June 8, 1978
A. David Chan asked about Carol Hallett and by good fortune I had her photo in the “someday soon” stack. Her biography says she was field office representative for Assemblyman, later Congressman, William M. Ketchum. Speak up if you know for sure, my guess is that she was the first woman elected from the area to state assembly.
She later served in President Reagan’s administration as Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. She also headed the Customs Dept. in the George Herbert Walker Bush administration.
When these pictures were made Proposition 13 had just passed attendees at a fund raising luncheon were in a fine mood. About 1,200 people paid $15 each to eat and hear speeches by Carol Hallett and Ronald Reagan.
Quoting Jeanne Huber’s story:

An Atascadero Republican, Mrs. Hallett is seeking election to a second term in the 16th Assembly District.
Thursday’s event turned out to be as much a celebration of the voters decision to limit property taxes through Proposition 13 as it was a campaign rally for Mrs. Hallett, who is considered a shoo-in for re-election by political observers.
***
Reagan got a standing ovation with his response to a question of whether he planned to run for president in 1980: “I haven’t closed the door yet, so stay loose.”

Photos were by Thom Halls

ShareThis

Do you recognize these guys?
They were two of the most powerful congressmen of their time. Leon Panetta was profiled last week and to the right is Republican congressman Bill Thomas from Bakersfield.

Panetta chaired the House Budget committee from 1989-1993 and later served in Bill Clinton’s White House. A few years later, in 2001, after the majority of the House had shifted Republican, Thomas became chairman of the all-powerful Ways and Means Committee. He retained that position until he retired in 2006. At times the Monterey and Bakersfield district lines were drawn so that they touched, often here within San Luis Obispo county. It is remarkable to have that much power in the office of a local representative but to have it with two reps from the same area under two different majorities is unique.

Thomas’ career was remembered in a editorial published Tuesday, March 14, 2006:

Rep. Bill Thomas’ retirement next year will leave this area without some major federal clout. As the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee for the past five years, he’s achieved some laudable local legislation while securing his reputation as one of the brightest policy wonks in Washington where federal tax and trade issues are concerned.

Thomas has been gerrymandered in and out of the Central Coast since 1979, with his most recent stint beginning in 2002. At that time, he picked up northern and southern San Luis Obispo County along with the rest of his constituency in District 22.

In that time, he’s gone to bat for post-earthquake FEMA funding in Paso Robles, entered legislation that curbs frivolous lawsuits connected to the Americans with Disabilities Act and secured funding to make the Ahearn Ranch on Cuesta Grade an ecological preserve.

At the federal level, he’s credited with pushing through President Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cut, and he is regarded as the lead architect of the $400 million Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.

But there’s been a flaw in Thomas’ otherwise intelligent public policy-making style. The chairmanship of Ways and Means calls for finesse and a deft diplomatic touch when dealing with trade and health care issues. Thomas on occasion has opted for an axe rather than a scalpel approach to passing legislation — many times for no discernible reason. He’s been called the smartest man in Congress — and one of the meanest. Bottom line? He doesn’t suffer fools lightly.

A memorable episode when Thomas’ patience was tried occurred three years ago when he called down the Capitol police on his Democratic committee colleagues. He later tearfully apologized, saying to a hushed House: “As my mother would have put it, ‘When they were passing out moderation, you were hiding behind the door.’ “

The photograph is from an interview on CNN in 1991 by Robert Dyer. It is rare to see policy makers on television today, they seem more interested in showing entertaining pundits rather than the folks that will actually make decisions.

ShareThis

With the Obama/McCain presidential campaign getting ugly and the economy uncertain, let’s take a moment to look back at a local politician who was almost as popular with Republicans as Democrats. Not many can say both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton appointed them to their posts. Fewer can say they balanced the federal budget.

Leon Panetta came to Washington in 1966 as a legislative assistant to Republican Sen. Thomas Kuchel. Kuchel was appointed to fill Nixon’s vacant seat when Dwight Eisenhower tapped the Yorba Linda resident to be his vice-president in 1952.

By the late 1960s, Panetta believed Nixon’s stump promises to enforce civil rights laws and accepted an appointment in 1969 to join his staff as the director of the office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Problem was Nixon said a lot of things he didn’t really believe.

Nixon was scheming to split Democratic voters and part of his strategy in 1968 was to say nice things to civil rights supporters while behind the scenes wooing segregationists like South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. Having a civil rights director who enforced the law was a problem for a president who billed himself a law-and-order politician. Panetta was forced to resign.

This era was a struggle for voters and the souls of both parties. The evolutionary result was that many voters who thought like Thurmond changed their affiliation to Republican; many who thought like Panetta became Democrats.

