In 1988 I was at a book signing in Washington DC and had a chance to speak with Senator McCarthy. I told him, "You are the first, and last, person that I have voted for for President." He smiled and said "I'm the last person that I voted for for President, too."

In February 1982, Eugene McCarthy came to speak at my small, liberal arts college, St. Mary of the Plains College. After his talk, I asked him for his autograph on a magazine page containing two of his poems. He asked for my address. Not long after, I received an autographed copy of his book, "Other Things and the Aardvark," in the mail with this inscription: "Next time a session on poetry." It took me until the summer that year to get around to writing him a thank you for the book. He sent an autographed copy of "Ground Fog and Night" in response to my late thank you.

We could use a few politicians today who read, write, and love poetry!

From Gene McCarthy's poem, Courage at Sixty:

Broken things are powerful.

Things about to break are stronger still.

The last shot from the brittle bow is truest.

Dana Cook left out the part where super-groupie Bebe Buelle meets Eugene McCarthy at a party at the Playboy Mansion, he falls in love with here at first sight, and she with him, but her current boyfriends, Mick Jagger, Todd Rundgren and Steven Tyler, in jealous rages, gang up on McCarthy and threaten to thrash him within an inch of his life.

In order to spare Gene this awful fate, a disappointed Bebe decides she must leave the party immediately, which she does, but from that time on, she has always wondered what "might have been" between her and The Senator.

To In a blue state of mind in a red state:

"We could use a few politicians today who read, write, and love poetry!"

Nero wrote poetry, too.