You Say You Want a Free Election? Well, You Know

There's still just over a whole week of those ghastly campaign commercials bombarding us on the TV, radio, social media, YouTube, and front yards. So let's take a break from Election 2022...

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Oct. 21, 1982

...but first, this commercial from Election 1982.

Scott McCallum was running in Wisconsin for the senate seat held by William Proxmire, and aired a TV ad arguing that he was sympathetic to voters suffering from the Reagan recession and offering his unemployed brother John as proof. 

McCallum's ad didn't work, even though Proxmire didn't campaign on television at all. I suppose Wisconsin voters actually rewarded Proxmire for that.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Oct. 28, 1982

Pete Jansson was the Republican running against my district's congressman, Democrat Les Aspin. At a candidate forum hosted by the University of Wisconsin - Parkside, Jansson campaigned against what he called "Aspinomics." I suppose that was an applause line in any GOP crowd, but it fell flat in the mixed audience on a university campus.

in Racine Journal Times, Oct. 7, 1992

1982 was the Democrats' year, and Les Aspin cruised to a seventh term. By 1992, he was firmly ensconced as the First District's Congressman, Chair of the House Armed Service Committee, and running for his twelfth.

in Racine Journal Times, Oct. 20, 1992

Senator Robert Kasten (R-WI) came to office in the Republican sweep of 1980 and survived the Democratic wave of 1986, but sailed into strong headwinds in 1992. He painted his Democratic rival, Russ Feingold, as a dangerous radical — which is the standard Republican tactic — but then likened his own positions to those of Wisconsin's Junior Senator, Democrat Herb Kohl, and, incredibly, the Democrats' presidential candidate.

It is impossible to imagine any Republican since then offering themselves up as Almost Like Bill Clinton, or any other Democrat. Since the rise of Newt Gingrich in 1994, any hint of bipartisanship has become anathema in the GOP.

in UW-Milwaukee Post, Oct. 29, 1992

Then there was the ad Feingold filmed greeting voters at The Joke Shop in Waukesha. The owner of the store, Jeffrey Campbell appeared in the ad, saying "Yes, it is," in response to Feingold asking "Is this a joke shop?"

Campbell was so upset afterward that Feingold's ad made him appear to support the Democratic candidate that he got himself into a Kasten ad swearing his loyalty to the Republican incumbent. Kasten's ad culminates with its narrator asking, "If we can't trust Russ Feingold's ads, can we trust Russ Feingold on crime, welfare reform or taxes?"

Jump we now to 2002: Drawing for a national LGBTQ+ audience, I only find an excuse to cartoon about local political races when there is a queer angle to one. My one such opportunity in October of 2002 came with the contest in Montana for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Max Baucus.

This time, it was the Democrats running a homophobic television spot.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2002

Challengers have one advantage in these ads in that they can pick and choose any one vote by the incumbent, even on a procedural matter, to accuse the incumbent of being against something that sounds popular or for something that can be given an unpleasant nickname. Republican Mike Taylor didn't have a voting record for Sen. Baucus to comb through, but someone at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee dug up video of Taylor when he owned a cosmetology shop in Denver about ten or so years earlier.

The ad (paid for by the DSCC, not the Baucus campaign) accused Taylor of embezzling funds from the shop. The visual of Taylor massaging a male customer's face insinuated that Taylor might be gay. Whether it was due to the allegation or the insinuation, it was enough to prod a weepy Taylor to withdraw from the race at the 11th hour.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2012

Come 2012, I seized the opportunity to return to Wisconsin politics in my syndicated cartoon when former Governor Tommy Thompson challenged incumbent Senator Tammy Baldwin in a televised debate. While he didn't engage in any overt anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric against the only openly lesbian Senator at the time, he did seem to make an unusual number of references to Mrs. Tommy Thompson.

I've found Senator Baldwin's a challenging face to draw, and I tried to make this caricature as simplified as possible. In the end, I don't think this approach worked, and I haven't used it since.

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That brings us up to the present, so that's it for today's installment of congressional campaign cartoons past. We now return you to your regularly scheduled campaign commercials.

The Forty Summers of Twos

Last month, I noted that I had apparently drawn only one cartoon in the whole month of June, 1982 and offered that there was a probable reason for that.

