The first thing Harry did that night was something he could’ve done at any time before but had postponed: he searched the Internet to see if any of The Eight had their own Web pages. A personal Web page is a flagrant display of egotism, which is another way of saying that every politician has to have one. Sure enough, six of The Eight had Web pages, some of them dignified and patriotic and stressing family values, decency, no taxes, all that crap, but some of them had unintentional gaffes, clumsy bad taste, and even clues for Harry to pursue in search of the candidate’s extremist support or faulty public record. Having downloaded all those Web pages to his computer, he then ran a Bigfoot search on each of The Eight: for a reasonable fee per hit (charged to his Mastercard), he could get what Bigfoot.com calls a Supersearch: all the known information about the person, including names and phones of the person’s neighbors (very handy, because your friendly neighbor probably resents the hell out of you and is more than willing to gossip and dish the dirt on you from his ringside seat), the previous addresses of the person going back ten years (politicians who move around a lot, like any fly-by-night miscreant, are fugitives from justice), as well as a summary of assets, and a complete record of any bankruptcies, civil judgments, or UCC lien filings. Bigfoot is a big bargain. Harry was ready to hit the street.
Monday, after a late breakfast from room service, he put on his suit and walked over to the county courthouse to start searching for overdue property taxes, government liens, mortgage records, and lawsuits—routine basic information. He found a few lawsuits involving some of The Eight which offered juicy reading and also provided him, as a bonus, with the names of the litigants, who were all now sworn enemies of one of The Eight and would each have further secrets to share with Harry. He made a few phone calls and set up a few appointments, lunches, or cocktail meetings.
Walking from that courthouse back to his hotel, he passed the Old State House, Gideon Shryock’s antebellum neoclassical masterpiece. In his computer he had the entire text of The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, and he knew the full story of how Jacob Ingledew had stood in the chamber of this building, not once but twice (and the second time all alone), to cast his vote against Arkansas’s secession from the Union. As far as Harry could determine from what he considered a rather frivolous novel, Jacob Ingledew had been just an old Ozark hillbilly, not very literate or grammatical, but possessed of enough good sense and dignity to make him vote his conscience. The thought of his bravery, which had occurred in this very building Harry gazed upon, made Harry gulp. He is a cynical man, as you’ve determined, but he is touched by human decency wherever he finds it.
Then he phoned Hank Endicott at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, to call in some favors. He knew Lydia had already talked to him, but she hadn’t told Harry about the call. If she had, he could have told her that Hank and he went way back and were the best of buddies, at least to the extent that a pariah like Harry could have a friend. When Endicott had gone to Washington back in 1993 for a whole year to cover Clinton’s early performance in the White House, and out of which he’d written a great book called Rascal: A President’s First Year, Harry had run into him in the bar of the National Press Club and introduced himself (Endicott claimed that “everybody knows who Harry Wolfe is”), and once Harry learned Endicott’s motive for being in town he offered to introduce him to some newspaper pals of his at the Post and Star who could show him the ropes of the dc scene. During Endicott’s year in town Harry had met him for drinks on several other occasions, and once—just once, but that was unprecedented—he’d had him up to his Georgetown apartment to view his extensive collection of political memorabilia. So Endicott owed him.
“My God,” Endicott said. “Lydia Caple told me all about this Ingledew, but she didn’t say you were on the team too.” Harry assured him he was, and conjectured that Lydia had neglected to mention him because there was still an odor of ill repute about oppo men. He asked Hank if he’d care to meet him after work for a drink, and learned that the bar of his hotel, The Capital, was the chosen watering hole anyhow. But Hank said, “Listen, Harry, I’ve got a column in tomorrow’s paper about Ingledew. Maybe you’d better read it before we meet.” So they set their bar date for the following afternoon.
