Saturday, November 3, 2012

Just in Case You Don't Think the Elitist Have the Presidential Elections Rigged

Consider what Andrew Tobias wrote in his 1980 book, Getting By on $100,000 a Year:
Some time ago, I was sitting next to one of the ten--surely one of the fifty-most powerful men in the world--Walter Wriston. Wriston is chairman of Citicorp, by a country mile the world's leading global megabank. Citigroup is vastly more powerful than most nations...This was an off-the-record dinner Citicorp hosts at the River Club each year for two or three dozen financial writers the bank has found least offensive. The food was good (lobster claws were served--as hor d'oeurves) the small talk was on a reasonably high level...

Placed neatly under each guest's butter dish was what looked for all the world like a two-page college quiz. With our names already typed across the top, no less. This, it was explained for the benefit of first-timers, was the annual "Fearless Forecast," in which we the press were to make our economic projections for the coming year...

When it came to the last questions-who would be the 1976 Democratic presidential nominee and who would ultimately be elected--I was going to put Hubert Humphrey as the nominee and Jerry Ford as the winner, but the man to my left, Wriston, had let it slip over dinner that his money was on Jimmy Carter (so to speak). So figuring his guess was better than mine, I put Carter as the nominee; but--figuring he was crazy--I stuck with Ford to win. (How did Wriston know, eleven months before the fact? The first primaries hadn't even been held! It's scary.)

5 comments:

  1. So it's going to be Romney, huh?!

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  2. So it's going to be Obama, huh?!

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  3. Walt's father, Henry Wriston, was president of both Brown U. and Lawrence U. The wiki entry on Henry states that he was a president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1951 to 1964, and an adviser to president Eisenhower. He also served, among other things, on the board of trustees of The World Peace Foundation (which must really be The World War Foundation).

    So...there we have it. Another guy born into it and well-groomed.

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  4. "(How did Wriston know, eleven months before the fact? The first primaries hadn't even been held! It's scary.)"

    The claim that he knew hasn't been justified. It's simply speculation given his prominence. He may have guessed. If he guessed wrong, we would not be discussing this. That he guessed right is not evidence that he had insider information. That claim needs to be justified.

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    1. Edward, you have no clue. Even at the start of the primaries, hardly anyone knew who Jimmy Carter was. The fact that Wriston did and knew before the primaries says an f'iing lot to anyone with a brain.

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