The reason was that I was involved in the start-up of the Kenosha Tribune, which published its inaugural issue on July 1, 1982. Jumping from the well-established Journal Times in Racine to an upstart free weekly paper was a risky one, and one that didn't quite pay off. (I've already posted about the dispute between the publisher and the rest of the staff that doomed the Tribune, so I won't get into that here.)

"Hers & His" in Kenosha Tribune, July 1, 1982

The Kenosha Tribune focused on local issues, but my initial cartoons for the editorial page were devoted to national and international topics. I had put in time helping clean the new office, a block behind Washington Middle School; but I hadn't been equally diligent in catching up with Kenosha politics.

Happily, I did not draw a cartoon to accompany the publisher's issue one, page one article that alleged — without ever using the word "allegedly" or any synonym thereof — malfeasance by a police officer.  

"Start Negotiations" in Kenosha Tribune, July 8, 1982

My second cartoon touches on a couple points I've discussed here recently. As in last week's Q Syndicate cartoon, I used Cyrillic-style lettering to signify that a character (here Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev) is Russian.

I've also warned against using rubber cement as an adhesive. I used rubber cement to paste the text in Brezhnev's thought balloon over my original text there, and it has since discolored significantly.

Compare that with the dog in the Phyllis Schlaffly cartoon. I used a glue stick to add the dog to the cartoon, and there's almost no discoloration at all on the original drawing.

(As for the point of the Brezhnev cartoon, Ronald Reagan had campaigned against the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT, negotiations between the Carter administration and the Soviet Union. As President, Reagan basically renamed the negotiations "Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty," keeping one of the t's in "Strategic" so he could call it StART.)

"A Thoroughly Enjoyable Race" in Kenosha Tribune, July 22, 1982

With midterm elections heating up, it wasn't long before I was drawing more local cartoons such as this one about Wisconsin's upcoming gubernatorial primary, and sketching the candidates who came to the Tribune's humble offices to be interviewed.

Interestingly, none of the candidates in this cartoon would be elected Governor in the fall: not Republican nominee Terry Kohler (of the bathroom fixture family), his Republican rival Lowell Jackson (a former and future member of the Governor's cabinet), or Democratic former Governor Marty Schreiber.

Marty Schreiber, for Kenosha Tribune, July/August, 1982, but unpublished

Kohler, the son of a past Governor of Wisconsin, would win the September primary, secured the GOP nomination for Governor, but was trounced in the general election by Democrat Tony Earl, 57% to 42%, the worst showing for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 40 years before or 40 years since. (To be fair, three Democratic gubernatorial candidates made worse showings in those 80 years: William Sullivan in 1942, Daniel Hoan in 1946, and Bill Proxmire in 1952.)

Moving along: Having spent so much of this post on 1982, I don't want to skip over 1992 entirely...

"Boola Boolah," unpublished, July, 1992

Besides, I drew each of those blades of grass individually with quill pen and ink, so it's about time they finally got to be seen by somebody somewhere.

We can discuss whether the Bush administration deserves credit for the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and how much of it, some other time.

"Ah, Wikstrom" in Business Journal, Milwaukee, July 12, 2002

Jumping ahead to 2002, I have absolutely no recollection of the staff editorial this cartoon was drawn to accompany. But it affords me the opportunity to offer yet another take on Donald Joffrey Trump and his stubborn refusal to recognize that he lost the 2020 election.

Yes, he's a grifter and a spoiled brat grown up and grown old without ever once being held accountable for diddley squat. And yes, the Founding Fathers left him a glimmer of hope by creating the Electoral College because they were elitists who didn't entirely trust the Will of the People to elect the best President every time.

But I think that what the Trump presidency shows us is that coming from the World of Business is not such a great qualification for high office after all. Neither Wendell Willkie nor H. Ross Perot got to prove themselves in the Oval Office, but thanks to that damned Electoral College, we were treated to the Trumpian shitshow for four years

In the World of Business, your accounting team can take the same set of numbers and tease stockholders with tales of exponentially growing profits on the one hand, and plead to the IRS that losses swallowed up all your earnings. So naturally, if election officials in Georgia tell you that you're 11,780 votes short, you simply tell them to juggle the books and find you 11,780 more votes.

And if that fails, launch a hostile take-over.

for Q Syndicate, July, 2002

I wasn't colorizing my syndicated cartoons in 2002 (I had done so for the Business Journal's Biz insert cartoons and some InStep covers), but I went ahead and added color to this one before posting it on the GeoCities site I had at the time.

