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Saturday Q&A

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Current Events

J.C. in San Antonio, TX, asks: It seems inevitable that the Epstein List will become public at some point. Those of us on the left need to brace ourselves for the strong possibility that it will contain people we laud and hold dear. What do you think the reaction will be on the right and the left when a prominent Democrat appears on the list right next to Dear Leader?

(Z) answers: We are not as certain as you that there is "an Epstein List," as that notion is generally understood, or that it will be made public, even if it does exist.

That said, we know exactly what Democrats will do if prominent Democrats are implicated: They will scream for those Democrats' heads. The Democratic base has no patience for sexual misbehavior, certainly not since #MeToo, and really for the past 20 years or so. Some of this is high-mindedness, some of it is more... practical.

For example, Al Franken was thrown under the bus, in part, because he was accused of problematic behavior at a very bad time to be accused of problematic behavior. But he was also sacrificed because it gave the Democrats the moral high ground in the special election in Alabama, which pitted generic Democrat Doug Jones against Republican sexual predator Roy Moore. And indeed, the blue team won the Senate seat in Alabama, while Franken was replaced by a Democrat, resulting in a net of +1 seat.

Following from this, we conclude that if, say, Bill Clinton is implicated, many Democrats will be angry and disgusted, and pretty much all Democrats will be happy to throw him under the bus so as to avoid giving Donald Trump an out.

P.R. in Arvada, CO, asks: This week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) named John Paulson as someone who is bankrolling attack ads against him and who, Massie alleges, is also named in the Epstein files. He also says that this was already publicly known.

Was Paulson's name already known? Also, how much influence do you think he really has on the GOP?

(Z) answers: Paulson is a well-known "investor" in politicians. Like most rich people, he spends on both sides of the aisle. However, he favors Republican candidates, and has donated very generously to Donald Trump. The kind of cash we're talking about absolutely buys someone access and influence, especially with someone as transactional as Trump is.

It is very plausible that because Paulson is Trumpy and wants to have influence over The Donald, he's spending money on anti-Massie ads. It's not that expensive to buy TV time in KY-04, even if it is the richest district in Kentucky, and even if it is in the semi-large Cincinnati media market.

We are unaware of anyone, besides Massie, who has connected Paulson to Epstein, per se. However, Paulson made his money as a high-powered hedge fund manager in New York City. The "official" source of Epstein's wealth was his work as a high-powered hedge fund manager in New York City. It is nearly inconceivable that they did not know each other, on some level. Whether that level included any sort of sexual misdeeds, we do not know.

D.K. in Iowa City, IA, asks: If Donald Trump took part in the Epstein sex assault scandal, shouldn't there be some "Trump survivors" who would come forward now, along with the Epstein survivors?

(Z) answers: Perhaps. But we can think of numerous possible reasons that such people might NOT come forward, or might not come forward right now:

They fear for their safety.

They fear for their reputation, particularly if they are married, or have kids, or work in a job (say, at a church) where moral character is important.

They fear for their mental and emotional well-being.

They are being held in reserve by some sort of legal or political chessmaster.

They want to sell their story, and are holding out for maximum value.

Because of the passage of time, or the use of mind-altering substances, or being trafficked to many different sexual partners, they don't remember if Trump was among their abusers.

Because of the passage of time, via natural or other means, they are dead.

M.R. in Washington, DC, asks: Your item about Florida winding down its vaccine mandates raised a question in my mind: Could other states require a proof of vaccine status to travel to their state?

(Z) answers: Probably not. That would be difficult to enforce, since it's not like you have to pass through a checkpoint (generally speaking) when you cross state lines. It would also be challenged in court, and would probably be struck down.

However, it likely would be possible to establish vaccine mandates for certain high-risk locations. For example, a state could probably require proof of vaccination before someone can enter a hospital, or a sporting arena, or a movie theater.

J.C. in Lockport, IL, asks: In your item about the strike on the boat off Venezuela, you mentioned the idea of Donald Trump wanting to start a war and questioned his reasoning. I've seen several social media posts recently mentioning the president's ability to cancel elections if the country is at war, which is why he's trying so desperately to start one. Is there any validity to this theory?

(Z) answers: This cannot be said often enough, or forcefully enough: There is absolutely NO validity to this theory. None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Donald Trump, or his supporters, are trying to normalize this notion, but they are full of crap.

To start, Congress, not the president, sets the dates of presidential elections, per the terms of Article II, Sec. 1: "The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States." And even if Congress agreed to move the date for some reason (which would be challenged in court), the Twentieth Amendment says that "The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [at the end of their fourth year]." There is no exception to this rule, and no entity that is granted power to alter that date. So, even if Congress moved the next presidential election to November of 2065, and the courts allowed it, Trump would have to vacate the presidency on January 20, 2029.

