Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [101]
That opportunity came when he appointed Republican congressman James Harvey to the federal bench in January of ’74. This created the need for a special election to fill his seat, and Nixon decided that the solidly Republican “thumb” area of Michigan was the perfect place to go for the pick-me-up that he needed.
It was also where I decided I would finally meet the man and ask him to leave. It was April 10, 1974, and my friend Jeff, my sister Veronica, and I got in the car and drove over to Bad Axe, Michigan, the small town where Nixon would make what would turn out to be the last campaign appearance of his presidency.
Bad Axe was the county seat of Huron County, Michigan. It had a courthouse and a movie theater and was surrounded by miles and miles of farmland. (It was on one of these farms south of Bad Axe where Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols stayed with Nichols’s brother before the Oklahoma City bombing.)
The area was part of a peninsula surrounded on three sides by Lake Huron, and it was full of some of the most conservative people in the state of Michigan. How conservative? The nearest liberal probably lived across the lake in Canada.
Bad Axe had never had a presidential visit. So the whole town showed up in full red, white, and blue regalia to greet the nation’s First Felon. A parade for Nixon was planned, and we were prepared to join the welcoming party.
Fortunately, when we arrived in Bad Axe, we were not the only ones who thought Nixon had to go. There were at least three hundred other protesters among the few thousand happy Bad Axers who were anxiously awaiting Nixon’s arrival.
I found a good spot right on the curb of the town’s main street. I brought a sign that said in big, bold letters: NIXON’S A CROOK. Jeff and Veronica had signs that said IMPEACHMENT NOW and WAR CRIMINAL. Basic, straightforward stuff. No ambiguity or subtlety. Short enough for him to read as he passed us by.
The locals standing around us tried to block our signs. But with three hundred fellow travelers there with us, it was impossible to make us go away. People shouted at us: “Outsiders go home!” and “Hippies burn in Hell!” Simple. No ambiguity. But no violence.
After about an hour, the parade/motorcade began to make its way down Huron Avenue. There were fire trucks and police cars and a marching band and cheerleaders and Boy Scouts and Future Farmers of America. On the tops of convertibles sat the mayor and the Republican candidate for Congress, James “No One Has Ever Heard of Me” Sparling, waving to the cheering crowd. If this was what Nixon was hoping for—an emotional outpouring of support—he was about to get it in Bad Axe.
Finally, his presidential limo came into view. He was standing up and sticking out of its sun roof, bobbing and waving like a forlorn jack-in-the-box. He flashed his famous Nixon smile, thrusting out his hands with the “V for Victory” sign he made with his index and middle fingers. We weren’t more than ten feet from him, and I held up my sign at eye level so he could clearly see it.
And he did. The car was not going more than five miles per hour. As it crept past me I looked directly into his eyes—and he into mine. It seemed in that instant everything went into slow motion. He looked at me, standing there in my bibbed overalls and long hair. I looked at him. The pancake makeup on him was so overdone, so thick and caked, that his face was like a slab of petrified orange, and his attempts to smile were somehow being impeded by the plaster that had been put on his mug. He looked ill. Seriously ill. I did not expect to see this. For reasons that I will have to explain later at St. Peter’s Gate, I felt an instant sadness for him. He was like a corpse who had been wheeled out to whip up the people and get them to vote for a man he didn’t even know. Though the small-town crowd was spirited and happy to see him, he really wasn’t