Reagan National to Atlanta, Georgia.
And Back

My speech was to the DeKalb (pronounced dee-CAB) county Republican Party. I'm pretty well known in Georgia because of my associations with Newt Gingrich. The speech wasn't until 7:30 with the reception beginning an hour prior. As we had touched down at about one, there was no particular hurry getting from the airport up to the Holiday Inn Select at which the event would be held and I would be lodged.

I am not opposed to Holiday Inns, but I'm a little thin on the difference between a regular Holiday Inn, a Holiday Inn Select. I understand the Holiday Inn Express business, although I've never stayed in one.

I walked out of the terminal to the place where, from long experience, I knew the rental car shuttle buses line up. There was a time when only low-rent, off-brand rental cars needed buses. These were derisively called: "Off Airport Rental Cars." They had names like, "Ken's Rent-a-Car." Or, "Buddy's Rent-a-Car" run by airline pilots who needed a little side money.

Today, though, airports have decided that rental cars are rented to out-of-towners who won't stay around to complain so they can stick the rental lots half-way to Savannah and who ya gonna call: Ghostbusters?

I got on the bus - with only three other people - and we took off for the "short seven or eight minute trip to the rental lot."

The area of the lot at which I was dropped of is for "Hertz Number 1 Club Gold" members. I think I might pay for this privilege, but maybe not. The deal is, you can reserve a car in advance and go directly to the bus, which takes you directly to the lot, at which there is an electronic bulletin board, on which your name and the slot number of your car is listed. You go directly to the assigned slot, find the forms already printed out and hanging from the rear view mirror and all you have to do is show it and your driver's license to the guard at the gate and off you go.

If you know where you're going, which I never do.

First of all, my name wasn't on the sign. I saw a door which had a sign saying, "Hertz Number 1 Club Gold VIP room" with heightened excitement. Maybe this was a Hertz benefit I had been missing.

But it was just a reservation office and it was crowded. I did not feel like a Hertz Number 1 Club Gold VIP. I felt more like, I don't know, more like a guy standing in a line to rent a car.

I got to the front of the line and informed the woman behind the counter that my name wasn't on the board which is exactly what the five people in front of me had told her.

She said they didn't have a car in the size I had reserved with Neverlost. Neverlost is Hertz' in-car GPS system. If you've never had a car with this in it, you DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE MISSING.

If you are a guy. If you are a person of the female persuasion you will think it is just stupid.

With this little number you punch in the address of where you want to go and it tells you - turn by turn - how to get there. It already knows where you are because it is computing your location from satellites! If you are a guy, you will think it is very, very cool. If you are a woman you will think it is a very, very big waste of the seven bucks a day it costs.

Anyway, the woman asked if I wanted a car without Neverlost.

"I am fully capable," I said a bit haughtily, "of missing the entire North American Continent left to my own devices, which is why I need YOUR device."

"I have a Taurus."

"I have a Sagittarius, but she's not with me. Oh, you have a Ford. Fine. That will be perfect."

I got my contract and went forth to punch in the details of the Holiday Inn Select on Dunwoody-Chamblee Road in beautiful downtown Dunwoody, Georgia.

When you do this and the device says, "Please proceed to the highlighted route," I guarantee you, you will instantly begin to pretend you are an astronaut on your way to the moon. Not driving a Taurus to Dunwoody, Georgia.

If you are a guy. If you are female you will instantly be annoyed by the woman's voice and demand it either be turned way down or, preferably, off altogether and why do you think they give you a map in the first place?

This is why most males prefer to drive by themselves. We can pretend to be an astronaut alone with a female navigator 250,000 miles from Earth.

And she says "Please proceed to the highlighted route." "Please," she says. I think her name is ... Nancy. Yes Nancy the Neverlost Lady.

As opposed to "Dammit! You missed the turn. If you would quit fooling with that radio looking for some idiotic football game between two teams you don't even care about and pay attention to where you're going we might get there before the wedding couple celebrates their 10th anniversary." Or something like that.