On top of that, precedent matters. There was some discussion of postponing the presidential election during the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln—a lawyer, remember—refused, and said there was no provision for that in the Constitution. If elections were not postponed during that war (or World War I, or World War II), it cannot plausibly be argued that the Venezuelan War merits a postponement.

R.Y. in Knoxville, TN , asks: Regarding the summary execution strike on the presumed drug boat: Why was that order not questioned by those who had to execute it? This is worrisome, because I have assumed (and you have written about) military pushback on illegal orders.

(Z) answers: We do not know what the servicemembers operating the boat were told. Further, a soldier or sailor who decides to refuse orders better be damn sure, because they are taking their career, and possibly their life, into their hands—mutiny and sedition are capital offenses, and if any administration was going to execute a rebellious soldier or sailor to make a point, it's this one.

In more clear-cut circumstances—say, an order to open fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters in Washington, DC—it would be much less ambiguous that the order was immoral and illegal, and we would expect soldiers to refuse it.

S.G. in Durham, NC, asks: (L) wrote about the Fifth Circuit upholding the application of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana. It seems like there have been several recent rulings from this circuit that are decidedly not "Trumpy," whereas not too long ago, it felt like Electoral-Vote.com would report weekly about how this circuit's rulings were in the bag for right-wingers. Was this feeling off base, and is the court not quite as homogeneous as I thought (i.e., is James Ho not representative of the majority of the court)?

(L) answers: The makeup and the conservative lean of the court has not changed. What has changed is the brazen behavior of this president and his underlings, behavior that is often a bridge too far even for a court as conservative as the Fifth Circuit.

What should be encouraging to all Americans is that there are lines that even these conservative judges will not cross; they can set aside their politics and apply the law. We saw that in the mifepristone case with the absolutely bonkers decision from Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that they, at least partially, struck down and we saw it again with the decision to enjoin Trump's unlawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Another consideration is that all eyes are on the Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit, like everyone else, understands that Trump generally gets extraordinarily favorable treatment from SCOTUS in a way that no other party, let alone a president, has ever enjoyed. It's possible that some of the Fifth Circuit justices are biding their time until they get the green light from the High Court, but it's very possible they are actually genuinely concerned for our democracy and are doing their best to keep some guardrails in place.

K.F.K. in Cle Elum, WA, asks: Having just finished reading the item about the concerns of lower court judges, I have to ask: What's in it for the Supreme Court justices throwing democracy under the bus? Unlike members of Congress or the Senate, they cannot be primaried or removed, so what are they afraid of? Or, have some really drunk the Kool-Aid? Maybe they are actually fearing for their lives? Shaking my head.

(Z) answers: In the end, the six conservatives really are conservatives. There are no closet liberals here, and maybe no closet centrists, either.

However, the story is still being written. Nearly all of the wins Donald Trump has gotten, so far, have been procedural (e.g., "we will lift this injunction for now") and have not been decisions that established substantive new precedent. When all is said and done, SCOTUS might do more holding of the line than it might seem right now. Certainly, that happened during Trump v1.0.

Politics

J.V. in Seattle, WA, asks: If MAGA is looking for a time when America was great, when was that time? For example, there seems to have been some reference to the 1940s, when fascism was in full swing and the U.S. responded after Hitler declared war on the U.S.

(Z) answers: Donald Trump has made very clear that he is thinking of the 1950s. And that decade was pretty great—if you were white, male, straight, Protestant, and did not contract a horrible disease like polio, or get into a car crash at a speed above 20 MPH, or live near a nuclear test site, or work for a non-union factory, or spend a lot of time worrying about a Russian nuclear strike, or... well, you get the point. These folks who look backwards, full of wistfulness for "better times," are invariably wearing rose-colored glasses.

J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, asks: You wrote, of Donald Trump Jr.: "He is a terrible politician with none of dad's charisma. None. He is also not very smart. He could never survive a primary against much better and smarter politicians."

While I'll grant Senior's charisma, this phrasing implies that he's smart. I question that assertion. What makes you say that Senior is smart?

(Z) answers: We don't think your inference necessarily holds. If you don't have charisma, you BETTER have some other asset, with "smart" being the best alternative. In other words, we could have written that sentence like this: "Junior doesn't have dad's charisma, and he doesn't make up for that with smarts."

That said, we wrote that in the context of this answer, in which we suggested that Trump Sr. has some sort of gift beyond just charisma, and that gift MIGHT be some domain of intelligence. In any case, whatever Trump Sr. has that makes people willing to risk their fortunes and their freedom for him, Trump Jr. doesn't have it.

