My latest: I cannot compete with you, Jolene

Dear friends,

Twenty-eight years ago, my colleagues and I invented a candidate for governor.

Jolene Strickland embodied rural North Carolina. She was a small-town mayor, a NASCAR fan, and the daughter of a tobacco farmer who had died of lung cancer. Her policy positions mirrored our own at the Independent Weekly, where I worked.

Her campaign slogan: “Too Good To Be True.”

Our 1996 profile of the fictional candidate was full of what Mark Twain once called “telltale absurdities and impossibilities.” But when people are eager for change, they will sometimes overlook those impossibilities.

Perfect candidates don’t exist, as any modern voter knows. This is a complete history of the time when we—an idealistic bunch of young journalists, facing a match between an establishment Democrat and a religious conservative Republican—decided to craft a perfect candidate of our own. 

https://www.theassemblync.com/politics/fake-governor-candidate-north-carolina-jolene-strickland/

The article is published in The Assembly, with original (and wonderful!) photos by M.J. Sharp. You get one free story a month before you hit a paywall, and I hope it’s this one. I also hope you’ll consider subscribing.

Plus, some articles I appreciated:

• George Packer’s epic read about Phoenix and the collision between climate change and political extremism.

• Erika Hayasaki on a hero who survived the Maui wildfires.

• Robert Samuels on how Black women shaped Tim Walz.

• Janine Latus on aquamation, a water-based alternative to cremation.

• Bruce Selcraig’s profile of Don Baker, a deeply religious schoolteacher and Navy veteran who fought to overturn Texas's sodomy ban—and faced death threats as a result—42 years ago.

• Caity Weaver on the ridiculousness of pennies.

• Lydia Polgreen’s commentary on the British document fueling the war on trans kids.

• Stefanie Dazio and Bobby Hardy on teaching a bird how to migrate.

 My favorite new podcast:

Animal, Sam Anderson’s big-hearted series about his encounters with puffins, ferrets, manatees, bats, an extinct wolf, and his own family dog.

Music videos I can’t stop watching:

The Seattle indie band Ivan & Alyosha combines desperation and arson with some sharp dance moves in “Everybody Breaks.” (Plus, there’s a romantic sequel.)

Singer-songwriter Jax, of American Idol fame, organized a flash mob outside a Victoria’s Secret. The manager wasn’t happy. 

All best,
Barry Yeoman