected her havdallah nosh, wheeled from the counter to head home and prepare for company, and passed me at close range, I could swear she had a twinkle in her eye for ol' Portnoy himself.

Pinning that Monkey Tail on Donna Rice!

You all remember the excitement in 1987 when a rare role model in the American Rhapsody, Yale Divinity School grad Gary Hart, dared the media to put a tail on him and try to substantiate the rumors that he was fooling around.  Well, Gary got his wish.


From Wikipedia:

Hart '88? Monkey Business '87!

Soon after meeting Rice, Hart announced that he would run for nomination as the Democratic candidate for President. Having enjoyed a surprisingly strong campaign in 1984 against the eventual nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale, he was widely perceived as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1988. However, rumors shortly thereafter began circulating about his having an extra-marital affair, leading the candidate to challenge the media to surveil him, and to also claim that anybody who did so would "be very bored." The day before Hart's dare to the media was to appear in The New York Times, however, two reporters for the Miami Herald observed Rice coming out of Hart's Washington, D.C. townhouse, and their story was published on the same day that his challenge appeared in the Times.

"President Hart"

While Hart contended that the reporters could have no knowledge of exactly when Rice arrived or why she was there, his popular appeal nevertheless suffered a major blow, and polls taken almost immediately afterward found him to be 10 points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Two days after their initial story, the Herald obtained a photograph of Rice sitting on Hart's lap in Bimini aboard a luxury motor yacht named Monkey Business lent by socialite Lillian Briggs. The celebrity tabloid National Enquirer immediately published the photograph, and within five days, Hart had decided to drop out of the Democratic Presidential nomination race.^[2][3]

Early on, a 'Marketing' career

Well, turns out that the comely Rice had tried her hand at a variety of callings.  She had been a marketing specialist in south FL for a pharma company before all the fuss.  After the fuss, she found an audience as celebrity endorser for No Excuses jeans, but by 1994 had found her true calling - protecting children from exploitation and abuse on the internet. 

For almost 20 years she's done a great job with Enough Is Enough, and she's still at it.

So it was in that mode and guise that Donna appeared, in 1998, and we came face to face.  I was out hob-nobbing at a big weekday-evening confab in Reston,VA with Mario Morino and the NetPreneur crowd when, Lo and Behold: Ms. Rice (by then Hughes, married to NoVa area venture capital guy Jack).

She was instantly-recognizable, very friendly, vivacious, and/but totally on-message.  I shamelessly referenced my then-four-year-old daughter to get the ball rolling, and eventually, artlessly, brought up politics (but not Presidential) - however, I couldn't get her out of trade-show-booth mode. . .

A bit like Jeannie Francis ?

. . . Just as well.

John Edwards - A Painful Fall From Grace

"While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong and there is no one else responsible for my sins.  I am responsible, and if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly I don't have to go any further than the mirror.  It's me.  It is me and me alone."

Sunshine, Go Away Today - Don't Feel Much Like Smilin'

When John Edwards ran for president in 2004 he lamented with passion about "the two America's, ... where some attend the public schools in the good neighborhoods, with the well stocked library, and the nice athletic fields, and the clean classrooms... while others sit in crumbling buildings, with no books to study, and no opportunity to ever get ahead ..."  What he never remembered to mention was the third America - where his kids and mine went to private school and enjoyed excellent teaching and attention, with all the amenities.

Edwards came to town following election in November 1998 as Senator for North Carolina.  He later smartly enrolled his young children in St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School, where my daughter also attended.

"President Edwards"

It wasn't unusual to see a 'public servant' like Ken Bentsen, Jr. (D, TX 25th) or media politicos like Tucker Carlson and Cokie Roberts around the corridors.  But there was definitely a buzz around Mr. Edwards, a dapper barrister rumored to have Presidential ambitions.

You are correct if you imagine that Elizabeth Edwards was a much, much, much beloved woman in the school. Very involved, and very full of life.  She is deeply missed by the staff and many friends she made among the parent/volunteer tribe, and when we worked together on the annual fundraising auction she made a point to contribute a week at the Edwardses' North Carolina beach house.  Separately, we arranged to offer a luncheon in Washington with John, for the high bidder and ten guests.  The private meal was hosted at Sen. Edwards' next door neighbor's very beautiful home in what had been until 1959 the Cuban Embassy on 30th Street, N.W.

That particular prize went for the high bid of the evening, over $20,000, purchased by the wife of a lobbyist.  Welcome to Washington!