W.R.S. in Tucson, AZ, asks: You ran an item about The Hill's breakdown of the 2028 Democratic presidential field, and also an item about the current president's poor health. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) seems to be able to hold people's attention primarily because he spars with the current president, mocks him, and generally seems to be positioning himself as "a Trump for the Left."

If Trump dies early in his second term, what happens to Newsom's prospects? Does he have any substance of his own? This year he's made the news for trolling DJT, but also for sending in state troops to clear the homeless out and for trashing trans-kids in sports. These are also things that DJT does. Who is Newsom when he's not pretending to be a Democratic version of the current guy?

(Z) answers: Newsom has considerable relevant experience, and a track record of real achievement. He is also a political chameleon who tries to gauge which way the wind is blowing, and to follow that path. These two things are not mutually exclusive; lots of successful politicians match this description. Lyndon B. Johnson, for example. Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton.

If Trump does die, however, we don't think Newsom will need to course-correct very much. J.D. Vance is eminently mockable, in all kinds of ways.

S.O.F. in New York City, NY, asks: While it's early, do you think that some of the early presidential candidates tip off how outlets intend to cover the primaries? For instance, The Hill has Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as No. 2 and Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) at No. 10. Does this indicate The Hill is getting ready to devote wall-to-wall coverage to AOC (AOC has Momentum!) and effectively bury Andy Beshear's candidacy (Beshear isn't Generating any Traction)?

(Z) answers: Maybe a little, but we don't think it will matter too much. First, both (V) and I have a list of about 15 people we regard as "viable" and would treat news about any of the 15 about the same. We would guess that is true for most people who write about politics. Second, national coverage doesn't matter too much in the primaries. Local coverage is more important, and a skilled and hardworking candidate can get a lot of it, no matter what the national writers are doing.

J.C. in Honolulu, HI, asks: I have family in Norway and they are telling me they have elections coming up in September. Can you provide any insight or analysis of this upcoming election? My cousins say it is going to be a close one.

(Z) answers: This is way outside our wheelhouse. So, if there are readers who have some insight, we welcome that at comments@electoral-vote.com, and we'll run those responses either tomorrow or during the week. If we don't hear from anyone, we'll hit the books (well, the websites), and see what we can learn.

Civics

A.H. in Espoo, Finland, asks: If the current Supreme Court gave a ruling that would quite clearly contradict the Constitution, what would actually happen after that?

(Z) answers: We must dispute your premise. No matter how egregiously a ruling subverted the plain language of the Constitution, the very first thing that the majority opinion would do is explain how it does not, in fact, contradict the Constitution, because [PHRASE X IN THE CONSTITUTION] actually means [OTHER THING THAT SEEMS TO BE VERY DIFFERENT FROM PHRASE X]. There are lots and lots of decisions like this, from Marbury v. Madison to the various decisions that say the "well-regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment isn't actually relevant, and need not be observed.

D.T.R. in Schaumburg, IL, asks: You wrote in "Different School Shooting; Same Script" that the best hope for meaningful gun reform would be the Democrats to take control of the Supreme Court and declare the Second Amendment only applied to weapons that existed in 1789 (I'm paraphrasing, of course.) I've often wondered if a better hope for gun reform might be that the courts might one day focus on the "well-regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment. I know it won't happen in the current environment, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about using the militia clause as a legal strategy.

(Z) answers: The well-regulated militia part has already been contested in court, and the Supremes have unambiguously found that it does not limit gun ownership to militia members (National Guard troops, in modern parlance). On the other hand, the guns-from-1789 angle has been much less fully explored AND would be consistent with the originalist jurisprudence produced by the Roberts Court. So, while it may not be the only path, it is the easier path, we think.

S.F.A. in Salisbury, MD, asks: Anyone who has ever watched one of those legal process shows on television or who has had the unfortunate experience of being arrested in the United States is familiar with the Miranda warning.

Do other Western democracies require that persons arrested be provided the similar warning and rights?

(L) answers: As it turns out, the Library of Congress put together a report on the 50th anniversary of the Miranda decision (June 2016), about the 108 countries that have Miranda-type warnings. Turns out there are countries in every region of the world where similar warnings are given, but the content varies quite a bit.

For example, in the Philippines, this is the warning: "You have the right to remain silent. Any statement you make may be used against you in a court of law in the Philippines. You have the right to have a competent and independent counsel preferably of your own choice. If you cannot afford the services of a counsel, the government will provide you one. Do you understand these rights?" Pretty similar to the American version.

By contrast, in the Solomon Islands, those arrested are told this: "If you want to remain silent you may do so. But if you want to tell your side you think carefully about what you say because I shall write what you say down and may tell a court what you say if you go to court. Do you understand?" That's a little different, particularly in not guaranteeing representation.

