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POLITICAL CARTOONIST PAT BAGLEY
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PAT BAGLEY LEGENDARY POLITICAL CARTOONIST
WORDS: KEN LEIGHTON PHOTO: CAT PALMER
Pat Bagley moved to Oceanside in 1959 when he was two. His father Larry, a graduate of the University of Utah, was hired as one of the first employees of Oceanside’s upstart planning department. Larry, who died in 2005, rose to the director of the planning department and then city manager in 1970. He came back to city hall when he was elected Mayor in 1980.
The youngest of his three sons, Pat has had a remarkable career as a political cartoonist at the Salt Lake City Tribune. The year 2015 marked 36 continuous years at the daily papers, making him the longest continuously employed political cartoonist in the country. Five years on, he’s still there, and this past September, he was named political cartoonist of the year by the National Cartoonist’s Society. Pat won the Herblock Prize in 2009, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning in 2014. He’s written or illustrated over 35 books for children and adults.
Pat’s 41 years at the Tribune have seen his conservative political views move towards the center. The 1977 Brigham Young University grad says he has moved away from the doctrines of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
How can you do it for 41 years?
I love what I do. Every day is a new high wire act.
There are stories that conservative members of the Chandler family who controlled the Los Angeles Times lobbied to get editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad fired. Like you, Conrad had won multiple national awards. His Nixon-skewering cartoons drew blood. Have you endured any harsh rebukes from your editors, colleagues, or readers?
I’m lucky. The owners and newsroom have my back. On the other hand, the very Republican power structure of the state …
Do the Mormons run the Utah government?
Yes
What misconceptions might outsiders have about Utah?
That you can’t get a drink. The brewpub, bar, and restaurant scene is pretty remarkable.
What was more controversial—your political move to the center, or you becoming a lapsed Mormon?
Leaving the Church was a long and challenging slog. You question everything you thought you knew. In the end, you either go with what they tell you, or what your life experience tells you.
Is there a future for editorial cartoonists like yourself?
Yes and no. The old model of newspapers having a staff cartoonist is gone, but the Internet means anyone can publish cartoons. Who knows? They might catch on.
And daily newspapers?
For the sake of the country, we’d better hope [they survive]. Communities without a newspaper are prone to corruption and mismanagement. A study found it cost citizens a lot less to subscribe to a paper than they would otherwise pay in fraud committed on the public’s dime.
If I remember correctly, in Lincoln Junior High School (1968-70), you said something to the effect that one day Oceanside would have huge oceanfront hotels just like Miami Beach. Are you surprised it has taken so long for these multi-storied hotels overlooking the pier to be built?
It only stood to reason: Oceanside’s climate is so much better than Miami’s. By the way, a cartoonist friend who worked for The Miami Herald, which had its offices in one of those beachfront high rises, said it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence to see bodies wash up on the beach, especially when drug gangs were at war.
How do we know that the Oceanside of the 60s and 70s is truly a thing of the past?
The towns used to hug the coast. Now they’ve expanded miles inland. I don’t want to say sprawl, but it’s sprawl.
What were some of the visionary changes your dad spearheaded as either city manager (1970-75) or mayor (1984-1992)?
Two things. He got the Marine Commandant to help control downtown. Weekends were almost always near riots. Locals like us viewed downtown as not ours—it belonged to the so, so very young marines on their way to Vietnam. The strip clubs, bars, and tattoo parlors weren’t catering to OHS students. Dad then got federal and state aid to change the face of downtown. Besides building the new city hall, he also got new housing into blighted areas.
“Communities without a newspaper are prone to corruption and mismanagement”
In 1990, USMC wife Melba Bishop succeeded in “taking over the city council” when she successfully steered fellow political outsiders Nancy York and Don Rodee onto the city council to give her a voting majority. They beat local stalwarts Tim Aldrich and Lucy Chavez. They represented the establishment and were supported by your dad who was serving his third and final term as mayor. What do you recall about those contentious times?
I was on a Mormon mission in Bolivia when dad got sacked as Oceanside City Manager by the city council. He had fired the chief of police over racist remarks, and though the city council tried to make it about something else, he was fired in retribution. The payback, though, was exquisite. When he ran for mayor in ’84, not only was he elected, but also the members of the city council who fired him all lost. Dad had a successful three terms as mayor and was a model of integrity and respect, but there’s one thing he did wrong—he let Melba get to him. I remember a story in the paper where he got personal. It struck me as being so out of character. Yeah, dad didn’t like Melba.
When you make it back down to Oceanside, what are your go-to spots?
The Harbor Fish & Chips are still the best. I miss the beach.
Tom Missett, the bigger-than-life publisher of the Blade-Tribune from 1967 to 1997, died this year. What do you recall about his daily local paper that loved to stir the pot?
I remember trying to piece together what the political cartoons meant and bugging dad about it. As a politician, dad had a complicated relationship with the paper.
My longtime local friend, illustrator Jamie Meuhlhausen created the website menwholooklikekennyrogers.com. Have you ever been told you look like him?
I’ll just check in to see what condition my condition is in. (For those too young to know, Pat is referencing a line from a hit by the First Edition, Kenny Rogers’ rock band before he went country. The song was big when we went to Lincoln.)
