The Fours of July

We'll get back to 1924 soon; but first, I'm gonna rummage around in my dusty old cartoons bin to check what I drew in Julys (Julies?) of decades ago.

Since we're waiting on tenterhooks to find out what lickspittle Donald Berzilius Trump will name to replace The Late Great Mike Pence as his Vice President next week, here's the challengers' ticket announced forty years ago.

Unpublished. July, 1984

Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 was calculated to be a game-changing, historical gambit. No woman had ever been on a major party's top ticket before.

The move was somewhat blunted by the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus — and House Speaker Tip O'Neil — having publicly pressured Mondale to name a woman to his ticket. When the announcement was made, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket couldn't escape muttered gripes that he was merely pandering to a Democratic interest group. The same thing, rightly or wrongly, nagged at Joe Biden's choice of Kamala Harris in 2020.

Contrast that to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in 2008. Governor Palin had her own minuses to be sure, and certainly there were more qualified Republican women for the vice presidency; but by not promising ahead of time to name a woman, McCain got credit for having made a bold move.

Of course, she turned out to be a goofball. Not that's in any way a detriment to a Republican Party career any more. But still.

At least Geraldine Ferraro wasn't the butt of jokes for the next three months as Brooklyn Barbie.

July, 1994? Sure.

The Post at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee didn't publish in July, 1994, and apparently I didn't draw anything for the Journal-Times, either. But this drawing sits in front of my August cartoons in the 1994 folder, so let's just say for the sake of having anything here that I drew it in July.

This was my one and only venture creating album art. (Is it album art if there isn't an LP?) Rev. Tim Hansen, a Lutheran pastor in Racine who had graduated a year behind me at St. Olaf College — we had an abundance in Racine pulpits that year of pastors who had been at Olaf during my four years there — asked me to create this drawing for the cover of his upcoming CD and cassette based on the title track, "Shoved by the Dove." 

That's a caricature of Pastor Tim, of course, and he had specifically asked that the dove be kicking him in the tuchus.

For those who are interested, "Shoved by the Dove" is available on Spotify.

for Q Syndicate, July, 2004

Hey, remember when Jeb Bush was the biggest threat to come out of Florida since Hurricane Andrew?

He's a kitten compared to the state's current crop of Republicans.

Anyway, this is one of several cartoons of mine poking holes in that "special rights for homosexuals" shibboleth.

The irony, jumping forward another ten years to discussion of the Employment Rights Protection Act, is that it's the bigots and 'phobes who keep insisting on having "special rights."

July 2014 for Q Syndicate

Come 2025, they might be the only ones with any rights in this country.