R.P. in Gloucester City, NJ, asks: For my entire life (I was born in 1967), in every presidential election, both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are completely decided weeks before my home state has its primary. This frustrating fact has always bothered me; it seems to not just dilute my vote but to render it outright irrelevant. My question for you has two parts: (1) Why does New Jersey have such a late primary and (2) Is there any likelihood that it would ever be changed? Even becoming part of Super Tuesday would be acceptable to me. I can see why candidates would not look forward to yet another state to be visited in the run-up to the huge multi-state primary day, but isn't representation worth anything anymore?

(Z) answers: Basically, the way it works is that if a state wants to go early, they have to hold presidential primaries, and then double back and hold primaries for other offices later. That means double the cost. So, many states, particularly those with larger populations, choose to just hold off and do everything at once.

There are a couple of ways around this problem. Caucuses are staged by the parties, so a state can have an early caucus and a later primary. However, caucuses are messy and have fairly low turnout, so not many states have them. Another option is to try to split the difference, and to pick a date (say, in early April) that gives some time for meaningful state-level primary campaigns, but also gives the state some small chance of influencing the presidential election.

We are hardly experts in New Jersey state politics, but we seriously doubt that there will be a date change. The state certainly isn't going to adopt a caucus. And it's not going to pay the price, either financial, or in terms of shortening primary campaigns, to be near the front of the line. The point of going early is to get the politicians to come, and do retail campaigning, and kowtow to your state's particular interests. But New Jersey is too big for that kind of campaigning, and the politicians would surely give it a pass.

D.P. in Oakland, CA, asks: Can a Presidential Medal of Freedom be rescinded?

(Z) answers: This was the most common question of the week, obviously occasioned by the awarding of the Medal to noted scumbag Rudolph Giuliani.

This question came up before, during the Barack Obama years, when Medal recipient Bill Cosby turned out to be a scumbag. And, at that time, Obama said "there is no precedent for revoking the Medal."

The careful reader will note that he did not actually say it cannot be done. After all, who is going to override the president when it comes to awarding or revoking the Presidential Medal of Freedom? At the same time, Obama declined to actually do it. Undoubtedly, he did not want to lay the groundwork for a game of tit-for-tat, where recipients who are disfavored by future administrations can be stripped of their medals.

Donald Trump is nowhere near as smart as Obama, but we would guess that even he can see the Pandora's Box he would be opening if he tried to revoke, say, the medal awarded to Joe Biden. Trump might do it anyhow; if so, we would hope that on Day 1 of the next Democratic presidential term, Giuliani, Rush Limbaugh, Arthur Laffer, Jim Jordan and Cosby would all have their awards revoked. These five men aren't just obnoxious; they actively harmed people.

History

B.P.V. in Fairview Park, OH, asks: This is kind of a goofy question, but it has been percolating in my mind for years, and your comment about the U.S. not winning the War of 1812 gives me the impetus to ask your opinion. Given that the Treaty of Ghent resulted in no territory being lost or won and basically reinstated the pre-war status quo, did the U.S. lose, or was the war a "tie"? Can that even happen in a war?

(Z) answers: I think so. In fact, there are three major U.S. wars that, to my students, I describe as a tie: The War of 1812, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

In all three cases, the United States neither surrendered, nor did it receive the surrender of the enemy. That alone makes it hard to declare a winner or a loser. Meanwhile, in the War of 1812, the U.S. gained no land or treasure, but it did achieve its broader goal of securing its territory against predations from outsiders (the next attack by a foreign power against U.S. territory was Pearl Harbor). In the Korean War, the U.S. gained no land or treasure, but it did achieve its broader goal of halting the spread of communism to South Korea.

The war that comes closest to being a loss is Vietnam. Once again, the U.S. gained no land or treasure. And, unlike Korea, it ultimately failed to achieve its broader goal of halting the spread of communism to the capitalist half of the divided nation. However, even there, the U.S. did achieve something, in that communism did not spread beyond the borders of Vietnam. Further, the Soviets' involvement in that war was part of a broader set of choices that ultimately overextended that nation's military and financial resources, and laid the groundwork for its downfall.

So, no clear "win" in any of these three cases, and no clear "loss," either. That leaves "tie" as the best word the English language has to describe the situation.

F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: Who are the three worst and three best Majority Leaders in the history of the U.S. Senate?

(Z) answers: There aren't as many choices as some people may think, as the position of Majority Leader has only existed for a bit over a century. Anyhow, the three best:

Joseph T. Robinson (D, 1933-37): He shepherded the most important New Deal legislation through the Senate. That said, he doesn't get to be #1 because FDR was no slouch himself when it came to getting legislation through Congress, and because the Democrats had a very large majority, meaning not too much cat herding was required.

