My own grandmother, ratting someone out! Not that I want to give anyone ideas.
Note that Strom Thurmond is famous both for his record filibuster stalling the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and for how very wrong he was on that issue–he made it appear *more* wrong by what he did, by how he frustrated his country as well as his fellow senators, and he never got completely away from the image he gave himself by doing so.
Okay, now, a word on Massachusetts:Â they elected a charismatic, good-looking guy who knows how to throw a zinger given a chance. Tip O’Neill of Massachusetts once famously said “All politics is local.” I would add, “and of the moment.”
So here we have that lost 60th vote–but it’s a Republican and he’s from Massachusetts, representing a whole lot of Democrats. He knows he has to keep them happy if he wants to keep that plum job. He knows he has to work with the other party. In today’s severely divided Congress, this is a good thing. He also happens to have been for the plan in Massachusetts that the one in Congress is trying to improve upon. (It ain’t perfect, but we gotta start somewhere.)
Back when I was in college, I was at my grandparents’ home and somehow a cousin asked Gram a question re their political life back in the day; usually, those got directed at Grampa. But he wasn’t in the room just then.
My very proper grandmother, whom I’d never heard speak an ill word towards nor about anybody in any way ever before that moment, looked suddenly like she’d kept this one to herself for far too many years. It was just too much. The truth had to be told.
The subject was that record filibuster. Passing that Act was the right thing to do, but Thurmond was having none of it. As long as he stayed on that floor, reading the Washington DC phone book, or, famously, his grandmother’s biscuit recipe, then the floor was all his.
As long as he didn’t step away from it.
And what would limit that?
“Strom Thurmond had a catheter under his pants!” exclaimed Gram.