It deserved a little taupe, after all.

It was in 2012 that I started including a color version of every cartoon when sending them to Q Syndicate. I'll sign off today with one of my favorites from that year.

"Where the Boycotts Are," July, 2012

May the Force Bewitch You

To start this week's Graphical History Tour, here's an illustration I drew for a local church thirty years ago this month. 

"One in the Spirit," May, 1992

The Gospel for the seventh Sunday of Easter is always Jesus' prayer that his followers may always be as one. My idea for this illustration was a collage of faces representing a variety of ages and ethnicities.

The old woman in upper center was modeled after my grandmother. There aren't many photographs of her smiling, but she was meeting her great-grandson for the first (and only) time in the one I used.

The other people in the drawing were based on photos in magazines; two of them were from news photos taken during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

I was never quite satisfied with the young man at the lower left, having made some changes to his appearance from the real person. I would make a few changes to him over the years as the drawing got re-used; this is the original version.

"Assume the Position" in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., May 7, 1992

As for drawing editorial cartoons about the riots, I only drew one. The uprising began on April 29, 1992, after I had drawn the cartoon for the April 30 edition of the UW-M Post. The Post of May 4 didn't have an editorial page, and the May 7 issue was the last of the school year.

"The Line We Bought..." in Journal Times, May 26, 1992

The Journal Times preferred my cartoons to concentrate on state and local issues, or at least local angles on wider issues. But the editor did let me get away with this one about H. Ross Perot's coy responses about how he intended to achieve his #1 policy position of balancing the federal budget  (at a $290 billion deficit, or 4.5% of GDP in 1992).

Since it turns out that I don't have a lot of cartoons to show from May of 1992, and I'd rather not close this post out with a discussion of the ups and downs of the federal deficit, here's one I've always liked from ten Mays later, as power company Wisconsin Electric was trotting out its new moniker:

"You Used to Know We Energies as Wisconsin Electric" in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, May 31, 2002

Cheap Shots with a Ten-Foot Poll

In last Saturday's Graphical History Tour, I shared a few cartoons and illustrations I drew 40 years ago in April of 1982. I had almost included one from April of 1992, but I decided to give that month a post of its own today.

I'll start out with one that drew a couple of complaints.

in Journal Times, Racine, Wis., April 8, 1992

Religious fundamentalists were upset that the Racine Health Department had begun offering free condoms in response to the AIDS crisis. For years, health advocates had been urgently recommending that men who had sex with men must use condoms every time. Although some in the gay community reacted with the same attitude we've seen in the past two years toward face masks, the absence of any treatment for HIV/AIDS in 1992 made a lot of sense to the rest.

Antigay puritans, however, argued that condoms are less than 100% effective — and that was without guys wearing their condoms down around their nuts instead of up where they're of any use. As far as the Just Keep Saying No crowd were concerned, total abstinence was the only prophylactic that was 100% effective and therefore the only one worth considering.

Just like how abstaining from breathing is 100% effective against transmission of COVID-19.

A frequent denizen of the Journal Times's Letters to the Editor section (he had just had another letter, "Condoms Cause AIDS," in the paper two days earlier) recognized my caricature of the gentleman leading the opposition to the health department program.

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., April 17, 1992

There was another letter, very much like Mr. Brook's, sent in by parents of a friend of a friend. 

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., April 13, 1992

When I was a kid, I had occasionally subbed for their son delivering the Sunday morning Milwaukee Journal, with which there always seemed to be one supply problem or another. The worst was when the delivery truck had left 75 extra copies of the classified ad sections instead of 75 copies of the news sections. This was in the days when cell phones were the thing of science fiction, so I had to schlep a third of a mile back to my house to call the circulation department, which never answered their phone at 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday.

At any rate, I don't owe the Pfeiffers any favors.

