Oliphant's Veeps

"Promises, Promises" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, April 1968

How many vice presidents do you count in the above cartoon?

I recently mused that since "Oliphant's Presidents" has already been done (you can buy the book at amazon), I could have commemorated Pat Oliphant's passing by collecting his Vice Presidents. Well, his career spanned several of them, so here they are.

"Click" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, October, 1968

Lyndon Johnson picked Hubert Humphrey as his running mate in 1964 to shore up his support with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. To Baby Boomers too young to remember the Minnesotan speaking out on behalf of Black Americans' civil rights in 1948, however, Humphrey came to be seen as errand boy for the man sending that generation to fight and die in a far away forever war in southeast Asia.

Running for president in LBJ's place after Johnson withdrew from the race, Humphrey found it difficult to distance himself from the administration's unpopular war while promising to continue advancing its Great Society ideals.

Of course, Johnson qualifies as a former Vice President in this cartoon, too. I suppose it is possible that Aussie Oliphant penned a cartoon of LBJ sometime before November of 1963; John Kennedy's Vice President could well have said or done something to catch the attention of the Adelaide editorial pages.

"Our Earth Contact, Spiro, Is Pushing for a Landing Here by 1986" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, September 1969

Humphrey lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, whose first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, served as the new administration's attack dog, speaking out against the media, liberals, antiwar activists, and the nattering nabobs of negativism.

Oliphant has some fun with one of Agnew's less controversial pronouncements in this cartoon, just two months after the first manned landing on the moon.

There has not, in case anybody is wondering, been a manned mission to Mars as of this writing; but NASA landed a craft on the Red Planet ten years before Mr. Agnew predicted.

Agnew was easily the most caricaturable of the Veeps we're looking at today — at least of the ones who never got promoted to the top job — so five versions of him show up in Oliphant's single-panel cartoon.

Did you remember to count Nixon as a former Veep at the top of this post?

"The Lone Ranger" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, May 1974

Of course you did.

Less than nine months into Richard Nixon's second term, Agnew pled no contest to charges of bribery  and resigned the Vice Presidency, bringing about the first exercise of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Passed and ratified after JFK's assassination, it provided a mechanism to fill a vice presidential vacancy.

Gerald Ford was quickly named and confirmed as Agnew's replacement at a time when the President had some legal problems of his own. Yet, while Agnew cartoons were instantly recognizable, six months into Ford's vice presidency Oliphant still found it necessary to write Ford's name on his chest.

"I'd Like You to Meet Our New Vice-President" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, December 1974

No such problem with Nelson Rockefeller, the former Governor of New York who had run for the presidency in 1960, 1964, and 1968.

He did not make a lasting impression as Ford's second in command, however. Not long ago, contestants on Jeopardy! needed to come up with the name of the vice president who followed Gerald Ford, and none of the three knew who it was.

I'm sure my very intelligent readership had no problem spotting him in the cartoon at the top of today's post.

"Ah Plan a Highly Important Staff Role" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, January 1977

The vice presidency is notoriously a thankless make-work job. John Nance Garner likened it to a bucket of warm spit, or something that rhymed with it. Thomas Marshall joked about two brothers, one of whom went to sea while the other was elected Vice President, and neither was heard from again. Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Selina Meyers in Veep was a character study in constant frustration and humiliation.

Jimmy Carter actually followed through with his promise to give Walter Mondale a substantial policy role in his administration. Mondale, the first vice president to have an office inside the White House, was Carter's adviser and trouble-shooter, the Georgian's conduit to Capitol Hill Democrats.

"There Is No Truth Whatever in the Rumor" by Pat Oliphant, October 10, 1988

There was nothing fair about that purse Oliphant always drew with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush — Oliphant went further than almost any other mainstream editorial cartoonist in exploiting Bush's so-called Wimp Factor.

Having criticized Ronald Reagan's "voodoo economics" when Bush was a rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, Bush served as a major cheerleader for Reaganomics and the rest of that administration's policies. Behind the scenes, Bush continued the Mondale model of the vice presidency: an experienced advisor who didn't seek credit for administration successes. By the same token, he also avoided the limelight during the Iran-Contra scandal.

The purse, and the Wimp Factor, disappeared once Bush as President dispatched troops to overthrow the government of Panama.

"How Come Is It" by Pat Oliphant, January 9, 1992

Young and handsome J. Danforth Quayle presented cartoonists with a real caricaturing challenge, which Oliphant answered by drawing him as a child. The vice presidency didn't lend Quayle much opportunity to dispel the cartoonists' depiction of him as a callow, inexperienced goofball; attempting to correct a schoolboy's flawless spelling of "potato" didn't help him.

It was a case of peaking too soon; he might have been taken more seriously after a few more years gave him a face fit for presidential central casting. I wouldn't have recognized him in the second pew at Dick Cheney's funeral over three decades later if he hadn't been sitting next to his wife.

