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Maurice “Morry” Taylor

Maurice “Morry” Taylor, a Republican, was a candidate for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of Titan International, Inc., a wheel and tire manufacturer. Taylor wrote a book about his experiences as a presidential candidate, Kill All the Lawyers and Other Ways To Fix the Government, and his personal website has an editorial, titled “Money Talks, Voters Walk,” that outlines his views on the campaign-finance system.

Josh Israel interviewed Taylor on June 8, 2007.

You ran for president in 1996. Would it be fair to say you started off as something of an outsider?

Oh, well sure. The greatest thing about this country is that if you were born here, you can run for president. Of course, Arnold [Schwarzenegger] can’t. But you’ve just got to step up; [you] need a little cash, of course. [In my] book you can read a chapter on how I figured out how to do that, how to do away with having to need a lot of cash. But hey, I have been very fortunate. If you know my background, my background was simple. I am not as smart as everyone else, so I always just found companies that were closed, bankrupt, or something. Then, if you fail, what the hell? The guys before you, smart boys, failed. But I got lucky. I got a great work force. And we built some companies, from the bottom up, and so we really kind of grew pretty good. [Ross] Perot did a really good thing, I think, when he ran. He allowed people to see we are a little strange. But his heart was in the right deal. And he used his money.

So I figured, well, in the state of Iowa and the state of New Hampshire, if you read the law, the most they are supposed to spend [under the matching-funds system] in Iowa is $1.1 million at that time, and I think $660,000 in New Hampshire. So I sold $15 million of my stock, which meant that I ended up netting — because at that time you had to pay 30 points on it. So I sent a check to Uncle Sam for $5 million. And I kept $10 [million]. They used that other five to help all of those other candidates, [including] “sticky finger” Lamar [Alexander].

Anyhow, that’s what I did. And I had a great time. I enjoyed myself, enjoyed the people. But they tell you to go hire consultants and all this other crap, lawyers, you check it all out. They look at you. They know you are nuts, in their mind. Why are you doing this? You haven’t this and this and this. You can’t this and this. But you are going to pay me, so I don’t care if you’re a damn dog as long as you are a paycheck. And hey, this guy has the money to pay us. So at least we know we are going to get our money. No one else was going to hire them, anyhow. I mean, that’s the way I look at it. But they did know a little bit about it. And it was a good time. At least now I can go through life and say to everybody: “Hey, I told you what had to be done. I paid my dues. I ain’t running for nothing else. But I stood up and said my piece on how to fix it.” And the worst thing is that people just complain, and then they have no solution. And that’s the facts.

Was your entire campaign self-financed?

Yeah.

So you didn’t raise money?

I didn’t go out to have fundraisers or anything else, hell no. You have to understand, I knew going in that I was going to get my brains kicked in. And actually, when I went in, I thought it was going to cost me a couple million to run in those two states, because I read the law myself. What I did not understand is that if you took government money, matching funds, I did not realize that everybody sets it up as they campaign and in a corporation. So like Lamar ’96, he turned around and just his one advertising was six and some thousand. I said it in the debates, up in the New Hampshire debates I said: “Hey Lamar, you signed this. You take the government money. And you are lying right through your teeth, because you already blew it just here. One advertising deal you spent over six hundred and some thousand. You would have to walk into this thing. You can’t even buy a cup of coffee by the law.”

I take it you didn’t see him walking into the state?

No. Well, he walked through in his plaid shirts. He is a lawyer. He is just stupid. But what happened is that the Federal Election Committee [Commission], it takes them like two years before they find out that you have violated the election laws. Well, the politicians ain’t dumb. No politician can be held for anything. It’s only the people who give them the money. So they made sure that — they are the crooked son of a b’s — they are exempt. That’s a good reason why they are all lawyers in there. So what happens is if they go to find the campaign, it’s the Lamar of ’96. Well, there is nothing there. It’s a shell. So they can put a $100 million fine [on it and] what are you going to get, a couple of bumper stickers?

Is it at that point there is a Lamar 2000?

