They call themselves “recovering politicians”—political figures whose careers and dreams have come crashing down because of scandals. Two of them are Missourians.
State Senator Jeff Smith was a rising star in the Democratic Party when he went to federal prison for a year for lying to federal investigators about a minor campaign finance law violation. Former Speaker of the House Rod Jetton was looking at a lucrative career as a political consultant when he became entangled in a one-night stand of rough sex. He avoided prison by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge. But his political career, like Smith’s, was ruined.
Smith knew as soon as he heard that an associate had been charged with a series of non-campaign crimes that he was political toast. “In just a few moments of weakness in that first campaign, I now realized that I’d thrown away everything that I’d worked for all my life,” he told county officials last November.
And Jetton realized as soon as his incident became public that he could not avoid admitting what he’d done—to his father, a Baptist minister. “That pretty much strips your pride away,” he has told us.
Their book is called “The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis.” Smith and Jetton are two of about a dozen former office-holders whose lives have taken new directions since their falls from grace. Jetton now is in private business and is president of a political newspaper that covers the Capitol. Smith now is a political science college teacher in New York and has written several political articles for national magazines.
The book: The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis, …
In his second of his series of World Series of Poker articles for Newsweek/The Daily Beast (here’s Piece #1), The RP interviews leading card sharks (including New York Times pollster/pundit Nate Silver) to draw some lessons for hyper-partisan Washington from the green felt.
The marriage of political advocacy and poker wouldn’t surprise close observers of both; indeed, the two zero-sum games are really two sides of the same chip. As esteemed political prognosticator and poker savant Nate Silver told me, “politics and poker share the feature of being both very prosaic and very poetic”: Building your chip stack by grinding with careful mathematical calculations is akin to developing a sound get-out-the-vote effort through micro-targeted polling and door-to-door canvassing; riding an electric run of great cards and lucky flops is as thrilling as being uplifted by a gifted political orator. Of course, Silver—who poetically surged to near the top of the of the leaderboard on Day 1 of the Little One event, only to meet a prosaic bustout on Day 2—concedes that poker is the “more refreshing” of the two contests: “It’s pure, undistilled competition, with no intrigue, no B.S.”
There’s also no disputing that the two games require similar skill sets. A career in politics could in fact prepare someone quite well for a life at the poker table. Consider:
• Serving up fiery, red-meat orations at partisan rallies or stump-speaking amid hostile, heckling crowds at open events can help a poker player perfect the art of projecting confidence… or alternatively, vulnerability… and shape a poker face to confuse opponents as to the strength of any particular hand.
• Retail campaigning—the hand-shaking, back-slapping, and baby-kissing—enabling someone to observe, listen to, and really understand people, can be employed powerfully in a game in which you have to read the strength of your opponents’ hands by their facial expressions and body language.
• Late-night, smoke-filled, back-room, legislative negotiations—tests of endurance and concentration—provide invaluable practice for sitting long hours at tables with adversaries who’d say or do anything to provoke you or otherwise knock you off your calculated strategy.
• Waiting out filibuster blockades, partisan stall tactics, and special-interest foot-dragging—to win even the smallest of policy victories—can equip anyone with the resolve to withstand days of numbing boredom at the poker table, and to resist all temptations to take risky gambits that could send the player to the rail.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Friend of RP, and the man who launch Kentucky’s political blogsophere, Mark Nickolas, has embarked on a documentary film career that is already getting broad national attention. His short film on Occupy Wall Street is up for a Smithsonian In Motion award.
Watch the film below, and vote here to support Mark’s effort. (The film is listed as “The Story of the Wall Street Bull” and is in the ‘Arts’ category. You’ll see when you click on the link.)
What if New York City’s famous charging bull could talk? Mark Nickolas’s short film, My Life in the Canyon of Heroes, answers just this question. The clever film traces the history of the Wall Street bull from the perspective of none other than the animal himself. With the voice of a friendly middle-aged New Yorker, he recounts his life, from his birth as a defiant piece of guerrilla art, up through his murkier days as the Occupy Wall Street movement’s symbol of financial greed and excess.
The short is nominated for Smithsonian magazine’s In Motion video contest, along with 24 other finalists. The contest recognizes videographers that “explore and document the world around us.” Voting is open to the public, and the grand prize winner will be announced on July 15, 2013.
Artur Davis might actually have a shot at being the first politician in half a century to be elected to Congress in two different states.
Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf has represented his state’s 10th congressional district for over three decades. In the 2012 election cycle, he cruised to his 17th consecutive term by a healthy 21-percent margin, despite his district having gone to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by a 1-percent margin.
Reportedly, Wolf has yet to indicate whether he will seek an 18th term and retire. But should he forgo reelection, the race for his successor will be wide open, according to preliminary polling — making it possible for even former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, who switched political parties in 2012, to be elected in that district as a Republican.