Mike Mansfield (D, 1961-77): Ibid., except replace "New Deal" with "Great Society" and "FDR" with "LBJ."

Lyndon B. Johnson (D, 1955-61): A legend, and justifiably so, since he had to get things done while working with a president of the other party (albeit a moderate, put-the-good-of-the-American-people-first president of the other party).

And the three worst:

John Thune (R, 2025-): He's a short-timer, obviously. But has he engaged in ANY leadership? Seems to us that when Donald Trump says "Jump," Thune says "How high?" That means Thune has abrogated his constitutional duty to rein in the worst impulses of this administration, like putting Pete Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon, or slashing Medicaid.

Trent Lott (R, 1996-2001): A not-so-closet racist who helped enable the democracy-damaging shenanigans of Newt Gingrich.

Mitch McConnell (R, 2015-21): Yes, he was certainly a very effective leader. But I rank him worst for two reasons. The first is that his main accomplishments were not because of his talents as a legislator or a party leader, but because of his willingness to violate norms that his predecessors would not. For example, he refused a vote on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court to give the people a chance to speak 9 months later. But when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, he rammed Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate a week before the election. The second is that McConnell either did not anticipate, or did not care about, the consequences of his actions, which served to enable many of the worst parts of Trumpism—things that even McConnell himself abhors. If that is not failure, we don't know what is.

We don't love it that our three best are from one party, and our three worst are from another. But the three bad ones have all clearly suborned serious harm to democracy, something that is not really true of any other majority leader of either party. Meanwhile, Democrats have held the office a lot more than Republicans have, and so a blue teamer has been in the big chair during most of the most forward-moving eras in American history. If you want the best Republican leader ever, it's Charles Curtis (1924-28). And if you want the worst Democratic leader ever, it's Ernest McFarland (1951-53).

T.B. in Santa Clara, CA, asks: At what point did the racist and bigoted bloc of the population shift from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party? Clearly, the KKK was not in the same party as Lincoln. I tried to look it up, but I can't get a clear answer (maybe I'm not phrasing it correctly).

As a follow-up, what drove the switch?

(Z) answers: I have had this question from students many times, students who say that other professors were unable or unwilling to explain it to them. Really... it's not that hard.

After the Civil War, the newly enfranchised freedmen (not freedwomen, though, at least until 1921) all became Republicans, because that was the party that had killed slavery, and because all the white supremacists were in the other party. Many Black leaders summed that up succinctly as: Lincoln freed the slaves. When you or your parents were the slaves, that counted for a lot. For a brief period of time, GOP leadership envisioned becoming a nationally dominant party with a white voter base in the North, and a Black voter base in the South. However, it proved to be VERY difficult to protect that Black voter base in the South, and it also proved possible to be a nationally dominant party without those voters. So, the Republicans didn't do much for Black people from 1876 or so, onwards.

Fast forward to the 1930s, and Franklin D. Roosevelt did a lot for poor people. Most Black people were also poor, so the New Deal helped them, even if helping Black people was not the particular focus. FDR was still dependent on white, Southern votes, so he could not hold Black voters too close, but Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion of civil rights, both during her tenure as First Lady and after. Harry S. Truman also helped poor people, and he took a few high-profile steps in favor of equality, like integrating the U.S. Armed Forces (well, all of them except the Navy, which was already integrated). Thanks to all of this, Black people began to drift away from the Republican Party.

Then came the Civil Rights Movement. It is true that Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower took some steps in favor of equality, like forcibly integrating Little Rock Central High School. However, he didn't do a LOT, and he was always clearly reticent, for fear of losing the support of racist voters. His successor, John F. Kennedy, did considerably more, even if he too expressed reticence, at times. Then came LBJ, who did a lot for poor people (most Black people were still poor) AND also maneuvered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through Congress.

By the end of Johnson's term, the move of Black voters from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, a process that had begun in earnest three decades earlier, was pretty much complete. There were some prominent Black citizens, like Jackie Robinson, who had grown up Republican, and were never quite willing to fully make the changeover (though he voted Democratic in the LBJ elections). Sometimes, people who are trying to argue that the Democrats were, always have been, and always will be the racist political party, point to the partisan registration of Robinson, et al., during this time of transition, as "proof" of their (ahistorical) point.

Eventually, a lot of Southern whites noticed that they were in the same political party as the Black people. That was not a pleasing thought. Prominent Republicans noticed it, too, and tried to leverage it. There was Richard Nixon's "southern strategy" and Ronald Reagan's "welfare queens"; both of those boiled down to using dog whistles to communicate to racist white people that the Republican Party was their new home. And so, many Southern Democrats made the jump, including many prominent Southern Democratic politicians. Strom Thurmond was one of the first high-profile defections; the last really big one we can think of is probably Richard Shelby, who flipped in 1994.