Beloved Alma Mater: St. Patrick's

On Family Fun Day in spring 2003, there was Senator John Edwards, on campus.  We passed each other in the hallway between the church nave and the school development office at St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School.  Holding hands with his young children Emma Claire and Jack, he looked kind and fatherly, but intensely focused at the same time - he was thinking about something.  "Hello, Senator!" I ventured, and in response he smiled gently, nodded in my direction and kept moving.

I was struck by his height - maybe my height at best - 5'6".  He's listed as 5'11" but on this day he was 5'6" - or else on that day I was 5'11"! In this sense, I guess, I was uplifted by his presence.

That was nine years ago this month.  Much water has passed under the Edwards bridge.  John launched his own 2004 Presidential run resulting in selection as Sen. John Kerry's Vice President.  Edwards later made an aborted attempt for the 2008 nomination as well, but by then was mired already in a terrible cascade of family betrayal & loss, and personal, political and ethical scandal.  Some might say today that, under Ponte Edouard, justice has rolled down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  But in the end, none of us - saints and sinners alike - really know.

There has been precious little Family Fun for John Edwards lately.  I despair for his children, and miss his wife, and I hope that time is kind to all concerned.

On-Stage with Tony Goldwyn

Tony Goldwyn ... presently President Fitz ... formerly Crow

He's the President of the United States now - on Scandal, that is - but in 1978 he was just a fresh-faced lad landing the second lead in a campus production of Sam Shepard's "Tooth of Crime," and we became friends.

Lights, Camera, Beer... in the Pub

My roommate and fraternity brother Chris Walsh played the aging and decidedly Jagger-esque rock star Hoss, who is challenged and ultimately unseated by the up-and-coming rock star Crow, played by freshman Tony Goldwyn.  This play was cast during the early autumn and produced that semester.

7 Truly Bold Plays by Master Sam

Four of us - Dave Scofield, Dave Schleifer, John S. Keim, and yours truly - comprised the band.  Billed as the "Overhead Lifters," the band was on-stage and the music was an up-front element of the play, particularly during Becky's soliloquy, and the scene when the two rockers square off inside a boxing ring as the Rolling Stones' "Sister Morphine" plays.

In another scene, Crow warms up for a confrontation by singing Cream's "I'm So Glad."

Following this exposure to Sam Shepard, I became a fan - and particularly loved seeing the Quaid brothers tear up the stage in "True West" at the Cherry Lane theater in 1984.  As for Tooth of Crime, I can recite every word of dialog in this fantastic play.

What I most vividly remember about our little Minor Theater production at Hamilton College are two mesmerizing, invigorating vignettes: Tony warming up behind stage using bizarre impressive and in-your-face method acting technique, and - in the second act, night after night - "Becky" taking her shirt off ten feet away on-stage, while delivering a bitter monologue.

Have a "Futchnerf's" Summer

Chris and I tried unsuccessfully to rush Tony for Psi Upsilon, but he went to Sigma Phi instead, and ultimately left Hamilton early.  Next stop was Brandeis University and I don't believe he even admits to having attended Hamilton, now.

I ran into Tony on the street in NYC the summer of 1980, and since then I've seen him as you have: a cad in Ghost, a lawyer in The Pelican Brief, behind camera (as Director) with the tremendous A Walk on the Moon, and now - his star turn on TV as Fitzgerald Grant, President of the USA, in Scandal.

I suppose that Tooth of Crime - the zenith of my own stage career, as I never auditioned for anything else, before or after - was a small but wildly interesting steppingstone on Mr. Goldwyn's path to craft mastery.  I remember Tony well as a genuinely nice guy,  unassuming - even quiet, while also full of energy and intensity - a totally committed thespian.

And he's really knocking it out of the park on Scandal!

"I'll develop my own image. I'm an original man. A one and only. I just need some help."

... as Crow, in Tooth of Crime

In Orbit with John Glenn

Fleeting or harrowing? Take your pick:

In 1966, my father arrived home breathless one evening for dinner, to share the story that he'd just met a spaceman!  Evidently, on entering the stately front door of the Lord Jeffery Amherst Inn (then "A Treadway Resort") on the town common in Amherst that day, whom did he meet exiting the lobby with suitcase in hand?  American hero John Glenn.  The meet-up at the Lord Jeff was a fleeting moment, made smooth by my father speaking up "Hello, Mr. Glenn! May I get that door for you?" as he welcomed the spaceman.  "Thank you," said our visiting astronaut.

