by Gore Vidal
Of course, it’s not considered nice to criticize someone else’s religion; yet this particular election has been based almost entirely on religion, and it is now clear just how our single-party system (with two right wings, one called Democratic, one called Republican) will end. The country is now splitting into the Party of God, whose standard-bearer the godless Bush so ironically tried to be, and the Party of Man, which represents, in theory, observance of religion-free laws and a limitation of the state’s control of the private lives of the citizenry. In the primaries, only Jerry Brown grasped the necessity of a party of the people at large, while only Pat Buchanan grasped the true potency of God’s Party.
Although Clinton–Gore are essentially Party of God politicians, they moderated their views and did not too piously defend the sacred fetus on the sensible ground that most women, even Godly ones, resent God’s ministers’ regulating their gynecologic works. After all, the reproductive system that God devised for both men and women is ridiculous enough as it is—certainly, any competent plumber could have done a better job; yet to pretend that the Great Baron Frankenstein in the Sky’s sexual handiwork is evil (as in original sin) is truly evil; and that is where the present conflict between the two evolving parties is taking place, and the ultimate confrontation, as ol’ Ross Perot would say, ain’t gonna be pretty.
Meanwhile, we have numerous elections but no politics. Each candidate must hustle corporate money and then put together as many groups as he can to win. After all, once elected, he does not have to serve any voters, on the ground that if he pleases one group he’ll alienate another, so why rock the boat? But he does have to serve Lockheed or Boeing or Exxon or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and all the other corporations or lobbies that pay for him.
The office of vice-president is now the preserve of the Israeli lobby, and Gore will continue the Quayle tradition. After all, in the 1988 presidential primaries, Gore’s campaign was largely paid for by the lobby, whose point man was the ineffable New Republic publisher, Marty Peretz (who boasted in Spy magazine that he’d written “Al’s” speech at the Democratic Convention). The alliance between a Pentagon-oriented southern politician (Gore has never voted against any appropriation for war) and the Israeli lobby was a not-unnatural one in the days of the Cold War. But no longer. Imagine if a Roman Catholic lobby were in place to siphon off billions of federal dollars to bail out the truly broke Vatican, while covertly supporting the terrorism of, let us say, the Irish Republican Army. I don’t think the Godly (non-Catholic) would like this, while the Manly would be in court. Once selected by Clinton, Gore made his first speech to AIPAC, where he groveled without shame. He was there to get money for services rendered; and on offer. Happily, the new Israeli prime minister, Rabin, has just given the American Israeli lobby hell on the ground that their crude buying of senators in order to pit the legislative against the executive branch might start a backlash among even the densest goyim. Henceforth, the Israeli command post will be not the Senate but the vice-president’s office.
What to do? The logical and intelligent solution would be to go back to Philadelphia and make a new Constitution with a stronger Bill of Rights, a weaker executive, a disciplined Supreme Court (the original court mucked about with admiralty suits rather than trimesters, and they were much, much happier in their modest work). A parliamentary system might be more workable than our current—that word again—gridlock. Yes, I am quite aware that no ruling class has ever abolished or even reformed itself, so there is not much chance for us to invoke the great powers invested in We the People, who are ultimately sovereign, if we could ever again meet in Congress assembled and make a new charter. But if the times get too bad and a dictator does not take over, I suggest exercising the Philadelphia Option, not only in memory of Benjamin Franklin but of W. C. Fields, Philadelphia’s other great son, whose screen performance as Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield was a prescient impersonation of Uncle Sam today.
In a sense, the great cancer of our system, the defense budget, will go into remission when the Japanese and the Germans are no longer buying our Treasury notes. But what then? Here, Clinton is making a bit of sense. Public works of the Rooseveltian sort could stave off revolution, which was exactly what the United States was facing in 1933, as I observed firsthand. Then came the New Deal. People got jobs. Roads. Conservation. Dams. When Roosevelt was told that he might well be the most popular president in American history, he said, “If I’m not, I will be the last.”
