Jack Germond

Social Study

Nineteen ninety-six marks the 10th presidential campaign that Jack Germond has covered. This month the ultimate boy on the bus—who famously moonlights as The McLaughlin Group's resident moderate—shares some hard-boiled wisdom in V.F.'s Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Sitting on the porch in West Virginia with Alice (my wife), watching the Shenandoah River roll by.

Which living person do you most admire?

Gorbachev.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Sloth.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Moral certitude.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Food and drink.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Piety.

On what occasion do you lie?

When it is necessary and harmless.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

Where should I start?

Which living person do you most despise?

No one is worth despising.

What is your greatest regret?

The steady and apparently irrevocable decline in the political system.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I wish I had more self-discipline about things other than my work.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Getting paid for more than 40 years to be a reporter, which I would have done for nothing.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

A ward leader in Boston or Chicago.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

Center fielder for the Yankees.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Intelligence and tolerance.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Intelligence and great haunches.

What do you most value in your friends?

Their willingness to accept my flaws.

by James G. Cozzens.

What is it that you most dislike?

Who are your favorite writers?

C. P. Snow, Arthur Miller, Mark Harris, James Lee Burke.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Arthur Winner of By Love Possessed,

by James G. Cozzens.

What is it that you most dislike?

Sanctimonious people and broccoli.

How would you like to die?

Quietly with a big winning exacta ticket in my pocket.

What is your motto?

The next best thing to a winning day at the track is a

losing day at the track.

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