BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

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This is our tribute to the 39th President of the United States. This episode features highlights from the State Funeral last week of the former President , interspersed with segments of his life in his own words, or from the coverage of the day, with music from the State funeral in the background. 

This is truly the end of an era for our host Randal Wallace as Jimmy Carter has been a central figure in his political life from the very start. Wallace stood on the side of the road campaigning for two of Jimmy Carter's opponents as a nine year old in 1980. 

Wallace became a Republican as result of that election campaign and for much of his early years was not a fan of President Carter.  But time changes everything and Wallace grew to admire President Carter's honesty, integrity, and countless good works around the world. 

However, it was in the production of this podcast that Our Host, as he explains, came to learn so much more about the President he had written off as a failure so many decades ago. By his own admission, our host looked at those six years from the fall of Saigon to the 1980 election as his great black hole of his history knowledge and it was through putting together these episodes that he learned how much more there was to the role Jimmy Carter has played in American History than he ever got credit for in his time. 

Wallace has stated that this segment of episodes put together in out 10th season that he learned the most about a subject matter he had not known about until then. He grew to admire President and Mrs. Carter far more than he had, and hopes if you do get a chance you will take a look at our back catalogue of episodes looking at both Former Congressman John Jenrette and former President Jimmy Carter. 

Farewell to President Carter, a true and faithful servant of his Lord, Jesus Christ, certainly he will be rewarded for a job well done. 

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In our first of several special editions in January, we shall bid farewell to two United States Senators who have spent their times in office reaching across the aisle in order find solutions to issues plaguing our nation. While that is commendable, it does come with a price and can hurt you in the base of your own party. One of the reasons both men stepped down from the Senate is that they had alienated large swaths of their own party faithful. 

The two Senators were Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat. We will hear from them in their farewell addresses to the United States Senate and we will hear from several other Senators, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Cory Booker, Thom Tillis and John Tester,  as they look back at Senator Romney in this day of farewell addresses by retiring Senators.  

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In this episode we take you to the Democratic National Convention to hear some of the greatest public speakers of the 1990s. 

1. Jerry Brown, former Governor of California (and future Governor of California and future Mayor of Oakland) he was a 1992 Presidential candidate who near the end emerged to give Bill Clinton a little challenge at the end of the primary. He hit on economic inequities in the system and slammed both parties over campaign finance reform. He is a fiery speaker and knew how to stir up a crowd. the speech however was remembered for what he did not do, which was mention Bill Clinton, at all. 

2. Zell Miller, Governor of Georgia, delivers the 1992 Convention Keynote address, and he does it with all the fire of Southern stump meeting, attacking Bush on his economic record, and Ross Perot on his positioning as a political outsider. He feeds the crowd plenty of red meat. Later, he would turn his fire on his own party in 2004, and famously challenge Chris Matthews to a duel on national television. 

3. Reverend Jesse Jackson, civil rights pioneer and political activist, he always speaks to the downtrodden, ran a powerful campaign for President in his own right in 1988, but finds himself in a much diminished role after he made comments that offended Jewish people and found himself at odds with the party nominee, Bill Clinton, over comments Clinton made about rap lyrics. 

4. Ted Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, he is the Liberal Lion of the Senate, former Presidential candidate in 1980 that helped rip apart the Democratic support of Jimmy Carter, and he had a long history of undermining both Presidents he disliked of both parties. He was still a formidable speaker and this speech lives up to the billing as he endorses Bill Clinton and attacks the record of the Reagan-Bush years. 

This is a great show if you like great speakers even if you don't agree with much of anything they actually say.  But, alas, I am a Republican so take that for what it is worth. Still, I love a great speaker and raw meat politics of both sides. 

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In this episode we look back at the remarkable life of Jimmy Carter through the eyes of several who knew him. 

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States died at age 100 on December 29, 2024. As we head into a national week of mourning we have compiled a few stories about his life from old friends like Former Congressman John Jenrette, Advisor Stu Eisenstadt, Reporter Susan Zelensky and former aid Chris Matthews from various news outlets as they looked back, over the past few days, at his life. 

We also invite you to look back at our 10th season of this broadcast when we produced a joint biography of former President Jimmy Carter and our former Congressman John Jenrette. Sadly, both men have now passed away, but they left a huge mark on our times and even in our local community. 

Then we also look back at another figure who passed away this week former newsman Aaron Brown who hosted one of our favorite news hours nightly on CNN in the 2000s, he won an award for his coverage of the 9-11 attacks, coverage he provided to CNN even before he was contracted to start at the network. He was a dynamic, interesting, and great reporter and we send our condolences out to his family and his former colleagues at both CNN and ABC News. 

