Remembering the Revrunt Pat

I had another Graphical History post all set to publish today; but if those cartoons could wait 100 years, they can wait another week. For all the material he has provided me over the years, Pat Robertson deserves his cartoon obituary here.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., August, 1986

By the way, Mike Peterson noted approvingly that the angel in the cartoon I posted yesterday was Black. Now, whatever his other sins, I have no reason to believe that Robertson was racist. As the above cartoon may remind some of you, when he was publicly praying to God in 1986 whether he should run for president, his co-host Ben Kinchlow was Black.

By the same token (if you'll pardon the expression), my point in the above cartoon was not so much about the idea of Robertson running as Second Banana to a Black man, as it was that Robertson and Jackson were two men of the cloth who agreed on absolutely nothing other than the name of their Lord and Savior.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Feb. 4, 1988

Well, that and wanting to run for President. (With or without God's blessing.)

Jackson was able to hang on in the 1988 presidential race longer than Robertson, but I would suggest that both had a greater influence on their respective political party than most of the other politicians in my cartoon.

Besides, Jackson had his Rainbow Coalition to keep himself busy, and Robertson his 700 Club.

Q Syndicate, Sept. 2001

Then came 9/11, and a dastardly, unforgivable exchange between Robertson and fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell on Robertson's TV show two days later.

It was Falwell who blamed the deadly terrorist attack on "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and lesbians," but it was Robertson who answered, "I totally concur."

Q Syndicate, 2010

Robertson's flock kept sending in their fleece no matter how inflammatory the rest of us found his repeated attributing every disaster that befell anyone in the country to God being pissed at lesbians and gays. Thus Robertson's Club marked its 50th anniversary in 2010, and so did I.  

Q Syndicate, August 2011

As his own editor, Robertson perhaps realized that he was saying a lot of silly things on his show. Not all of them were as hurtful as the 9/11 diatribe:

"Ladies and gentlemen I don’t want to get weird on this so please take it for what it’s worth. But it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power, it has been the symbol of our great nation, we look at that monument and say this is one nation under God. Now there’s a crack in it, there’s a crack in it and it’s closed up. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance or is it just result of an earthquake? You judge, but I just want to bring that to your attention. It seems to me symbolic. When Jesus was crucified and when he died the curtain in the Temple was rent from top to bottom and there was a tear and it was extremely symbolic, is this symbolic? You judge."

Or perhaps the Washington Monument was over 150 years old. You decide. 

Q Syndicate, Sept., 2013

Others were less benign.

Prior to yesterday, my last Robertson cartoon was about him fulminating against gays' and lesbians' influence on American academia.

Q Syndicate, April 2017

“We have given the ground to a small minority,” he said. “You figure, lesbians, one percent of the population; homosexuals, two percent of the population. That’s all. That’s statistically all. But they have dominated — dominated the media, they’ve dominated the cultural shift and they have infiltrated the major universities. It’s just unbelievable what’s being done. A tiny, tiny minority makes a huge difference. The majority — it’s time it wakes up.”

Robertson may be gone, but we still have DeSantis, Abbott, Pence, and the rest of the lot who have declared war on intellectuals, science, philosophy, art, literature, history, and compassion.

Not to mention the lesbians and gays and, of course, the transgender menace.

Primary Cullers

The last couple of Saturday posts ran pretty long and required exhaustive research, so this week, I'm just digging up a handful of my own cartoons and wasting less of your time. Let's take a quick trip down Memory Lane to Primaries Past, shall we?

in UW-Parkside Ranger, February 4, 1988

I've learned not to get too heavily invested in a single favorite candidate this early in the presidential race. Like Bruce Babbitt in 1988 (anybody remember him?) they tend not to fare particularly well. Oh, sure, I'd like to have seen Julián Castro do better this time around, but I'm not bereft or befuddled over his having to drop out before a single vote was cast.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, February 18, 1988

Iowa and New Hampshire have, by virtue of cutting to the head of the line, acquired outsize status in the nominating process. The two have awarded a total of 65 delegates this year, less than 1.5% of the 4,750 that will meet in Milwaukee this July. But three candidates shuttered their campaigns as soon as New Hampshire's votes were in; and for whatever reason, non-white candidates could gain no traction in these two overwhelmingly Caucasian states this year. #PrimariesSoWhite.

for UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 23, 1992

I cast my first presidential vote in Minnesota's 1980 caucuses, which were held on the same day as the New Hampshire primary that year (and were promptly shooed back by the national parties in deference to the Granite State). But ever since, I've voted in Wisconsin's caucus (1984) and primaries, which have usually been held in April.

in UW-Milwaukee Post, February 27, 1992

At the current state of the race, you often hear pundits drooling over the nightmare scenario of a brokered convention. The fact, however, is that by April, the field has winnowed down to two or three candidates, one of whom is on his/her last legs.

