I Remember Gary Cuozzo

In 1967 the New Orleans Saints joined the National Football League. Gary Cuozzo was their first Quarterback. One of the other QBs was Billy Kilmer.

Cuozzo was wonderful until his glaring weakness came to light. His glaring weakness was his football team was terrible. That did not stop the fans from deciphering that Kilmer was the solution to all the ills of the Saints.

After awhile Kilmer was given his chance and our coach (who had no fear because his name was Tom Fears) replaced Cuozzo with Kilmer.

That did not fix the problems of the Saints because the Saints were still terrible but that did not deter the fans from chanting, “We want Cuozzo! We want Cuozzo!”

What’s my point? Don’t you see it? Gary Cuozzo is still out there but during this election cycle his name was Rick Perry, now it is Chris Christie and during the last election cycle his name was Fred Thompson.

In 2008 there was a genuine huge groundswell for Fred Thompson until he declared himself to be a candidate and then he was gone almost overnight.

I remember him appearing at his coming out party (actually it was a State Fair in someplace like Nebraska). He got out of his vehicle and started walking around shaking hands with the folks.

It took about three minutes for a Talking Head to comment that he had on $300 Loafers. She explained her keen observation by pointing out that he was obviously out of touch with the Working Shoes Wearing Nebraskans because he was wearing $300 Loafers.

He was toast. He was done. He was gone so fast that the folks were left wondering if he had ever announced for the presidency at all.

When I heard that Talking Head make her “Brilliant” $300 Loafers Comment, I actually thought I heard someone in the distance chanting, “We want Cuozzo! We want Cuozzo!”

Would I kid u?