Yeah. He was already running Lamar 2000 before they finished the other. And they just started all up. There are no repercussions. And so I didn’t know that going in. But I found out real quickly, as I was going. But you can’t turn around and say, “Oh, geez,” you know? Because I know I had enough money to run, to do a decent showing, but you find out how bad — but that’s just the fact of the matter.

All of these people who run, they are good people. They sincerely believe that they can do it better than the other, because the other people ahead have done such a bad job. And maybe in the future one of the prerequisites that we should have is that you have to be an actor, because they are always surrounded with everybody. I mean, you might as well have someone nice on TV who smiles at you. I mean, you think about it.

What would you do to make the enforcement mechanisms have a little bit more teeth, or maybe any teeth?

No, you can’t. First thing is if you sit back and you look at your country — and you have to understand humans — you turn around and it’s real simple. You look at 1,000 people; 500 are smarter than the other 500. That’s just a fact, OK? Everybody’s not created equal. You automatically, your DNA, we are not all robots, so you are not all the same. And I am telling you, I think society or mankind will always continue. It is the top, the elite, that never wish to put themselves in bodily harm. So, it’s like everybody talks about China. So let’s use China. China’s a good boogeyman. China has so many different dialects of all of the languages that they speak there, even though it’s Chinese to me. But if you have 1.3 billion people, that means that you have 650 million people smarter than the other 650 million. But history always shows that the ones who are on the bottom end are the ones that have the guns, because they are the ones that you put into all of these other things.

You can move it into our society. If the top half never takes care of the bottom half, eventually the bottom shoots the top, or shoots some of them. And that gets it straightened around. If you turn around and you look at 9/11, you did not see any professors or the elite running to help the people with the tragedy of the towers. You saw the firemen, you saw the police officers; those are $60,000-a-year jobs there in New York. You see what I mean?

You have your war in Iraq. Yes, we have officers from the academy and that. But you want to stop wars? Simple. Just draft everybody over 50 years of age when you are going to have it. You send the first wave in with your troops. But then the second wave is the 50-year-olds. You don’t send reporters over there. You send over the chairmen and CEOs of the news media. That’s who you send. And then, plus, you send one-third of Congress. I would love to be over there and have old Teddy Kennedy. [I’d] just be laughing so hard. I said, “What do you want to do?” Or sit there and look at Senator [Hillary] Clinton, “Well now, why don’t you two, with Harry [Reid] — all of you are lawyers — why don’t you go on over there? And you just explain to them. Take an interpreter here and you explain to them the bad, bad ways in what you are going to do. Or if you don’t want to do that, my way is I am going to level this whole damn thing. Now, which would you have it?”

Now what do you think they are going to do when their little tush is on the line? And what do you think is going to happen if the head lawyer from the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] is, “We have got to give them their rights.” Well, you just go right over there and talk to them. They’ll put a bullet in your head. And as brutal as it sounds, you cannot do stuff in all of this great, great talking, OK? And like they talked about all of this, what to do with the terrorists and everything else, [John] McCain; I know John, yeah, he was a prisoner of war. I have admiration for this. But the idiot ought to understand, these people don’t have a uniform. So when you sit there and talk and say, “Well, you don’t want to have any of this torture stuff, because they would do it to us.” Well, that’s right, John. They just cut your friggin’ head off, cut your balls off and everything else. I mean, you are not dealing with a country. You see what I am saying? And when you get religious fanatics, the only thing they really understand is a friggin’ bullet. And it’s right through the middle of the eyes. And then they understand it. They got the message. And that’s what you have to do.

How would you translate that to selecting a president?

Well, the question should be, what is the most critical job of a president? What’s the most critical point of a president? You want to know what it is? And nobody even talks about it, because they don’t understand it. The most critical job is a man or woman’s ability to choose the right people. It’s the same when you run a business. You have to choose the right people. So you cannot turn around, and because you are a politician, you are just bringing in politicians. It’s nuts. If you are a sitting president, I don’t think your concern should be running for office for two terms. I think you should take the job for one term, and bang — let the people have a referendum on you if you have done a good job or if you haven’t. But that’s it. I don’t think they should be running around everybody else in the campaign and all of this other crap. But that’s my opinion.

