If anyone should be feeling an overwhelming sense of Groundhog Day this presidential election, c’est moi.
Frankly, I’ve been covering Bushes for so long, I feel like I ought to be parachuting out of airplanes. In fact, the arc of my career parallels the so-called Bush Dynasty, beginning in 1980 when I was a young reporter for the Charleston (S.C.) Evening Post.
That was the first year South Carolina held a Republican presidential primary and it’s been the “First in the South” ever since. Recognizing the historic importance of the 1980 race, my paper’s editors split the state into east and west and assigned two reporters to cover the terrain. The other reporter was a classic from central casting — a chain-smoking political veteran aptly named Jack Roach.
Taking off in different directions, we traversed the state, filing three columns a week — on typewriters, with no spellcheck I might add.