Anything Goes

by Larry King

  It was a tough call. Before this time the guiding principle had been if you are an incumbent president you have the advantage of stature$#8230;Frankly we were slow to pick up on it. Clinton didn’t care. Clinton didn’t have anything to lose. What we discovered was Clinton was making it work for him, so that we had to take the chance.

  Marlin was right. On the week that Clinton nailed the last-needed delegate to guarantee a trip to New York for the Democratic nomination, he spent an hour with Dan Rather answering questions from viewers. The next day he showed up on Arsenio Hall’s late-night TV show in shades with a saxophone. Arsenio had an audience that everyone else had been talking about for months as “disaffected” or “disenfranchised” or just “dissed” about politics. The fact of the matter was nobody had ever tried to reach them other than through dry public service announcements about the importance of getting involved in the political process. The dissed were expected to go to the party rather than the party go to the dissed. When you think about it, this was a lousy way to increase participation. Clinton took questions about the Elvis Stamp, voter apathy, and racism. It was clear he connected and it was just the beginning. Interestingly enough, President Bush held a hastily called news conference the next day. The White House was catching on.

  That very evening, I had my first opportunity to talk with Clinton. I was in the Washington studio and he was at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock. As we waited to go on the air I did a quick voice check to make sure he could hear me and that I could hear him.

  “How you doing, Mr. Governor?” I asked.

  Clinton looked right at the camera. “Larry King. Well, well, well.” He smiled. “I used to listen to you late at night here in Arkansas. And now here I am.”

  I didn’t say it but my thoughts went immediately to what seemed an obvious question after half a year of hearing about women. “And what, Mr. Clinton, were you doing while you listened to me on the radio?” That was the moment I took the cue from the floor director and we were off and running. Clinton covered health care, the deficit, foreign policy, and even his TV appearance twenty-four hours earlier.

  CALLER: I was just curious about the motives behind Mr. Clinton appearing on the Arsenio Hall show and if he wonders if that might have the same effect on him or his campaign as it did to Michael Dukakis getting into the tank?

  KING: The playing the clarinet I guess is the question. Do you think that was kind of light stuff?

  I should add right here the majority of the mail I received as a result of that show wasn’t about the interview with the man who was going to become the Democratic candidate for president of the United States. It was about why I was such an idiot that I can’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a clarinet. The answer is, it beats me.

  CLINTON: Well, it was light stuff. I respect Arsenio Hall. He invited me to come on his show. He has a young audience of nonvoters, a lot of people who don’t vote, whose lives are at stake in this election, who are worried about their country and their future.

  We were now a little more than a month away from the Democratic convention, so I asked the always necessary question about whether or not he had picked a vice president. It did seem to me that the Veep Question was being asked even sooner than ever—if that was possible. Things sure were moving faster these days. And it allowed the talking heads, which I admit to watching all the time, opportunities to prognosticate about potential vice presidential candidates on the basis of geography or potential electoral votes. Clinton said he had shortened the list but wouldn’t bite on any of the possibilities I threw at him, which included Bill Bradley, who had taken himself out of any running for president. Clinton said he wasn’t going to be put under any time constraints. When you think about it, it’s an insane question. Never has there been a candidate who has said to me, “Well yes, Larry, as a matter of fact I have made the decision,” and proceeded to name names. I don’t think that will ever change. And yeah, I’m going to keep asking.

  Less than two weeks later I was talking to Bill Clinton again. He had met with visiting Russian president Boris Yeltsin at Blair House just across the street from the White House. I thought it interesting that a visiting head of state would take the time to meet with a possible head of state but, like I say, these were different times. Maybe Boris Yeltsin was aware George Bush was having trouble in the polls, which came out every two seconds, so he decided to cover all the bases. But this interview taught me something about Bill Clinton.

  KING: What did Boris Yeltsin have to say today?

  CLINTON: He said he had been up and down in politics. He’d never quit. And he said whatever happens in this election or the next one or the next one, it’s important just to stick by your convictions. That’s what I like about him. He’s not a quitter. His political obituary has been written many times but he genuinely believed in something bigger than himself.

  Hanging in there was a quality by which the country had come to know Bill Clinton. He stayed on course despite “bimbo eruptions,” as they came to be called. My impression after the second interview was this guy had staying power. And that’s an admirable quality for anyone sitting in the Oval Office.

  In case you are wondering, yeah, I asked the Veep Question again. No decision. I figured it this way: Since he was from Arkansas, the veep was going to come from the North to provide a needed geographic balance to the ticket. Just before the Democratic convention, Clinton announced that Senator Al Gore from neighboring Tennessee was the choice. Being wrong about Bill Clinton was becoming a second career for me.