Flash forward to 2004:

Back to the Beach: In Orbit Again

Semper Fi Spaceman

In intervening years, this Marine had served the state of Ohio as an able Senator (1974-1999), considered running for President (1980, 1984; his slogan was "Soar to New Heights"), been punched in the face by a lunatic (1989), and returned to orbit (1998).

Now, in the summer of 2004, I was handling a music project for Discovery Channel in the new Silver Spring, MD Global HQ, and Senator Glenn made a VIP appearance for an after-hours event connected with a Discovery programming stunt on Astronomy ("Quark Week"?).  From 5:30 to 7:00 one weekday evening, we milled around the ground floor lobby with drinks before filing into the auditorium to hear Founder and Chairman John Hendricks, son of a Huntsville, AL space program engineer himself, introduce John and promote the new extravaganza.

I'd met Buzz Aldrin (he narrated my "Beyond Planet Earth" CD-ROM project and did a number of other TV projects for Discovery), and found him to be a bit of a self-promoter; I always thought he'd carried a chip on his shoulder about letting Neil get his boot down first.  Since Glenn seemed to have more of the Right Stuff, I took the opportunity to shake his hand.  I mentioned my father's 1966 adventure and made an ersatz "orbital/rotational gesture" with my arm as I said something about "coming full circle," and added something about it being a "small world."  Glenn politely picked up on these (through gritted teeth, I suspect) - he  didn't recall the kindness at the Lord Jeff, but smiled genuinely and said "I'm sure I appreciated that!" and he laughed when I told him that my mother had always admonished my brothers and me when bathing, to "Be careful - you know John Glenn slipped and hurt his head in the bathtub!"

Two mornings later before dawn - less than 48 hours after the soiree - with nobody present - a large pane of window glass fell ten stories down through the atrium into the Discovery Channel lobby, exploding like a galaxy of stars as it shattered in a zillion pieces.  Had this happened two evenings before, it could have been a disaster.

Living dangerously in orbit, in the bathtub, in Discovery Channel HQ:
God Speed, John Glenn!

Glenn/Porter '84

"Good Luck, Mr. Aldrin"

Neil Armstrong

Alan Cranston and the First "Pulled Punch"

"President Cranston"

Two tables away, while I enjoyed a planter's punch before a lovely dinner on the tiny porch of the Sea Catch Grill, overlooking the Georgetown Canal: Alan Cranston (D., CA).  At the time - a spectacular sunny May evening in 1988 -  he was Democratic whip in the Senate.

Sea Catch: Where I Dined with Golden State Longshot

I had a generally favorable view of Cranston then, although this was during a period when I was actively not following politics.  Nevertheless, the thought occurred to me then and there - for the first time - that a benefit of living in Washington DC is that one might, at any moment, find oneself in good position to throw a drink in the face of a public figure.  The enviable position.

Instead, upon paying the bill, we squeezed by his table and my dinner partner, a CA constituent, introduced herself to Senator Cranston and wished him well.

All smiles, we left the restaurant, but the impulse lingered

... and it lingers still.

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 !!!

Double-Dating with George Stephanopoulos

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGIE BOY!

ever charming...

In the mid-eighties, while I was courting the first Mrs. Porter, we often would go out with her best friend, a most attractive co-worker who'd begun dating a very bright (Rhodes scholar), nice, and attentive young man.

Friday afternoons, I recall he was wont to skip out of Congressman Feighan's office on the Hill, hop the Metro, and show up at Cheryl's desk with a bunch of daffodils in his hand.  We spent many, many hours out as a foursome, enjoying the DC nightlife - often in Adams Morgan where young George Stephanopoulos lived.

Stopping by the apartment one morning I caught George in a fascinating ritual: with NPR on the stereo, he maintained an extemporaneous dialog with the liberal politician being interviewed.  As George walked around buttoning his shirt and knotting his tie he improvised a stabbing, conservative counterpoint to every statement, every phrase.

I knew George's politics, and understood he was training himself - like a "profiler" - to think as the enemy thinks, to get in-character so as to sharpen and speed his reflexes.  George had amazing instincts for this thrust-and-parry, and was naturally armed with a chessmaster's foresight.

Two Handsome Dudes

We made a few long trips together, notably a great Fourth of July weekend with friends in Wrightsville Beach, NC.  While there George and I went for a 5-mile run together, and rounding the crown of a hill we passed a solitary shack where AC/DC's "Long Way To The Top (If Ya Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" was playing at top volume.

