An Irishman’s Diary on being a reluctant US presidential candidate

Every time I hear the current contenders for the Oval Office answer a stupid question with an equally dim-witted response, I feel their pain. That’s because I too have campaigned for the presidency of the United States and said some absolutely ridiculous things.

The year was 1972, and I was an awkward 13-year-old playing the part of Richard Nixon opposite a female classmate’s George McGovern in a mock debate organised by our eighth-grade geography teacher at Lincoln Junior High School in Medford, Massachusetts.

To echo the tagline of the man I was chosen to represent, let me make one thing perfectly clear – I was a reluctant candidate for my nation’s top job back in 1972. The country was at war, an energy crisis loomed, and political campaigns were fast becoming an even dirtier and more dishonourable business. (So not much has changed.)

Chatty

Plus, I was having some serious hair issues that would linger for another decade, and my public-speaking skills at the time would have made a cloistered monk seem chatty in comparison.

Given my obvious unsuitability for public office, how did I find myself pushing the Republican Party platform surrounded by a roomful of Democrats-in-waiting? Well, in the tradition of politicians everywhere, I’d like to place the blame for my unfortunate circumstances on someone else. Specifically, a boyhood friend by the name of Mark Storella.

Mark and I had met in primary school and our friendship continued as we made the unsettling transition to seventh grade. After one year in the rough-and-tumble of junior high, however, Mark departed for a well-regarded private school.

But when opportunity came knocking in the run-up to the Nixon-McGovern election, Mark – along with his Republican sensibilities – was there for me, urging me to take part in the democratic process. Junior High-style, anyway. It’s worth noting that the system used to nominate a presidential candidate was much more straightforward in 1972 than it is today. Back then, it consisted simply of Mrs Oosta, our eighth-grade social studies teacher, looking in my direction and saying, “I think you should be our Nixon.”

To help me look and sound the part, Mark was able to locate a sizeable quantity of Nixon bumper stickers, campaign buttons, and policy pamphlets, which I still have. (I never asked Mark who his source was, but if you’ll recall, the Nixon campaign team laboured under the unfortunate acronym of Creep, the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Not a good omen, as it turned out, for our 37th chief executive.)

All the Nixon literature was clearly written and very professional looking and bespoke a candidate on the top of his game. I wish I could say the same for his frizzy-haired eighth-grade stand-in, whose dress sense, by the way, was more ragtag than Republican.

After studying the Nixon policy positions, I experienced an uncharacteristic bout of confidence, thinking that if I could master my man’s views on the economy and foreign relations, the debate would swing in my favour.

I was wrong. On the morning of the debate, the butterflies started fluttering. In droves. And later in the day when I took my seat at the front of the class as Richard Milhous Nixon, my mouth dried up and my brain went into lockdown.

Also, the “George McGovern” I was facing had the advantage of being blonder and better-looking than me. She may have been wearing a miniskirt as well.

With the help of four or five other kids in the class who served as the impartial press corps, she hammered me on a subject I couldn’t shake – the Vietnam War. In response to the panel’s persistent questioning about whether I, as Nixon, would send my own son to Vietnam, I could only splutter a red-faced rebuttal. Something along the lines of “War may not be nice, but someone’s got to do it.”

I have a vague recollection that a class vote was taken at the end of our debate and that I lost by a landslide. (Which was an accurate reflection of the way Massachusetts voted generally in 1972. We were the one state that McGovern carried, resulting in the classic bumper sticker, Don’t blame me – I’m from Massachusetts!)

I’ve yet to seek counselling on the matter, but I sometimes think that my teenage impersonation of Richard Nixon is the reason I haven’t run for public office since.

And why I never discuss presidential politics with women in miniskirts.