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Nationally, the major story for the month (prior to the Rodney King riots 30 years ago yesterday) was the presidential primary election season grinding to a close.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., April 6, 1992

On the Democratic side, the contest had come down to two former governors: Jerry Brown of California and Bill Clinton of Arkansas. President George Bush had clinched the Republican nomination and polled ahead of either Democrat, even though fascist-wing Pat Buchanan was doggedly refusing to do the Republican thing and fall in line behind him.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., April 9, 1992

By the time the Wisconsin primary was over — well, I hesitate to say Bill Clinton was the "favorite" for the nomination, because there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm around the former Arkansas governor. He had issues with marital infidelity (an issue that had dashed Gary Hart's presidential ambitions four years earlier) and collegiate marijuana use (still a disqualifying consideration for a sizeable chunk of the voting-age population). He had mighty lame excuses for both.

Furthermore, the central issue of his campaign, aside from personal ambition, was a mild repudiation of the Democratic Party liberal ideals. Its "third way" smörgåsbord of fiscal conservatism and social progressivism was meant to appeal to middle-of-the-road moderates — that ambiguous slice of the American electorate who famously don't really get enthusiastic about politics.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., April 27, 1992

Then, just as the news media began wondering what they were supposed to report on with the party conventions still a couple months away, along came billionaire H. Ross Perot, dropping loud hints that he might perhaps consider thinking about mulling whether to make himself available for a third-party run for the presidency.

A Strange Feeling of '92

It's that strange feeling you sometime....mmmms get ... that you've drawn something thirty years before.

in UW-Milwaukee Post, Jan. 21, 1992

When that election year started out, the sheen was wearing off from Operation Desert Storm, Bush the Elder's splendid little war to liberate the Emirate of Kuwait from the evil clutches of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Drawn, apparently, for a January 16, 1992 issue that wasn't published

Bush entered that election year dealing with renewed concern over the state of the economy, in part due to worries that the balance of trade between the U.S. and Japan had begun to tilt in Tokyo's favor. His highly publicized trip to Japan would be remembered, however, for an unfortunate bout of intestinal flu during a state dinner with Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. 

in UWM Post, January 27, 1992

Dozens of Democrats, meanwhile, were vying for the nomination to run against Bush in November. Leading the pack was one William Jefferson Clinton, a former Governor of Arkansas. When his campaign was rocked by an accusation of an extramarital affair, it seemed to be a replay of the scandal that scuttled Gary Hart's run for the Democrats' 1988 presidential nomination.

in Milwaukee Journal, "Taking Names" column, February 4, 1992

I've rerun that cartoon before, and whenever I do, I have to accompany it with this clipping — the only time I've ever appeared in the Milwaukee Journal and/or Sentinel.

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Okay now, today's post seems to be running a bit short. Christmas was kind of hectic and I topped it off with a mild case of the 'rona — thanks to my being fully vaccinated and boosted, it wasn't any worse, and I'm pretty sure I'm over it. (Although it keeps trying to flare up again after I think it's gone.)  I haven't had the energy to do the kind of research you, dear reader, deserve, so I end up today posting three cartoons from a month when I only drew four.

And I don't have anything to say about that fourth cartoon, so here's one from January, 1982, instead.

in UW-Parkside Ranger,  Somers, WI, Jan. 21, 1982

For those of you not old enough to remember Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of State, General Al Haig, you really missed a master of military syntax. It actually earned the neologism "Haigspeak," defined as "Language characterized by pompous obscurity resulting from redundancy, the semantically strained use of words, and verbosity," or "not using one syllable when five would do." 

It's kind of a shame he only lasted in office a little over a year, because satirizing his brusque demeanor and linguistic legerdemain was actually rather fun.

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.

Hercule Perot

in UW-Milwaukee Post, April 27, 1992

I had something else planned for this week's Sucking Soundback Saturday post; but with the passing this week of H. Ross Perot, it can wait.

in Racine Journal Times,  May 26, 1992

Diminutive in stature, billionaire Texan Perot burst upon the political scene in 1992 as a larger-than-life character. Both major party presidential nominations were pretty well decided (although Jerry Brown hadn't quite surrendered to Bill Clinton on the Democratic side) when Perot announced his intention to mount an independent campaign for the general election.