I mercilessly made him run through the yard and circle the property with me, provoking George to ask me about the attraction of heavy metal, as he pleaded that "It just doesn't have any appeal to me."  We discussed AC/DC and Van Halen, then Motorhead, which I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to interest him in during the drive south in our VW Camper Van.  George was unmoved.

A week later on Nantucket, when I proposed to my fiance, Cheryl and George were the first people we called back home with the news.

It Had To Be Him

... but could have been me ?

Well, eventually George made his way to NYC, then back to DC for Dick Gephardt's campaign, then the Clinton WAR ROOM, and the rest is history.  He's married - not to the old friend, but to the sister of a different DC friend.

And they say he's on TV...

Without fail, always a super, caring, and decent guy.  Hey there, Georgie Boy!

Ted Kennedy: Hale Fellow, Well Met

"(D)" stands for Dapper & Debonair

I was handling a strategy project for the Washington Post Co., and working closely with Katherine (Weymouth) Scully, counsel to washingtonpost.com. It fell to the two of us and a junior business development colleague to entertain the principals of a Charleston, SC-based technology company during their visit to Washington DC, and we planned a delightful evening: drinks at the Capitol Grille, followed by a beautiful Turkish dinner at trendy Cities in Adams Morgan.

Then we'd be off on a mad dash to the Post’s printing plant in nearby Virginia in time for the 11:00pm switch-throwing that lurched the 6 HUGE, brand new Mitsubishi presses into gear producing the nightly print run. Just fascinating machinery! - the newest, biggest stuff on earth, driving the old hand-held inky newsprint product. Upon exiting Cities we were nearly struck by a limousine that disgorged a rollicking cavalcade, led by a white-haired circus-master.

Teddy: Rip. Snort. Hoot. Holler!

Here was Teddy, in full tux and with a boisterous clan of revelers - he was roaring, guffawing, and backslapping. "That's Senator Kennedy!" exclaimed our guest, running up to shake his hand. I got my two cents in: "Amherst MA constituent, Senator!" and his smile widened, his glow intensified. "That's the ticket! Good old Lord Jeff! And how's your fine University?"

The centrifuge was spinning and within 10 seconds our respective parties of 5 and 6 had passed through each other like Sharks and Jets in a choreographed rumble and were each on our way - they IN, we OUT.

In 2006 the Senator visited Amherst and broke ground on the new UMass Integrated Sciences Building.  After he passed away in 2009 and I read his autobiography, I gained a new and deep appreciation for this man whose policies I often disagreed with, but whose passions and commitment I greatly admire. Whose life was so very extraordinary and contributions so deep...

Kennedy/Porter 1980

... And whose love for a good time so legendary - and witnessed firsthand!

Election Special: Eye to Eye with Katherine Harris

What a Difference Ten Years Makes!

(with apologies to my Amherst friends)

A Proud Mount

Three days into the contested 2000 Presidential election and 35-day recount, I proposed a business idea to Verisign: use the trusted authority of its own authentication & digital certificate technology and the DNS architecture of newly acquired Network Solutons to bring integrity to voting.  Verisign hired me to develop the concept as VoteSecure (TM), an internet-enabled voter registration, balloting and tabulation solution.

By December the votes had been counted and by January a new President sworn in [remember?].  Our work was in full swing: we built Verisign Ventures - a skunkworks shop - and hustled like crazy. In no time I was dealing with the state capitals and I found myself meeting with big Washington players like EDS, UniSys, IBM, Booz Allen, Diebold, et alii.

The technology is one thing.  State law and bureaucracy - as we learned during the recount - is entirely another, and those folks in state legislature were hustling too, to define, interpret and pass new laws (it's all they know how to do).  Meanwhile, the State Secretaries of State - Katherine Harris and her 49 counterparts - convened at the US Capitol in March to examine the nationwide mess, and I was right up front and riveted for Ms. Harris' luncheon address to the group, upstairs at Bullfeathers on Capitol Hill. 

The woman they loved to hate: Ms. Harris was intensely charismatic, and all business.  As she was swarmed afterward, I made my way downstairs and was preparing to leave when a young, energetic aide on her Tallahassee staff tapped my shoulder at the coat check window to ask if I knew whether C-SPAN's studio was close enough to walk to.

