by Ed Gorman
“It’d help if you sat still,” the makeup woman said gently. She was very young, very slender, pretty in a wan, wounded sort of way, a bit nervous and uncertain of herself when she had to give Warren an order. She wore an emerald-green sweater that set off her dark hair perfectly. And dark jeans that showed her slender body to be rich with soft curves.
Billy Hannigan, our chief speechwriter, and Laura Wu, our communications director, sat in canvas-backed director’s chairs talking to Warren as we came in. Billy was one of the best speechwriters I’d ever worked with. He’d been able to give Warren a voice he’d never had before, a way of improving the presentation by choosing simpler and stronger words for Warren to speak. He was invaluable. And you could send him out to fix problems in the field.
Warren faked a frown and said in a mock unhappy voice, and more to himself than to us, “They’re supposed to be calming me down, but all they’re doing is making me more nervous. And now she wants me to sit still.”
“We told him no sex jokes onstage tonight,” Billy said. A black Irishman of twenty-seven, Billy was a Rutgers man and proud of it, as you could tell by all the T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and scarves he wore bearing the Rutgers logo.
“We also told him not to refer to Lake as ‘my asshole opponent’ for the first five minutes,” Laura joked. She was a slender Asian beauty, usually confined in designer suits. She’d done undergraduate work at Dartmouth and graduate work at George Washington. Laura and Billy were both critical to the success Nichols had had in his first term.
Nichols raised a glass of Diet Pepsi to his lips, forcing the makeup woman to take a step back. Apparently she didn’t want to get drenched if he got too wild with his drink. I wondered what she’d say to her friends about us. Probably that we were a bunch of overpaid wusses. And she wouldn’t be wrong.
“Never get between him and his Diet Pepsi,” Kate said.
Warren puckered his lips. Made a face. “The ice cubes have all melted down in this glass. Tastes like hell.”
“See all the traumas he faces every day?” Laura said to the makeup woman.
Gabe Colby came in just then. Gabe was the policy wonk and second-best speechwriter we had. Given the long graying hair he wore in a ponytail, the collarless shirts, and the vests and the jeans that were his daily attire, you might guess correctly that he longed for the days of takin’ it to the streets. He was one of those men of the sixties generation who believed that they’d never had a fair chance of turning our government into a utopia of acid with Jimi Hendrix images plastered on public buildings. He always smelled of cigarettes and sweat. It was easy to dismiss him as an angry, aging hippie, but the sorrow in his dark eyes was too vivid for tossing him overboard that way. I had no idea what the source of his grief was, only that it was a terrible burden for him.
“Hey, Gabe,” Billy said. “Ready to see Lake get his ass kicked around the block tonight?”
Gabe wasn’t a cheerleader. He just shrugged and said, “Sure hope so.”
Kate and Laura patted him. One on the back, one on the arm. You couldn’t watch him without wanting to help him in some way. But he sure was up on the issues. He could probably give Google a good run.
Warren set the glass down on the table next to him, then assessed himself in the large round mirror that road show actors made themselves up in. “God, I’m looking old. That’s another thing that bothers me. Lake’s ten years younger.”
“Yes,” Kate said, “but you’re thirty years smarter. Once he gets off the subject of his support for the NRA, the antigay groups, and the talk-radio fascists, he won’t have much to say.”
“Do you suppose he’ll be wearing his Nazi armband tonight?” Billy quipped.
“The senator here still won’t go for my idea,” I said. “When he walks out he breaks into a rap song and then lights up a joint. Get the eighteen- to thirty-five-year-olds.”
“Hey, that’d be great,” Laura said. “And every time he looks at Lake, he says, ‘Hey, you my bitch.”’
Nichols smiled. “I appreciate you people trying to cheer me up, but I have to admit I’m scared as hell. I just wish I was a better speaker.”
“You don’t have to go out there and wave the flag, Warren,” I said. “Just be yourself. You’ve got a good record, we’re ahead in the run-up to the election, and Lake always overplays everything. That’s why he scares so many people.”
He sighed, waving his hand to silence me. “Lake’s gotten better on the stump. You can’t deny that.” His gaze touched on every one of us. “None of you will say it, but that’s what’s going on here. Even if we’re ahead, I have to be damned good tonight.”
“You’ve got to forget everything but the debate tonight, Warren,” Kate said. “We didn’t have this conversation. Nothing negative even entered your mind tonight. You’re a handsome, articulate, manly, caring person who has a genuine need to help people who need help. And you know what’s in this country’s best interests and aren’t afraid to stand up and say it. That’s what you’ve got to remember tonight.”
A sad smile. “I wish I could send you out there, Kate. You made me want to stand up and salute just then.”
“All done,” the makeup woman said.
“I should’ve introduced you,” Nichols said. “This is Megan Caine, everybody. Billy tells me Megan is a registered member of our party and does work on commercials.”
“Megan, you tell him he’s going to do a great job tonight,” Kate said.
Megan looked surprised that she’d been brought into the conversation. She even seemed a bit embarrassed. “Well, I’m sure going to vote for him. I don’t trust Lake at all.”
