Vice-President Eastwood?
Does anyone have more information about this?
Romney advisers so trusted Mr. Eastwood, 82, that unlike with other speakers, they said they did not conduct rehearsals or insist on a script or communicate guidelines for the style or format of his remarks. For Mr. Eastwood, the convention speech was a bit part in a career that has had its political moments. Angered by zoning laws he did not like, he served one two-year term as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. In 1988, George Bush briefly considered choosing him as his running mate; he picked Dan Quayle instead.
I know Bush had a wimp image in 1988, but really? Was Eastwood really on some kind of short list? Or is this really legend?
Smells like an urban legend. George H.W. Bush was never particularly charismatic, but made up for it in canniness, and wouldn’t have picked someone who would make people ask why the other guy wasn’t at the top of the ticket, precisely the mistake that Dukakis made with Bentsen. Plus, Eastwood has never displayed any real interest in electoral politics; his one two-year term as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea was apparently all about settling a grudge regarding local zoning, and aside from some appointments to state boards by Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, that’s all he’s ever done office-wise.
True, according to James Baker.
Yeah, anyone who thinks old HW would never tdo something as off–the–wall as nominating Eastwood needs to remember Dan Quayle.
I’m sure Clint knows how to spell “potato.”
After Thursday night, don’t be too sure.
Maybe not, but I bet Clint knows enough not to point the grenade launcher at your own elbow.
“And so I proudly say, ‘I PLEADGE THE LEGIANCE…!”
Clint sure does. He pulled Tyne Daly from behind one just in time.
Maybe he just really, really didn’t like that guy on his right?
Wasn’t a grenade launcher (M79, at the time) but a LAW (M72) which is a rocket launcher.
I’ve more than briefly considered asking out Scarlet Johansen.
no doubt it was considered, for about .00002 nanoseconds.
OK, guys, let’s cap these liquor bottles and get serious.
wait a freakin’ minute here! H.W. had a “wimp” image in 1988? who says? the guy was wwII navy fighter pilot, who survived getting shot down over the south pacific, and was director of the CIA. HE had a wimp image? i think someone’s full of shit. just because he didn’t walk around with his cock in his hand (like jr) didn’t, by any stretch, convey that he was a “wimp”. to the contrary, he always struck me as the guy that would slide a shiv between two ribs, and kind of “smile a little smile”, as it suddenly dawned on his unsuspecting victim that he was dead.
hell, pere’ could probably still kick jr.’s ass, well into his 40′s and 50′s. you’ve obviously never met any of those old fighter pilots, or you wouldn’t say such a foolish thing.
Accurately or not, George Bush was indeed seen as a wimp in the late 1980s.
In related news, it’s retroactively impossible that Paul Ryan ever had a reputation as a policy wonk.
You think these images have sweet fuck all to do with reality?
I think there’s a bit in Friday Night Lights where Bush goes back to West Texas on the campaign trail in ’88 and he’s drawing some kind of image of himself as a roughneck back in Odessa in the 1950s.
Also,too.
It’s so weird. But then again, how many people still think of John Wayne as the quintessential American badass?
To Eastwood’s credit, and unlike Marion, he did serve (albeit stateside).
Note the important distinction that can be drawn between ‘has an image as’ and ‘is’.
I’m just paranoid enough to believe that the Bush camp did not push back hard against the “wimp” label because it insulated him from scrutiny over his time with the CIA.
Yeah but are you paranoid enough to believe that the Bush camp did not push back hard against the “wimp” label because it insulated him from scrutiny over his connection with the JFK assassination?
and neil armstrong was still a threat to speak out about the faked moon landing at the time.
How young are you? The “George Bush is a wimp” meme was an incredibly persistent one that, as I recall, dates back at least to his 1980 run at the presidency when Reagan knocked him off and he ended up as Reagan’s running mate.
You’re mixing up “reality” with “perception”. Reagan was perceived as a tough guy full of swagger, despite the fact that he skipped out on WWII and from everything I’ve been able to tell about him was piss-his-pants scared of just about everything up to and including the Invisible Communists who were hiding under his bed.