"Where Do We Put Mr. Gore" by Pat Oliphant, November 8, 1993

Oliphant leaned into Al Gore's wooden reputation here, a product of the Vice President's extremely careful, measured, parsed, and deliberate speaking style. If Dan Quayle came off as a not-too-bright schoolboy skating by on his looks, Al Gore could have been the guidance counselor patiently explaining the importance of responsible life choices to a school assembly full of Quayles.

"The Energy Show" by Pat Oliphant, May 1, 2001

Dick Cheney was a completely different animal than any previous Vice President. Oliphant consistently portrayed him as the real power behind a frat boy President who got the job on the strength of having been a legacy student who made it to graduation because Dad's name was on a wing of the administration building.

Chief of Staff for President Ford, Congressman from Wyoming, and Defense Secretary under Bush the Elder, Cheney was more recently Chair of the Halliburton Corporation, a multinational oil service conglomerate. Tapped to find Bush the Younger a running mate in 2000, he found one in the mirror.

"I'm Smilin' Joe Biden and I'm Running for President" by Pat Oliphant, January 23, 2013

A commenter at Daily Cartoonist regretted that Pat Oliphant had never drawn Joe Biden. True, Oliphant's eyesight had failed him by the time Biden won the presidency; but he had drawn Biden as Vice President (and as Senator).

Which is where this Graphical History Tour must wrap things up. I know of no Oliphant cartoons of Mike Pence or Kamala Harris, and it's highly unlikely that he ever drew J.D. Vance.

On the other hand, I could have included cartoons he drew of former Vice Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman, and there is probably one of Teddy Roosevelt somewhere along the line. But this post is already long enough.

And I could never be certain that I hadn't missed a cartoon featuring William Rufus Devane King or Charles Curtis.

This Week's Sneak Peek

If you were expecting me to jump on the bandwagon with a smart aleck cartoon about J.D. Vance waxing prosaic about Sofa King Unlimited in his memoir, Hillbilly Allergy, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

That was just someone else's joke.

Like Sarah Palin being able to see Russia from her house.

Or George W. Bush saying "strategery."

Or Al Gore claiming to have invented the internet.

Or Gerald Ford being a klutz.

Of course, Ford did actually stumble on the Air Force One stairs a few times. But so has Joe Biden.

You'd think someone would have fixed those stairs by now.

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.

✍

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.

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.

Faces in the Crowd

The cartoon I posted on Sunday employed caricatures of a number of House Republicans, when I could more easily have drawn a single GOP elephant at a microphone. So why didn't I do that and knock off an hour earlier?

June, 1996 for the UWM Post.

Pardon me if I step back a few years in order to answer that. In 1996, I drew a crowd of (hopefully) recognizable Republicans, grinning smugly, because that made more sense than drawing a single elephant, and was more effective than a bunch of smugly grinning elephants. Behind Bob Dole in this cartoon, mocking GOP claims of having a "big tent" on the abortion issue in spite of the hardline plank in the party platform, stand, from left to right: Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms, Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, and Ralph Reed.

(Since the UWM Post didn't put out any editions that summer, the above cartoon was never published, but I ended up drawing another one a lot like it for them in September.)

in UW-M Post, March 5, 1991

My cartoon of sheepish Democrats at the peak of George H.W. Bush's popularity would have been less pointed if I had drawn a donkey or donkeys among the sheep. (From left to right: Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley, Dick Gephardt, Tom Foley, Al Gore, Mario Cuomo, Lloyd Bentsen, and George Mitchell.)

in UWM Post, September 28, 1989

Which is not to say that every editorial cartoon has to include caricatures of actual politicians. I liked the idea for my cartoon about multiple ethics investigations going on in the nation's capital in 1989, but there weren't enough politicians actually leading one investigation while being the target of another for me to have drawn a bunch of real people.

This idea is not far removed from Thomas Nast's "Who Stole the People's Money? Do Tell. 'Twas Him" cartoon showing easily recognizable members of the Tammany Ring standing in a circle, each pointing fingers at the man to his right. It's a great cartoon that had great impact when it was published and has stood the test of time, even though the real Richard Connolly was not accusing Peter Sweeney, who was not accusing Boss Tweed, who was not accusing James Ingersoll, etc.

for Q Syndicate, June 21, 2004

Here again, I could have drawn specific Republican senators pulling a prank in 2004, but I think this particular cartoon works better this way artistically.

Still, I believe it is useful for cartoonists to hold actual politicians accountable for their stands on issues. Thomas Nast's cartoons would have had little impact if he had tamely drawn generic "City Hall" characters — or comical Tammany Tigers — every week. Likewise, it's all well and good to draw a cartoon highlighting Lindsey Graham's or Matt Gaetz's craptasm du jour; but if one doesn't hold their feet to the fire, the effect is likely to be ephemeral.


We can't all be Thomas Nast, but we can still try.

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.

All This And 1992

As my Scrunchieback Saturday review of the climax of the 1992 election campaigns in Wisconsin and the U.S. continues, things are looking very good for the Democratic Party candidates.