But at least we have April 7 all to ourselves this year. In 1996, Wisconsin moved its primary to mid-March and got lumped in with Illinois, Michigan and Ohio in what was dubbed the "Big Ten Primary." Each of those other states were significantly more delegate-rich than the Dairy State. We're not accustomed, as Iowa and New Hampshire voters are, to running into presidential candidates every time we walk out the front door; but in 1996, we saw even less of them than usual.

in Racine, WI Journal Times, March 15, 1996

Moving our presidential primary to March also meant that with Wisconsin's non-partisan elections in April and primaries for those elections in February, voters were asked to come to the polls three times in three months. In 2000, Wisconsin moved its presidential primary back to April.

Wisconsin Democrats and local election officials around the state successfully fought Republican efforts to move up this year's presidential primary, which will be held on the same day as the nominally non-partisan election for the state Supreme Court. There is a de facto partisan Republican majority on the Court, with an appointee of Scott Walker up for election to a full ten-year term this year; Democrats thought that the presidential primary would energize their base enough to vote him out.

What Democrats have failed to consider (aside from the possibility that the nomination might be settled by April 7) is that there will be plenty of Republican voters coming out to elect mayors, school boards, city council members county supervisors, and other non-partisan officials, and to vote on whatever local referenda might be on the ballot. The Democratic presidential primary will be the only openly partisan race on the ballot, and there will be nothing preventing Republicans from voting in it.

Do not be surprised if polls of "likely Democratic voters" prove to be way off the mark.

Tripping Over Tropes

There's not much of a theme to today's Scatterback Saturday post, other than to pick up on the threads of disparate conversations about recent cartoons, both mine and others'.

Sean Martin (cartoonist of Doc and Raider) confessed on a post earlier this week to being puzzled by the furor over the Portuguese cartoon that proved to be the final straw in the New York Times's decision never to run editorial cartoons again. Others can and have explained the issue better than I can; the argument boils down to the insistence that because of historic antisemitism, some images and criticisms that might be perfectly acceptable about any other country ought to be out of bounds if the topic is Israel.

This brings us to Howard Wasserman's recent post on PrawfsBlawg, in which he suggests that the cartoon of Netanyahu is no more offensive than would be a similar cartoon of Vladimir Putin leading a blind Trump. ... [T]he cartoon in question engaged an ancient anti-Jewish trope — the tricky Jew who secretly controls the government of unwitting Gentiles — which differentiated it from any similar cartoon about other world leaders. The Putin analogy would have meaning only if there had ever been such a thing as the Protocols of the Elders of the Kremlin. It does not take much effort to imagine images of other world leaders that would be readily acknowledged as racist or sexist, but would be okay if applied to Putin.

Imagine a cartoon of Putin-as-Dracula, sucking blood the people of Ukraine. That would be gory, but not racist. Now imagine a cartoon of Netanyahu doing the same thing. Is there any question that the image of a Jewish bloodsucker, preying on a Gentile body (during Passover, no less) would evoke classic anti-Semitism?

The question of what is permissible in visual criticisms of the Israeli state reminds me of a controversy that arose back when I was drawing for the UW-Milwaukee Post in the '80's. UW-Milwaukee has long had politically active Jewish and Palestinian student groups that were ever at odds.

In 1988, the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) posted a large banner over the lobby of the student union, depicting a prone Palestinian child impaled in the back by a large blue Star of David. The pro-Zionist student group TAGAR protested that the banner was antisemitic and demanded it be taken down. GUPS's response was that the Star of David is the one identifiable emblem on the Israeli flag and thus represented the Israeli state rather than the Jewish religion.

It does both, of course. I waded toe-deep into the controversy with this cartoon:

In UWM Post, December 13, 1988

Toward the end of my service at the Post, GUPS posted an intentionally offensive banner in response to a cartoon I'd drawn mourning the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzakh Rabin as a "martyr for peace." I think that TAGAR may have blown the cartoon up to banner size to hang in the union, but I'm not positive about that.

In UWM Post, November 6, 1995

In any case, GUPS made a banner out of the cartoon, but added a military helmet and replaced "martyr" with "murderer." TAGAR, naturally, called for GUPS to remove its poster. I drew a reply of my own.

In UWM Post, November 16, 1995

No doubt, the children and grandchildren of those GUPS and TAGAR students continue to antagonize each other from the rafters of the student union.

✍

Moving on to another topic entirely: a fan wrote me about my recent cartoon of Trump proposing a tariff against transgender people. The fan particularly liked the portrait of Warren G. Harding in the background and asked, "Is this a reference to the most corrupt Presidential Administration 'before Trump' and a recognition that the realization of the corruption came out after Harding had died which implies there is so much more to worry about with Trump."

Of course it was. And it isn't the first time I've hung Harding's portrait in the Oval Office.