With the exception of a brief spell in the late 1970s, Virginia’s 10th congressional district — which stretches from West Virginia to the outskirts of Washington, D.C. — has traditionally leaned Republican. But if Wolf were to retire, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would almost certainly have interest in an attempt to take the seat.
A survey conducted by a Republican polling entity on June 30-July 2 — with a sample of 432 and margin of error of 3.44 percent — shows no clear front-runner among a handful of potential Republican candidates that included Davis, Virginia State Sens. Jill Holtzman Vogel and Dick Black, Virginia State Dels. Barbara Comstock and Tim Hugo, and Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart.
The survey, commissioned by Davis and given to The Daily Caller by someone who has been shown the data and a polling memo connected with it, reveals Vogel and Black as front-runners but both coming in at under 17 percent with 31 percent of respondents undecided.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jul 11, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
The Recovering Politician’s Twelve-Step Program to Survive Crisis was launched with an exciting book signing event at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, KY. Editor and co-author Jonathan Miller was interviewed by Kentucky Hall of Fame journalist Bill Goodman.
If you were one of the handful of Americans who missed the event, click here to learn more about the book.
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Jul 10, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
Save The Great South Bay, a non-profit organization founded in August 2012, is a local grassroots organization dedicated to the revitalization of the bay.
We want future generations to fish, clam and swim in these waters as we had. We want to restore marine and shoreline habitats so that the South Shore and beach communities that ring the bay can become sustainable for this century.
At present, we are at a moment of crisis. The water quality on Long Island is such that due to septic tank seepage, pesticides, storm runoff, and lawn and agricultural fertilizer, we may not have water to drink, bathe in and cook with before long. As our polluted ground water seeps into our aquifer, it also seeps into our rivers, bays and ponds, and it is killing our bodies of water at an accelerating pace, and the costs of over-development and poor infrastructure mount.
Science has both the diagnosis here and the cure. Save the Great South Bay relies greatly on the collective expertise of researchers from a variety of institutions, many of them in The Long Island Clean Water Coalition, a group formed to address this urgent problem of ground water pollution before it is literally too late.
In case you missed his posts over the July 4th weekend — what could you have been doing that’s more important, The RP didn’t repeat as a World Series of Poker finalist this year.
(Read all of his daily reports– Part 1: Leaving for Las Vegas, Part 2: The WSOP Begins, Part 3: Next!, Part 4: Taking a Mulligan, Part 5: Beware of Three Jacks, Part 6: BadLuck Jonathan)
But in his inaugural piece as an official Contributor for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The RP shares a story of a more halcyon time, a year ago this weekend, when he made an incredible run at the World Series of Poker. Here’s an excerpt:
A year ago this week, the Jackson Five saved my life at a Las Vegas casino.
OK, unless you’re a fellow poker nerd, don’t take me too literally.
But my own impossible story, of a middle-aged amateur winning big on the green felt of Sin City, may help explain why thousands of my fellow wannabes are flocking to the 44th annual World Series of Poker this weekend for its globally celebrated main event.
It’s also why millions more will be tuning in to ESPN to watch the only “sport” in which an unpracticed, out-of-shape math geek can compete on the game’s biggest stage with the world’s preeminent professionals
Like many men my age, I’ve always been fascinated with poker. Never an exceptional athlete, poker presented me a unique opportunity to leverage my theretofore un-hip math skills in a competition that oozes of machismo and swagger. In pop culture, poker is played in rustic saloons by pistol-wielding studs named “Tex” and “Slim”; in the real world, it presents an ideal boys’ night of whiskey swigging, cigar chewing, and even a little extra-cash-winning.
But competing for big money? Flicks like Rounders and The Cincinnati Kidtaught that those contests were the province of practiced professionals, wiseguys, cheaters, and almost as often the unsuspecting novice “fish” who were swallowed by the poker sharks at their tables.
The RP didn’t repeat as a World Series of Poker finalist this year.
(Read all of his daily reports– Part 1: Leaving for Las Vegas, Part 2: The WSOP Begins, Part 3: Next!, Part 4: Taking a Mulligan, Part 5: Beware of Three Jacks, Part 6: BadLuck Jonathan)
But in his inaugural piece as an official Contributor for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The RP shares a story of a more halcyon time, a year ago this weekend, when he made an incredible run at the World Series of Poker. Here’s an excerpt:
A year ago this week, the Jackson Five saved my life at a Las Vegas casino.
OK, unless you’re a fellow poker nerd, don’t take me too literally.
But my own impossible story, of a middle-aged amateur winning big on the green felt of Sin City, may help explain why thousands of my fellow wannabes are flocking to the 44th annual World Series of Poker this weekend for its globally celebrated main event.