How would you make that happen?

Well, it’s not going to happen, OK? And it’s not going to happen because of why people go for the presidency, most of them anyhow. When you look at the various times of our country, I think the reason you have so many people running now is because they have all seen and met current and past presidents. And they say, “Hey, I can do it better than he.” I mean, that’s just the plain facts of life. And the reason you are writing a book is the power. It’s like my friends in the union. Here I had a four-year strike, had the biggest war ever, and they couldn’t put us down. It was the steelworkers. And now I am their best friend, because I want to make jobs in America, which I think we should. And I think everything in China happens to be subsidized coming over here. And the politicians don’t understand it, because the same has been true with Japan for 30-some years.

Even when the president was out at Harley in York, Pennsylvania, he didn’t have the sense or his aides to tell him the reason Harley-Davidson is still around today is because [Ronald] Reagan did not put tariffs or anything. He put an embargo. You could not even ship a motorcycle greater than 699cc into this country. He gave them three years or whatever. And that was the embargo. No BMWs, no Hondas, no Kawasakis, none of that. It was set up. And hey, we are the biggest market in the world, not China. So get off it. And it was actually George H. [Bush] who wanted China, because he has always been in love with China. But it was [Bill] Clinton who pushed it through. And labor, everybody has to understand is, you have labor in this country. And if you make 20 bucks an hour, you work 2,000 hours, that’s a full work year in a factory. That’s 40 grand. After you pay all of your taxes and everything else that Uncle Sam nails you, you got 28 grand to raise your family. And you have to know what to do.

So anyhow, that’s how I see it. And in all of these political and everything else, the unions are almost all Democratic. But that’s because of the money. I said to my friends, the union and the story on the union is, “Hey, why should my guys have to pay $60 every month to you guys, after taxes?” I said, “Why don’t you charge 10 bucks dues?” Everyone in the government — the IRS is unionized. I mean, you have civil service. When the mob used to do it, you would put them in jail. But you see, they want that over 50 bucks they need to give to the politicians. But the union boys are politicians themselves. They should understand, hell, they [are] better off mobilizing their phone banks and everything else than giving politicians cash who just blow it on TV and everything else.

Do you think politicians make their decisions based on where they get their money?

No, except for the lawyers. But here, let me help you. Let’s just say you are a reporter. Let’s just say you are really smart and had a real business side. And you started up your own book company, and you owned your own book company. But you have always been intrigued by politics, so you decide to run for office. And you are elected. Do you know you have to sell all of your stock in your company? You can have nothing to do with your book company. You have a current senator who is a doctor from Oklahoma: [Tom] Coburn. He had a big thing, because he had to sell out his interest in his medical practice.

OK, now the joke is this. If you are a lawyer, and you work for a law firm, you do not have to sell your partnership, because you are a lawyer. You are an officer of the court. You are such respected. I mean, they are the most crooked son of a b’s you got in the country. And if you look at it, and I said this in my book, most of the politicians — because you have local, state, and everything — they are actually the rejects from the law profession, you see, because they like meeting people, they are professional greeters, but they are not bringing any clients into the law firm. So the firm decides: “Why don’t we take Bill here and get him into politics. Because once he gets in, then we can get some business coming in. And hey, Bill, you do this, look at how much your partnership will grow, grow, grow.” And it’s true — whether it’s state, whether it’s local — it’s true. You look at every one of them. Now if they had to sell their partnership, that they were totally devoid, then you will see — boom. And you look at what happens when they retire. Hell, we’ll grow Howard Bakers right now. So that’s how they become so wealthy. But it’s always been. You know who my favorite congressman is?

Who?

And you put this in your book. This is true story. Davy Crockett — you know how many times Davy was in Congress? How many years?

How many?

