Anything Goes

by Larry King

  KEYES: We have a school system that needs to be put back in the hands of parents and all I’m sitting here listening to is these two guys go on about their ads.

  BUSH: He asked about it and—

  McCAIN:$#8230; we’re running nothing but a positive campaign from now on.$#8230;I hope George—

  KEYES: It seems to me, let their ad people go into a back room and fight it out and let the American people hear what they’ve got to hear about the issues.

  We had two commercial breaks and neither McCain or Bush said a word to each other. Even the debate I moderated between Dianne Feinstein and Michael Huffington in 1994 was warmer than this one. When it was over, I was happy with the job I had done. Indeed, we had gone through the you-said/no-I-didn’t routine in regard to ads but we had also covered a lot of real territory too.

  The visit Bush made to Bob Jones University seemed innocent enough to me at first. Ronald Reagan had gone there. So had Bush’s father and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. I disagreed with the rule that a black and white or Hispanic and an Asian couldn’t date and I thought the labeling of Catholicism as a cult was, well, out there with the wacko element, but I thought the decision to speak at Bob Jones was a good one. Issues like this bring me back to the feeling we don’t learn anything when we don’t talk to one another. And if George Bush had said “no thanks” to Bob Jones and gone somewhere else to campaign that day in February, we’d have never heard much about the rules at the university. My interest wasn’t in changing what I thought to be a completely insane view of the world in the name of Christ (and this wouldn’t be the first time that ever happened) as much as it was trying to understand how they could view the world this way.

  Bob Jones himself had appeared on my late-night radio program ten years earlier when the university lost its tax-exempt status in a Supreme Court ruling regarding private schools and social issues; in this case, interracial dating as well. We spent a few hours going through the reasons and taking calls from around the country. And when the issue came up after the Bush speech, Jones called me asking for an hour to make his case and talk about the effect the interracial dating controversy was having on the school. He appeared and we talked about it. And he had a surprise:

  JONES: I don’t think it’s taking it too far, but I can tell you this, we don’t have to have that rule. In fact, as of today, we have dropped the rule. We have dropped the rule for this reason.

  KING: Today?

  JONES: Today.

  That one came out of the blue. Nobody was expecting it. I considered Bob Jones to be one of those people living in the past, hanging on to wrong ideas and not being swayed by either logic or society’s will. This decision took a lot of guts and I admired the administration of Bob Jones University for having the ability to decide they were on the wrong side of the issue. After that show, Jones called me to say thank you. I told him he could be proud that the issue had finally been put away and he had done the right thing. I didn’t say anything about future candidates for president coming to Bob Jones University, though. Somehow, I think those days are over.

  George W. Bush won the South Carolina primary with 60 percent of the Republican vote. It was a win he needed and, as soon as we had the results, talk turned to Michigan and Arizona where primaries were scheduled in less than three days.

  SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY, 2000

  · George W. Bush: 53%

  ·

  · John McCain: 42%

  ·

  · Alan Keyes: 5%

  ·

  I was in South Africa on a speaking tour the following week. In question-and-answer sessions everyone wanted to know about John McCain. Half a world away, everyone knew the former POW was the excitement in the campaign. I was asked questions about why George W. and McCain don’t like each other and if this might split the Republican party to the point the Democrats can fill in the gap. I was amazed at the perceptive questions and the ability to read the pulse of the United States from so far away. And then I realized, these guys are watching the same programs everyone in the United States watches. CNN is everywhere and that’s something I still have to get used to. Distance between most countries is measured only on a map now.

  I certainly understood the interest in the Republican battle. McCain was proving he could get in the way of the grand plan for George W. Bush to be the nominee. This had really become a lively run for the nomination. The media, whatever that is, had been criticized for being on the side of McCain. That was a simplification, which is the MO of media critics. I was enjoying the competitive race being delivered by the “Straight Talk Express,” because I wanted to see a real horse race. McCain and Bush were forcing each other to be better candidates, just as was happening between Bradley and Gore. McCain and Bradley were the rebels. All of it was healthy. Like talking to those with whom there are disagreements, challenging the way things are is always a good check and balance. And we should do it more often than we do.

  The race was not only healthy, it was interesting. McCain took Michigan with the help of independent voters, who could vote in the Republican primary. When I watched the results I didn’t even have the TV clicker in my hand because I wanted to see where this story was going next. It was a moment that had captured the imagination of the country. For the Republican party, the issue became “what do we do now?” For the McCain campaign it was also “what do we do now?” With a week before the Big Kahuna called Super Tuesday (which every pundit said would result in each party having a nominee) I was sorry to think this was coming to an end.