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This episode will lay out a series of special episodes looking back at the departure of a couple of important Senators, the outgoing President Joe Biden, the incoming President Donald Trump and our episodes honoring the former President who just passed away at age 100,  Jimmy Carter. We will also feature a segment in honor of former ABC and CNN reporter and host Aaron Brown. 

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The opening night of the Democratic National Convention in 1992 had the misfortune of having to compete with Major League Baseball All Star Game. To counteract that programming they decided to put the ladies of the party our front on this first night, that will feature a keynote address by Representative Barbara Jordan, 

Then the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter will take the stage for his first prime time address in 12 years at the convention. It would prove to be an interesting evening, the first of several in a convention that would feature some high drama. 

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Happy New Year 2025!!! 

What an amazing year 2024 was for us at this podcast. For 18 weeks we were the number 1 American History Podcast on Feedspot, and for just a little while we had our sister podcast "The Richard Nixon Experience" ranked at number 7 at the same time. We had two podcasts in the top 10. I am proud of that!!

It was a year in which we said goodbye to a lot of legendary figures and in this episode we spend sometime looking back at their remarkable contributions to America and the World, in both politics and journalism. 

We will also preview two of the coming seasons for 2025, though one of the previews comes from our friends at CNN, as they were reviewing the 1996 election in real time. 

Finally, we want to get on your radar for not one, but two books, that our host Randal Wallace wrote in 2024, they will be hitting bookshelves (and Amazon) in the coming year. "The Leadership Lessons from the Cold War" should be out in the spring or early summer of 2025 and our novel, should be out in the fall. We are excited at the prospects for both in the new year. 

But, most of all, we want to say a simple thank you to all of you for tuning in to our podcast for another year. We hope you are enjoying the episodes as much as we enjoy bringing them to you. 

Thank you so much for tuning in, 

Randal Wallace 
Host 

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In this special edition we look back at the remarkable life of former 5th District of South Carolina Congressman John Spratt. Spratt was in Congress for nearly 3 decades and rose to be chairman of the House Budget Committee. 

From that post he would become the master of the Federal Budget working throughout the 1990’s to balance the Federal Budget and manage the nation’s ever growing debt. He was constantly at odds with the George W Bush administration.  We will look back at his many challenges to the Bush Administration, his role as a budget hawk, and his final campaign in the 5th Congressional District. 

Finally, we will hear from the Congressman’s exit interview about his career in Congress just as he was leaving office. 

Spratt died on December 14, 2024 at age 82. He lived a remarkable life. 

Also, this episode is dedicated to the memory of KOLD tv 13 anchor woman Ana Orsini in Tuscan, Arizona. She died suddenly of a brain aneurysm at the age of 28. This was the same thing our host’s brother , Keith Wallace, died of 12 years ago at age 26. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and her coworkers at this time. 

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In this episode, we look at three major stories that all happened in the early summer of 1992. 

1. H. Ross Perot decides to enter the race for President after getting over 200,000 signatures to get him on the ballot in Texas. When he decides to enter the race he is polling in first place ahead of both President George Bush and the Democratic presumptive nominee Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. It is a story that shakes the political class to its core as it heads into the Convention season

2.  Boris Yeltsin comes to Washington D.C. and meets with President Bush and they begin negotiating an Arms reduction deal that would see the Nuclear arsenal of both countries not cut by a third but to a third of what they had at that moment just after the Cold War had ended. It was a major achievement for George Bush that is lost often in the retelling of the 1992 election. Plus this segment  will also give you a feel for a State Dinner if you have never witnessed one. 

3. Senator Al Gore of Tennessee is selected by Bill Clinton to be his Vice Presidential running mate. It would be a ticket made up of youth and it will signal a sea change in the generational leadership of the country. Both men are in their mid forties, Gore 44, and Clinton 45, and both men are from the South and that will help undercut President Bush in what had been his strongest geographical base of support  in the country. It is a big moment in the 1992 campaign, just as we head into the conventions for the two major political parties in America. 

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In this special edition we will hear President Bush speak to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is a group of State elected officials that help form conservative policy for the Federal Government. 

In this speech you will hear the President as he discusses the various policy intiatives he was pressing in the spring of 1992. It gives you a sense for where he was headed domestically and how he wanted to direct Federal Policy. 

This was an interesting speech, and I am sharing it to give you a feel for President Bush's  domestic policy agenda. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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