The LuLac Edition #181, March 22nd, 2007

PHOTO INDEX: JOHN AND ELIZABETH EDWARDS, THE LATE GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA LURLEEN WALLACE AND THE LATE SENATOR PAUL TSONGAS.

BENCH MARKS!!

Campaign 2007 has begun in earnest in the Wilkes Barre Area. Council candidate for District D, Bill Barrett has a bench strategically located in the Shiell’s Supermarket Parking lot in Parsons.
Meanwhile in the North end, Frank Pizzella Junior of Plains is sporting a bench on Butler Street for his candidacy for Wilkes Barre Area School Board.
By the way, if there is any city based candidate wanting information on WNAK Radio, AM 730 out of Nanticoke, just e mail at Yonkstur@aol.com or my new e mail address Yonkstur@ptd.net. or by leaving me a voice mail message at 821-6152.

THE EDWARDS CONCERN

The news conference today of John Edwards and his wife regarding her health was just a reminder of what a great equalizer health is in all of our lives. No matter how much money, celebrity or power you have, if you don’t have your health, you have nothing.
Presidential candidates have run before with problems of their own, most notably former Mass. Senator Paul Tsongas who ran for President in 1992. It was said that in 1960S, the Kennedys were running around at the Democratic convention talking about Lyndon Johnson’s heart attack when in fact, their man, John Kennedy had a myriad of health problems including Addison’s Disease. Presidential candidates are screened from top to bottom health wise and that is a good thing.
But the emotional toll the illness of a spouse encounters is still undetermined. Plus the political ramifications is in how you handle it. The breast cancer conditions of Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller in the mid 70s while their husbands served as President and Vice President did not distract them from governing and in a way increased the awareness of breast screening for women of all ages.
On the other hand, Governor George Wallace’s recruitment of his first wife, Lurleen, to run for the Alabama statehouse because he was limited to one term and could not succeed himself backfired in a number of ways. Wallace’s wife died midway through her term in 1968 and smack dab in the middle of his Presidential race. Plus people in political circles saw his move as ruthless and heartless.
The Edwards story is now going to be part of the Presidential narrative of this campaign. For Edwards it will do a few things:
1. Blunt attacks from Democrats in the Iowa caucus proceedings especially since he seems to be carrying on despite the burden.
2. Engender both sympathy for his family and awareness of the disease and how Elizabeth Edwards seems to be proclaiming how she will live with it, rather than die from it.
3. Put the health concern out there so that voters can hear the John Edwards message he has been taking to the country since his Vice Presidential run.
In this Democratic presidential campaign, the number of candidate “firsts” keeps growing: first spouse of a former president, first African-American with Ivy League credentials, first Hispanic-American. And now we have the first candidate—John Edwards—to turn his spouse’s illness, and how he and she are dealing with it, into what he contends is an inspirational metaphor for the brand of leadership he offers the country.
Having seen a lot of press conferences, but none like the one that Edwards and his wife Elizabeth held on a sun-dappled lawn in Chapel Hill, N.C. Bottom line: yes, Elizabeth Edwards’s breast cancer had spread to the bone. No, there was no immediate danger. No, it was not curable, but yes, it was treatable—treatment would last the rest of her life, however long that may be (years or even decades). As for the campaign, he said, “it goes on, goes on strongly.”
They sang a memorable duet of praise for each other, and for their determinedly sunny view of life amid tragedy. They had lost their beloved oldest son in a car crash when he was 16. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the midst of the last presidential campaign. Now this. And yet, she said, she and her husband “always look for the silver lining.” She would continue to campaign; the chemo she would have to take would not be debilitating, at least initially, especially because the bone cancer was well-contained as of now. He was asked how he would be able to focus on a campaign for the country while at the same time worrying every minute about Elizabeth.
This was a test, he said, as the presidency is a test. To be president you had to have “maturity and judgment.” You had to be able to “focus.” This was “not the first time” he had had personal and family hardship to deal with. All of this made him a stronger more disciplined person, the former senator said—and, by implication, would make him a strong and steady president.
How’s that for a credential?
The border between the personal and the political has long since disappeared in American politics—if it ever really existed. But this was really a watershed moment, and one with which many voters will readily identify on several levels.
For one, cancer is no longer a death sentence. New treatments can allow cancer patients to fight the disease to a relative standstill. Americans can understand and cheer for those who refuse to let their own—or their family’s—cancer slow them down.
Americans can understand that the Edwardses are on a shared mission, and that she wants it to continue. Presidential candidates and their spouses aren’t like us in some ways—the main one being that they think that it is their duty to save the country and the world. But people honor couples who share love and a dream and faith—and the Edwardses do. They both believe deeply in him.
As to whether the response to cancer is emblematic of what an Edwards presidency would be, well, that is a big idea. It means is that her illness—and his handling of it, personally and politically—could become the central measure and meaning of his candidacy. She will travel with him, and on her own scheduled, and the questions will be constant and clinical. Everyone will be rooting for her—she is the real deal—but does that mean they will root for him?
We are in uncharted territory here, but I suppose that ultimately is Edwards’s point about the world.

