The Day I Met Colonel Sanders

In 1964, when I was just 10 years old, I would spend my Saturdays “working” at my father’s business, S. Fargotstein & Sons on the 10^th floor of the Shrine Building in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. His company, at the time, mostly sold watch parts and jewelry to Jewelry stores all over the South. On Saturdays, the glass see-thru doors to the office were locked, as my father was mostly dictating into a “Dictaphone” machine - so that his secretary could type it out during the following week. Communications in those days was a lot slower than today!

On this particular Saturday, around 1pm, after I had made all the morning deliveries to the downtown jewelry stores and pawn shops on Beale Street, someone pushed the buzzer in the hallway. Usually it was the mailman, so it wasn’t a surprise. My father said “Shep, go open the front door and let him in”. I walked up to the front counters, walked into the customer lobby area and looked through the glass doors and there stood Colonel Sanders in his full white suit, white hair and goatee - and his famous western bow tie! He looked 10 feet tall as I looked through the glass – in total shock.

I screamed “IT’S COLONEL SANDERS”!

I opened the door, the Colonel walked in, patted me on the head, looked over at my father and said “hi Max!” as he walked past the counters towards where my father was standing near his desk. They sat and talked for a while. My father knew I was impressed, as he saw me staring at the Colonel from afar. He called me over and formally introduced me and I shook his hand.  After they were done talking my father handed the Colonel a small bag, rang up the order on the ornate brass national cash register, gave the Colonel change and the Colonel walked out. I stood there in awe.

I asked my father why Colonel Sanders was at the office and he said that he had known Colonel Sanders for decades (before he became famous) because he had always been a hobbyist pocket watch collector, and liked to fix them himself. He always wore a pocket watch (on a gold chain) with his white suit. They were such good friends that the Colonel made my father an official “Kentucky Colonel” and gave him a framed certificate to hang in his office.

As it turned out, that very year (at age 73), the Colonel sold his business for $2 million ($17 million today), but he continued to drive all over the South promoting the Kentucky Fried Chicken stores.

2020 Presidential Election could see a significant rise in American Jews silently voting for Trump

Or...."Don’t tell anyone, but I voted for Trump”

As the President and Founder of the 8-year-old, 600 member Memphis Jewish Republican Coalition (join us on Facebook), I would like to respond to your recently published – and misleading - article entitled “New survey indicates Jewish Americans will vote for ANY Democrat – including Sanders – over Trump”.

While I do not dispute the overall premise that a majority of American Jews have voted in the past for any Democratic Presidential candidate, there are no hard, reliable statistics on how Jews vote in each Presidential election. An electronic, blind e-poll of all-American Jews is possible to run at a reasonable cost, but has not been done, why? Because the results probably would not line up with the Jewish, liberal, Democratic power brokers who make a living speaking on behalf of “ALL” American Jews – be it the URJ, AJC, ADL, AIPAC, J-Street, etc...

Trends matter: The Jewish Virtual Library states that Jews, starting in 2000, have increasingly voted Republican: 2000/19% (Bush)-2004/24% (Bush) -2008/22% (McCain) – 2012/30% (Romney) – 2016/24% (Trump). The 2016 figure is suspected of being understated - and actually in the 35-40% range because many Jews would not admit they pulled the lever for Trump (for personal and business reasons). Most importantly, 6% more Jews voted Republican against Obama in his second term run in 2012, indicating Obama’s policies toward the economy and Israel were disaffecting middle of the road Jewish Democrats. Estimates from Jewish Republican sources indicate that 50% of American Jews are expected to vote for President Trump in 2020, which is more representative of the general non-Jewish population.

It is obvious President Trump has personality flaws (like all of us), that many find annoying, or uncouth. I can’t think of one president in the last 50 years who didn’t have a negative personal trait or two. Clinton and Kennedy weren’t exactly choir boys. With that said, President Trump has had tremendous measurable success with his policies. No one cares if a firefighter is a narcissist - if he is doing a good job at putting out your house fire. President Trump made the Tea party irrelevant, and moved the Republican party towards the center of the American mainstream. Bill Clinton’s policies of yesterday would make him a Trump Republican today.

More American Jews will vote Republican because they are more affluent - and as a consequence value President Trump’s successful economic and foreign policies

 (deregulation, trade policy, border security, etc.). Most American Jews see America’s capitalist, merit based economic system as a value where hard work is justly rewarded. They will think twice before voting for Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, because their socialistic leanings threaten the American value system. Most American Jews are not socialists.