Six [years]; three terms. He quit after the second term. Because if you read this story, it was so bad, all of the corruption and everything, and this goes back to your intelligence. The biggest hoax in this country is that Harvard is going to make you smart. Harvard just gives you connections. You are born. You have to thank your parents or your grandparents, somebody in the family tree with the DNA, because you are born. But Davy Crockett, read the story on him; you can pull it up on the Internet. He left Congress at 49 years of age. And he goes back to eastern Tennessee. He is fed up with them, which is no different than how they are today. The difference being, here his old buddy, Jim Bowie and that, are down in San Antonio. And they are going to be taking on Santa Anna. So, since the NBA tournament is on, and you see that little fort down there, he rides his horse. Now we complain about travel today. Forty-nine years of age, leaves his family and goes down to help his buddy. And they go down. There weren’t 200 men in the Alamo. It was 100 and, I think. 86. They stood in that Alamo, took on umpteen thousand Santa Anna Mexican troops. And when it was all over, it didn’t end like the movies. What happened is they ran out of bullets. The ones who got killed were the ones always sneaking out at night trying to steal bullets from the dead Mexicans. They shot over 2,000 of them. And when Santa Anna’s troops finally busted in, they weren’t dead; they had no more guns. So he executed them. But that doesn’t look right if you tell it the way it was. Just stood them up and shot them. Old Zachary Taylor met him in Brownsville, Texas. And that’s where you end up with Texas and the rest of the land out there. So he is a congressman I like. I think all of our congressmen should do something; how many of them signed up for a tour of Iraq right now?

How many of them have horses?

Yeah. They ain’t going to do anything. But you look at things. Senator [Ted] Kennedy is the joke that the Massachusetts electorate puts on us. I mean, just stop and think of it. Kennedy, what in the hell has he done? And he talks about the working man, he doesn’t even have the idea. It’s absurd. So when you think about it, you can’t even start to be noticed unless you have 85 percent name recognition. That’s a fact of life, no matter who’s the best. If you were to think of all of the people in America today, who would be president? Who would do a good job? Who would you think?

Me, personally?

Yeah. Forget the ones running. They are lost, every one of them.

I wish I knew.

Well, hey, I’ll give you a hint: He’ll never run, because he would never go through this stupid [expletive]. But you take somebody — to me, of people I have met, and you got to get the country straightened around — like a Roger Penske. You want to know why? He is tough as nails. He is competitive as hell. He is a diplomat. And he knows how to lead. He has proved it in everything from being a race-car driver, to his own team, to his own businesses. Now there is a man.

What do you think it would take for America to get to the point where we elect someone like that?

Well, you are never going to have anybody like that run. You have read Trail Fever [by Michael Lewis], right?

Yes.

OK. Just like Michael Lewis. He is a friend. Like he says, “Hey, you stood up there and you tell people, here is what you got to do.” You go elect these people. Just go up and ask why. Look at every one of the Republicans running. Number one, they are all nice men. But now what are you going to do? You got to run a country. And you got to think what you got to do, because you are taking the money from the people. And people want security and all of this. And you can’t go do all of this other goofy stuff. Nothing our government can do has any ability, as a bureaucracy, to function except for the military, and only the military, when it is in hostile action. When you have seen two times our troops go in right on through Iraq? No ands, ifs, or buts about it. Then what happens? When they got [Saddam] Hussein they should have just plugged him right there, dropped him back in the hole, took a picture of him. But no, what do we do? The moment that the main stuff is done, we are here. Here comes the State Department, [saying] “We are in charge.” Hey, stop and think about it. Go back to Vietnam; they were telling us how we were doing in Vietnam. They were telling us how to do it in the Korean War. [Harry] Truman, everybody said, “Well, the buck stops here.” Well, yeah, the buck stops here. We lost a lot of troops in Korea because the Chinese came in. But with Eisenhower, it was really simple. Eisenhower told them he was going to nuke the hell out of them. See, the nuke is the boogeyman. You have power problems in this country; we should have nuclear plants all over. The only thing is they should just build the one. You ever been to France?

I haven’t.

Well, you better not go. Because, you see, 85 percent of their power is nuclear. I mean, the Russians are the ones that had the problem, because the Russians were selling the friggin’ copper out of the damn thing. There are so many simple but boogeyman things that people come up with.

Why do you think we haven’t adopted nuclear power here?