PROFILE OF THE PAST

Lurleen Burns Wallace was born on September 19, 1926, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Henry and Estelle Burroughs Burns. She worked in a Tuscaloosa dime store where she met George C. Wallace. Sixteen-year-old Lurleen married George on May 22, 1943, and devoted herself to being a housewife and mother over the next twenty years. When her husband was elected governor in 1963, she assumed the duties of first lady. Mrs. Wallace opened the first floor of the governor's mansion to tourists seven days a week and refused to serve alcoholic beverages at executive mansion functions.
In 1966, after failing to get the legislature to amend the constitution to allow governors to serve consecutive terms, George announced the candidacy of his wife Lurleen for governor. The couple admitted frankly that if Lurleen was elected, George would continue to make the administrative policies and decisions. Mrs. Wallace won the May Democratic primary with 54 percent of the vote which assured her election in November.
Lurleen was inaugurated on January 16, 1967, and refused to have the customary inaugural ball out of respect to Alabamians serving in Vietnam. Although she continued to carry out George's policies regarding segregation, Mrs. Wallace did not remain in her husband's shadow completely. She initiated a few programs of her own. Most notable was her successful campaign to increase funding for the state's mental hospitals.
The day after her inauguration, Governor Wallace issued an executive order to the state treasurer requiring that state funds be deposited only in banks that would pay 2 percent annual interest. This order resulted in a court case that was resolved when Lurleen agreed to obtain the change legislatively. A bill requiring banks to pay interest on state deposits was signed into law in June 1967. During her administration, a $160 million road bond bill was also passed, as was a program to develop Alabama's parks and historic sites.
In March 1967, a federal court ordered that Alabama's public schools must begin desegregation that fall. Lurleen responded with a televised speech to the state legislature on March 31. In that speech she asked the legislature for the power to seize all state schools and place them under police power. Although clearly a policy from George, the speech was delivered by Mrs. Wallace with "force and faultless execution." (Stewart, p. 206). Lurleen, Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia and Governor Paul Johnson of Mississippi called a meeting of twelve southern governors to draft a plan to fight the court order. In addition to the meeting's organizers only one other southern governor attended, Governor John McKeithen of Louisiana. McKeithen and Maddox, however, stated they would not disobey the court order. The hand of her husband was again displayed in May when Lurleen recommended that state funds be withheld from Tuskegee Institute. Mrs. Wallace also opposed an Office of Economic Opportunity antipoverty grant to establish a farm cooperative for blacks in Lowndes County.
In June 1967 Mrs. Wallace was hospitalized in Houston, Texas, where doctors discovered the cancer for which she had been treated in 1966 had returned. Over the next few months she courageously endured numerous operations and radiation treatment. Her last public appearance was at the Blue-Gray football game in January 1968 with her husband. Mrs. Wallace died in her sleep on May 7, 1968. In addition to George, she was survived by their four children: Bobbi Jo Parsons, Peggy Sue, George, Jr., and Janie Lee. Lieutenant Governor Albert P. Brewer assumed the governorship at her death.