Dying For The Nod

This Editor and Publisher story tells us that Murray Sabrin, running for the Republican nomination to oppose (hopefully) Frank Lautenberg in this fall’s U.S. Senate contest, believes that he has the endorsement of Frank Gannett, the founder of the Gannett Newspaper chain, since “Maverick Murray” (pardon me while I gag) says that he shares Gannett’s philosophy.

Yes, the “silly season” is indeed here.

(Two things: 1) I say “hopefully” above because it will mean that Lautenberg has defeated the primary challenge of Rob Andrews, who is nothing less than New Jersey’s answer to Tom Carper, and 2) Sabrin believes that Gannett would have endorsed him, but we will never know for certain since Gannett died in 1957….and no, I’m not making this up.)

As the story tells us…

"(Gannett) would whole-heartedly endorse my campaign to Legalize Freedom," Sabrin said in a statement. "Frank was one of the Founders of 'The National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government' and ran for President on the same platform as The Sabrin Solution."

Oy…

This, apparently, is the latest swipe from Sabin at the Gannett chain, as noted in the story…

At a recent candidates' debate, Sabrin took issue with a poll in the Gannett-owned Asbury Park Press that showed him trailing Dick Zimmer by 20 percentage points.

Sabrin maintained the poll was flawed, and Thursday his campaign released an e-mail from Press Managing Editor Gary Schoening defending the soundness of the survey.

"Sabrin was 20 points behind Zimmer in the poll, and even if we were at the edges of that margin, that makes the claim that he is the front-runner (which to any reasonable person's interpretation means he's winning the race) specious," Schoening wrote.

And take a guess at how Sabrin responded (so maturely, I should note…do I need to point out that Sabrin is a conservative, by the way?)…

"Anyone reading this email would expect more from a first-year journalism student," Sabrin said. "Any high school student studying statistics could clearly see the poll Mr. Schoening was trying to defend was incomplete and irrelevant towards the Republican Primary on June 3rd."

This actually got me to thinking a bit about the potential endorsements that could be provided by deceased individuals to candidates currently running for office, and I came up with a few possibilities.

I believe that Hillary Clinton could claim the endorsement of John Jacob Astor, since he maintained close ties to corporations, particularly the legendary hotels he founded in New York, and she has also through her campaign contributions (Obama has received his also, to be sure, though). And Astor perished on the Titanic in 1912, which I’ll admit turned out to be more of a lost cause than Hillary’s campaign for president, but not by much (she could probably also claim the endorsement of George Armstrong Custer, who went down as a result of that unfortunate encounter with the Cheyenne and the Lakota Sioux at the Little Big Horn in 1876; though “he died with his boots on,” he was victimized by poor planning also).

And what of “Senator Honor And Virtue,” you may ask? Well, I think former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick would have swung with McCain, since her legendary quote about “San Francisco Democrats” could have rolled trippingly from his tongue as well as hers. I also think McCain would have claimed the support of former pro wrestler Freddie Blassie, whose legendary meltdowns are reminiscent of McCain’s temper tantrums (if we ever hear McCain use the phrase “pencil-neck geek,” then I’ll know I’m onto something).

McCain could also say that he’s carrying on in a manner that would have been endorsed by Jesse Helms, since both of them (here and here – as you can see, Broder used to have an actual spine) opposed the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday (oops, sorry…Helms isn’t dead yet).

Finally, concerning Obama, is it too much of a stretch to believe that this man would have offered him his support, especially since he already has the endorsement of his brother?

(Cue the obligatory Clinton campaign umbrage over the fact that Bill actually shook his hand all those years ago...)