Dr. Buttons: Delegate, American

David Weigel | September 4, 2008

Inside the XCel Center, interviewing delegates, I walked right into New York McCainiac Frank A. Adamo, Jr., who calls himself "Dr. Buttons" because of the chestful of political flair on his medical coat. (He's a retired teacher.) I didn't expect to talk for very long, but Adamo unloaded on topic after topic and I think it's important that you hear what he had to say.

on Joe Biden

He came right out of the army, went right into politics. Been on the public tit his entire life. And he brings up tragedy? Every family has tragedy. Every family. My brother died, my wife died, my daughter had a miscarriage. Life goes on! People go on!

on Sarah Palin

Her daughter gets pregnant? Thirty-eight percent of American teenagers get pregnant out of wedlock. Thirty-eight percent of the girls in the world get pregnant out of wedlock. Come on! When my daughter was 16 years old I sweated. I sweated six years of my life. Because I was hoping that my daughter wouldn't get pregnant if she had any... activities.

on racial diversity at the convention

The local party has speakers, the local organization has speakers. They want to get exposure. They put up a minority or a woman to show these ethnic groups. A latino, a black, four or five blacks, because they want to say they're not prejudiced. Everybody's prejudiced! [ed - He grabs my arm.] Listen to me. We're Italians. Everybody's prejudiced. I was in the army. I got "you dago, you wop, you guinea wop! You carry a switchblade? You in the mafia?" And I would tell them boys, I'm from a steeltown in Pennsylvania. I remember Gettysburg, 'cause we knocked out 51,000 of you scumbags in two days. You're easy. You fuck with me and you see what the mafia's all about.

on Rudy

Rudy Giuliani! If they would've made him the drug czar, Giuliani would have rounded up all the drug dealers in five years. We know who they are. RICO Act! Destroy it. They wouldn't give him the job because they didn't want to build him up. Now Giuliani thought he could be the president. The people of this county aren't ready for Italian, and they're not ready for a black. They'll tell you yeah, they'll vote for Obama! They'll tell all the pollsters. But when they go behind the curtain, watch what happens.