  ———

  Prior to that year’s Republican convention, Dan Quayle spent an hour talking with me about his four years as the vice president and why voters should give him another four to complete the Bush-Quayle agenda. I always liked Quayle but I thought our introduction to him four years earlier in New Orleans when the Indiana senator bounded up on the stage as George Bush announced him to be the Running Mate was not exactly what we would envision for the guy holding the second-in-command position. And Quayle got knocked unmercifully. And unfairly. In a number of interviews I had with him since, it has always been clear the guy knows his stuff. So I was looking forward to sitting down with him one more time.

  The Supreme Court had upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring parental consent before a minor could have an abortion. Quayle had praised the decision, saying it was a move in the right direction. And since we were less than a month before the Republican convention, which had a plank in its platform advocating a constitutional amendment banning abortion, I asked Quayle about it.

  KING: What if your daughter came to you with that problem all fathers fear?

  QUAYLE: I hope I never have to deal with it. But obviously I would counsel her and talk to her and support her on whatever decision she made.

  KING: And if the decision were abortion?

  QUAYLE: I’d support my daughter. I’d hope she wouldn’t make that decision.

  All hell broke loose after that interview. And I walked off the set saying to the staff we made news. “Did you hear it?” I asked Tammy Haddad, my producer. “He said if Perot supporters vote for Clinton then they should split their tickets and vote for a Republican Congress. We’re gonna be the lead story again.”

  “Larry,” she said, “that wasn’t the news.”

  Tammy was right. Suddenly, Quayle’s answers were thrown to his wife, who was interviewed on a Des Moines radio station. She said if Corinne became pregnant, she would take the child to term. The vice president was in Indiana the next day and said there had been no change in his position on abortion. Bill Clinton was asked what he’d do if Chelsea became pregnant and said he wouldn’t talk to the press about it, which was probably the best answer of the entire escapade. There was no mention of ticket splitting. I thought Quayle had answered honestly about offering support and I gotta say I still don’t see how ticket splitting wasn’t the story out of that interview.

  While the Clinton campaign was on a roll
, Ross Perot was having trouble. Big trouble. He had gone to Nashville for a speech before the NAACP, parts of which the audience took to be insulting. I’m positive he didn’t mean it that way but the damage was done. Poll numbers were dropping. By the end of the Democratic convention in New York City, which was as boring as the Republican convention because, again, we knew the result, Ross made a decision he would later tell me was a mistake. He got out. It was complete surprise. If 1992 had been a TV script, it couldn’t have been written without an editor saying “this just isn’t believable.”

  The next morning the New York Post had a photo of Ross with the headline “What A Wimp.” That night he was back in the studio with me.

  KING: Why?

  PEROT: I looked carefully at the facts. The greatest concern I have is to deliver the goods for the people. Once we are in a three-way race, it would wind up in the House of Representatives. There are not so many independents in the House so—

  KING: But you knew that going in, Ross—

  PEROT: I know but I didn’t think it would be a three-way race. My whole plan was that we could win in November.

  I could tell Ross had been through a lot. And I asked him about the 148 days since February 20 when so many things changed in just an hour. Ross said he wasn’t aware how “vicious and petty it was inside the tent.”

  KING: It looks like, or is perceived by many, that when you leave it you’re saying, “Hey that’s the way the tent is. I told you I could fight the tent. I can’t fight the tent.”

  PEROT: I have said that I don’t believe the proper course of action is to have me run as president. I do believe the proper course of action is take all of these talented creative people that have mobilized themselves across the country and use that to correct the problems inside the tent.

  While a lot of people later told me they watched this interview and didn’t believe Ross was worried about the election being thrown into the House and the real reason was he just didn’t want to go through the crap anymore, I kept an open mind while sitting with him. I was in shock at what had happened over the past twenty-four hours but, at the same time, I was willing to just listen and watch and, maybe, learn from what had just happened. Even today I look back at the ninety minutes with Ross that summer night and accept his words at face value. But I know that headline in the New York Post hurt him.

  When the show ended, I could tell Ross was feeling a lot better than when we began. Still, at lunch the next day, people came up to me saying, “What’s wrong with that guy?” I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t even know if there was anything wrong. Ross is complicated. So are a lot of successful people.

  The thing about this business is how fast things happen. Perot was in and then he was at the top and then he was gone. George Bush had been unbeatable a year earlier and now was fighting for his political life. Bill Clinton had begun the year as damaged goods and now he had the nomination. And in each case I had been flat-out wrong. In each case I looked at the “now” and said to myself, “That’s it” or “Nothing is going to change” or “Tomorrow doesn’t matter.” Here is what I learned in 1992: It ain’t tomorrow as much as it’s the next moment. That’s what I mean about things speeding up. News travels faster. That’s the easy part. Predicting it, forget about it. Reacting to it, that’s what takes some time.