For the present, in the pursuit of the Numero Uno job, Clinton has worked himself into a number of contradictory binds. But then so did Roosevelt, who promised, in Philadelphia (again), that if elected president he would balance the budget. In 1936, up for re-election and on his way back to Philadelphia, he turned to Sam Rosenman, his speechwriter, and said, “Well, what do I say now about the deficit?” Rosenman was serene: “Deny you were ever in Philadelphia.”
Although no public jobs can be created and no bridges repaired as long as all that money goes for unworkable Rube Goldberg Star Wars systems, not to mention cost overruns and plain corruption, Clinton will have to overcome his natural southern affinity for all things military. Conversion is the name of the only game we have left. Conversion from war to peace. Instead of Seawolf submarines, he must build bullet trains (my advice to Jerry Brown, who dramatized it on television and won the Connecticut primary). The same workforce that now builds submarines has the same technology to build trains. This would not reduce the deficit, but then nothing ever will.
Clinton has a chance to take a deep breath and start building and repairing the country. If this is done rapidly and intensely—the way Roosevelt did in the Thirties, with fair success; and in the Second War, with great success—then we shall start generating that famous cash base Perot keeps nattering on about.
In any event, the only alternative to such a program is social chaos. Clinton’s greatest asset is a perfect lack of principle. With a bit of luck, he will be capable, out of simple starry-eyed opportunism, to postpone our collapse. After all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was equally unprincipled. On the other hand, he had the aristocrat’s self-confidence, and he was a master of manipulation. Clinton’s nervous eagerness to serve his numerous betters is not reassuring because, as he tries to manipulate them, they often, cold-bloodedly, manipulate him. But as Huck Finn with Tom’s cunning, he may get himself—and us—through. Like Roosevelt, Clinton has a lot of energy, and an eye on the main chance: If he has only a bit of FDR’s luck, we may ride out the storm. But “fasten your seat belts,” as Bette Davis so memorably warned. It is going to take real slickness to get us past the deadly reef of true faith up ahead, so dangerously set in that sea of debt created by the few who could not resist ripping off the many in the name of Freedom, Democracy and a Supreme Being as personally revealed to good Dr. Gallup. We must wish Clinton luck. After all, if he fails, he will be the last president.*
GQ
November 1992
* BEDFELLOWS MAKE STRANGE POLITICS
All’s fair. Presumably in love and war, not to mention in the American electoral process as it becomes more and more surreal. For those who laughed all the way through Bob Woodward’s situation comedy The Agenda, All’s Fair will give even greater delight. For one thing, this is a him-and-her comedy, worthy of early Hepburn and Tracy. She is Mary Matalin, a darkly handsome Croatian from Chicago, with a sense of humor. He is James Carville, a Louisiana Cajun, with a sense of humor. Picture Susan Sarandon and John Malkovich together for the first time.
No expense must be spared in this production, any more than any expense was spared in the great election of 1992 that pitted George Bush against Bill Clinton and then, for comic relief, added Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, two choleric below-the-title character actors, good for cutaways when the stars needed a rest. Director? Preston Sturges, if alive, might have had too much gravitas. The Zucker brothers et al., who gave us Airplane! and Naked Gun, are a bit too much on the nose. If I were
the producer—now I’m just spitballing, this is early on—but I’d like to turn All’s Fair over to Oliver Stone and tell him to make the hardest-hitting serious film that he can about the degradation of the democratic dogma. The result, I promise you, will be not only hilarious but good citizenship in spades.
This is the story of Mary Matalin, political director of George Bush’s campaign for re-election to the Presidency that he so much adorned (“Read my lips, no capital gains taxes”), and James Carville, who acted in the same capacity for Bill Clinton, the Comeback Kid. Love interest? This is the beauty part, as S. J. Perelman would say: Mary and James are in love before the campaign begins; then, after the election, they get married and settle down on television, where each now glows, he a “liberal” star, she a “conservative” one. Conflict? How can two professional politicians maintain their personal relationship in a campaign that grows more and more dirty as those magical days until November’s first Tuesday fly by? It is not easy.