That's pretty much the story.

B.C. in Walpole, ME, asks: You wrote: "And even before Tweed, the political road was littered by the bodies of politicians who were made into the butt of the joke, among them Matthew Lyon, Roger Griswold, Martin Van Buren and John C. Frémont."

Okay, I'll bite. Tell us a John C. Frémont joke. (Assuming of course that Frémont is a greater source of humor than Griswold.) Wait, wait. He was the first Republican candidate for President (1856) and he lost. Is it something like, "Ha! Looks like the Pathfinder of the West couldn't find his way to the White House!"

(Z) answers: A lot of the jokes were in the form of political cartoons or songs. And many of the remainder just would not translate to today.

However, here is a joke that has been recycled for hundreds of elections, and by all evidence was first told during the Frémont election. A young boy has a litter of puppies he is trying to sell. A man approaches him and asks "Are those Frémont puppies?" The youngster assures him that they are, and so the man buys two of them.

The next week, that same man sees the same boy selling the rest of the puppies to another fellow. This second fellow asks "Are these Buchanan puppies?" The youngster affirms that they are, and the second fellow buys two and takes them away. The first man marches up and says: "Hey! I thought you told me these were Frémont puppies!" "They were," says the young fellow. "But now their eyes have opened."

I.S. in Cap Ferret, France, asks: I am in my early twenties and am too young to remember much about the 2008 presidential race. How was Sarah Palin ever considered a serious vice-presidential candidate?

Is she near the top of the list of worst candidates on a presidential ticket? She must be in the top 10.

(Z) answers: She was not considered serious, particularly once she started to open her mouth. Her very lack of seriousness, in fact, proved to be a major (perhaps fatal) blow to the John McCain presidential campaign. Many voters who had admired McCain for putting country first, and for being a maverick, jumped ship because he made an unfit choice so obviously intended to pander to the religious right. Meanwhile, the religious right wasn't terribly impressed, as they saw Palin as a lousy standard-bearer for their cause.

There have been some very questionable VP candidates on third-party and independent tickets (James Stockdale, who was a shell of his former self by the time Ross Perot tapped him, leaps to mind). In terms of major tickets, Palin is almost certainly the worst ever. Other very bad ones, in chronological order, include John C. Calhoun, William Rufus DeVane King, Andrew Johnson, William A. Wheeler, Thomas R. Marshall, Spiro Agnew, Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney, John Edwards and J.D. Vance. Some of these folks hurt the ticket badly. Others hurt the country.

Fun Stuff

W.F. in Orlando, FL, asks: I've watched John Wayne movies for over 50 years now, and I still think that John Wayne always played the same character in every movie. He's always an over-the-top, tough-talking, macho stereotype who always wins the fight and never shows any non-manly emotions. I enjoy the movie The Longest Day for its efforts at historical accuracy, but the John Wayne character is just stuck in there for melodrama and to show that he's tougher than everybody else and will never retreat. It's so unnecessary.

My question is: "Why"? What did people see in his stereotypical characters? Didn't it get old or seem ridiculous at some point to the audiences? Was he just unimaginative, or did he feel he always had to play John Wayne instead of a movie character? What were producers looking for when they gave him lead roles? Was he just a box office sure-thing? How is he viewed today?

(Z) answers: For a very long time, as we noted last week, American audiences basically wanted to see the same character and/or actor in only slightly different situations. Think the success of the Horatio Alger stories, or the Hardy Boys, or the Republic serials. John Wayne delivered that better than just about anyone, which is why he's generally considered to have played the lead in more films than any other actor (about 140 of them). Sometimes, the films weren't just similar, they were almost exactly the same. For example, Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo have not only the same plot, but many of the same beats (like a young hothead character named after a state).

Wayne was as sure a thing as it gets in Hollywood for many years, and beyond his salary, Westerns were pretty cheap to make, which is why he never wanted for jobs, at least until the mid-1970s. At that point, he was old and sick, and Westerns were out of favor, so his production slowed to a relative trickle. In the last 5 years of his life, he did just three films.

We should note that while Wayne often played John Wayne, he did show range in a few films. Red River, which is very dark, features some very fine work, enough so that Wayne's frequent collaborator John Ford (the only director to win four Best Director Oscars) saw the film and said "I never knew the big sonuvabi**h could act." There was also The Searchers, where he was directed by Ford, and which is considered by many to be the best film for both men. The Duke's performance in True Grit was also nuanced, and the Best Actor Oscar he won for that film was not just a career achievement award. And The Shootist was one of the best and most fitting final films for any actor, and featured a performance very different from what we see in, say, Stagecoach.

