VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 13:46:37 02/12/03 Wed
Author: L. Perkins
Subject: Jeffords !!!!

Sam Hemmingway's column on James Jeffords:

Jeffords off the radar, but still working hard

Just 21 months ago, Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., stunned the nation by leaving the Republican Party and single-handedly giving Democrats control of the Senate.

It seems longer ago than that because of all that's happened since -- the terrorist attacks, the GOP's victories in the mid-term elections, the Columbia shuttle tragedy, talk of another war with Iraq.

The result of this rush of history is that Jeffords' once-momentous decision on May 24, 2001, now looks like a political asterisk.

He was so old-news after the 2002 elections that critics suggested Jeffords soon would be spotted crawling back to the GOP or face having a Capitol broom closet for an office.

Guess again. The microphones and cameras are gone, but Jeffords is in the middle of things as much as ever -- and expects to remain a player in Washington for the foreseeable future.

This weekend, he's moving into prestigious quarters in the old Russell Senate Office Building, assuming space vacated by now-retired Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. It's slightly smaller than the office complex he's leaving, but has a to-die-for view of the Capitol and other advantages.

According to aides, Jeffords fully intends to run for re-election three years from now, a claim backed up by his latest campaign finance report.

In the past six months, he's raised an eye-popping $1.1 million for his 2006 race, records show. That's almost twice as much as what Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., raised during the same period and six times what Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pulled down.

Then there's the pending release of Jeffords' autobiography, "An Independent Man: Adventures of a Public Servant."

The book is far superior to his initial effort "My Declaration of Independence," dashed off shortly after he took the plunge and became an independent.

This new book is pure Jeffords -- unpretentious, principled and very Vermonty. It's hard not to admire the man, even if you disagree with his 2001 exodus from the Republican Party.

Two key themes emerge: his devotion to his wife, Elizabeth, despite a sometimes tumultuous marriage, and the depth and length of his love/hate relationship with the GOP.

Jeffords, 68, writes openly, even painfully, about the couple's problems, why they divorced and remarried, about the grueling nature of political campaigns.

"One day in Shelburne, I shook a woman's hand and said, 'Hi, I'm Jim Jeffords. Nice to see you.'" he wrote in one excerpt. "The woman said, 'I know, I'm your wife.'"

The book traces his battles with the GOP all the way back to 1967, his first year as an elected politician. Then, as a Rutland County state senator, he dared to support a tax measure offered by Democrat Gov. Phil Hoff to the consternation of other Republicans.

His refusal to always toe the party line and the party's efforts to punish him are charted through the years. In late 2000, for instance, he was secretly cut from the Singing Senators after he parted ways with one of its members on a GOP leadership matter.

The funny part? He didn't know he was unwanted. So he showed up at a pre-inaugural party to sing on stage with his flabbergasted quartet members, who had to feign being glad to see him.

There are other nuggets in the book: his three brushes with death; how as a teen he backed out of an invitation to pose for artist Norman Rockwell; the sharing a bottle of vodka with Alexander Solzhenitsyn the night the dissident Russian author moved to Vermont in 1976, with Jeffords' help.

It's a remarkable American tale, told straightforwardly by a native son of Vermont.

From all appearances, it's a story with more than a few chapters left to go.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.