“That’s what we need to hear,” Billy said.
Megan opened her makeup kit and put away the pieces she’d needed to get Nichols ready for the lights and camera. “Well,” she said, still sounding a little embarrassed, “good night, everybody.”
We all said our good-byes as we watched her leave the small room, closing the door quietly behind her.
“Very nice woman,” Nichols said. “I think she actually calmed me down a little.”
He stood up in his starched white shirt with red-and-blue rep tie, blue suspenders, and blue suit pants. He walked over to the hangers and took his suit coat down.
“Ravishing as always?” he said.
“The ladies will be rushing the stage,” Laura said.
“Well, as long as that includes my wife,” he said. “I always feel better with her in the audience.” He paused. Thought of something. “You know, I haven’t had a cigarette in fifteen years but right now I’d sure as hell like one.”
“You do good tonight,” Kate said, “and we’ll buy you a carton of Camels.”
“Oh, God no,” Warren said. “I know that if I smoked even one cigarette, my nicotine habit would come roaring back. I’d be up to a pack and a half a day in no time.”
The knock. It could have been anybody at the door but we all knew better. Billy was closest, so he opened it. A man with a headset on said, “We need the senator onstage so we can get the final lighting set.”
“Thanks,” Billy said, closing the door again.
Nichols went into his breathing exercises. Deep inhalations, deep exhalations. He insisted that these helped, and if they did, I was all for them.
Laura stepped over and gave his suit coat a close inspection. Dandruff, dust, bird shit—who knew what she was looking for. But whatever it was, she brought her steely focus to the task.
Kate worked on his tie. There was a gap between the top of his shirt and the knot. She wanted to make the gap disappear and apparently it took some doing. He made a joke about her trying to strangle him but she didn’t laugh. When work was at hand, Laura and Kate were heat-seeking missiles. All you could do was get out of their way.
“There,” she said.
Warren directed his next words to me. “I don’t make any weird faces this time, right, Dev?”
“Right. No matter what he says, you do
n’t mug. You just stand there straight and tall. You’re the adult. Leave all the drama to him.” Lake was one of those pols who enjoyed eye-rolling, forehead-slapping, and premeditated frowning. All the time his opponent was giving his response, Lake was doing his version of a Three Stooges episode. Unfortunately, Warren had started doing some of the same thing during the last debate.
“And I never use the phrase ‘average American.’”
“Right again. Because that’s a phrase he uses all the time. What I want you to do tonight is wait for him to use it and then say that there’s no such thing as an ‘average American.’ That each man and woman in our society is an individual and should be treated as such. And that’s why his proposal to suspend certain constitutional rights we have is so dangerous. Because we have the right to act as individuals, think the way we want to, express ourselves the way we want to, and he wants to take that away from us while pretending it’s because of terrorism.”
“You could knock him dead with that one,” Billy said. “Even if he doesn’t wear his Nazi armband, people will know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s enough tutoring,” Kate said. “Information overload. Now he just needs to get out there and relax and do what comes naturally.”
“I love it when people talk about me in the third person—when I’m standing right next to them.”
Kate stuck her tongue out at him. They exchanged smirks.
Laura took his arm and said, “I’ll walk out with you, Senator.”
“Well, I can’t go wrong there, a pretty woman like you on my arm.”
“I’ll go with you,” Billy said.
And Gabe said, “Me, too.”
They left.
Naturally, I turned to Kate and said, “So you don’t have any idea what’s bothering Laura?”
“Not really. Laura keeps everything to herself.”
“Well, I’ll keep a closer watch on her. See if I can figure anything out.” I glanced at my watch. “We better get to the auditorium.”
She took my hand. Squeezed it. “God, I hope he doesn’t fuck it up tonight.”
CHAPTER 4
I once had a congressional client who thought I should pick out a comely maiden in the crowd and bring her backstage after the speech was over. You know, the way Elvis used to have his Memphis boys do it. I gave him a choice. I could function as his consultant or his pimp, but I couldn’t do both such taxing jobs at the same time. He took my point but he wasn’t happy about it. One day after he won the election he fired me.
I once had a senatorial client who took so many personal flights on corporate jets that his own staffers joked that he needed to register as a lobbyist.
I once had a congressional client who was a virulent supporter of civil rights but would not eat in a place where black people worked in the kitchen and would not shake hands with gay men for fear of AIDS.
They come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of greed, lust, megalomania, pettiness, treachery, and—never underestimate this factor—plain stupidity. In other words, they’re pretty much like the rest of us. Sometimes you’re amazed that a pol you’ve always thought of as a dreadful hack on the other side of the aisle will do something so noble it’s breathtaking. Likewise, you’ll see one of your own do something so cynical and underhanded, you’re genuinely shocked and wonder if you know this man or woman at all.
Part of my job as a consultant is to simply babysit and hand-hold. The congressional staffs do the same thing. The more focused the public event, the more danger there is. Tonight I was wishing I’d brought a cyanide capsule along to put under my tongue in case things went badly. One tiny little bite on the capsule and I’d be out of my misery.