I did, in fact, switch between the University of Georgia game and the Georgia Tech game. To prove the point: I don't know if either team won. And I don't know who they were playing. And I don't care. I had games to listen to.

When the Nancy the Neverlost Lady says something like, "Prepare to exit on the right in ... one mile," it is as exciting as mission control telling you "Prepare for Press to MECO" which is astronaut talk for having reached the point at which the shuttle can glide into orbit after Main Engine Cut-Off (MECO).

[Dear Mr. Mullings: This has become every bit as tedious as that discussion of the vector problem in loading your roll along from the other day.
Enough already.
Sincerely,
EVERYONE - AGAIN!]

Ok. I'm moving on.

It was about 25 miles to the Holiday Inn and Nancy (the cute, blonde, nicely-proportioned navigator who had actually attended the University of Georgia and got her PhD in physics before joining the astronaut program but still likes a good football game and is perfectly happy to go to the store and get some more beer when you run out and doesn't care if you put your feet up on the coffee table and if, once in a blue moon, you want a real corned beef sandwich doesn't go into a whole thing about your by-pass surgery and cholesterol and how you could afford to lose 20 pounds so your clothes didn't look like they were made for Howdy Doody instead of you) hidden in my Neverlost device got me there with no problems.

Hey!

Oh. Sorry. I'm. Over her now.

I checked in and found that the DeKalb GOP had pre-paid my room but I needed to give them a credit car for "incidentals." "Incidentals" is front-desk code for dirty movies. I gave her my credit card even though I said, quite loudly, I NEVER watch the movies - not even the movies listed under "Comedy" or "Adventure." In fact, if she wanted to block out the "Adult" movie selections that was all right with me. I never watched them.

Because I am a member of the Holiday Inn frequent stayer club, I am awarded free local phone calls. I thank the woman.

I went to my room, which was fine. It looked much like every other Holiday Inn room I have ever been in, but I knew, from the sign outside the hotel, that it was a Select room.

I took my suit out, hung it in the bathroom and turned on the hot water, wrote most of the first half of this Travelogue, watched in horror as the Texas Longhorns did their imitation of the Washington Redskins by going through an entire football game without benefit of a touchdown in losing to Oklahoma, went into the bathroom to shower and shave, remembered I had left the hot water on to steam the creases out of my suit, took the suit out of the bathroom, hung it in front of the air conditioning vent so it would dry, showered, shaved, dressed and went downstairs.

The organizer of the event, GOP County Chair, Jill Chambers, had provided a goody bag which included, among many other goodies, one Goo Goo Cluster.

For those of you who have never done a political campaign in the South, a Goo Goo Cluster is described on its own web site as a, "Candy bar concoction of a round mound of caramel, marshmallow, and roasted peanuts, hand dipped in milk chocolate."

Goo Goo Clusters are one of the four basic political food groups which also include coffee, cigarettes, and cheeseburgers.

I worked the reception with Congressman John Linder who used to be a boss of mine. One morning he came into my office at the Congressional campaign committee with a copy of what was then called "Talking Points" and which was a precursor of "Mullings."

"Who sees this?" he asked.

I told him that was faxed to the reporters on our press list and a number of Hill staff which asked to be included.

"No," he said. "I mean who sees this BEFORE it goes out?"

"Oh. No one. Here's your downside protection," I said. "If I write something you wish I hadn't and you are challenged by a reporter, or another Congressman or, for that matter, the Speaker of the House, all you have to say is, 'if you think you can tell Galen what to say or not say, please do it.' Everyone," I said, "will simply nod and walk away."

Linder is a very good trench warfare guy. He's there in the trenches, not making a big deal, doing the job. A lot of Congressmen are like that and they should get more credit.

Ralph Reed, who used to run the Christian Coalition and now is the Georgia GOP State Chairman, introduced me. Ralph is very smart; is a very hard worker; and, this will surprise many of you, has a wonderful sense of humor.

I gave a pretty decent speech and trotted off to bed.