I was reminded recently how fast 30 years can go by, and also, how fleeting good health is, when I heard Hamilton Jordan speak at an Atlanta Press Club luncheon.
Jordan, of course, was the boy wonder who engineered Jimmy Carter’s upset of Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. A young journalist at the time, I’ll always remember the buzz that that election created around Georgia, and the excitement it brought to news coverage around the state.
It was bittersweet for all when Jordan, still in his 60s, spoke recently. Battling cancer for years, he could not stand during his speech, and he wore a nasal respirator. Still, his mind and voice are strong, and he predicted a Democratic victory by either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in November. (A vote by the 150 or so in the audience went that way, also.) On Clinton, however, he said, “God forbid.” On John McCain, he opined, “Too ready to go to war.”
Here’s a link to a story about the event:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/03/06/jordan0306.html?cxntlid=inform
Had it not been for Carter’s victory, my most newsworthy memory might never have happened. In 1978, Culver Kidd, then a powerful state senator in Georgia, faced a federal trial in Macon for gambling conspiracy charges. I was covering the trial for The Macon Telegraph, and it was nationally newsworthy because then-President Carter testified via videotape, which was shot in the White House.
Jordan said after his speech that he vaguely recalled the taping and trial. It ended bitterly for Carter and Co. Despite the presidential testimony from a longtime political foe, Kidd was acquitted. (The photo is of me leaving the courthouse with Kidd not long after he was cleared.)
Amazing, too, how political demographics have changed. Georgia usually votes Republican now, and the state has a black female Supreme Court chief justice. But the legacy of Jordan’s energy and savvy will live beyond him.