We were seated in the front seats, aisle right. Lake’s people were seated aisle left. We all waved and smiled at each other, of course, resisting the impulse to flip each other off and then rush across the aisle and beat the holy shit out of each other.
Both groups were well-dressed, excited. They didn’t hope to learn anything. They just wanted to see a career destroyed. The other fellow’s. Of course. They wanted that single slip of the tongue that would forever paint the candidate as a clown. Fodder for comedians, pundits, and editorial writers. These were political gladiators up onstage tonight and they’d damned well better make it bloody.
A few of Lake’s staffers glanced over at me and made faces insinuating that they felt sorry for me. That Warren was doomed. Not if he just stuck to the prep we’d given him. Staff and consultants alike spend hundreds of hours sifting through information from many sources trying to define a few issues that their man or woman can base a campaign on. Some of the time the issues are obvious. Other times you have to manufacture an issue. The other side is generally better at this because their voters like bombast. They can plug in to talk radio and pick up two or three issues a day. Our side likes to think of itself as more noble and sophisticated. Even if this is true, and it certainly isn’t true all the time, noble and sophisticated can easily translate into boring. Think of our last four or five presidential candidates.
For all the prep we did with him, Warren was actually better when he didn’t stick to the prep. When he spoke simply and directly and passionately about his beliefs. The problem was, once he got away from the talking points, he tended to wander and sometimes get lost. Time was a big factor—a sixty-second response in many instances—so he had to be concise.
I wanted to get up and pace. Sort of tough to do when you’re sitting in a theater chair. I had a bad feeling about tonight. But then I had a bad feeling about every night. I suppose it’s the consultant’s version of flop sweat.
The debate was only a few minutes away, the audience packing the seats, the three journalists in place onstage and ready with their questions, and the microphones being tested and tested again. The atmosphere was that of a prizefight.
Kate leaned in and said, “I wish I’d gotten drunk for this.” She was feeling the pressure, too.
“Just smoke a couple of joints.”
She smiled and socked me in the arm. “Can you imagine what the press would do if I lit up a joint now?”
“They’re just as worried as we are,” I said, indicating the row where the upper echelon of Lake’s staffers sat.
“If they are, they’re hiding it better.”
And that was true. Our half row of people was decidedly reserved, where the Lake people were laughing and grinning and jabbering away at people around them. They were treating this like party time.
Gabe was staring off. If he was interested in anything around us, he wasn’t letting on.
The woman representing the university then walked to center stage with a hand microphone. She offered a pleasant, studied smile to the anxious audience and then went to work.
“I’m very happy to see that we have a full house for this very important debate tonight. I’d first like to thank the Wellington people for letting us use this beautiful new auditorium and for helping us bring this event to the public. They went above and beyond in making sure that we got everything we requested. And the same for state public television. They sent some of their best people here for three full days to give the candidates a chance to get used to the stage and the lighting and standing at the lecterns. The two gentlemen we’re bringing you tonight are under a lot of pressure to do well this evening, so having the opportunity to be familiar with the physical setup is a blessing for all of us, not just the crew.”
She moved downstage to where the three reporters were sitting at a long desk. Because they faced the stage, we could see them only by watching the big monitors suspended from the ceiling on both sides of the apron.
She introduced each journalist with abundant praise and then said, “Now let me present our guests for this evening.”
They appeared quickly, resolutely, both of them swollen with fake confidence and toothy swagger, both blue-suited, hair-spray neat, red-white-and-blue happy to be here among the voters. They’d both likely peed their
pants twice already.
The walk to the lectern went fine until Nichols stumbled when he was about three feet away from it. The audience gasped when it looked as if he might fall, then laughed when he not only righted himself but risked a courtly bow. He’d saved the moment. No need to put the cyanide capsule under my tongue just yet.
“That was really nice,” Laura whispered to me.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you can’t underestimate the value of a good stumble.”
“Oh, you.”
The hostess kept the bios brief. Each man got fulsome applause from his side of the aisle. They stood firm accepting it, gripping the lecterns as if they were guiding a ship through turbulent waters. They knew better than to smile as their applause peaked. It would look too Hollywood.
The debate, though it really wasn’t a debate at all, just a Q&A, began with the downstate reporter asking Warren if he regretted cosponsoring a bill that would have lessened mandatory prison terms for first-time drug users. “No regrets at all. If it’s proved that they were merely using and not selling, then confining them to prison is a waste of their lives and taxpayer money. The prison population is too big now because of mandatory sentencing. Even the ABA has come to question the fairness of five-year terms for possessing a small amount of pot or crack.”
Jim Lake, guardian of all that was right and holy, was quick to respond. “I have one question for my friend Warren Nichols. How can we be sure that a person is simply a user? Maybe all the police could find was a small amount. But maybe somewhere this person has a lot more than that. Maybe this person, unbeknownst to the justice system, is a major dealer. And maybe this person that Warren is so concerned for—maybe this is the same person who, allowed to walk the streets, will be the one who gets your son or daughter hooked on narcotics for life. I don’t have to tell you what a miserable life it is for every family member when one of their own becomes an addict. I have good friends who are going through this very thing right now.”