Blog by Barb
Years ago, when Leah and I were visiting family in Brockport, I remember sitting in Meredith's kitchen discussing the Apollo 9 astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. If memory serves (and it often doesn't), she had just seen a TV special about him and the depression he suffered after returning to earth. But what interested her was that having been reminded of his name, she now heard it everywhere. Upon returning to California, this turned out to be true for me and Leah. There is probably a fancy name for this syndrome of focused attention, fly fishing within the universe of informational overload, but we've always thought of it as the "Buzz Aldrin syndrome."

It's happening again and this time, the man who is popping up with surprising frequency is Marc Hanna. As in, Boss Hanna of Ohio--your relative.

I learned of your illustrious relative during the first year of meeting Leah. I suppose it is something of a courtship ritual to let the other person know what a complete nerd you are and wait and see if they still love you. In this case (one out of many), I revealed to Leah my political button collection--viola! Still tacked onto the same thumb tacked, black felt-covered cork board that I'd assembled in junior high school. LBJ buttons, Kennedy buttons, flashers that showed two images depending on your angle, a 1962 Nixon for Governor button, a button from Kansas Governor Alf Landon button in the shape of a sunflower--he who had the stupidity of running against the immensely popular second-term FDR.

Well, maybe it came out of the discussion or maybe it came after Uncle Jerry sent Leah long letters of the family history, but at some point she told me about her connection...through Marjorie's biological mother's lineage, of your relation to Marc Hanna.

And Marc Hanna is the father of political buttons, you see. As boss of Ohio at the turn of the century, he masterminded the election of William McKinley. He invented the "whistle stop campaign" techniques of sending candidates on railroads to speak to gathered crowds. He organized a consortium of businessmen to donate large sums of money to retire President McKinley's campaign debt--and thereby started a persistent and long tradition of private interest campaign financing. (Makes it kind to interesting, doesn't it, to read various jeremiads against campaign finance abuse when it was all started by your own family member!)

Anyway, in somewhat rapid succession, his name appeared in Robert Caro's third volume biography on Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, you see, invented for the Democrats what Hanna had invented for the Republicans. (And Johnson, FYI, invented it during the 1930s and thereby preserved a Democratic Congress for FDR's third term. Indeed, the change-of-the-guard symbolized by Eisenhower and more cruelly by McCarthyism could have happened ten years earlier under Roosevelt had it not been for a young and ambitious Lyndon Johnson. One more interesting point--Johnson secret sugar daddy in terms of political money (bags and bags and bags of political money) was a Texas oil and construction firm called Brown and Root. That company was later acquired and renamed Halliburton--financial home of current VP and ex Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney.)

Oh, how I thrilled for Marc Hanna to be discussed in the same breath as Lyndon Johnson! Next, two weeks ago, I flipped across the cable TV channel and caught mention on Biography of Robert Taft, the great mid-century senator from Ohio. I paused and sure enough, short mention of Ohio's stature in the U.S. Senate having been initially carved out by Marc Hanna at the turn of the century.

And then, this Sunday, while reading the New York Times op-ed piece, there was a mention of Marc Hanna again in Maureen Dowd's column. Very parenthetical--she was talking about Bush's advisor Karl Rove and his off-beat historical theories. One, for example, is that McKinley was actually smarter than Boss Hanna.

So there you are. Next time one of you tries to win a kitchen-table debate, I think we should all remember there's a genetic predisposition to rule Senate chambers, to sit on wicker rocking chairs on expansive porches and map out the future of the United States government, to consider presidents mere playthings that can bend to your will. Mark Hanna really did leave a mark on this country and I, for one, love feeling connected to him!

You can see his picture at
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Trail/1756/over500.html