At last Saturday’s Democratic beauty contest, I became quickly transfixed by a petite redhead wearing sunglasses and working her I-Phone. I knew that face, but from where?
A-list actress Frances Fisher. (“Titanic,” “Unforgiven,” “Laws of Attraction”)
Wow. And she’s an active union member, too.
She had just traveled across Nevada’s northerly tier, introducing Bernie Sanders in Elko and making campaign stops in Winnemucca and Fernley. Sen. Sanders carried nine counties to six for Mrs. Clinton with two ties, a classic Nevada election with Gomorrah South eclipsing a northern edge.
Ms. Fisher sent me photos of her travels which I will upload with the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/ (I also scored a selfie!)
She found that Bernie is cool with rural cowboys and NRA-types who simply cannot abide Hillary’s candidacy. Given that Donald Trump cracks the liberal base by appealing to angry blue-collar Democrats, that’s a very bad sign. Bernie can hold those Dems, Hillary cannot. And two of five union members are suicidal Republicans — dammit.
Reacting to the Hillaryesque canard that as a former non-partisan senator, Sanders could not accomplish anything in the White House, Ms. Fisher noted that his record demonstrates he has gathered legislative support from all points of the political spectrum.
She noted how young people embrace him. I stated my long-held observation that in three areas of American life, people want daddy to reassure them that everything’s going to be alright: Governor (not U.S. Senator), network news anchor and president.
I ventured as much on a TV newscast in 2006, wherein I accurately predicted that square-jawed Congressman Jim the Dim would defeat 90-pound soakin’ wet State Sen. Dina Titus for governor. I added that the recently appointed Katie Couric would fail at anchoring CBS News. People prefer a grandfatherly Walter Cronkite to tuck them in from the newsroom or oval office.
I told Ms. Fisher that Bernie could thus become the most popular president since JFK. Should Sanders lose, I fear that the young people he motivated will fall into the same abyss as the Baby Boomers after the Kennedy-King assassinations and largely drop out of politics.
I wrote last week that the cycles of history portend GOP November victory.
So get out the old 45’s, cue up Crosby, Stills and Nash and get ready for “tin soldiers and Nixon comin’, we’re finally on our own.”
Again.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH. This Friday, internationally noted dancer-artist-writer L. Martina Young, PhD, premieres the third book in her “Swan” series, 6-8 p.m. at Veritas Empowerment Boutique, Reno Town Mall, S. Virginia across from the Atlantis. This Saturday, the Reno Bike Project launches its Black History Month Slow Roll Bike Tour at 10 a.m. On Saturday at 3 p.m., the Reno-Sparks NAACP hosts a Black Lives Matter Poetry Contest at Paradise Park Community Center, Oddie at El Rancho. Cash prize to the winner. Details on the above at RenoSparksNAACP.org/ And don’t forget César Chávez Celebration XIV March 30.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 47-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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