So picture this pas de deux: as I began to recommend cabbing, I turned and our eyes met: Ms. Harris was struggling into a fine, tailored coat and had need of a third hand to hold her handbag - and my own hand was open.  "Why thank you!" she said as, thinking quickly, I reached gallantly for the Fendi purse with my left hand while fishing a business card from my shirt pocket with my right.  As Ms. Harris' own bejeweled hand emerged from her coat sleeve I placed my card in it and made my pitch: "Tom Porter, Ms. Harris, working for Verisign to design secure voting technology and failsafe authentication systems for the state-capital-to-county-registrar architecture.  We'd love to be in touch with your office!"

My Favorite Secretary of State

We spoke for another 45 seconds or so as I walked the Florida Secretary of State and her aide to the curb, saw them into a cab, and caught my breath.  Tallahassee and I did have 3 more conversations that spring, as well as an exchange by post with the Secretary, who kindly enclosed a memento for me to share with y'all. >>>

The Porter family name comes from ancestors who must have carried bags for the aristocracy.  My heritage prepared me well for this encounter with the Worth Avenue Fendi and its dynamite owner.

"See you at the Orchid Ball, Katherine....

Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 1: John F. Kennedy

This is one of those "tenuous" posts, wherein the connection between me and the person in question is a bit ... stretched.  Thank you for granting me the license to make this attenuation:

Ready for the 100-yard drive uphill to speak at AC Cage

On this day in October 1963, President John F. Kennedy came to our town, to speak at the groundbreaking for the new Robert Frost Library, to be built at the head of the beautiful Amherst College quadrangle.  The "young and gallant" Kennedy was repaying a favor to Frost, the President's favorite American poet, who'd recited his poem The Gift Outright at Kennedy's inauguration in January, 1961.

Frost passed away two years later, and on this day was to be honored with the commemoration, after his decades teaching at Amherst College.

My parents were invited to attend the event, within walking distance of our home.  With an out of town commitment that weekend, they blithely decided, "We'll catch the President another time."  Were my brother and I, at ages 4 & 3 and in care of a weekend babysitter, in position as the President's helicopter touched down on the baseball field and the presidential Lincoln whisked him to the quad for his appearance? Our beloved sitter Kate McGrath insists yes! The event is so mythic as to be apocryphal, and my memory is not clear.

JFK's words delivered that day are enshrined on the Kennedy Center's River Terrace in Washington DC:

I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH WILL REWARD ACHIEVEMENT IN THE ARTS AS WE REWARD ACHIEVEMENT IN BUSINESS OR STATECRAFT. I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH WILL STEADILY RAISE THE STANDARDS OF ARTISTIC ACCOMPLISHMENT AND WHICH WILL STEADILY ENLARGE CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL OF OUR CITIZENS. AND I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH COMMANDS RESPECT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD NOT ONLY FOR ITS STRENGTH BUT FOR ITS CIVILIZATION AS WELL.

Local folklore has it that, on the way out of town, Kennedy's entourage stopped at Stan's Drive-In Market in Hadley and the President left with a short-order burger in a sack. Always, I have been fascinated by what may have transpired in those quick minutes by the roadside. Twenty seven days later, he was gone forever.

All summer long in 1977 I worked many days at the serene Frost Library, proofreading and fact-checking a book on Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I never - not once, ever, that summer, nor ever since - entered this building without feeling awe at the power and might of the intellects conjoined on that October day.

* Daria D'Arienzo, supreme Amherst College archivist, documents the 10/26/63 on-campus proceedings here, although she does not confirm details on the hamburger...

See also: Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 2: Liz and Dick Booze Cruise
                Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 3: ... Slept Here 

Nantucket Week: Sen. John Kerry (D) MA.

Nantucket Week cut a bit short: this will be the final missive as ACK braces for Hurricane Earl

A window table for the Senator's party

The finest restaurant on Nantucket is The Galley, hands down.  Amazing food, perfect ambiance, tremendous staff, and the only Nantucket setting whence you can watch the sun set into the ocean while you sip champagne.  The Silva family has refined this masterpiece every year for decades and it is absolutely #1.

During one July evening in the run-up to the 2008 elections, as my party was tucking into dessert, in came John (President) Kerry, (First Lady) Theresa Heinz Kerry, and John's daughter Alexandra.  We exchanged brief pleasantries as he worked the room, my father (not a Kerry fan) nonetheless warming to him and commending him on his commitment as Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship.  We Massachusetts citizens ("voters") were honored to be in his company and delighted when he took the table behind ours, with the beach view.

On this particular night Theresa ordered the swordfish; The Senator had the duck.

After a day of wind-surfing, Senator John Kerry (D), MA is wont to drop by The Galley for delicious fare, and a highball or two with with the high-rolling island plumbers and electricians.