It’s also why millions more will be tuning in to ESPN to watch the only “sport” in which an unpracticed, out-of-shape math geek can compete on the game’s biggest stage with the world’s preeminent professionals
Like many men my age, I’ve always been fascinated with poker. Never an exceptional athlete, poker presented me a unique opportunity to leverage my theretofore un-hip math skills in a competition that oozes of machismo and swagger. In pop culture, poker is played in rustic saloons by pistol-wielding studs named “Tex” and “Slim”; in the real world, it presents an ideal boys’ night of whiskey swigging, cigar chewing, and even a little extra-cash-winning.
But competing for big money? Flicks like Rounders and The Cincinnati Kidtaught that those contests were the province of practiced professionals, wiseguys, cheaters, and almost as often the unsuspecting novice “fish” who were swallowed by the poker sharks at their tables.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 5, 2013 at 8:49 PM ET
Goodluck Jonathan & Badluck Jonathan
For the past few days, I’d been thrilled to see that “Goodluck Jonathan” had been trending all over the world. Of course, I assumed that the global poker fan base had been united in supporting my entry in the World Series of Poker’s “Little One for One Drop” tournament.
Well, it turns out instead that the international community had been appealing to Nigerian ruler Goodluck Jonathan to cancel his planned executions of death row prisoners.
Oh, well.
I really could have used that good luck. Because as I explained in my last post, I was in real big trouble entering Day 2 of the tournament. While I was thrilled to have made it so far, due to an unlucky experience with three Jacks, I was left with only 950 chips. With blinds rising to 300/600., that would mean I would have to go all-in almost immediately.
It turned out that my chance came on the very first hand. Sitting on the button, the table folded around to me. I looked down at a 9 and a 8. Pretty lousy hand, but with only two players left to call me, I had a decent chance of tripling up.
I got one caller. Perfect.
He turned over an 8 and a 5. Excellent. I had a 70% chance of winning.
The dealer turned over the flop and then the turn (the 4th card). I was still ahead, and had a 90% chance of winning.
Then the dealer turned over the river. A 5. Ugh.
I lost, and was busted out of the tournament.
In all, however, it was a terrific ride. And being knocked out, I had the free time to do some interviews of poker pros for my second WSOP-related piece for Newsweek/The Daily Beast. When I got to sit down with both Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari — one of the hottest players in the game — and T. J. Cloutier — a legend, whose book, Championship No Limit and Pot Limit Hold ’em, taught me how to play tournament poker — I felt like I had won a bracelet.
Of course, I didn’t cash in either tournament I played. But in both, I finished in the top 15%. I’m not among the poker elite. But those finishes, combined with my final table last year, will keep me coming back for more.
So, back to the real world. Stay tuned for my series of pieces on the WSOP in Newsweek/The Daily Beast. And be ready for my next poker adventure, wherever it should take me.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 5, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
So first the good news: I made it to day two of the World Series of Poker’s Little One for One Drop event!
Out of the 4756 players who began the tournament, only 588 of us remain. And the 495 top players will “cash out”: winning at least $1797, with the top prize of $655,000.
And now the bad news: I am in real chip trouble. With only 950 chips remaining, I am probably the shortest stack left in the tournament; and if not, I am pretty close to the bottom. With blinds rising to 300/600 at the next level, I will have to go all-in very quickly, and hope that I either get a good pair of hole cards, or that my bad pair gets lucky on the board. And most likely, even if I prevail that first time, I will have to immediately go back all-in, with the same sort of prayers needed.
I had actually reached 18,000 chips with ten minutes to go before the end of Day 1. Several hours before, I made my first bonehead move of the week — I bluffed all-in against the guy with the nut flush, and was down to 2500. But like last year, I went all in with a Jack/small (last year it was the Jackson Five, this year, it was the Jackson Three — Tito and Jermaine must have been fired from the group). When no Jack appeared on the board, I stood up, thinking I was out, and was told that I had made a straight on the river. And then again, just like last year, I looked down to see a majestic pair of kings in the next hand. I went all-in, and shot up to 8000 chips.
Damn You Three Jacks!
I played great until the very end. I had a pair of jacks, and when the jack of spades appeared on the flop — as well as two other spades — I went all in to keep anyone from chasing a flush. Well, one guy did, and he caught it on the turn.
Damn you Three Jacks!
So I am now left with a tiny stack, and in the need of some incredible luck to survive.
But as they say, that’s poker. And who knows what is in store for me tomorrow? We sit down again at 1:00 PDT (4:00 EDT), and with the need to go all-in pretty quickly, I will know my fate pretty soon. So be sure to follow me on my Facebook Page or, better yet, on Twitter, to check in.
And if the poker gods really are smiling on me tomorrow, check in on this page for summary updates of the tournament and this page for chip counts.
Or if you could care less about me, many of the world’s biggest pros are in the tournament. And so is my math/baseball/politics man crush, Nate Silver. So please join us!
They call themselves “recovering politicians”—political figures whose careers and dreams have come crashing down because of scandals. Two of them are Missourians.
AUDIO: Jetton interview 14:34
AUDIO: Smith speech to Mo. Assn. of Counties 1:05:00