Today’s TV talk show circuit often features voices like Pat Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter, but you won’t see moderate Republicans in the tradition of John Lindsay or Nelson Rockefeller; they are almost extinct.

In 1976, the now-Democrat Panetta ran for the 16th Congressional district and won. During the 16 years he represented Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties in Congress, he rose to chair the House Budget Committee and became an expert in the arcane federal budget process.

My introduction to the congressman was as a Cal Poly student. College campuses are not at the top of the list for visiting politicians. And why would they? Why waste time traveling to the corner of the district, talking to voters who have notoriously low turnout numbers, don’t have money to contribute and are always asking for lower student fees and more programs?

Could the answer be public service? Panetta was a good listener who answered pointed questions. He had both a sense of humor and was able to tell people what was realistic to expect.

He won over constituents by running an efficient office, returning money to the treasury rather than building a Washington empire. Quoting from a New York Times story from April 15, 1992:

“Mr. Panetta operates with unusual frugality, using his frequent-flyer mileage to finance much of his official travel and buying some of his own office furniture. He elicited snickering from some colleagues when he returned to the Treasury this year’s 4.2 percent cost-of-living raise.”

In a December 1992 perspective column longtime Telegram-Tribune staffer Warren Groshong wrote about the response the congressman gave to a letter from Wilmar Tognazzini.

“Less than a month later, Tognazzini found in his rural mailbox a three-page, single spaced personal letter – about 1,000 words- from Panetta.
The congressman said many of Tognazzini’s concerns were the same as his own.
“You may be interested to know,” Panetta wrote, “that my office has contacted the Postal Service to relate the concerns you have expressed.”
Panetta responded to each point of Tognazzini’s letter, explaining the background of each problem, what Congress has done about the problem and proposals about future solutions.
…
The letter was far more that Tognazzini ever expected to get from a busy congressman who was chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee.”

Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 he needed Washington D.C. experience on his team and appointed Panetta as White House budget director.

When Clinton’s first year began to drift and stall, he named Panetta as his chief of staff to help sharpen his policies and message. Clinton became the first president in a generation to balance the budget thanks in part to Panetta and averted a trajectory that doomed Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Panetta resigned at the end of Clinton’s first term and now runs a nonpartisan center in Monterey for the study of public policy.

He is the only politician with more biography folders than Ronald Reagan in the Tribune library.

Panetta was quoted in a Jan Greene story from April 12 of 1991.

Although Panetta obviously loves his work, he acknowledges the 16-hour days can only go on for so long.

“You can’t keep it up forever,” he says with a smile. “It makes it hard to sit down and enjoy life.”

Fiscal responsibility, competence, hard work and a sense of fairness for all constituents, that’s what I want from my elected officials.

ShareThis

Gore Vidal looks pensive as he surveys San Luis Obispo County Airport after overcast delayed his landing.

May 25, 1982
Gore Vidal is a journalist’s dream candidate because unreserved subjects make writing a story easy. Every time you look up from the notebook they say something more provoking than the last time. Professional politicians love running against them because they can look like the steady alternative, without trying.

The prolific author had his first book on the shelf at the tender age of 21. Yet the siren call of politics drew him to run for a New York Congressional seat in 1960 and for a California Senate seat in 1982.

He worked hard while he was in town, book signing and lecture at Cal Poly, visit to the residents of the Anderson Hotel and a television interview. The steady royalty checks from popular novels and screenplays somewhat insulated him from the usual grind of working a room for donations. It was a good thing because there were very few special interests who would give money to an acid witted author.

Staff writer Larry Bauman wrote:

Why at the age of 65, is Vidal taking a leave from the literary life to become a politician?
As he told a Cal Poly audience Tuesday morning: They asked me why I decided to run this year and I said ‘frustration.’ And I don’t want it written on my tombstone that he always complained but he never did anything about it.”

There were so many leftovers they ran a quote box next to the main story under the headline:

A few gems from Gore Vidal
On Gov. Brown:
“Heaven knows what he’s talking about – resonated air.”
On Congress:
“You must remember that most of the people in Congress are sent there by the defense industry and other corporations.”
On the CIA
“It’s dangerous, it’s unconstitutional, it’s the president’s hit squad.”
On liberals:
“The liberals seem to feel that most of the country is composed of Archie Bunkers. They’re wrong.”
On Television:
“What do you get out of it? You get docile workers and eager consumers.”
On Vidal:
“You Know I’m just the master of the obvious. If I see a pothole, I say it should be fixed.”

