THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609160044
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 58 lines
My favorite candidate for vice president is Adm. James Stockdale, who ran on the ticket with Ross Perot four years ago.
The first words of Stockdale's acceptance in 1992 are among the most memorable uttered by a candidate for veep. ``Who am I?'' he cried, ``Why am I here?''
Pundits ridiculed him. But one day, a scholar will do a paper for a Ph.D. on how Stockdale's questions were received - and will find that at least one critic rejoiced.
Who? Why, I. To me he was a decent man of integrity and dignity. His two questions shouldn't have been belittled, I argued. They were fundamental. Philosophers, theologians and poets propound them.
Who am I?
That began with Adam, awakening.
Why am I here?
That was Adam's second inquiry upon looking around at the Garden.
Eve helped him answer that.
Eternally, those questions plague humankind. Most of us, including Hamlet, have raised them.
Stockdale's answers were (1) he was a friend of Perot and (2) Perot hadn't been able to find anyone else who would run with him.
My flashback was triggered last week by a TV replay of Stockdale's debut in 1992. He was smiling as he posed the questions and the crowd laughed at his self-deprecating humor, which pundits failed to see.
The media should have commended him instead of condemning him. Stockdale was scarcely heard from after that start. He all but disappeared.
No such fate awaits Perot's present running mate, Pat Choate. Going nonstop, never pausing for breath, his discourse is like a Norfolk Southern freight train hauling coal from Southwest Virginia as it moves, without a gap, through intersections in Norfolk. Many motorists cut off the motor and marvel at the never ending gondola cars, heaped with coal, rumbling past them at crossings, on and on.
Some drivers, counting cars, doze, as do some among Choate's audiences. Larry King, adept as Mack the Knife at inserting a question between a speaker's verbal ribs, had difficulty finding openings in Choat's soft, smoothly rolling delivery: words, words, words.
In a recent interview, one of Stockdale's sons said his father seldom heard from Perot during the campaign. He received whatever he requested, but he was seldom sure what to say or seek or where to go.
Choate goes where he wishes and says what he pleases. At the opening of Dallas headquarters, he told The Morning News he was speaking for the Perot-Choate ticket in defining the Reform Party's stands.
``Perot said the other day we're to the point that each of us could just about finish each other's sentences in a discussion,'' he said.
Neither clears points with the other. Perot talks of the economy in infomercials. Choate rambles the landscape and issues. Campaign scholars predict discord, chaos.
All aboard! This train is bound for glory - or a first-rate wreck. by CNB