He shot to the top of national polls — in part because Republicans were associated with one set of interests and Democrats were associated with another, but potential voters could project onto Perot whatever priorities appealed to them.

in UW-M Post, September 28, 1992

Then in July, he abruptly pulled out of the race, only to change his mind again in October.

in UW-M Post, October 12, 1992

The Perot campaign concentrated primarily on buying half-hour blocks of television prime time for him to display graphs and charts illustrating his signature issues against the national debt and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He and his running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, had qualified to appear in the presidential debates; he also held a few rallies.

in UW-M Post, October 26, 1992

Come November, Perot failed to carry any states, but he did come in second in Utah and Maine. Most of his voters were male, overwhelmingly white, and just over half self-identified as moderates. With nearly 19% of the popular vote, Perot was guaranteed to be a factor in 1996, and some Republicans blame him for denying Bush 41 a second term.

in UW-M Post, November 8, 1993

He was no ally of the Democrats, however, and emerged as a primary spokesman against the Clinton administration (until he was overshadowed by Newt Gingrich). He debated NAFTA with Al Gore on the Larry King Show, on which he famously declared, "Now, when you've got a seven-to-one wage differential between the United States and Mexico, you will hear the giant sucking sound!"

in Gaze Magazine (Mpls.), January 7, 1994

Perot founded his Reform Party in 1995 and bore its standard in the 1996 election. He won only 8% of the vote the second time around, but that was still enough to guarantee the Reform Party federal matching funds next time around. He opened his party's nomination to others in 2000 (Donald Trump was one of the candidates who put his name forward) and ended up forsaking the Reform Party and endorsing George W. Bush. Pat Buchanan would be the party's presidential nominee that year and go all America First as he plunged it into obscurity, while still managing to avenge Bush 41 by denying Al Gore Florida's electoral votes.

in UW-M Post, March 28, 1996

Given the hyperpartisanship that has been the hallmark of the 21st Century, I often wonder how different the political landscape would be today if Perot's Reform Party had not gone off the rails into ugly nativism, but had instead continued as a centrist alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. Imagine how things might be different if there were a Reform Party to welcome the likes of John McCain, Jeff Flake, Joe Manchin, and Mikie Sherrill.

But the truth is that Perot's forceful opposition to NAFTA opened his party's doors to the xenophobes who have lately been taking over the Republican party under Trump. Recent experience has shown that hard-core extremists outshout and outlast moderates and pragmatists, and if you don't think so, explain to me how Susan Collins is a leader rather than a follower.

The Reform Party certainly was not immune. If it were still around today, we might well have the Reform Party for Know-Nothings, the Republican Party for Corporate Theocrats, and the Democratic Party for Urban Sophisticates.

Late Election Results

This week's elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere gave new hope to a beleaguered Democratic Party. It was much the same 25 years ago this week, when Democrats, who had seemed incapable of overcoming their electoral disadvantage in the South, Midwest and West, put an end to 12 years of Republican rule. Souljahback Saturday returns to my thrilling cartoons of yesteryear, as a nation overlooked accusations of sexual harassment to send Bill Clinton to the White House.

Here in Wisconsin, we participated in the Democratic sweep. We ousted Robert Kasten to send Russ Feingold to the Senate, and Armed Forces Committee Chair Les Aspin won decisively over first-time congressional candidate Mark Neumann. But the President-elect had other plans for Aspin...

...little realizing that two years and two elections later, the third time would be the charm for Mr. Neumann.

On his way out the door, President Bush issued a controversial pardon to Caspar Weinberger, who had been Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan and had been indicted for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal in June. Prosecutors added a new count to the indictment less than a week before Election Day, based on a diary entry that contradicted President Bush's claim of being "out of the loop" while the Iran-Contra scheme was concocted.

In December, the additional indictment against Weinberger was thrown out due to the statute of limitations having expired. Bush pardoned Weinberger and five other Reagan administration officials in time for Christmas.

On October 30, President Bush had come to my hometown to be interviewed by Larry King. I had joined a group of protesters on the presidential limousine's route to Memorial Hall, waving a sign mocking a quip Bush had made during one of the presidential debates about Bill Clinton's paper-thin experience in foreign policy.

From inside his brightly lit limousine rushing down Sixth Street at 35 miles per hour, it is extremely unlikely that President Bush was able to read any of our signs, or even to detect that we were protesting at all.

A month later, I drew these last two cartoons by way of appreciation for his handling of four years in which the world went through fundamental change seemingly overnight. I couldn't stand along the road waiting for his motorcade to drive by again, so as much as anything else, these were my apology for that Millie poster. Oh, we were (and are) still stuck with Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, but David Souter didn't turn out to be so bad.

I was particularly pleased at how this cartoon turned out visually, and it remains one of my all-time favorites.