Vidal finished second in the Democratic primary to Edmund G. Brown Jr. who lost in turn to San Diego mayor Pete Wilson.

Photos by Tony Hertz

ShareThis

Ronald Reagan at a fundrasier for assemblywoman Carol Hallett June 9, 1978. She later served in Washington in his administration. Above photo by Thom Halls/The Tribune

His first step onto the national political stage was stumping for Barry Goldwater’s presidential run in 1964. Then two years later Ronald Reagan did what Richard Nixon could not. He unseated Edmund G. “Pat” Brown as governor of California.
It takes a better political carpenter than me to identify what planks are different in the Nixon-Reagan gubernatorial platforms.
Their biggest differences were not their ideology but their charisma.
Nixon always seemed to be working the angles, scrabbling for an advantage. Reagan never appeared he was working that hard.
Quoting Nixonland author Rick Perlstein, concluding a chapter on Ronald Reagan:
“He answered a need: he humiliated the liberals. He would tell young people harassing him with signs reading MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR, that the problem was they looked incapable of doing either. To him a hippie was someone “who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
In the four eventful years since Nixon challenged Brown in 1962, a lot had changed.
President John F. Kennedy had been murdered in 1963; in the aftermath a large number of Democrats won congressional seats. Kennedy’s successor Lyndon Johnson arm-twisted Congress to pass civil rights legislation and anti-poverty programs in the memory of JFK. This, in addition to rioting in Watts and other black communities across the nation, galvanized suburban voters into a powerful backlash.
Brown had been on vacation in Europe when the riots broke out and the state’s response to the crisis was disjointed. The burning city was televised live via helicopter, a first.
If that weren’t enough to scare suburban voters, hippies were hitching rides along freeways, protesting the Vietnam War and generally making fun of values middle class voters held dear.
College professor Dr. Timothy Leary exhorted people to take LSD and “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
Leary’s followers did not make it to the polls, Reagan’s did.
Almost 80 percent of the state’s registered voters showed up to turn out Brown.
A measure of the Reagan charisma was California’s single biggest tax increase was passed during his term, yet anti-tax conservatives still canonize his political memory.
Pat Brown’s son, Edmund G. Brown Jr. known as Jerry, would follow Reagan after two terms.

ShareThis

Do you remember Arianna Huffington the conservative Republican?

She and her husband Michael exploded on the political scene of the California Central Coast in 1992.

Michael Huffington took on an over 9-term Republican incumbent Bob Lagomarsino  and handed the veteran politician the first election defeat in his 34-year political career.

Unseating an incumbent cost millions and that was just the primary. Then there was the general election. He spent $5.4 million, a national record, for a lot of negative television commercials, $5.1 million of his own oil fortune was poured into the race.

The other part of selling a candidate was going around to newspapers and talking to the editors to get an endorsement from the editorial pages.

Michael was an introverted, soft-spoken Stanford graduate. Arianna was quick witted Cambridge grad and author; energetic in advancing her Reagan Republican husband’s platform.

I remember a reporter’s post-interview observation that the wrong spouse was running. All the best quotes in the notebook were from Arianna.

Quoting from an profile by Jan Greene:

As the race for the Republican congressional nomination heats up, Michael Huffington has pulled out a secret weapon: his wife Arianna.

The Greek-born best-selling author, socalite and mother has taken a hiatus from writing her latest book to stump for her husband.

She may even come to your door, since she’s spending some of her time walking precincts in San Luis Obispo County.

You’ll know her when you see her — she’s the perfectly coiffed, incredibly gracious and well-mannered denizen of London, New York and Houston with a mysterious Mediterranean accent.

After one term in the House of Representatives the ambitious couple dipped into their savings  account again and Michael ran for U.S. Senate only to narrowly lose to Dianne Feinstein.

Their marriage ended in divorce in 1997 but Arianna is more involved in politics today than ever with her blog The Huffington Post.  Her political compass now points more to the left.

The same wit and charm she used in ink stained, small town newspaper offices is now on display on 24-hour cable news channels and on the internet.

So now the tables have turned, and a newspaper person is looking for her endorsement. Say Arianna, do you think you could post a link to my web log?

Photos by Jan Greene, above and David Middlecamp

ShareThis

SMILING BUT SERIOUS … Republican candidate for governor Richard M. Nixon greeted his San Luis Obispo audience with smiles and humor Thursday, 2 p.m. when speaking at the courthouse. He then launched a heated attack on incumbent governor Edmund G. Brown. Nixon was introduced by San Luis Obispo attorney Peter Andre (seated right). A group of Cal Poly Coeds, calling themselves Nixonettes, greeted the candidate and his wife Pat with a parade of antique automobiles.