Today, we'd say there are three things Wayne is remembered for: (1) being a Hollywood legend, (2) being a better actor than he was sometimes given credit for, (3) being an outspoken conservative who sometimes said things that are not acceptable to modern hearers.

A.G. in Scranton, PA, asks: As a young ballplayer, one raised on stories of the earlier, more magical days of baseball, never far from my thoughts when thinking about baseball was "The Kid," whom Babe Ruth couldn't stand at first because he (Ruth) had been abused and abandoned by his parents, and "The Kid" was a "mama's boy" who stole the spotlight reserved for Ruth (both of these were in Ruth's opinion).

Lou Gehrig, not the longball specialist, but not a hitter who didn't regularly hit home runs (with an odd quirk for hitting grand slams, I believe) had his meteoric career cut off by ALS. The impact of that loss and the profile of one who was taken so young caused the disease to be named after him in colloquial references.

Do you think he would have broken any other records had he stayed healthy? Which ones?

"Murderer's Row." That's a fu**ing awesome nickname.

(Z) answers: When Gehrig was struck by ALS, he was entering the decline phase of his career. He had a great season at age 34, a good season at 35, and was done at 36.

If we imagine that he could have taken a magic pill, and could have avoided ALS entirely, he probably would have done better at age 35, as the early stages of the disease were probably already affecting him by then. He probably would have had a great-to-good age 36 season, and some good-to-OK seasons to round things out. Let's put it this way; Ruth was great at 35, 36 and 37, good at 38 and 39, and done at 40.

So, Larrupin' Lou probably gets 3, 4, maybe 4½ seasons back, but for the disease. And no matter how generous we are with how good those seasons would have been, there's no way he makes a run at the home run record or the hits record. Gehrig finished with 493 of the former, and 2,721 of the latter. He was not going to average the nearly 50 HR per season he would have needed to catch Ruth in home runs (much less to outdistance later HR-crown-holders Henry Aaron and Barry Bonds), and he certainly was not going to average the more than 300 hits per season he would have needed to catch Ty Cobb (much less later hit king Pete Rose). Similarly, all the career rate stats are out of reach; nobody is ever going to touch Ruth's career .690 SLG or Cobb's career .366 BA or Ted Williams' career .481 OBP.

However... Gehrig was an RBI machine, and he finished with 1,995 of them. The career leader is Aaron, with 2,297. If Gehrig had lasted just three more seasons, he would have needed 100 RBI a year, a number he easily cleared in every full season he played. If he'd been 100% at age 35, and had lasted four seasons after that, he would have needed only 70 or so RBI per season. So, it's fair to think that, but for the ALS, Gehrig would still be the all-time RBI leader.

H.M in San Dimas, CA, asks: Who are the five most deserving people eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame who are not in?

(Z) answers: We are going to start with the assumption that this question excludes players who are not in because of steroid use/suspicion (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens), or because of their being antisocial sociopaths (Curt Schilling, Pete Rose), or because they are not yet eligible (Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Zack Greinke).

Among people who are eligible, and who were not held back by some external issue, the top five are:

Dr. Frank Jobe: "Tommy John" surgery changed the face of baseball by giving a great many pitchers a second chance. What might Sandy Koufax have done, for example, if his wrecked left elbow could have been patched up? Many say John himself should be inducted, because of this important change to the game. How about we induct the doctor who invented the surgery first?

Luis Tiant: There are a bunch of pitchers who were very productive, but failed to meet the 300 wins criteria that voters used for... generations. They should be admitted, with El Tiante leading the way (followed by Rick Reuschel, Kevin Brown, and three or four others).

Andruw Jones: There are several players who were mediocre-to-OK as hitters, and who are in for their defense. Bill Mazeroski is one, and Brooks Robinson is another. Jones was actually good as a hitter, and is perhaps the best defensive player of all time at a key defensive position (among CF, it's between him and Willie Mays). How is he not in?

Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich: These two gentlemen played the same position, in the same era, and put up the same value over the course of their careers. They are, hands-down, the two biggest oversights among should-be Hall of Famers, and were victims of the fact that HoF voters of their era did not know how to evaluate players who were very good at many things (as opposed to being great at one thing), and did not place enough value (or any value) on getting on base a lot.

B.S. in Phuket, Thailand, asks: You wrote that the educational video games of your youth were mostly pretty boring. Did you play any of the Carmen Sandiego games, and if so, what did you think of them? I really enjoyed the ones I played (mostly Where in the U.S.A Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?), but I could be biased because I was a huge geography buff as a kid.

