Standing on the ground looking at this speech with the delegation of Georgia, I saw Governor Joe Frank Harris resembling his favorite dog had just died. Mondale would have no help to try to win the Georgia of Joe Frank!
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
The most recent add to the bag was my floor passes for the 2024 Republican Convention in MilwaukeeWho handed Donald Trump on the way to a second term in the White House.
I have covered many conventions over the years between these two events. But while I was in Milwaukee, something moved into me. While walking in the flooded room of red, white and blue bruant, spent from delegates in colorful hats, the speaker speaker promise a better tomorrow, I realized that for the first time, the hypercharged energy of a national convention which sent another adrenaline and a sense of the goal rushing through me tired me.
It was time for me to move on.
Credit: Bill Nigut
Credit: Bill Nigut
In the weeks that followed, he became clear for me that it was not only conventions that I was ready to put behind me.
I had a rich and fulfilling career as a political journalist. I have traveled the country covering dozens of presidential campaigns.
I left on the road with presidents and vice-presidents. I jumped on planes to go to the White House and Capitol Hill when important national stories took place.
I crisscrossed Georgia following candidates for the governor, senator and other state -scale offices, I traveled the marble stages of the State Capitol reporting on 19 legislative sessions and I had the great chance of being present to attend a number of historic moments in Georgia and national and national policy.
Now, in just a few days, I will take my last round by organizing the Politically Georgia Podcast and radio program.
By writing this farewell column, I was Watch the inauguration of President Trump. My first thought concerned the people of the public that I have covered over the years and who, like me, show signs of aging. Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle and his wife, Marilyn. And so many others.
And I thought of those I covered who are no longer with us. Paul Coverdell, Max Cleland, John Lewis, Zell Miller, George HW Bush, John McCain, Mondale and, of course, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.
As a journalist, I knew that keeping a certain distance from those you are covering is crucial. But I admit that I learned to love and admire some of those I pointed out, and my feelings did not have much to do with their party affiliation or their position on the questions.
Zell Miller had a grumpy sequence that denied a soft heart. He cried easily. The week my father died, Miller found me somehow with my brother’s in Chicago. He called my brother’s phone at home and shared his condolences with me. Leaving the call, he said, “Bill, I love you.” I was surprised but deeply moved by the tenderness he showed me at that time.
Paul Coverdell has always died like a gentleman. Max Cleland has reached political heights but was invariably earth to earth with people he met. John Lewis had a modesty that contrasts with his good place as an American hero. Johnny Isakson I never failed to ask myself questions about my children – by name. During his stay in the Senate, Sam nunn was the very image of a statman. Roy Barnes is as funny as it is intelligent. Shirley Franklin Has great political wisdom and shared it with me often. Andy Young is a hero of civil rights who has surprisingly become my friend. And Brian Kemp greatly impressed me with his political know-how.
At the start of his back-ban bench career at the American house, Newt Gingrich Treaty of difficult questions with a spirit of good will. But when he climbed the top of the mountain to become the president of the room, he became fragile and combative when he asked him difficult questions.
Jesse Jackson is struggling with Parkinson’s disease, which makes me sad. It was a stronger than life force and much more attentive than many people think it.
One of the biggest country events that I covered was a gathering in a black church in Cleveland, Ohio. To quote the snapshot, Jackson blew up the roof of the sanctuary, preaching a sermon of stem vacuum on behalf of private persons.
And there were memories of the presidents:
George HW Bush treated everyone with kindness and respect, and, for any reason, it was Particularly nice to me.
The day before the 1992 elections, which the polls showed that it was almost certain to lose, his campaign contacted me to tell me that he hoped that he could do a final interview with me before the day of the ballot. The demand came while he was on Air Force One heading for a last rally in Houston.
By rushing at the last minute, we were able to organize this interview with President Bush. He closed our conversation by saying that it was his last interview as a candidate for the office and “I’m so happy that it is with you.”
To date, I do not know what has led him to do this interview, but it is one of my most beautiful memories.
Walk in snowy districts in Iowa and New Hampshire with Bill Clinton While hitting the doors asking for votes, like many others, I saw the great charm and charisma that would help to propel it to the White House.
I will never forget the evening he came to WSB-TV after having made arrangements with the countryside so that I will host a City meeting live with Clinton in front of an audience of indecisive voters. For more than an hour after the end of our live show, Bill and Hillary Clinton were seated in a green room with me and several leaders of the station who discuss as if they were happy for the momentary stay of the rigters of the path of The campaign.
I got to know George W. Bush during the flights on his father’s campaign plane in 1988, so when he became a candidate for the presidency, we have already had an easy report. He had nicknames for the journalists who covered him, and mine was “ugly”, which I took as insult – until he told me that he used it because I have him always asked “ugly” questions.
I worn it as an honorary badge.
For me, it was exhilarating years. But when approaching 78 years, I look carefully a question that has haunt me for some time: “Why do I have this constraint that I always have to do more?” But I think I finally have the answer.
Finally, I reconciled myself with the fact that I did the job of which I can be proud of. Where I failed, it’s too late to change this now.
While I was preparing for my final edition of “Politically Georgia” next Friday, my most beautiful memories are certainly people who have watched me and listened over the years.
It is an extraordinary honor to hear that many of you say that you believe that I have been a voice of reason and civility. This is how I tried to lead myself: to treat even those with whom I do not agree with respect and hoping that I was able to bring clarity to the world of often tumultuous politics.
If I managed to do it, I will leave without regrets.
Bill Nigut is a crowd of the Podcast and the politically Georgia of the AJC.