Meanwhile George HW Bush was perceived as being a “wimp” despite the fact that it’s very likely that HW Bush was a Navy pilot in WWII, and was a high mucky-muck in the CIA. I don’t think that HW Bush was afraid of Invisible Communists or much of anything else, other than perhaps pissing off his buddies.
I think he was perceived as a “wimp” because he didn’t have a deep voice, he wore glasses, and didn’t star in a number of B-list movies where he played a tough guy. But in retrospect, it’s pretty obvious to me that Reagan was the “wimp” (or at least the coward) of the pair.
Not “very likely that he was a Navy pilot” – he was a Navy pilot. Stupid lack of proofreading ability that I have developed in my old age…
The fact that HW had an image as a wimp, while W had an image as a tough guy, illustrates the depth of bullshit in our national discourse.
The prescription for ignorance is always “watch more Simpsons”
Homer walks over to the house the Bushes rented across from the Simpsons to yell at George for spanking Bart. He is stopped at the main gate by two Secret Service agents. George sees the kerfuffle and opens up a window.
Homer: Hey! You owe me an apology.
George Bush Sr: You owe _me_ an apology. If you were any kind of a father, you’d have disciplined that boy a long time ago.
Secret Service Agent: You want to step back, Sir? You’re trampling the flowers.
Homer: Ooh! Hiding behind your goons, eh, Bush? Well _you_ are a _wimp_!
George: [with trembling lips] Wimp, am I? Agent Johnson, Agent Heintz, you men stand down.
[the gate opens and Homer walks in]
George: All right, Mister: you want trouble? You’re going to get trouble.
George Bush spanking Bart also sets up one of my favorite Simpsons jokes, when they’re all saying how much of an insult it is for another person to spank their son.
Grandpa: “Big deal! When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions!”
Because if there’s one thing we associate with George HW Bush, it’s an ability to instill discipline in his sons. One out of three ain’t bad!
George H. W. Bush has four sons. I’m not sure how you can get 1/3 of 4.
Barbara Bush has four sons. Only she can tell us how many sons GHW Bush has.
Just sayin.
I remembered Neil, Dubya, and Jeb. I didn’t think to check for the existence of one who was neither famous nor infamous.
George McGovern’s service, as summarized by Wikipedia:
“He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country’s entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals awarded him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew.”
From the Wikipedia entry for Sondra Locke:
Badass!
The jury deliberated for three years?!?
I read Stephen Ambrose’s “The Wild Blue,” about B-24 crews over Germany, and McGovern featured largely in it. Mentioned early on is his excellent depth-perception, which probably helped in that emergency landing of which an onboard observer said was the smoothest he’d ever experienced, which in the circumstances was very cool.
Also told is how McG had to jettison a bombload, and it (inevitably) flattened a farmhouse. McG, being a farmboy, knew at that time of day there would be a family inside at lunch and agonized over it for years. Many years later, he was back in Italy and encountered that family: they heard a low-flying bomber and took cover. And didn’t hold a grudge.
Not germane to the topic, just thought it was interesting.
I only learned today that Eastwood fathered seven children by five different women (including two he was married to).
So if nothing else, he’s got the Republican family values thing down cold.
So long as they were all boys, that National Review twerp will be happy with his family values.
His Wikipedia article suggests that at least two of them were (gasp) girls. As we know, only a pussy fathers girls.
During my lifetime, my native state has sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to Sacramento, George Murphy to the senate, and Ronald Reagan to fuck us all.
James Garner has told of having been approached by the GOP to run for a prime time office, way-back in the maverick-ee 1960′s. He replied that not only was he personally disinclined to accept, but he’d have to divorce his wife if he did.
I’m convinced that every time Charleton Heston* watched Ronald Reagan make an entrance, as the USMC band played Hail To The Chief, he thought to himself: “That could have been me”. He may have even thought, “should have been..”.
*(I am a big fan of a lot of Heston’s movies).