The year that was: 1967

The year: 1967. 

The topic: upcoming presidential election. 

The characters: one now in New Jersey, another in California, one here in Illinois and the other now in D.C.

Who are these guys?

Answer:  (Left to right)  Chris Bertrand of New Jersey YR Ghost Clubs, Inc., California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson, Illinois Family PAC Director Paul Caprio, and former Illinois State Sen. Mark Rhoads discuss the campaign for president in ……… drum roll please……..the year 1967—when Barry Obama was six years old.

Ronald Reagan credits Gaylord Parkinson with making a crucial difference in Reagan's campaign character, beginning in his bid for governor of California.  As quoted here, Reagan wrote:

The personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It's a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since.

Thanks to Mark Rhoads for sharing the photo and the above comments with us, and while we're at it, thanks to Mark for his faithful and generous contributions to Illinois Review since its beginning in 2005. 

The former Illinois senator, who at one time editorialized for the Chicago Tribune, is a gifted writer, thinker and historian. 

Mark authored all the bios in Illinois Review's Hall of Fame.  His archived posts are consistently tapped into by authors and students researching famous Illinoisans. 

Comments

[Mark Rhoads]

Thank you Fran for your kind comments. Let me correct the record on two points. First from about June 1984 to January 1988, I was a visiting member of The Chicago Sun-Times editorial board. I wrote more than 300 editorials in that time. I did NOT write editorials for the Chicago Tribune. Just before I came on board, Marshall Field, IV sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch. The then new editorial page editor, Krishna Kumar Gaur, originally from India, hired me because he needed someone who was conservative to balance what otherwise had been a liberal writing team. Jack Higgins, the same talented editorial page cartoonist who is still with the Sun-Times, came to the paper a few months before I did. Starting in the fall of 1984, I wrote editorials from the Sun-Times bureau in the National Press Building in Washington, DC and sent them to Chicago by computer.

Second, the photo caption as it relates to Christopher Bertrand of New Jersey was only an inside joke when his title was given as President of YR Ghost Clubs. It is something Young Republicans of that long ago era would understand because most of them attended raucus national conventions where credentials fights were always the norm. Bertrand was a hard-working Republican.