This is a political Pillow Talk, with alternating points of view. First, James. He gives his view of an event. Then Mary. She gives hers. They are often fascinating—sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently—as they discuss the mechanics of election. James and Mary? There is something numinously biblical about their names: James, brother of our Lord, Bill, and Mary Magdalene . . . Matalin, who has a star-struck crush on George Bush, surely a unique condition.
Each was already a successful political operator when they met in 1991. She had worked on Bush’s winning Presidential campaign. He had worked on a number of senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns, mostly successful after he teamed up with Paul Begala, now of the White House. Each is intrigued by what he’s heard about the other. “I like to know people who do politics for a living,” says Mary, upfront as always. He is equally curious about her, although she notes, dryly, that according to James’s sisters, until he met Mary he had not been seen in the company of a female more than eighteen years of age. On their first date they quarrel about politics. Not to worry. Like most professionals who “do” politics, neither is an ideologue. She lashes out at lefties like Albert Gore (known to Bush as Ozone Man) for having written such Marxist nonsense as: the automobile is damaging the environment. Politically, James the populist openly prefers Bob Casey, the son of a coal miner in Pennsylvania, as governor, to a patrician like William Scranton; and that’s about it for deep political thoughts.
Mary’s first impression of James: “I took a look at him . . . a squinty-eyed, bald-headed skinny guy. He was wearing skin-tight jeans and a little muscle-man shirt with a green turtleneck collar. I’ll bet any amount of money that he doesn’t remember what I was wearing.” James: “I know she had her hair the way I don’t like it.”
In the spring of 1991, Bush of Mesopotamia looks to be unbeatable. Such Democratic powerhouses as Lloyd Bentsen decide that it is impossible to beat him and choose not to run. Then two things happen. First, John Heinz, Senator from Pennsylvania, is killed in a plane crash. Next, Governor Casey, in violation of every law of American politics, appoints the man best qualified to be a senator, Harris Wofford. A special election is called. Enter James, campaign director. A long shot, Wofford is elected on universal health care. An issue is born. Also a political star: James is now in a position to audition Democratic candidates for the 1992 election. He turns down Senators Bob Kerrey and Tom Harkin. He takes on Clinton. He meets Mary, who has a strong sense of professional hierarchy. James is strictly a statewide operator while she is Presidential. When she learns that James has leapt above his humble station, she goes, as they say in the book, ballistic. How can what is now a couple be on opposing sides in a Presidential election? Grimly, Mary thinks, “If I didn’t get [the job] because of Carville I’d have to kill him.” But she gets it.
The media are mildly bemused by the situation. But then, like Wall to Pyramus and Thisbe, the media, which now keep them physically apart, bring them together. They are forever waking up in the morning—each in his own bed far from the other—to see the face of the beloved on the morning news. They are all over television, and thus two media stars are born. He is effective but she is splendid, with her dark cobra eyes and her secret smile to camera that tells us: I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Give me a break.
There is a new vocabulary in play. James and Mary are professional “spin masters.” James gives the press credit for this resonant phrase: “The word ‘spin,’ I think, means what political strategists do when we go out and put our candidate in the most favorable light. That’s what spin is. Well, la-di-da, guess what? They’re right. . . . Why don’t the media just admit the truth about themselves that they’re way more into self-justification than information?” There is a lot of talk about “body language” (Woodward likes this phrase, too) though no explanation of what is meant, other than Gerald Ford falling down. Needless to say, James and Mary are cautious on the subject of the media (a plural noun becomes disagreeably singular as it means, paradoxically, more and more outlets). They must live with media; exploit media; die with media.
James: “No one understands the power of the media in this country. I went into this campaign believing they were powerful. I didn’t know. The power they have is staggering. . . . They like to think of themselves as learned and insightful and thoughtful and considered. They claim the mantle of truth. Hell, truth is they make initial snap judgments and after that all of their time . . . is spent on nothing but validating their original judgment.” Also noted is the media’s fragmentation, best demonstrated by “the emerging power of CNN . . . a very, very important player in Presidential campaigns. . . . It used to be that the Associated Press had the real effect on campaign coverage. The New York Times, The Washington Post and the other majors are all morning papers, while the AP serviced afternoon papers with the first take on breaking campaign events. . . . But there are fewer and fewer afternoon papers in the country, and CNN is on all day, every day. . . . They don’t have a lot of viewers but, hell, as long as you have a hundred reporters looking at you and they are filing stories, you don’t need to have numbers to have influence.”
Finally, there is the actual election of 1992. James steers Clinton through primaries fraught with drama. Events from the past keep slowing down what Bush used to call the Big Mo (momentum). All our old friends make a final (presumably) appearance.
Gennifer Flowers (Mary: “God, if that’s Clinton’s taste in women . . .”). Clinton plays golf at an unintegrated club (James: “Someone close to the body” should have checked out the club. The Body is the phrase for the Candidate, like the central puzzle in a murder mystery). Interesting odd facts like: Why does television spend so much time photographing Clinton when he jogs? In case he has a heart attack. Remember Jimmy Carter’s eyes rolling upward during a marathon?
James dismisses Jerry Brown as “a nut” who is far too pessimistic for a happy people. He also glosses over Brown’s primary victory in Connecticut where, for the first and last time, the defense budget was challenged with a brand-new thought—conversion from a militarized to a peacetime economy: make bullet trains in the same factories where submarines are made. Kerrey is a war hero, attractive in every way, but he has no “message.” The others don’t matter. The nomination is won. En route, Jesse Jackson is sandbagged, ostensibly because of a black singer rapping about killing whites, but largely because the Jackson image is still too radical for the sacred center where the votes are.
Incidentally, words like “liberal” and “conservative” and “radical” mean absolutely nothing in this text, any more than they do in American politics. The only radical note struck in the campaign was by Pat Buchanan when he prescribed a religious war for us. This certainly promises to liven up future elections—should any be held, of course. If All’s Fair has a subtext, it is that the cost of electing one of two—or even three—essentially interchangeable candidates is not only too high but potentially divisive when Cross confronts Satanic condom.
Mary has a harder
time than James. An incumbent President does not expect to have to fight in primaries, but suddenly there is Crossfire Pro-Cross Pat Buchanan, with his lullaby of hate and his 20 percent of the Republican vote. As if that were not enough bother, Ross Perot pays for a series of budget lectures on prime time. Not since Robert Benchley’s “Treasurer’s Report” has anyone given so much pleasure to so many with sheer numbers galore.
Mary, who has not only been there but knows a thing or two, does have one enthusiasm that passeth all understanding. Mary: “I picked up the phone and heard the unmistakable voice. Honest to God, my mouth went dry and my palms got sweaty. . . . No one, myself included, could believe it was actually him.” The Pope? Who on earth—or in heaven—could that voice belong to? “He was incredibly deferential and respectful. Didn’t want to bother me, but was wondering, if it wasn’t too much trouble, could he get a copy of the ‘hypocritical Democrats’ fax. . . . To my even greater amazement and pleasure, he did a whole monologue to my notorious fax.” Did you guess who? Rush Limbaugh. (Tim Robbins is interested.)
Rush had got interested in the campaign as it started to go very “negative.” Apparently, Clinton had gone to Moscow as a student and the KGB had turned him into the Manchurian Candidate. He had also written a letter explaining why he disapproved of the Vietnam War, easily the most distinguished and honest statement of his career thus far. But as Bush drops in the polls, the decision is made to play dirty, school of Lee Atwater, Mary’s guru, whose recent death had left the campaign singularly lacking in Willie Horton–style ads. Little Miss Mary Mischief is thrilled: “No one had really been happy with the option of just doing positive Bush because we didn’t think we’d break through. And besides, going negative puts everybody in a mischievously productive and creative mood.” All sorts of tricks and treats are then offered an electorate that, according to James, has no real grasp of any political issue other than the economy and how it directly affects them. In fact, James concludes that, between the knee-jerk party-line voters and the indifferent majority, elections are decided by between 3 and 7 percent of the electorate. Get their attention and approval and you win.