10/02/00 10:40 a.m.
The Myth of Winifred Skinner
The Gore campaign's latest lie.

By Jonah Goldberg, NRO editor-------------------JonahEmail@aol.com

he makes journalists swoon. The Gore campaign thinks she's the best thing to happen to them for months. The vice president himself hugged her nearly a half-dozen times, as she recounted her hardships. She is, of course, the tin can lady, Winifred Skinner, the Patron Saint — or Perhaps Patron Martyr — of Not-Generous-Enough Old Age medical programs.

Mrs. Skinner is a retired auto-worker who "must" pick up cans to cover the costs of her prescription drugs. The media hype over this woman cannot be exaggerated. She has become such a force that the Bush campaign has gotten into the act, trying to claim that their drug-benefit plan would be better for poor Winnie.

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post points out this morning that the local chapter of the UAW invited her to appear at the Gore campaign town meeting which has made her famous. But while her story's political value has been the subject of considerable hype her story's salience as a matter of public policy has been ignored.

Mrs. Skinner claims that she is forced to collect these cans because she has no other means. This is in fact a lie. Earl King, Mrs. Skinner's son is a well-to-do former businessman. Mr. King called into WHO Radio in Des Moines on Friday to defend himself against suggestions that he has abandoned his mother. It turns out that Mr. King, though very supportive of his mother's political efforts, has tried to help his mother financially for years. "My mother won't accept money from me and my wife," King said.

Well, that's not entirely true. Mrs. Skinner's pride did allow him to pay for his mother's new roof as well as her annual property taxes. She just won't take money from her son for the explicit purpose of buying needed medication. She will, however, accept money from millions of less well-to-do taxpayers across the country for the same purpose.

Mrs. Skinner may have admirable reasons for refusing to take money from her financially comfortable only child, but they hardly amount to a tragic story. Mrs. Skinner chooses to collect cans not out of any need, but to make a point. The government can hardly be held responsible for people who choose to turn their lives into political theater. This sort of eccentric behavior raises the concept of entitlement to unheralded levels. The Gore campaign concedes that they have been looking for someone like Mrs. Skinner for months to serve as a human prop to demonstrate the need for their drug giveaways. The media too has anointed her as the representative of millions of older Americans. If this is the best they could find, perhaps older Americans are less needy than we've been led to believe.