Harry spent the rest of the day at the Little Rock Public Library. Despite whatever thrilling image oppo researching may have, most of the hard work is actually done in the library. But most oppo men just walk in, blind, and start looking around. Harry took the trouble to ingratiate himself to one of the head librarians, a splendid fellow named Bob Razer, who, it turned out, was delighted to learn of Vernon Ingledew’s candidacy because he was a major fan of Harington’s fictions. Razer showed Harry a case in which all eleven of Harington’s books were kept in first editions. Razer was thrilled at the prospect of being able to read more about Vernon, and he conjectured, “Maybe Harington will write a novel about this campaign.”
“He’s already started it,” Harry pointed out.
When Razer learned Harry’s objective, he was only too happy to direct him to a few sources he might otherwise have overlooked, and even to permit him to tap into some databases that were not customarily available to the public. Razer is, it can’t be said enough, a splendid fellow.
The next morning a copy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was delivered to Harry’s door at The Capital and he climbed back into bed with it and his breakfast. He turned at once to Hank Endicott’s column. Harry blushes easily and he could feel his face flushing over the headline on it:
A Clown’s Hat is Tossed into a Three-Ring Circus.
Remember Monroe Schwarzlose? Remember “Uncle Mac” McKrell? How about Crazy Joe Weston or Crazy Kenneth Coffelt? And then there was always Tommy Robinson and Sheffield Nelson.
Without the ill-fated, bumbling campaigns of such colorful characters, Arkansas politics would have been even duller than it already was, given the decline of stump speaking. Schwarzlose dared to run against Bill Clinton four times, and the first time he tried he somehow got 30 percent of the vote (only 5 percent the other times).
Now comes Vernon Ingledew, whose name isn’t quite as picturesque as “Monroe Schwarzlose” but who is even more of a political novice, and makes old Monroe look like a sage statesman. We’ve all (except Paul Greenberg) eaten Ingledew Ham, “the Smithfield of the Ozarks,” but that’s about all we know about him.
He’s abandoning his pig works in tiny Stay More, up in the remotest wilds of Newton County, in order to make a run (or at least a winded walk) against the eight other candidates already filed for the Democratic primary.
Schwarzlose had some good ideas, possibly ahead of their time: he wanted a statewide lottery, he proposed solving the problems of deteriorating roads and hazardous waste disposal by using the waste to fill the potholes, and he envisioned putting hydroelectric plants on the dams of the Arkansas River. Ingledew’s ideas, what little is known about them at this early stage, appear even more ahead of their time.
His near-invisible credentials—he has never held any office and isn’t a college graduate—include being possessed of extremely good looks and the fact that he’s a direct descendant of Jacob Ingledew, Arkansas governor during Reconstruction, whose best-known achievement, apart from casting the lone vote against Secession, was taxing the bankrupt state back into solvency.
Well, “Too-Tall” Tom McRae was the great-grandson of an Arkansas governor, but it didn’t get him past Clinton in the Democratic primary of 1990. Unlike Ingledew, McRae was thoroughly familiar with politics, having served as staff coordinator for Governor Dale Bumpers.
Speaking of Bumpers, Ingledew’s few supporters have probably encouraged him with the fabulous story of how young Dale Bumpers came out of nowhere in 1970 to run against and defeat Orval Faubus and his powerful machine in the Democratic primary and then to beat Winthrop Rockefeller in the general election.
Bumpers’ fantastic rise from absolute obscurity in less than three months might have prompted Ingledew to seek
out the man who was one of its architects: Archie Schaffer III, then just a 22-year-old college graduate who also happened to be Bumpers’ nephew, and who is now—or was, until Ingledew hired him—head of PR at giant Tyson Foods.
But Schaffer, best known for the “Free Archie” campaign leading to his pardon by the lame duck President for a trumped-up charge of currying favor for Tyson, took a leave at Tyson not to be Ingledew’s campaign manager but only the deputy or associate campaign manager.
