June 23, 1997

Washington Squares

Each week until July 14, MoJo Wire lets you test your prowess with political trivia and gives you a chance to win a <b>FREE</b> subscription to <i>Mother Jones</i> magazine. Every Tuesday we’ll have a new set of questions about a different politician, plus the answers and winners from the week before. Just make sure you play before 5 p.m. Pacific Time each Monday.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This Week: Phil Gramm

Phil GrammThe Republican Senator (and 1996 presidential candidate) from Texas mixes economic conservatism with homespun rhetoric. Gramm’s folksy vernacular endorses budget cuts and decreased government spending by pointing to Dicky Flatt, a print shop owner from Mexia, Tex., as a symbolic everyman. In the same hard-nosed spirit, Gramm urges welfare recipients to “get out of the wagon and help the rest of us pull.”

Gramm’s plain spoken, conservative politics have made him one of the most visible players in the G.O.P., despite the fact that he served his first three terms in Congress as a Democrat. Test your knowledge of his one-liners below.

  1. Gramm once described himself as:

    “The pit bull of the American Right.”
    “Strom Thurmond without the orange hair.”
    “The skunk at the garden party.”
    “Dickey Flatt’s second cousin.”
    “A foot soldier for the Bush Revolution.”

  2. Gramm earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Georgia, but his early educational experiences were rocky, to say the least. Which of the following grades did Gramm not fail?

    3rd
    4th
    7th
    9th

  3. In 1974, Gramm sent investment money to the producer of which two movies?

    “Truck Stop Women” and “Beauty Queens”
    “The Candidate” and “All the President’s Men”
    “Debbie Does Dallas” and “Saturday Night Fever”
    “Night of the Living Dead” and “Nightmare on Elm Street”
    “The Story of O” and “The Hatchet Murders”

  4. When asked if he would consider a woman as his vice-presidential running mate, how did Gramm respond?

    “Like who — some witch like Bella Abzug?”
    “I can’t imagine a woman saying yes.”
    “Elizabeth Dole says she’s sticking with Bob.”
    “We need brains, not boobs.”
    “Sophia Loren is not a citizen.”

  5. According to Gramm, “I own more _____________ than I need. But not as many as I want.”

    porno magazines
    pictures of myself
    web pages
    copies of Newt’s novel
    shotguns

Your name:

Your e-mail address
(for prize notification only):

Plus, you can add your name to our mailing list:

We’re compiling the results from this quiz, please come back later

Ted Rueter is the author of several books on politics, including The Newt Gingrich Quiz Book and The Rush Limbaugh Quiz Book.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate