Plenty of presidential visits here in the past...

Written by By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune, October 3, 2020

Before President Trump’s visit to Duluth earlier this week, this newspaper ran a story about how popular Duluth has become in election years for visits from high-profile candidates and their family members.

 

The story recounted how his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, was also here a little over a week ago, that Donald Trump Jr. showed up and Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump recently made a joint appearance here in support of the incumbent.

 

I’m sure you recall all that very recent history even if you’re only half paying attention. But the story sparked in me recollections of previous visits to Duluth by high-profile candidates, quite a few of whom I saw either as a civilian or a journalist, and one as a member of the Army National Guard.

 

Truman in Duluth, 1948

So today I thought I’d recall some of those in the past starting — believe it or not — with President Harry S. Truman in 1948. Truman, as vice president, had become chief executive upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, but was facing the electorate for the first time in his bid to remain in the highest office in the land.

 

He toured large swaths of the country by train during that successful campaign and eventually the Truman campaign train showed up in Superior, his starting off point in the Head of the Lakes for a visit by car across the bay to Duluth on a sunny autumn day. That’s when I saw him.

 

I was in fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary that fall and we were told by our teacher that anyone who wanted to be let out of school in the early afternoon to see the president should bring a note and we could be released.

 

I took the bus downtown with my mother and we stood at First Avenue East and Superior Street when Truman was driven by seated on the back of a top-down convertible, waving at the throngs — yes, that’s the proper word — that lined Superior Street along the route.

 

A bunch of teenagers on top of the building across the street were hollering “phooey on Dewey” as a smiling “Give ‘em Hell Harry” slowly rolled by. Truman’s Republican opponent was Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York making his second run for the presidency, having been defeated by ailing Roosevelt in 1944.

 

Eisenhower, Duluth MN 1952

Truman was the first president I saw in person but not the last, by far. He was succeeded by former Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower who was elected in 1952 after a campaign that also included a visit to Duluth. I just caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he was driven a block from our house en route to the airport after appearances downtown.

 

I knew the route he was to take so I waited for the entourage to come, and there was Ike in the back seat of a hard-top Cadillac limo, waving out a side window to people lining the avenue, his famous grin intact. I had actually seen him once before, still in uniform, being escorted around the Minnesota State Fair just after World War II. (Yeah, I’m that old.)

 

Our next president, John F. Kennedy, had campaigned in the area in 1960 but he also showed up in Duluth as president in September 1963 when he was gearing up for his run for a second term in 1964. I’ve written about this before in columns, but, briefly, I was a member of a Duluth-based Army National Guard unit that was activated for the visit of our commander in chief.

 

We were lining Superior Street but I was ordered to the entrance to Hotel Duluth along with about a dozen other troopers to hold back crowds as Kennedy entered the hotel, where he would stay the night. The unexpected duty got me within a few feet of the smiling Kennedy after he alighted from the Lincoln limo he would be riding in two months later when he was assassinated in Dallas.

 

Onward. In 1964, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater’s vice presidential running mate, U.S. Rep. William E. Miller, showed up in Duluth that fall, spending most of his few hours here on the UMD campus. By then I was a newspaper reporter and part of the team covering him. Goldwater was soundly defeated by Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president who had taken over when Kennedy was murdered. Miller disappeared into the mists of history.

 

Minnesota’s own Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnson’s vice presidential pick, visited us numerous times throughout his lengthy political career as a U.S. senator. He got the Democratic nomination for president in 1968 but lost to Richard Nixon, who had campaigned here when he faced Kennedy in 1960 but I never saw him. 

 

Also in 1968, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, running for president on the third party American Independent ticket as a segregationist, showed up in the Duluth Arena, drawing a huge crowd. I was seated with others in the media slightly behind the stage and noticed Wallace’s lectern was huge and thick, large enough for a speaker to duck into if shots were fired. That didn’t happen here, of course, but he later was shot and lived the rest of his life as a paraplegic. 

 

Humphrey returned to the Senate after losing the election, continuing his long-time association with the Head of the Lakes. I had lunch with him one of those times, and he always sent a Christmas card.