I'm a handful of years younger than you, and my elementary/middle school's computer lab had Apple IIGS machines. There were a handful of games we could play in computer class when we finished the day's assignment, one of which was Oregon Trail. Rather than playing the game the way it was supposed to be played, being typical middle schoolers, my friends and I would compete to see who could kill off the pioneer family the quickest. Good times.

(Z) answers: I did not play any of the Carmen Sandiego games. In part, that's because by the time they came available for a computer I had access to—roughly 1987—I was soon to enter high school, and the games were a little young for me. And in part, it's because most of my video gaming in those days was NES, and not PC. Although there was eventually a SuperNES version of the game, there was never an NES version.

M.B. in Menlo Park, CA, asks: What do you think about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting engaged? Will there be a huge wedding or something small and private? Any advice for how a celebrity couple can have a successful marriage?

(A) answers: I mostly have no opinion. I'm happy for them; they both seem like nice people. I like some of her music and don't like some of it, but she seems very smart and independent, and watching right wingers get all worked up into a furor because of that is amusing.

(L) answers: I have not followed the Kelce/Swift saga all that closely, but I think it's great they're engaged and offer my congratulations and best wishes. They sure seem about as down-to-earth as you can get for being a world famous celebrity couple, and they both seem really dedicated to family. If you haven't seen the New Heights podcast with them both on, it's quite charming. And if that's an act, then it's pretty impressive to keep that up for over 2 hours. To answer your third question, even with celebrity couples, having the families on board is important and they seem to have that—she and Jason Kelce have a good rapport. They also share a fierce work ethic—Travis refers to them both as athletes. And they seem to genuinely like each other and share the same values.

But the real trick, it seems to me, is not to resent the other's star power. Travis is talented and famous but not Taylor Swift famous. And it doesn't seem to bother him one iota. In fact, just the opposite. He loves how successful and smart and talented she is. He's her biggest fan, and vice-versa. He cried along with her when she finally got her master recordings back—I mean, come on, y'all. You listen to them together and they're a little dorky—you'd never guess they were the world's most famous celebrity couple. They genuinely support each other—that's a key to success.

As for their wedding, I'm guessing there'll be a theme of some kind—maybe along the lines of a high school prom to extend the engagement analogy. I would imagine they'll have a smaller ceremony for close friends and family and then something bigger for their fans. I could see Taylor hiding some Easter eggs for her fans with hints about their future. They do most of their talking on the field or on the stage/in albums, so I wouldn't expect a lot of public appearances, unlike Bennifer. But Swift is devoted to her fans, so she'll put together something special for them to enjoy.

(Z) answers: Good for them. They're both in a fishbowl, and yet they found someone to be with. And they seem to have real affection for each other.

I think they will probably have a very big wedding. Their engagement photos were clearly very carefully stage-managed, in part because they are both shrewd self-marketers, and in part because they both want to keep fans happy. If you're going to go all-out on your engagement photos, it's hard to believe you're then going to head to Vegas to be married by an Elvis impersonator at the Chapel 'o Burning Love.

I have no experience being part of a celebrity couple, though it seems that the most common impediment is that the career of one member of the couple, or both, gets in the way of their private lives and their together time. So, if I was them, I would agree that one week every X months (3? 4?) would be left completely open for downtime or a vacation or something like that, that will allow them to reconnect.

Gallimaufry

P.R.M. in Atlanta, GA, asks: We all need relief from the sh**nozzle of assaults on our dignity and democracy that our current administration is perpetrating presently.

Such relief may take the form of dispatches from abroad. I would love to hear from (V) about quotidien characteristics of life in The Netherlands. Does he walk for his groceries? What is the variety like when he gets to the shops? How much is a really good cup of coffee? Are there a**hole tailgaters on the freeway? What does broadband set him back? What (if anything) does he really miss from the good ol' USA?

(V) answers: We get groceries delivered by one of the local supermarkets once a week. Beats walking. Variety is good but not crazy. There are 20 kinds of cereal, not 200. I don't drink coffee, so I don't know what it costs. Internet is about $90/mo for 1 Gbps up + 1 Gbps down, 150 TV stations, a bunch of movies, two VoIP landlines and a WiFi modem. Tailgaters are very rare. What do I miss (other than some friends)? I can't get chocolate chips for baking cookies here, so I stock up when I am in the U.S.

T.B. in Leon County, FL, asks: Per your reference to the Electoral-Vote.com staff on Friday, are there affairs of the heart affecting the good-governance of my favorite blog? ~~Smutty~~ Discerning minds want to know!

(Z) answers: Our official policy is that whatever happens at Mom's Bar and Grill (and, afterwards, at Hotel Coral Essex) stays at Mom's Bar and Grill (and, afterwards, at Hotel Coral Essex).

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