The top man on Ingledew’s expensive staff of topflight professionals is none other than Bolin Pharis, veteran of many a local and national campaign, accused of losing the presidency for Al Gore. Pharis supposedly quit politics after that fiasco and, like Schaffer, went to work as PR chief for a Fortune 500 company, but something about Ingledew not only got him to change his mind about politics but, again like Schaffer, to take a leave of absence from his company. With a pair like Pharis and Schaffer, who needs anybody else? But you still want the best possible press secretary, right? So who do you hire? Somebody with vast experience in journalism as well as a stint in the Arkansas governor’s office, somebody like…well, would you buy Lydia Caple? They bought her, and she hasn’t been happier for years, she says.
Enough already? No, there’s more: Lydia Caple brought onto the team one of the best administrative assistants from the governor’s office during the Clinton years, the unfortunately named Monica Breedlove, who bears no resemblance whatever to her infamous namesake. Also, the seasoned media expert Carleton Drew was hired away from Washington, perhaps to find ways to circumvent Ingledew’s declared intention to shun television.
Can you believe a campaign without constant spots? Ingledew, if nothing else, is going to be spotless.
The sixth member of the ferocious team is young: Castor Sherrill, Harvard MBA and Bolin Pharis’ protegé in PR. And last but not least, someone who ought to strike fear into the hearts of all the other candidates: the man who will handle opposition research and is in Little Rock right now hard at work laying bare every aspect of their lives, America’s paramount political spy, Harry Wolfe.
Never before has a candidate for public office in Arkansas (or any other state, for that matter) assembled a staff such as these Seven Samurai, as they call themselves, not necessarily smiling. How did Ingledew do it? Well, money of course. He apparently has unlimited resources. But also there’s that something about him, which, if the Samurai can package it and present it to the voters effectively, might well get him past the primary.
Even Monroe Schwarzlose could have won if he’d had these people in his corner.
Harry was of course flattered to be identified as “paramount,” but the first thing he said to Hank Endicott that afternoon, meeting him at the Capital Bar, was “What gives you the authority to call Ingledew a clown?”
“They’re all clowns, Harry,” he said. They shook hands and clapped each other on the back and looked each other over. Harry liked to think that if he could just lose about a hundred pounds, he might look like Hank Endicott. Not that Endicott’s skinny, by a long shot, but that Harry was obese.
“Do you think our clown stands a chance against the other clowns?” Harry asked him.
“In a field of nine, nobody’s going to get a majority,” Hank observed.
“But if the primary were held tomorrow, who would come out ahead?”
“Tomorrow?” Hank deliberated. “If the primary were held tomorrow, your boy wouldn’t get 1 percent of the vote, which was Dale Bumpers’ percentage in the first poll after he announced.”
“So if the pie is sliced nine ways, and my man gets just a sliver, who gets the biggest piece?”
“Probably Barnas, the state senator. He’s got the best organization, and he’s leading the polls.”
“That was my reading too,” Harry agreed, because he was thoroughly familiar with the polls and the organizational strengths of the opposition. Then he said, “Tell me, Hank, have you heard of something called the ‘Ouachita Militia’?”
“That’s pronounced Wash-it-taw,” Hank corrected Harry’s pronunciation. “Sure. A bunch of neo-Nazis.” The Ouachita Militia was a big, rich, not-so-secret right-wing paramilitary group, operating primarily out of Mena, in the Ouachita Mountains west of Little Rock.
“Well,” Harry said, leaning toward him, “they are bankrolling James Barnas.”
“You’re kidding me!” Hank exclaimed. “Says who?”
Harry smiled. “I can’t reveal my sources, just as you can’t reveal yours.”
“But can it be proved?” Hank wanted to know. “Can it be documented? If it’s true, Barnas’s ass is grass.”
“So there’s one down, seven to go,” Harry declared.
