a peculiar affection

[excerpt, Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter Thompson]----------------------- I have a peculiar affection for [Eugene] McCarthy, nothing serious or personal, but I recall standing next to him in the snow outside the "exit" door of a shoe factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, in February of 1968 when the five o'clock whistle blew and he had to stand there in the midst of those workers rushing out to the parking lot. 

I will never forget the pain in McCarthy's face as he stood there with his hand out, saying over and over again:  "Shake hands with Senator McCarthy . . . shake hands with Senator McCarthy . . . shake hands with Senator McCarthy . . . ," a tense plastic smile on his face, stepping nervously toward anything friendly.  "Shake hands with Senator McCarthy" . . . but most of the crowd ignored him, refusing to even acknowledge his outstretched hand, staring straight ahead as they hurried out to their cars.

There was at least one network TV camera on hand that afternoon, but the scene was never aired.  It was painful enough, just being there, but to have put that scene on national TV would have been an act of genuine cruelty.  McCarthy was obviously suffering; not so much because nine out of ten people refused to shake his hand, but because he really hated being there in the first place.  But his managers had told him it was necessary, and maybe it was . . .

*

Later, when his outlandish success in New Hampshire shocked Johnson into retirement, I half-expected McCarthy to quit the race himself, rather than suffer all the way to Chicago....but a lot of people who said he was suffering from brain bubbles when he first mentioned that he might run again in '72 are beginning to take him seriously:  not as a Democratic contender, but as an increasingly possible Fourth Party candidate with the power to put a candidate like Muskie through terrible changes between August and November.

To Democratic chairman Larry O'Brien, the specter of a McCarthy candidacy in '72 must be something like hearing the Hound of the Baskervilles sniffing and pissing around on your porch every night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleep....easy by my side
Into....gentle slumber you can hide
I.....I'm waiting
for the sun...
to come up....
I can't sleep...with your warm ways

Forever --

forever - love

Together --

together, love -- ...

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{book excerpt:  Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson.  Copyright, 1973.  Straight Arrow Publishing Co., Inc., San Francisco.}
{song except:  "Warm Ways" -- written by Christine McVie -- Fleetwood Mac, released July 1975.  Label:  Reprise}

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