It's the quiet candidate that wins the race.
So said my father, when he became fifty-first President of the United States.
He ran his campaign on total, absolute, uncompromising silence.
He never said a word.
When he showed up at rallies, he would walk to the rostrum, waving, and then give the adoring crowds a big smile, wave some more, and then walk back to his waiting limo to be whisked away to the next rally.
That way he could do ten to a dozen rallies each day.
And the lurking news media couldn't touch him.
After all, how do you misquote a smile, or a wave of the hand?
(No saluting, or eccentric gestures, though; they can be construed as anything from a neo-Nazi salute to a White Supremacy signal.)
And he was very good at bumping elbows.
Since no one shook hands anymore.
My father didn't insist I move into the White House when he got elected. After all, I was a thirty-five year old single man with a career and a gun collection. I had my own life to live. But I figured the old man could use some backup, since mom was gone and my other siblings were busy in the Republic of Upper Volta running our very profitable pencil factories.
So I took a room in the West Wing, and worked as his press secretary.
He let me keep all the spare change I could find in the couches.
Once elected. my father hung a large portrait of Calvin Coolidge in the Oval Office and became more than quiet, more than reticent.
He became the first ever elected mime.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work.
He wrote elegant notes to Congress about policy and economics, equal rights and domestic security.
He refused to tweet. Ever.
He played charades with the press corps.
And the American people doted on him.
All they wanted, it turns out, was a quiet President
who never made any fuss. Never complained.
And kept his hair combed neatly and a white
handkerchief folded in his breast pocket.
And so there was very little for me to do as press secretary.
I spent most of my time polishing my gun collection and reading
old copies of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Then came Mutegate.
Dad folded his tent and stole silently away, back to that little drug store in Fergus Falls, where it all began. He got a presidential pardon, so he kept the pension.
But he was forced to sell his interest in the pencil factories in the Republic of Upper Volta.
Nowadays he is still very quiet.
In fact, he hasn't said a word to me since last Christmas, when he said "Season's Greetings, son" to me.
Say what you want about him, to me my old man is still a brick. And a door knob. Possibly a ball peen hammer as well.
When they broke the mold, he was already made.