Hank’s cell phone rang, and he answered it, talked a while, scoffed, talked some more, snorted, talked some more, grunted, finally hung up, and said, “No, there are three down, five to go. That was Ned Green, up at the office, with some news. ‘This just in.’ Three of the nine candidates in the Democratic primary for governor of Arkansas have withdrawn from the race.” And he named the three, mostly minor: the automobile dealer, the state representative, and the briefly former governor. Vernon Ingledew wasn’t one of them.
Harry clapped Hank on the shoulder. “Your column did it, Hank! They’re scared shitless of me!”
Hank laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. They’ve pissed their pants over the whole Seven Samurai, not just you.” He fished out his cell phone. “Excuse me, I’d like for you to meet someone.” And he made a quick call. Harry was hoping, against hope, that Hank might be setting him up with a desirable female of his acquaintance.
But they went on talking politics, and agreeing to help each other during the campaign. Out of Hank’s sense of journalistic ethics, he would not steer Harry to reports or rumors he hadn’t been able to pin down or hadn’t already written about, and out of Harry’s sense of tightfisted management of his intelligence (referring of course not to his fabulous IQ but his collection of secret information) Harry would not reveal to him all the dirt he’d found.
Who joined them wasn’t a lady at all but a creepy-looking little guy in tweeds and thick spectacles. Harry might not have got his name right: it sounded like “Garth Rucker.” When Hank made the introductions, Harry thought the guy was going to prostrate himself at Harry’s feet.
“Oh, Mr. Wolfe!” he said, holding Harry’s hand in both of his and shaking it up and down. “I couldn’t believe it when I read Hank’s column and learned you were in town, sir! What a pleasure this is! How thrilled I am to meet you, sir!” and he went on lionizing Harry until Hank interrupted him.
“You guys haven’t met before?” Hank asked. “At the national convention of Negative Researchers perhaps?” He laughed at his own wit and then he told Harry, “Garth is Barnas’s oppo man.”
“Oh?” Harry said. If there ever was such a thing as a national conference of opposition researchers, they would be the most repulsive assembly of human specimens ever congregated, either fat, slimy and evil like Harry, or tiny, fiendish and ratfaced like Garth Rucker. Harry didn’t number many oppo men among his acquaintances; they simply didn’t associate, if they could avoid it.
But Hank had other ideas, and suggested that they adjourn to this nice place called The Afterthought, up in the Hillcrest section of Little Rock, a sweet old neighborhood untouched by the creeping modernization of so much of America’s cities. It reminded Harry of Georgetown, and he was homesick.
When they were settled in, and munching their supper from the bar menu of meatballs boulés, spicy wings and cheese foccacia, Garth said to Harry, “Sir, would you like to play ‘Swap’? You tell me all the good stuff about Ingledew and I’ll tell you all the good stuff about Barnas!”
He meant bad stuff, of course. Harry had no intention of telling him Ingledew’s secrets. Harry knew things about Ingledew that haven’t yet been mentioned in this book, and they were going to remain his closely guarded preserve of skeletons in the closet. But he coul
d throw this guy a sop or two. So just to humor him and keep Hank entertained they began swapping. “Ingledew was never elected to anything,” Harry pointed out.
“Already got that, sir!” Garth said. “That’s a good one, but I already got it. Okay, Barnas is too conservative by Democratic Party standards.”
“Got that,” Harry declared. “Ingledew has no children, just him and Jelena Ingledew.”
“Got that,” Garth said. “He’s not married to her, either, is he? Oh, we already know that one, sir! Okay, Barnas has the full support of the National Rifle Association. But maybe that’s in his favor.”
“Got that,” Harry said. “Ingledew is opposed to guns, period.”
“Really? Thanks. I didn’t have that one. Barnas voted in the state senate against the highway improvement bill.”
“Got that. He also voted against Day Care.”
“Check. Did you get that he was only 187t? in a class of 453 at Malvern High School?”
“Sure. And only 498t? in a class of 1,248 at Arkansas State University. Ingledew never even went to college.”
“Got that, sir. Man, that looks bad. Everybody goes to college.”
The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2 Page 115