Name a winner: politics or real life


McZena Muse - By Louise Swartzwalder



You probably don’t realize this, but there are many, many twists, turns, intricacies involved in allowing two human beings to debate in the Presidential election arena.

The first official debate was Monday night, and the two BIG PARTY contenders had been lining up their ducks, so to speak, early on.

I’m not much of a fan of debates because they mostly aren’t debates.

The dictionary says the obsolete definition of debate is to fight or quarrel.

Oh, that that were so.

In the real school world, where kids are set up on debate teams, they are given opposing sides of a proposition. Then, they get up and try to eviscerate ( verbally) their opponent.

Unfortunately, we now have a person who studied law, and a businessman. The businessman is known as a show man, and he probably wouldn’t have won many points for the way he confessed, before millions of Americans, that he “wants to debate very badly.”

I’m sorry, everybody. But when I hear people use words incorrectly I usually frown.

If you wanted to be a smart aleck, you could respond to Mr. Trump that you support the fact he wants to “debate badly.”

My mother, the English teacher and expert, would have rapped his fingers with a ruler if he were in school, and told him to correct his usage.

(Mom wouldn’t actually have harmed any student, but you get the idea about what I am trying to convey).

Candidate Hillary usually speaks in a deliberate fashion. She is the kind of person who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

But when she is disagreeing with someone, it will be with her own form of reciting facts, which she says back up her contentions.

By the time Mr. Trump and candidate Hillary got to the point of debating, a weighty bunch of decisions had to be made.

There is something called the Commission on Presidential Elections.

It is the group which decides what options there will be in a debate. The two persons who head that commission are Frank Fahrenkopf jr., and Mike McCurry.

I know a little about Mike McCurry because I worked with him on the Presidential campaign of former Sen. John Glenn (D., Ohio).

McCurry was brought into that campaign because, even then, he was known as a talker who knew how to gain favor with reporters because he was fine at letting little bits of information slip through his fingers. (Unknowingly, of course).

I developed a lot of respect for McCurry because he went on to work for former President Bill Clinton.

When he did that, his handling of that horribly demanding job made him a standout.

So now, McCurry has gone from being a Presidential press secretary to a guy who can determine the fates of Presidential contenders.

People say everyone moves along in this world, getting better professionally at whatever job is their passion.

Here’s a scenario.

You go to college, study journalism, go to work on newspapers.

You move up through the ranks at newspapers and move on to be an editor.

This means you get to make a lot more decisions.

What should be the correct “news play” of a certain article?

Is it more important to put a story above the fold in the newspaper, or should you bury it in the bowels in the back next to ads?

A guy who was most prescient (a great word) about news play decisions was a man named Jimmy Larson, at the Des Moines Register.

Jimmy was a little rough looking at times, because to put out an a.m. newspaper, you have to do your duty until 2 a.m.

You have an early, in between and late edition. For each edition, you have to decide again what’s the best way to handle a story. And of course, the photographs.

Jimmy was the kind of guy who would do fun things to pass the time.

One, of course, was to visit the Office Lounge, located just across an alley beside the newspaper building.

There he’d consort with friends, discussing possible stories and headlines that might never see the light of day.

Suggested headlines: Santa Claus found dead in alley; Mrs. Ghandhi is a good play thing.

Jimmy Larson was such an icon at the Des Moines Register that he was loved/hated by all.

Because he was grumpy (news editors often get grumpy), he was convinced once to dress up as Scrooge, and have his photograph appear in the newspaper.

He did even that job well.

Now, I’m an editor.

Doing it in Bellville is a little bit different from doing it in Iowa. But the important pieces remain.

I’m allowed to go out and find stories. Hopefully, some of the stories I find are good enough to get comment.

I don’t care if the comment is good or bad. As an editor, you want comment.

Having had decades of experience at finding news, I am still seeking the good story that will make even me sit up and take notice.

Last week at the Bellville Street Fair, there were lots of good, local stories. And dealing with participants — especially the young exhibitors — was beyond compare.

Even though we are now in the middle of a way too long political campaign, it remains true that people always respond to things they hold dear.

It can be the smiling 13 year-old, who is polishing a display of vegetables at the fair. Or the girl currying and washing her lamb for the livestock show.

All of these things are local, and, luckily, we can turn away from something that is mostly just bothersome.

There is a Bible verse I stumbled upon once. And it pretty much says everything to me.

It is in Matthew.

“For where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

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McZena Muse

By Louise Swartzwalder

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