  Al Gore and Bill Bradley, for the most part, had been wiped off, to use another favored phrase, “the radar screen.” (l can’t link this phrase to any pundit who used to run a campaign.) They had faced each other at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which resulted in an exchange of one-liners about racial profiling. And then they met in a final exchange that seemed totally lackluster. Joe Klein of The New Yorker described it on the air as the first debate between candidates after the campaign has ended. Another panel member, Tony Blankley, the former press secretary to Newt Gingrich, had another take on why Bradley seemed off his game:

  BLANKLEY: We are contrasting Bradley’s performance, the vigor and energy level at Apollo and the other debates, with the energy level tonight. Now something has to explain why it switched. I think most of us think we know what it is, which is that he’s pretty much given up making a fight out of it.

  In fact, after that debate the discussion moved on to who Al Gore was going to select as his vice president. That was the moment I knew we had come to the end of Bill Bradley.

  ——

  On Super Tuesday, one third of all the delegates needed for the party nomination were selected. In fact, 39 percent of the electorate had a chance to go to the polls. Never before has there been such a Super on a Tuesday. And it was a romp. Gore won in a shutout, Bush took nine states including two caucuses and McCain won four in New England. To borrow a line my radio friend Don Imus uses twenty-seven times every hour (and he hasn’t copyrighted this as far as I know), “it’s over.” In fact, it was so “over,” that within half an hour of the program that night, we started in again with possible Bush and Gore selections for vice president. I remember this evening because each panelist (Bill Bennett, Bob Woodward, Dee Dee Myers, and Former Senator George Mitchell) began their observations with the words “anything is possible.” Even though the evening was a romp, in these times of “anything is possible” or “anything goes,” the job of a pundit becomes all the more difficult.

  When Bradley came on to congratulate the vice president, I had the feeling he would call it a game right there. Yeah, you guessed it. Larry was wrong. The panel started dissecting why Bradley’s “new politics,” as he called it, was a nonstarter. Bob Woodward said there had always been a distance between the candidate and the voter. The expectation was he would go one way (endorse Gore) and the reality was he didn’t.

  WOODWARD: It’s almost as if he thought he was playing bas
ketball, that somehow if people could have him, if they knew he was going to move left and shoot right, they’d be able to block the shot.

  KING: He was in a zone, and he wants to stay in that zone.

  I walked away from Super Tuesday thinking about the next eight months. There would be two conventions and there would be debates, and certainly, there would be lengthy discussions about vice presidents. If the experience of the last few months was any indication of things to come, Bush and Gore were going to show their differences by attacking rather than having an intellectual discussion. They had learned their lessons from political combat. We’d still hear complaints about negative ads but we’d watch them. It made me wonder if there might be another way.

  I imagined future candidates would have something like a “Gore Channel.” One could use their TV clicker and see the candidate live, maybe even have a conversation with the candidate while sitting in their own home, find out positions the candidate has on abortion (that issue ain’t going away), learn where they will appear next for a debate, and, no doubt, watch their opponent be defined as a part of the Establishment-Politics-As-Usual Club.

  Maybe someday campaigns will seek out independent voters with ads on shows like Larry King Live aimed directly at them. The ad would be a presidential candidate calling the viewer by name and saying what a schmuck his or her opponent is while asking for a donation. Maybe we really could vote from our homes via the Internet, and maybe it will take place over a weekend rather than on a Tuesday in the middle of a workweek? Maybe there will be another third party candidate who will shake up the other two?

  I decided all of that is just one crazy idea after another, resulting from being tired after a long day. But as I said that to myself, I realized we are living in a time when crazy ideas have a way of becoming real.

  SUPER TUESDAY, 2000

  Number of state primaries: 11

  Number of state caucuses: 5

  Total delegates: 1,315 Democrat (2,170 needed to nominate)

  605 Republican (1,034 needed to nominate)

  · Al Gore: 859 delegates

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  · George W. Bush: 552 delegates

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  · Bill Bradley: 324 delegates

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  · John McCain: 106 delegates

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  · Alan Keyes: 0

  ·

  Number of states with record turnout in GOP primary: 6

  Number of states with lower voter turnout in GOP primary: 2

  Number of debates: Republicans: 13

  Democrats: 9

  Source: Federal Election Commission

  Committee for the Study of the American Electorate

  CHAPTER TEN

  Too Much and Not Enough

  May 2000, Los Angeles. Having some experience with political campaigns, dating back to smacking Senator John F. Kennedy’s car in Palm Beach two years before he announced for president, I don’t give anybody an argument when the topic turns to “these things go on too long.” But then you have to ask questions (which I have been known to do from time to time), like what is too long and how much is too much? And every time I’ve done this there is a long moment as the wheels turn in search of the answer. “Too long” and “too much” are accurate descriptions, but where do you go after making the point? The answer is, I have absolutely no idea and neither does anybody else.