  There was a lot of reacting to do. Perot was back in one month before the November election. When I heard it, I just shook my head. I didn’t think 1992 could get any weirder. And when I heard the news about Ross, I stopped thinking about the year and that adjective in the same sentence.

  But since we are on the subject of weird, “the talk show campaign” was in full swing. Newspaper columnists had been using that phrase since Clinton’s Arsenio Hall appearance a few months earlier. And I was getting requests from all over the country to lecture at journalism schools and before private organizations to explain the phenomenon and answer questions about why I decided to put political candidates on my television show. The demands of both television and radio kept me from accepting any of these offers, which was a good thing. You see, I’d have accepted the invitations, taken the speaking fee, appeared as scheduled, and said, “Folks, I have no idea what’s happening because I’m not doing anything different than I’ve done for the past thirty years.” There would have been a lot of time for questions and answers.

  With five weeks to go before election day, George Bush and Bill Clinton and Ross Perot were all doing interviews and, in most cases, taking phone calls. Bush agreed to a taped interview on a Sunday at the White House. This meant no phone calls. I thought that was a mistake but was grateful to have the chance to ask some questions of the president. And I figured it this way: It’s a beginning.

  BUSH: I hope you understand that we’ve just resisted call-ins in the White House. Maybe I’m overly respectful of the trust that Barbara and I have to keep this place as dignified as possible. But I look forward to coming on your show and answering any questions they can throw—curveballs, straight balls, fastballs.

  I didn’t agree but I wasn’t going to pursue it with the president of the United States right outside the Lincoln Bedroom. He was an interesting guy and I was eager to ask some questions. Bush had talking points for the interview, one of which was the bad rap he was getting every single day. It was media-bashing time and it’s something that is always the topic when things aren’t going well inside the Beltway. You go after the messenger instead of looking at the message. Bush was double digits behind Bill Clinton.

  BUSH: One thing about the campaign, these final stages, the debates: You can take your case to the American people. I have not been happy with the press, but that’s not— I’m not going to dwell on that.

  KING: But you also—isn’t it true that you— Did you miss the recession, or did it come late? Are you insulated here, and didn’t see it? What happened in that?

  BUSH: Well, that’s a charge that maybe I was being too technical. The national definition of a recession, I believe, is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

  KING: Yes.

  BUSH: Your listeners may have trouble believing this: We have had five quarters of positive growth in a row. So, when I said, “There isn’t a recession” last fall, technically, I was right. But I should have done it recognizing that there’s a hell of a lot of people hurting.

  Twenty-four hours later I was in Ocala, Florida, with Governor Clinton and Al Gore, who were on a bus trip to gather votes. It was a crisp evening and there was a crowd of more than two hundred people gathered around us. I kept thinking how different this was from my location just a day earlier. And while I have always been impressed walking through the White House and wishing a painting or a chair could tell just one story when you realize the history that has occurred inside those walls, I was, in all honesty, more interested in being outside with the people yelling and the temperature dropping and the wind speed increasing. This ain’t exactly a common feeling for a Jew from Brooklyn but I could feel the energy in the air, literally.

  Part of the energy was coming from James Carville, the Clinton campaign’s fast-talking strategist, who was always available to spin a story. He was dressed in jeans everywhere he went. Later, I remember him coming to both my radio and television show dressed the same way after spending hours in high-level meetings with the president. On that day, with the campaign still in full swing, James waved and we spent a few minutes talking baseball before the interview. And I told him about all the offers I was getting to speak about talk shows and the fact I had nothing to say because nothing, as far as I could tell, had changed. Carville cut in as he is wont to do when he disagrees.

  “Larry, you may be doing the same thing but the world outside your studio is changing. Hell, Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks and he said that’s where the money could be found. The governor and Perot and, finally, the president, are all going on talk shows because that’s where the voters can be found.”

  The ninety minutes
with Clinton and Gore in Ocala went fast. We covered issues ranging from the House and Senate overriding President Bush’s veto of the cable bill, the economy, the efforts to find out what happened to MIAs from Vietnam and, of course, the effect of Ross Perot on the election. And we talked about something called NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement—among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—which Clinton said needed more work before he could be on board. When the show was over, Clinton and Gore went into the crowd and shook every hand, holding conversations and asking questions.

  Two days later I was sitting with President Bush again, this time in San Antonio, where he had, that very afternoon, signed the NAFTA proposal with President Salinas of Mexico. All it needed now was ratification in Congress. The White House was pleased with the interview he had done with me Sunday night so the decision was made to get him out of the Oval Office. A series of debates were about to take place among the three candidates and this was a good time for him to interact with real people. Bush told me, though, he wasn’t particularly excited about doing a debate.

  KING: How much do you think, Mr. President, is dependent on these debates?