Presidents can hang portraits of Andrew Jackson or whatever dead president they like in the Oval Office; I will still feel free to choose a more appropriate wall hanging in my cartoons. I haven't picked out the decor for any of the 386 candidates seeking to unseat the Corrupt Trump Administration, however.

In UW-Parkside Ranger, March 5, 1987

Not just yet.

Democratic Conventions Past

Last week, I dusted off a selection of my cartoons about Republican National Conventions. For Stepback Saturday this week, I ought to give the Democrats equal time.

There's just one problem about that. As Hillary Clinton demonstrated yesterday, Democratic nominees' vice-presidential picks are often spectacularly uninspired.

Walter Mondale's choice of New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was surely intended to be bold and ground-breaking. The choice may have come off as such, if not for a perception that Mondale was yielding to feminist demands, or for his too-public "P.R. parade of personalities" (as Jesse Jackson called it) to his home in Minnesota before making his choice known. Besides, rival Jackson had beat Mondale to the punch by promising to name a woman to as his running mate if he had won the nomination.

1988 nominee Michael Dukakis played it too safe with the choice of Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen to balance the Massachusetts governor's ticket. Jesse Jackson had been the strongest of Dukakis's rivals for the nomination, and his supporters were disappointed that he didn't get the #2 spot.

And that's it.

Nobody got booed off the stage at the Democratic National Conventions of the 1990's, 2000's or (so far) the 2010's. As Veep picks, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards and Joe Biden didn't inspire me to rush to my drawing board to laud them as wonderful choices or to bemoan them as terrible ones. I have been inspired at other times to draw cartoons about each of them (which is more than I can say about Timothy M. Kaine), but not about their vice presidential nominations.

So screw equal time. Here's a cartoon about behavior by the front-row Texas delegation at George W. Bush's 2000 Republican National Convention, even though it was drawn three months later.

GOP Conventions Past

Since I've already posted about 1916 this week, for today's installment of Swerveback Saturday, I rummage through the dusty crate of my own cartoons.

The topic this week is cartoons about Republican National Conventions. I didn't draw national issue toons for a newspaper that published during the summer until 1988, so that's where we'll start. My George H.W. Bush caricature didn't quite come together until this second one:

My caricature of Vice President Dan Quayle never really came together at all, so I don't miss him as a national figure.

Skipping an entire generation, all I can find from 1992 to 2000 is this never-published one. It might have worked better in a vertical (portrait) orientation, so that I'd have had room to draw George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's with their arms raised.

As you've seen, these convention cartoons are usually about the candidates; but once in a while, the convention itself comes up for discussion. There was never any contest for the Republican nomination when Dubya ran for reelection in 2004...

...so instead I coupled the GOP keeping its LGBT supporters at arms length with its introduction of a "free protest zone" that year.

The party platform always gets a lot of attention at convention time, even if it becomes wide open to interpretation afterward.

Because...

Cattle Call Cartooning

I was uncharacteristically terse in discussing this week's Q Syndicate cartoon on Thursday, so let's try expanding on the topic for our Seatback Saturday feature today.

There could have been double the five presidential candidates that were featured in that cartoon, since we are in the phase of the campaign when there is still a wide field (and Citizens United delays the moment when candidates run out of cash well beyond what it used to be). Having a lot of candidates is both a challenge and a benefit to the cartoonist, because one has to quickly develop recognizable caricatures for several politicians at once. On the other hand, it increases the chances that one of them will say something reckless, or offensive, or bizarre; but one can't draw all one's cartoons about Donald Trump.

I've dredged up some cartoons chock full of presidential hopefuls from the last four elections of the 20th Century. Few of these people ever became president, of course, but not all of these people are gone and forgotten.

Let's start in 1988, the first election in a generation in which there was no incumbent president running at any point. There was a crowded field on both sides of the ballot, allowing for this very bipartisan cartoon:

Usually, it's only the party out of power that enters an election season with a clown car full of candidates. As the 1992 caucuses and primaries began, a different candidate won each of the first five contests, it was starting to look like there might not be any front runner at all.

It took a while before Bill Clinton emerged as the definitive front-runner he had been expected to be. Larry Agran, by the way, did not in fact win anywhere, and it's small wonder that you have no idea who he is.

1996 was the Republicans' turn to be the Out party. I'd just like to point out that, the prominent mention of gays notwithstanding, I drew the above cartoon for a straight newspaper, not the LGBT press. It's common to charge that someone is "out of the mainstream" of political discourse by drawing him or her piloting a boat in the desert; I decided to take a different tack on the cliché.

And as the 2000 election approached, I tried yet another nautical approach.

You'll note the absence of GOP presidential candidates John McCain and George W. Bush from the deck of the S.S. Far Starboard. Running as a moderate, McCain met with representatives of the Log Cabin Republicans and won their support, while "compassionate conservative" Bush assiduously avoided public discussion of LGBT issues as much as possible... until after the election.