  All of this was going through my head after we knew George Bush and Al Gore were the nominees eight months before the election. If you asked them, and I did, what do you do until the conventions, the answer is “work hard, get the message out, talk with real Americans, and put in place a party of inclusion, not exclusion.” All of this is lofty and good, but between Super Tuesday and the October debates, I don’t think a lot of people are paying a lot of attention to the next president of the United States. And when you have stories about a six-year-old child plucked from the Atlantic Ocean after his mother drowns trying to get him out of Cuba, well, there aren’t even a lot of people paying attention to the current president of the United States.

  Look at it this way: My wife, Shawn, was about to give birth to our second son, Cannon, and the time from conception to delivery was shorter than the time from the New Hampshire primary to election day. So it takes longer to campaign for the most powerful job in the world than it does to bring a child into the world. When I mentioned this fact to Shawn, who at the time was in her eighth month, she made it clear real fast that if anything is too much and too long, it sure isn’t the length of a presidential campaign. It was, to be diplomatic here, a brief conversation.

  On one hand, with 500 channels and the Internet available, you would think a candidate could get the word out about vision and issues and differences from others seeking the same job quicker than the way it was with only three networks and PBS. On the other hand, with 500 channels and nonstop news cycles and polling and the Internet, there is an information overload. So every time I would hear people say there was too much coverage of the Bush-Gore race using talking heads and pollsters and pundits, I had to ask, “Well, would you prefer there be not enough coverage?” And then we start all over again as to where “not enough” ends and “too much” begins. Besides, even though we were eight months out from election day, both Gore and Bush were trying to appeal to the independent voter. I was fascinated by it. And, despite the little boy named Elian, I knew I was in the minority.

  Of course, we could make rules, such as the campaign begins on a particular day and no sooner. And of course, if we did that, within two minutes of the rule going on the books, every candidate (and unannounced candidate) would be out there months or maybe years prior to the start date on a “listening tour” or “fact-finding mission” while raising a million dollars with a coffee klatch at Sid and Donna Schweitzer’s house. The fact of it is, campaigns go on too long. I’ve never interviewed a guest who has said, “You know, Larry, I wish I could spend more money as a candidate” or “You know, Larry, I’m here to announce I’m in for the 2008 election.” We’ve been talking about campaign finance reform for years and as we do, the Republicans raise $19 million on the same evening that Democrats raise $26 million. Now that can be called “right” or it can be called “wrong.” But everyone also agrees you can’t make a rule saying only $794.67 can be raised per evening for a candidate. Too long and too much and too expensive are too much a part of these times. It happens when anything goes.

  ——

  In May 1999 we scheduled Al Gore to host Larry King Live for one night. It was more than a month before he announced his candidacy and we scheduled an issue-oriented panel, including Oprah Winfrey for the interview. But it didn’t happen. E-mails started circulating around CNN about the proposed show from concerned staffers. Republican National Committee Chairman, Jim Nicholson, wrote me a letter expressing concerns about what we were going to do. Me? I thought it was a decent idea. After all, we had already used Ross Perot, Ann Richards, and Newt Gingrich as substitute hosts. I promoted the show in the nights leading up to the scheduled broadcast. How often does a vice president host a TV show? But the question became, Should a vice president host a TV show when even someone on Pluto knows he’s going to run for the White House? CNN gave up on the plan and that night I had to cancel a black-tie event I was supposed to emcee and go to work. I understood the concern and I backed the decision, but on a personal level, the issue seemed much ado about nothing. I was asked about it at lunch and dinner for weeks afterward and every time I said the same thing, “Folks, it’s a talk show. It ain’t rocket science. It ain’t gonna change the November election, which, last time I looked, was still more than eighteen months away.” There is nothing wrong with the vice president of the United States hosting one night. Had CNN said Al Gore or Bill Bradley or George W. Bush or John McCain could host a week’s worth of shows, then an argument could be made for a candidate (or noncandidate) having an unfair advantage. But it never was suggested. I saw the entire episode as one more example of jo
urnalism becoming too involved in its own self-importance.

  But it also brought up the how-much-is-too-much question (and this was happening more and more). If one night of Al Gore is okay but five nights of Al Gore isn’t, then where is the line of demarcation? Is it two nights or is it one and a half? Should each candidate appear in the same week or should this only occur on Thursdays so they aren’t up against Survivor? I didn’t have the answer. Nobody did. I’ll lay odds nobody ever will. To this day I will tell you the whole argument was about air: You couldn’t see where too much began or where an okay ended.