Went to Demo headquarters again today to make phone calls. An hour into the work, Zach and Lea said that Jane Pauley was coming to town to campaign for Obama. First I'd heard of it. That would be exciting for little old Madison, I thought.
First, "Who is Jane Pauley?" (I quote a friend, in her forties, who works at Wal-Mart, and who has probably watched mostly TV Land, bless her.) Jane was a broadcast journalist on The NBC Today Show and Dateline for nearly twenty years. She is a fellow Hoosier, from Indianapolis, a graduate of Indiana University, and was a news anchor at WISH-TV8 in her home town. She lives in New York and has had three children with her husband, Gary Trudeau, drawer of the comic strip Doonesbury.
For an old geezer who doesn't socialize a lot by choice, I had fun hanging out with the fellow Demos who'd gathered at The Downtowner restaurant before Jane showed up there. It seems that most of the folks I know, outside of the fellowship I commune with almost daily, were there in that fairly small room of fifty or so people.
Spence and Laura S., Merritt A., and Julie B., past and present Democratic officeholders, were there. Spence was and still is a hero, dating from his high school basketball days when I was the sixth grader who watched him and his teammates garner the Indiana state championship in 1950. And he treats me as an equal. I told Julie that I had a dance class with her mother in the early fifties; both mother and daughter are prominent in Jefferson County politics. Julie, like her mother, has beauty and poise.
I got to meet the new president of the nearby college, with whom I've exchanged emails. She has gravitas without trying to impress everyone with it and I hope she will prove to be the best president the school has had in a long time. A sociology professor at the same school and I had a nice visit; he'd brought a copy of a book he'd written to give to Jane and was to introduce her.
Several others I've met since coming back to town in 1989 and who go back to my childhood were there. I was delighted to see Bill H., a church musician who plays for a church of righties and who I didn't guess would be a supporter of Barack. He assured me he's been a backer from the first. A couple of friends of my brother Bud expressed sorrow over his passing to me. I told them I miss him. He would have been excited about Barack's candidacy, I think. I know he would have liked Michelle and the two little girls, Malia and Sasha.
We chattered away for quite a while and the fifty or so seemed like a hundred. Then Jane showed up, crossing Main Street like we all do, not at the corner but from in front of the movie theater, running across. We could see her through the picture window, smiling and waving at us. (It is seldom like crossing a Manhattan street, after all.) Her sister, Ann, and daughter, Rachel, were with her. They'd come from Richmond through Connersville and Switzerland County, which means they took a very scenic but very circuitous route and explains why they were so late!
Jane bounced right in, dispensed with all ceremony but did inject warmth and humor and put us at ease, and started pitching for her candidate. She stood six feet away from me! Sure enough, it was her pretty face, her Hoosier unaffected voice (the one she had when she was on WISH-TV 8, still less affected, more mature, even maternal). She looked to be about thirty, Spence said afterward as we walked on the street, and I added that (at 58) she has the willowy figure of a teenager. She was vibrant, bubbly, and enthusiastic about Obama!
Jane said that two endorsements in particular for Obama are remarkable: that of Colin Powell on Meet the Press (in his interview with her old friend Tom Brokaw) and that of the Anchorage Daily News (q.v).
"I try not to view or read things that upset me," she said. "I didn't watch Sarah Palin's speech at the convention because I was sure she would be a hit. I knew it would be stressful. Sure enough, the next morning I couldn't avoid seeing the New York Times headline: 'Palin Electrifies Convention,' and sure enough that was a downer. That word, "electrify." Well, when Colin Powell endorsed Obama, he said that Barack's election would not only be 'electrifying' for the nation but for the world. Well, after that, the word electrify was put into perspective again." We laughed at the irony when she just mentioned the endorsement of Obama by the principal newspaper in Alaska. ("Palin's rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand," the subhead of the endorsement reads.)
When Jane was done lighting our fires she was in no hurry to leave and seemed to visit with everybody. I was no exception; she and I stood there and chatted like old friends. I told her I'd had a crush on her when I watched her on Channel 8. She told me I reminded her of Lee Hamilton. Must be the haircut.
I asked Rachel, Jane's daughter, if she (Rachel) was a twin. She lighted up a little and said "Yes!" I asked her if her twin is a sister or a brother. I was the one delighted when she said, "Brother." I told her I have twins, a boy and a girl, too. Her Aunt Ann said, "We've met many twins on this tour."
It was a good day.
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