May 31, 1962
Richard Nixon had a rollercoaster political career. In 1962, still stinging from a painfully close loss to John F. Kennedy in the presidential election of 1960 he picked up the pieces and ran for governor of his native California.

He came to San Luis Obispo a few days before the primary election, which had pitted Nixon against an even more conservative Republican Joseph Shell.

Nixon spoke to a crowd estimated in the hundreds from the steps of the courthouse; afterward there was a reception at the Fremont theater.

The California gubernatorial race ended in victory for Democrat Pat Brown, and a spectacular meltdown by Nixon in his final press conference of the race.

The book “Nixonland” by Rick Perlstein outlines someone more complex than the cartoon crook Nixon detractors draw.

• Accepted to Harvard, his family was too poor to send him, a life-long resentment
• Nixon was bright, second in his Whittier College class, third at Duke’s law school.
• Won enough money playing poker in the Navy during World War II to largely finance his first congressional race.
• Hired a 26-year-old Roger Ailes to join his media team, Ailes now runs Fox news

One of the myths forged in the 1962 campaign was Nixon never got fair coverage from the media. Nixon and others use this mantra to garner sympathy when they don’t like stories.

In fact in Nixon’s first congressional race in 1947 he had the support of the Los Angeles Times.

He made his national reputation as a stern anti-communist with the assistance of a New York Herald Tribune reporter who fed him information in exchange for scoops.

A year or so after an election failure there would be stories in the media, unable to resist a redemption story, about “The New Nixon.”

Nixon’s internalized list of enemies was long.

His gutter fighting style meant that when times were tough he had no allies. In this way he was completely unlike the later California president, Ronald Reagan.

Nixon would come back from his California defeat to win the presidency in 1968.

Though many observers thought his re-election bid in 1972 was a given, paranoia lead to a bungled burglary into Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate.

Nixon had lost too many elections.

He would win the 1972 election in a landslide and two years later, disgraced under threat of impeachment,  become the only president to resign.

ShareThis

May 10, 1901

Tribune librarian Sharon Morem has uncovered a stack of old prints from our files. Some of them are from before the paper published photos but they were printed on our pages at a later date so that is good enough to include in the blog.

The election season is here, this is a photo of the only President, to my knowledge, to have a public appearance in the county, William McKinley.

According to one website McKinley traveled more miles than any other president to his time. The steam engine pulled into town covered with red white and blue bunting and a photograph of the president on the front. The photo caption written on the negative says Santa Barbara; the newspaper says the train arrived at 7 p.m. in San Luis Obispo.

Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon visited here before they were elected president.

Editor Benjamin Brooks pulled out all the stops with front-page stories the day of McKinley’s arrival and the day after. It was a significant commitment for the four-page paper though the event did not push the advertising off of the front page.

Sandercock’s express wagon toured San Luis Obispo picking up flowers for a reception at the posh Ramona Hotel near the corner of Johnson and Marsh Streets.

I won’t bore you with all the political blathering.

McKinley concluded with, “This nation was founded 124 years ago in conscience; it is our business to keep it in conscience, to preserve it for those who shall come after and pass it along to our successors as the beaconlight of civilization everywhere. I thank you and good bye. (Wild cheers and applause.)

Though no hard numbers were given the article said that people from all over the county found a reason to have business in the town this day and that the streets were jammed.

He was the president William Randolph Hearst goaded into the Spanish-American War. Four months after his visit to San Luis Obispo, while attending the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo N.Y., McKinley was shot by an anarchist and died 8 days after the shooting.

Some compare politicians to snake oil salesmen and there was no shortage of patent medicine advertising in the paper during this era. Often the ads were more interesting to look at than the news sections.

Dr. R.V. Pierce, coincidentally of Buffalo N.Y., had a standing advertisement in the early 1900’s with his Favorite Prescription, Golden Medical Discovery and Pleasant Pellets.

What do the pills do you ask?

Why they make women happy, old people strong, tranquilize nerves, build firm flesh instead of flabby fat.

“It prepares the womanly organism for maternity and makes the birth hour practically painless.”

“This great blood purifying medicine eliminates the poisons which cause the disease. It increases the activity of the blood-making glands, and so increases the purity and abundance of the blood supply, thus giving vigor and vitality to all organs of the body which depend for their health on plenty of pure blood.”

Constipation, indigestion, irritability, vertigo, womanly health, sick headache, rheumatism are no match for these magic pills.

Who needs a health care system when you have these wonder medicines?

They don’t make them anymore?

Uh-oh.

ShareThis