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The scene was the Eau Claire, WI American Legion hall. It was an energizing event, but kind of small. Maybe 60 people, with 1 US Representative (Ron Kind) on hand. The crowd, such as it was, was largely Democratic-leaning vets. I actually got to talk to Max 1 on 1 for a while before & after the session.
I asked if he thought he had been beaten by Saxby Chambliss or by Wally O'Dell. He looked blank at the O'Dell reference, so I added, "Diebold CEO." He clearly doesn't attribute his loss to skullduggery with the machines. He says it was a combination of factors (Bush campaigning, sleazy attack ads, and the Confederate Flag issue) that brought the "Angry White Male" demographic out against him in unprecedented & unpredicted numbers. He sees himself as a test case for the Repug strategy of single-issue mobilization.
On the Kean 9-11 Commission--the reason he quit is simple. Essentially, he left in disgust. "The commission was a joke. They weren't going to look at anything. The August intelligence briefing contained explicit warnings about a threat of airplanes being flown into buildings, but they weren't going to touch it." He takes what I would call a soft-core LIHOP position. "I dont believe they had the specific dates, times or places, but...."
Max is a wonderful, down-to-earth guy. I think he was ready to talk to me for a couple of hours, but the people in charge of his schedule gently separated us.
Edited to remove a candidate name & add the following:
The Ann Coulter topic did come up. Max simply described the incident. He got out of a helicopter at Khe Sanh, saw a grenade lying loose on the ground, had no idea that it was live, bent to pick it up, and it went off as he was about to grab it. Charlie Wolden, one of the guys who rushed to save Max's life that day, was there this morning. Charlie is a chandidate for the State Assembly in a district a little north of here.
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