 

In 1976, following Nixon’s impeachment in1974, his vice president and successor, Gerald Ford, was the Republican selected to face Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia in the race for the White House. Carter won. He showed up here in 1978 campaigning for Democrats in the mid-term elections. He spoke in Symphony Hall on a stage lined with Democratic candidates from Minnesota and Wisconsin, most of whom lost that year. I didn’t meet him, but sat with the press in a front row where I noticed grease spots on his trousers. It’s always hard to eat on airplanes.

 

Carter lost to Ronald Reagan two years later. I’m not aware that Reagan ever graced the Northland, but his 1984 opponent, Vice President Walter Mondale, certainly had, and did. I’d met him before but he visited us at the News Tribune on one trip to Duluth during that campaign. He was over confident in light of the way things turned out.

 

The next sitting president to show up was Bill Clinton, half way through his second term, to campaign for Democrats. He spoke at UMD, where I was in the audience with other press people. I didn’t meet him but he made quite a splash here, even going for a run on Skyline Drive.

 

In 2004 Republican President George W. Bush appeared before an enthusiastic crowd in the Duluth Arena. I was there with other media members. We were corralled as far from the president as possible, in keeping with presidents’ lack of affinity with the press. His wife, Laura, campaigned here too, at Bayfront Park. They won.

 

Which brings us to the present. I will never count Trump among the presidents and candidates I’ve actually seen while campaigning in Duluth. When he was here on Wednesday I had to see a man about a horse.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Political memoirs of a ‘distinguished’ ex-journalist...

By Jim Heffernan

I covered a lot of political campaigns in my days as a distinguished journalist. Umm, distinguished? Well, distinguished from, say, garbage man or woman, or doctor or nurse.

Now we again find ourselves in the midst of a hotly contested political campaign in Duluth, the Eighth Congressional District, the State of Minnesota (also Wisconsin, if you’re inclined that way). Everything but the “president.” (Quotation marks intended.)

My journalism career covering political campaigns started way, way back in 1964, briefly covering the campaign of Congressman William E. Miller for vice president of the United States of America. (What other United States would I be referring to? More on that later.)

Some readers — oh, I’d say just over 99.9 percent — do not remember William Miller, but I do. He

William E. Miller

was the running mate of Barry Goldwater in Goldwater’s bid for the presidency in 1964. Some readers — oh I’d say about 42.3 percent — do not remember Barry Goldwater either, but I do. The Republican Goldwater-Miller team was facing the Lyndon B. Johnson-Hubert H. Humphrey team fielded by the Democrats. All ancient history…like me.

Miller visited Duluth late in the campaign, drumming up votes for Republicans in perhaps the most concentrated Democratic region of the country. Some might recall Johnson-Humphrey won. I was assigned to follow Miller, mainly around UMD, where he held an impromptu press conference on the lawn outside Kirby Student Center, where as a recent student I had spent a lot of time smoking cigarettes and not hitting the books.

There have been many, many campaigns between then and now during which I had contact with incumbents and hopefuls in my journalism role. After a while you begin to notice certain similarities among people who run for public office, especially the big-timers seeking the higher offices.

All of which brings up the current campaign, which I am viewing from the sidelines, having retired

from active journalism some time ago. Certain themes never change, and today I thought I’d share a few that I’ve noticed over the past half century, give or take a decade or two.

This is a nonpartisan report. Candidates for the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, Reformists, Martians, any other, all often say the same things, lacing their pronouncements with the same declarations. Here are some I’ve noticed:

·      Let’s begin by picking up on “United States of America.” They hardly ever just say “United States” when they refer to our beloved country. Is there anyone within hearing distance who needs to be told they are talking about the United States of America? Yet they seem incapable of just saying United States without the “of America.” Maybe there are other “United States” somewhere on the planet but I can’t think of any.

·      All candidates roll up their sleeves a lot. Standing before rapt (or unwrapped) audiences day after day, they call for “bold reforms” of just about anything and vow that when elected they are going to roll up their sleeves and tackle the problem or maybe all problems. Some make these pronouncements jacket-less and wearing short sleeves. Ah, metaphor.

·      All Americans are “hard working,” when referred to by candidates. Are they? I am not a hard working American. I’m retired. Others still in the workforce might slough off a lot. There are some acknowledged exceptions cited by candidates of a certain stripe: Americans collecting welfare are not hard working, nor do they roll up their sleeves.

