Dream Girl
His campaign’s revival has clearly made John McCain giddy. Among the celebrities he’s dragged around Iowa is a real ghost of Christmas past, Tricia Nixon Cox. 
Yes, Richard Nixon’s eldest daughter. 
It’s hard to tell what constituency Cox is meant to appeal to. Nixon bitter-enders have got to be a shrinking number, and Tricia never had much profile beyond her father. Youthquake Ambassador? 
Nixon was so far down that even wholesome hacks like 
Jay & the Americans felt empowered to record an impossibly lame anti-war song called Tricia [Tell Your Daddy]. Tragically the only version on line is by the song’s Canadian writer. 
Cox kept a fairly low profile after her “storybook”Rose Garden wedding 
to Mr. Cox and her father’s exile.
She participated in a 25th wedding anniversary event at the Nixon Library in 1996, one of the Presidential Paper-less entity’s diverse efforts to fill the seats. 
Tricia surfaced in 2002 to make nice with sister Julie, ending a dispute over Nixon entourage member Bebe Rebozo’s $20 million gift to the Nixon Library. 
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off? 
Hey! It’s Lyndon Johnson’s 100th birthday!
Who can resist round, and somewhat large numbers? 
The Johnson Centennial folks hope you can’t.
To the extent there is a unified theme it appears to be a version of get ‘er done-ish hymns to his domestic labors. Recent events may have made competence in execution a hot selling point, but they are conspicuously silent on Vietnam. 
Johnson is but the beginning of what we can only hope becomes known as the Centennial Century.
First up is Lincoln, technically coming back for seconds at his bicentenary in 2009. Reagan looms in 2011, and by golly maybe they’ll get him slapped on Rushmore by then. 
The Nixon Library is already marking his 95th birthday, so look out in 2013. I’ve been unable to detect any Kennedy 2017 activity, but a boy can dream.
Ghost Walker 
Only a year ago, America’s New Years Celebrations were sandwiched around a very different send-off, America’s Gerald Ford
.
California
Capitol Hill
National Cathedral
Michigan
If you slept through it all, were under a rock, or had better things to do, endless retrospectives are available via the internets. 
Or order CSPAN’s compilation tape for $24.95.
Lessons were offered and conclusions drawn.
Henry Kissinger offered a spectacularly rosie and utterly false portrait of Ford’s alignment with South Africa in the 70s. Dick Cheney watched too much television coverage and learned that Ford was a spirited amalgam of Truman, Roosevelt and Reagan on their good days.
And did you know, he was “our most athletic President“?
Ford memorializing rumbles along, albeit at a slower pace then the Reagan juggernaut. Michigan hopes to dump a long-time Capitol Hill statue to make room for Ford, and in real estate Gerry Ford brings the swank. The long time Alexandria Virginia resident and beloved deceased President will be honored by a “President Ford Lane” and a park in an exciting new “mega mansion” development. But there’s more. The park is to be marked by “appropriate signage, historical and informational plaque, and, hopefully, a three dimensional statue or bust of President Ford.”
The Source of Our Troubles 
The campaign t-shirt is not one of the higher art forms. For that matter it’s not one of the higher forms of campaigning. But they get made and worn nevertheless.
Not always, though. Past Presidential candidates may have been restrained by lack of ready access to the mills of Asia, or the knowledge that few of their supporters would look attractive in the items. But by harnessing the power of the web, some visionaries have dared to dream the dream of a William Howard Taft t-shirt. 
The Des Moines Register calls our attention to retropresident.com, source 
of this salute to an earlier, less visibly sweaty era.
Neil Swanson launched the notion.
“What if someone could have a Truman or FDR or Nixon T-shirt, just like the vintage sports shirts and hats? They didn’t have T-shirts back in the day, obviously, so why not create some?”
Lesser lights get their moment as well, although reviving Dick Gephardt’s Chrysler star logo 
isn’t likely to make anyone misty for what might have been. The best graphics are Republican –
Alf Landon 
…and Richard Nixon. 
The overall lesson is relief that most of these sorry graphics did not get wider exposure “back in the day.” And the certain knowledge that Obama’s small-town-electric-co-op looking logo 
has company in blandness.
Field of Dreams 
Oyster Bay Long Island residents opposing the proposed Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Museum location in his hometown have their web site up, and sort of running.
Their call to arms:
“Our purpose is to prevent this 3.5 acre multi-use public space / parking field from being used as the site of the proposed Theodore Roosevelt Library. Our group takes no official position on the existence, size or timing of the Library, only asking that it not be placed in Firemen’s Field. “
They explain that they’ll flesh out their objections in greater detail. That’s to be hoped for, because right now in defending the largely empty Firemen’s field they paint a portrait of elementary school students denied boat launching facilities, or something.
“It provides the only contiguous flat public view shed of the waterfront in downtown, and links the Roosevelt Elementary School’s playing field with the Roosevelt Park launching ramp and swimming beach.”
We shall of course provide complete coverage of the battle of the flood plain.
She participated in a 25th wedding anniversary event at the Nixon Library in 1996, one of the Presidential Paper-less entity’s diverse efforts to fill the seats. 
Tricia surfaced in 2002 to make nice with sister Julie, ending a dispute over Nixon entourage member Bebe Rebozo’s $20 million gift to the Nixon Library. 