Why? Well, that’s simple. Do you think the oil boys wanted that? You think the coal boys wanted that? Look at ethanol. Let me give you a history on ethanol, because I am in the farm business. You already know it works in Brazil, right? But what people don’t understand is [that] it never would have worked in Brazil until the government made every station put in an ethanol pump. Now they are going to raise the quantity for all gasoline down there, so you have to have 25 percent ethanol. So you can have an E-85 or the other. Ethanol is moonshine. The reason sugar is cheaper, they make it from cane, is because you plant cane once and you get three harvests. It grows three seasons. Then if you go between Miami and Naples, you will see hundreds of thousands of acres of sugar cane. And you will see that every third one of the 40-acre patches is where sweet corn is grown, because the corn puts the nutrients back in the soil. And they have to do it one year out. And that’s where in south Florida and up into Louisiana they use the corn. There are three types of corn. There is sweet corn that you eat. That’s the sweet corn they make tortillas out of, tortilla chips and everything, down in Mexico. And then you have field corn. You have heard that Mexicans, because of the ethanol corn prices — it’s all bull. That’s probably supplied by the oil boys telling you. Then you turn around. You have popcorn; that’s a different corn, too. So there are three different types. Field corn is for ethanol and for cattle feed.

So everybody is talking about we won’t have any feed. How dumb can they be? Number one, you take corn. You grind it. You throw it into a big tank. You throw water in. You throw in yeast. Now you can let it sit there, by nature, ferment it. You can speed up the process by heating it; really simple. Now, the mash that you get after you get the alcohol off is probably the best feed you can ever have for cattle and pigs. And they are going to drive the cost of ethanol down to probably less than 50 cents a gallon. They’ll have cornstalks, you let Monsanto go, you will have a two-foot ear of corn that would be like grapes of kernels on it. But that’s how you’ll do it.

But now what’s going to happen with oil? If they do that also, they can use it to make plastic. So the oil becomes slower and slower. Hey, they made $100 billion net last year, babies. Hire a bunch of dumb, goofy professors, and they will write anything you want. That’s no different than when [Jimmy] Carter went on TV and told everybody when we had the embargo, “Wear your sweater,” and all of the other dumb stuff he did. But then he had all the experts. There will be no oil by 1990. The world would be depleted. And there would be 200 gallons a barrel. So, you think of how many people, now, at 60-some bucks a barrel, and in some instances cost you 30 cents to take it out of the ground. That’s pretty damn good; that’s better than Microsoft. So all you got to do is look at it. And that’s what’s wrong. It’s whose money you are going to get. And until your masses get ticked off, that’s the only way it happens. It happens to all societies.

Do you think the oil companies have extra influence with government? Or do you think it’s just through mass media?

Oh, when Ronald Reagan took over, what’s the first thing he did in reference? You would not have Chinese auto-assembly plants over here. He capped them at 2 million cars. That’s it. He just capped them. You’re not getting any more in. Go back and read all of [that from] then. So they started opening up assembly plants. And now you have Toyota trying to tell everybody they are American. Watch the NBA, the Toyota, or whatever the hell. I love it. “Monday night football brought to you by Toyota.” Give me a friggin’ break. But you might as well sell a big, fat sumo wrestler. But Toyota and the Japanese learned a really good lesson. They turned around and instead of trying to do the other things, they just put a bunch of cash into Washington. And the government in Japan is one and the same with your business to make your businesses grow.

Over here, it’s just the opposite. I love it. I have all of these agencies. And an agency comes in to you. And you listen to these idiots on TV, “Oh, business, killing workers and everything.” First thing dummies, every state has workers compensation laws. You don’t want anybody injured. You get somebody injured, it costs you a fortune. You pay it. Insurance company’s just the middleman taking 15 points off it. Oh, you are out of business. So that’s bull. Number two, look at government itself. I talked about the State Department. You think about it: That was originally a step up to have these embassies around the world, because it could take six months, a year [to communicate], so that’s why you had them. You don’t need any of them. Hell, most of them, when anything happens, they watch CNN or something else. The embassy people, do away with them. Do away with the whole group of them. Look at how much money you would save. Why do you have a Bureau of Indian Affairs? You ever think about that? Why do you have all of this other crap?