·      Military personnel are all “heroes” in the words of many politicians. This includes active or reserve personnel plus anyone who has ever served in the military, known as veterans. All are heroes on the campaign trail. Well, I served in the military and never achieved hero status. In fact, while serving in the military I never met anyone I consider to be an actual hero. There are some, of course. But very few.

·      When things get tough (and the tough get going), politicians never fail to “pick themselves up, dust themselves off” and tackle the problem. What problem? Any problem. Our society has a lot more problems during the political campaign season.

·      Woe betide the candidate who doesn’t pick him or herself up, dust off and pin a teensy-weensy American flag on their lapels, provided they are wearing jackets. Sometimes they must doff their jackets to roll up their sleeves to come to the aid of hard-working Americans or heroes who serve or have served in the military.

To conclude: In my own years as a distinguished journalist (distinguished from, say, accountant or bartender) I must say I always sought to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. After all, the pen is mightier than the sword. Hmmm, that has a ring to it.

Journalism 101: Sometimes what doesn't happen is news...

By Jim Heffernan

With both major political parties’ national conventions out of the way, and Labor Day consigned to history, the 2012 presidential campaign pitting President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is in the “home stretch,” ending on election day, Nov. 6.

So for a couple of months we will see almost nothing but politics on newscasts, in the papers and online. I enjoy it, although it’s a little nerve-wracking because -- at least at this writing -- the polls all say it’s close. I’m a strong supporter of one of them; you can guess which.

Barry Goldwater

In my lengthy newspaper career, I only got close to a national campaign once, and it was a long, long time ago. I was still a fledgling reporter in 1964 when Barry Goldwater, the Republican, faced off against incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. 

The only national attention Duluth got in that presidential campaign came from the Republican side. Goldwater’s running mate, William E. Miller, a congressman from New York, made a fleeting trip to Duluth, spoke briefly to the media and hardly anyone else at UMD (on the lawn outside Kirby Student Center) and high-tailed it out of here, all on a sunny October day.

In those days, as with today, the designated candidate for vice president had a large retinue following him around the country, including representatives of major media organizations, although none of the big names. I was assigned to be part of the Duluth press corps covering this major political event.

So, I got to ride on the press bus with all of the national correspondents, who, it seemed to me, were a particularly unfriendly bunch. They could spot a hick reporter (like me) from the sticks (Duluth) from a block away and simply ignored us. Didn’t even look at us.

The national press people seemed perpetually bored with their assignment, and didn’t smile at all. I suppose they wanted to be assigned to cover one of the presidential candidates, and felt that it was beneath their talents and dignity to be chasing a vice presidential hopeful around. Maybe they were hung over. Maybe all of the foregoing.

That was the year, of course, when Minnesota’s own Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey was Lyndon Johnson’s running mate, but I don’t recall him coming to Duluth during the campaign. He might have. I did cover him several other times during his lengthy career.

William E. Miller

But back to William E. Miller, a man of average build, pleasant features and ultra-conservative political credentials, just like Barry “Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice” Goldwater. (I need hardly point out that they lost the election.) 

It so happened that the very week of Miller’s Duluth visit, a huge scandal had erupted in Washington. A top aide to President Johnson, Walter Jenkins, was arrested at a YMCA in Washington, D.C., after being discovered engaged in a homosexual act. Believe me, in 1964 such charges were less common than they are today, and considered more grievous.

When Miller spoke in Duluth, he didn’t mention the Jenkins scandal. I don’t recall what he said. I took my notes and rushed back to the newspaper and wrote my story, turning it over to a city editor.

The city editor scanned it quickly and asked me if Miller had mentioned the Walter Jenkins scandal. I said he hadn’t, and, therefore, there was no mention of it in my story.

He responded by cranking a fresh sheet of copy paper into his own typewriter – always a dreaded sight to a reporter – and wrote a new top to my story. It went something like this:

“Republican vice presidential candidate William E. Miller avoided the Walter Jenkins sex scandal today in a whirlwind campaign visit to Duluth.” And after a couple more sentences, it picked up on my story with a “meanwhile” -- one of the handiest words in all journalism.

I learned a lot from that city editor, but that lesson stands out: Tell what didn’t happen. Sometimes that’s news too.