View from the North 40: Flight of the Postman

If you don’t already know who 61-year-old Ruskin, Florida, mailman Doug Hughes is, you should make it your business to know. He’s just spent the last 2 1/2 years planning and executing a spectacular, death-defying stunt that has landed him in jail, and he did it for you. He did it for America. He did it on the White House lawn.

Hughes flew an ultralight airplane-helicopter hybrid, called a gyrocopter, through restricted air space over Washington, D.C., and landed on the White House lawn to deliver the message that “there’s no question that we need government, but we don’t have to accept that it’s a corrupt government that sells out to the highest bidder.”

That was what he told Tampa Bay Times reporters in the months before launching his plan. It’s also the gist of the message he carried with him in 535 properly stamped and addressed letters to the 535 members of our U.S. Congress.

His gyrocopter was painted in United States Postal Service colors with an official logo, so the delivery was legit.

He had alerted the media, and Secret Service, electronically before takeoff and surrendered to U.S. Capitol Police peaceably upon landing.

And he seems not to be as loopy as all that sounds.

Hughes’ tale starts out in tragedy. After his son died in an act of suicide that made splashy state headlines — he drove his car into an oncoming vehicle, killing himself and the other driver — Hughes realized that he wanted to say something real with his life, even with his death, not waste any of it.

Hughes told the Times that he felt his son’s death was in vain. That he garnered all that publicity for a superficial message, “but if you’re willing to take a risk, the ultimate risk, to draw attention to something that does have significance, it’s worth doing.”

He learned to fly just for this occasion. He spent a lot of time creating a website that outlines his researched arguments, writing his letter, talking to the media to get them on board and even talking to Secret Service agents about what he intended to do. His friends seem to really like him.

On his website he has a message to readers asking them to call the White House — phone number provided — to help tell them he’s flying in and he means no harm, so please don’t shoot him down. Or, he wrote, “if you favor shooting me down, call that number, but wait until tomorrow.”

He said in his letter to members of Congress that they have three options of action:

1. You may pretend corruption does not exist.

2. You may pretend to oppose corruption while you sabotage reform.

3. You may actively participate in real reform.

And, yes, he makes clear only option No. 3 is the right answer.

Hughes, who is clearly against the Citizen’s United decision, seems to be bipartisan in his argument against lobbying, political party practices to raise money and the general financial glad-handing of politicians.

“I have thought about walking away from this whole thing because it’s crazy,” he said to reporters. “But I have also thought about being 80 years old and watching the collapse of this country and thinking that I had an idea once that might have arrested the fall and I didn’t do it.

“And I will tell you completely honestly: I’d rather die in the flight than live to be 80 years old and see this country fall.”

As of this writing, Hughes’ website http://www.TheDemocracyClub.org, is still up and running, and he is being released, with an ankle bracelet and charges for flying an unregistered airplane and flying in restricted air space.

No word on whether or not his letters were hand delivered to congressional members, but it’s safe to say that they probably got his message.

Also, no word on whether or not he still has his job with the Florida Postal Service. If my recommendation means anything I say that USPS owes Hughes a debt of gratitude.

Even considering the 11 years’ worth of wages he’s collected from USPS, Hughes has been a considerably cheaper and more positive PR investment than bicyclist Lance Armstrong who got $31.97 million in USPS sponsorship — only to turn out to be a drug-enhanced liar who was stripped of all his medals.

As an added bonus, Hughes paid for all the postage and the airborne delivery himself, and he has singlehandedly redefined “going postal” into a positive term.

(Maybe we should kick start a Hughes for President campaign at [email protected].)