Only a year earlier, President George H.W. Bush seemed a shoo-in for reelection. His popularity immediately after defeating Saddam Hussein's army in Gulf War I was off the charts; leading Democrats had demurred from the race; and Republicans had developed a lock on the southern states. But as the war euphoria wore off, popular anxiety over the economy lingered well after the recession of 1990-91, and the Democrats had named two southerners to their ticket. With Texan H. Ross Perot also in the race, southerners had plenty of their own to choose from. Bush found himself running second — occasionally third — in the polls.

The Bush team attempted to contrast Bush's heroic record as a pilot in World War II with Bill Clinton's student deferment and protests against the Vietnam War, but found that U.S. voters were less than eager to re-litigate the Vietnam era.

Here in Wisconsin, Republican Senator Bob Kasten found himself running behind his Democratic challenger, Russ Feingold. Democrats in the state benefited from having fresh faces on the ballot in a year favorable to fresh faces, and Feingold's sunny, upbeat, populist campaign contrasted with the nasty one Kasten had survived against Ed Garvey six years before.

In a move that no Republican would dare make today, Kasten aired TV and radio ads likening his own positions to those of Democrats Bill Clinton and Wisconsin's other Senator, Herb Kohl, owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Coming from a Republican who had come into office with the Reagan sweep of 1980, the comparison just didn't ring true.

(Evie is Kasten's wife's name.)

Returning to the presidential race, this next cartoon comments on an argument President Bush made at a three-way debate on October 19. (With three candidates at each of the debates that month, the result was that the challengers were able to gang up on the incumbent.) I also tried to emulate Mr. Bush's speaking style.

As it turned out, President Clinton would enjoy having the power of a line item veto in 1996 and 1997, only for it to be ruled unconstitutional in Clinton v. City of New York.

Millionaire H. Ross Perot, meanwhile, conducted his campaign exclusively on television, guesting on Larry King Live, and purchasing air time for 30- and 60-minute infomercials as well as more traditional 30-second spots. He nevertheless maintained that he was the leader of a populist revolt against the two major parties.

Returning to the Wisconsin senatorial campaign: Russ Feingold aired several folksy ads of himself campaigning around the state, ending with him showing the back of his left hand to the camera as if it were a map of Wisconsin and pointing out wherever it was he planned to visit next. In one of these ads, he visited The Joke Shop in reliably Republican Waukesha County just west of Milwaukee. The ad included a brief exchange with store owner Jeffrey Campbell, who signed a release allowing the Feingold campaign to use him in the commercial, but later complained that the ad gave the false impression that Campbell, a Republican, supported Feingold.

The Kasten campaign responded with its own ad with the tag line, "If we can't trust Russ Feingold's ads, can we trust Russ Feingold on crime, welfare reform or taxes?"

On the Second Day of Christmas...

It's SaintStephenback Saturday, the second day of Christmas, which is swell if you're a big fan of turtledoves. If you're looking for a topic for next week's editorial cartoon, ummm, not so much.

The week after Christmas is usually a pretty slow news period, which wasn't a problem for me during those many years when I aspired to be the world's oldest college cartoonist. The college newspapers all take a long Christmas vacation. Out here in the Real World, the show must go on, even if none of the newsmakers are making news and their spokespersons are resting their voices.

In 1993, we had a certain eccentric rich presidential candidate (formerly and futurely) whose concerns about American jobs getting sucked south of the border provided sufficient fodder for this post-Christmas cartoon.

We now know that if your job didn't end up in Mexico -- or Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic -- there is now an app for doing whatever it was that you used to get paid for, and even the reindeer are losing their jobs to Amazon drones.

Most post-Christmas cartoons don't have a Christmas theme, though. TV commercials will have been jamming Christmas down everyone's throats since the end of back-to-school specials, so everyone is sick and tired of Christmas. Even churchgoers who had complained "Why can't we sing familar Christmas carols?" all through the season of Advent have lost interest in "Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful" and "Once in Royal David's City" by the First Sunday of Christmas.

Which is why you never hear anyone talk about "keeping Christmas in our hearts 365 days a year" after December 25.

There are exceptions to the usual news drought after Christmas. Every four years, new cabinet members are named in December, often once Congress has gone home for the holiday. Up through 2012, with LGBT service in the military still a hot-button issue, the views of the nominee for Secretary of Defense were usually worth a cartoon or two.

Or the nominee for Attorney General.

And from that same year, having the 2000 election go into extra innings was a godsend for editorial cartoonists.

If politicians aren't being helpful, Mother Nature doesn't give a hoot about holidays on the calendar. Most years, you can count on a certain contingent of editorial cartoonists drawing someone up to his chest in snow wondering whatever happened to that global warming crap them dang egg-headed climatologists keep warning about. You haven't seen many of those cartoons this year.

On December 26, 2004, an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra sent a devastating tsunami around the entire Indian Ocean. Somewhere between 228,000 and 280,000 people were killed, and millions were left homeless. from Indonesia to South Africa.

Some religious people took it as an opportunity to lend aid and comfort to the afflicted. Others did not.

But you can't count on the weather, and it's ghoulish to count on disaster befalling someone before your deadline. If all else fails, there is still one last holiday on the December calendar. A cartoonist can try summing up the entire year.

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.